Examination of witnesses (Questions 800
- 820)
TUESDAY 19 MAY 1998
MR PETER
MADDEN, MS
JULIE HILL
and MS INGRID
MARSHALL
800. You think it is a good idea?
(Ms Hill) Yes, a very good idea. I think it will
help create ownership within departments of very clear things,
and it will provide something that is easier to monitor and easier
to report on which would hopefully engage public interest in the
state of the environment which at the moment is quite a difficult
thing to get a grip on.
801. Has anyone suggested to him what that
small number might be?
(Ms Hill) I am sure people have suggested them,
but nothing has emerged as a consensus as yet.
802. Would it be sensible to encourage a
consensus around eight, let us say, or ten?
(Ms Hill) Yes, it would.
803. Do you think it would be possible to
achieve such a consensus?
(Ms Hill) I think again if there was enough political
will to achieve such a consensus, it could be achieved, yes.
804. Again just on this political leadership
point, are you discouraged by the extent to which Mr Blair fails
to mention the environment in any statements he ever makes about
the progress of the Government?
(Ms Hill) Yes.
(Mr Madden) Having said that, there was the visit
to New York and the speech at UNGASS last year when he did push
the whole Rio/Kyoto agenda very hard and I think there have been
statements where the Prime Minister has proactively mentioned
the sustainable development agenda and pushed it forward.
805. Are you concerned that there is any
backing away from the Kyoto understandings?
(Mr Madden) I think that remains a worry, yes.
Mr Dafis
806. The Greening Government does depend
on leadership from the top, as you have said, and the initiative
from the top requires an understanding at the top, does it not?
For my part, I would say that the policy framework and the articulation
of philosophy, if you like, that underlies economic policy generally
is pretty remote in many ways from the sustainable development
paradigm. I am not sure where that is taking me, except it seems
to me that there has to be a process of feeding up by those people
within government who really have got a grip on it, and let us
say they are the Sustainable Development Unit, and gradually the
Green Ministers would get a grip on it as well, and it has to
be a matter of feeding them up to the very highest levels and
I include in that No 10 and No 11. Of course when it gets to that,
then there will be not an insignificant challenge, as it were,
to current conventional wisdom within this Government, so the
Greening Government process requires bringing the leadership face
to face, as it were, with all that that is leading us to. It is
probably leading us to something significantly different from
where conventional policy is leading us. Would you agree with
that?
(Ms Hill) Yes.
Mr Savidge
807. One gains the perception that both
this Government and towards the latter stages under the last Government,
Britain was not one of the worst in the world for trying to promote
environmental issues. Is that purely jingoism on our part or is
there some basis for that feeling?
(Ms Hill) I think that the UK played a very strong
and perhaps a useful role in the international negotiations in
the run-up to Rio and in the Convention negotiations thereafter.
I think that is true. I think the strong feeling within the non-governmental
community was that that international positioning was not matched
by policy initiatives at home.
808. And you feel that that both really
applies to the last Government and to the present one?
(Ms Hill) I do not think we have seen enough of
this Government's activity to judge that balance.
(Mr Madden) Although we have seen a similar pattern
emerge of obviously a lot of work and high expectations raised
around Kyoto, and environment being put at the heart of the Presidency
as one of the key three objectives and it is one of Mr Cook's
ethical foreign policy objectives, so I think it has been laid
in in a number of areas of government, but we have not seen the
delivery yet.
Chairman
809. No, we have not seen the delivery at
all, have we, on the European front?
(Mr Madden) Well, very little other than a tidying
up of agendas which were there already.
Dr Iddon
810. You referred to the fact earlier that
we would come back to a discussion about annual reports. My first
question is have you seen the most recent annual reports and,
if so, do you think they are an improvement on the previous ones?
(Ms Marshall) On balance, yes, they are. There
are quite a number of departments, I think, which are standing
still, as it were, and they have not moved forward particularly.
But I think in particular the DETR (compared to DOT and DOE last
year), the DTI and DfID (compared to the ODA, which has always
actually been very good on environmental reporting) those three
departments in particular, I think, have made quite a lot of progress
in the last year. There is a lot more emphasis on sustainable
development in particular in the DTI report. I was quite staggered
by the number of times the term was used in their report which,
when you compare it to the Treasury's, which I think I am correct
in saying did not use the term "sustainable development"
once, but it referred to "sustainable growth" which
means different things to different people, so if you look at
the DTI and the Treasury against each other, the DTI actually
comes out very well on the environmental reporting side.
811. Do you think it is okay to use the
annual reports to report each department's progress or would it
be better for the Green Ministers to bring together a Government
report, a green report for the Green Government?
(Ms Marshall) Both, yes. I think the advantage
of the departmental annual reports is that there is an opportunity
there, which has not really been seized by the departments yet,
for the Green Ministers to talk about what they have been doing
individually within their departments. Last year, the Scottish
Office gave a summary of the activities of its Green Ministers
and it was the only department to do so. This year, it has not
done so and no other departments have, not even the DETR which
could have used it as an opportunity to set a good standard for
other departments to follow. Therefore, I think the annual reports
are very good for that, for the Green Ministers to talk about
what they have been doing within their own departments and to
say what their priorities are, to outline what their action programme
is and the effectiveness of that, and what changes they have actually
managed to achieve in the previous year. I think the other good
thing about the department reports is that you get a sense from
them of how the environment and sustainable development are actually
integrated into the different policy areas by the extent to which
it is mentioned under the different directorates, so I think it
is very good for that as well. I think that if the Green Ministers
report collectively to yourselves, that could cover a different
bag of issues. For example, the structures and mechanisms for
monitoring that they have set up for the collective monitoring
of policy appraisal is something that could be addressed then
by the Green Ministers, so I think we mean both.
812. Do you think we should have minimum
reporting requirements and, if so, who should lay those down?
Should it be the Green Ministers' Committee or should it be the
lead DETR Department, and what do you think those minimum requirements
should be?
(Ms Marshall) We said in our evidence that we
thought the DETR should produce guidelines. I think there could
be a role for the Green Ministers there as well. On the minimum
requirements, I think there needs to be a very clear statement
regarding the environment and sustainable development in the overall
aims and objectives of departments. Some departments are good
at doing that, but, for example, the DfEE and the Treasury do
not recognise it in their overall aims and objectives. I think
that would be a minimum requirement, that the definition of "sustainable
development", which is in the sustainable development strategy,
is used, not ambiguous terms like "sustainable growth".
(Ms Hill) That is the Government's own definition.
Chairman
813. Quite, yes.
(Ms Marshall) Then again there need to be guidelines
as to what the Green Ministers should be saying, as I discussed
earlier, so that is something else which would be a minimum requirement,
setting out what they have been up to and what their action plan
is. I think it is very important for the aims and objectives of
different directorates of departments and different divisions,
that, where appropriate, where they do have some bearing over
the environment and sustainable development quite directly, these
should recognise that. That is happening and taking place and,
for example, MAFF is very good at doing that and we have seen
some progress this year with the planning division of the DETR
which for the first time has actually referred to sustainable
development in its aims and objectives, and I think it is amazing
that it has not done so before. But there are some quite obvious
gaps where that is not happening and it should. There are some
examples that I cited in our supplementary evidence where that
should be reflected in the divisional and directorate aims and
objectives. Then I think on policy appraisal, very little so far
has been said about policy appraisal in the annual reports and
I think the annual reports provide a very good place for departments
to flag up where they have conducted environmental appraisals.
On greening operations, I think that a lot more use of charts
and figures is necessary and what has been going on in corporate
reporting is a good model to follow there, I think, so to try
to standardise as far as possible how greening operations are
reported on.
Dr Iddon
814. Do I take it that you would also like
to see the Green Ministers accounting for their actions during
the year to tell us, the general public, what they have been doing,
which meetings they have been to, what pressures they have been
putting on the departments, et cetera, et cetera?
(Ms Marshall) Yes, what systems they have been
setting up within the departments. For example, I have seen that
with MAFF, in their own departmental guidelines, there is a requirement
for the significant environmental costs and benefits of policy
submissions to ministers to actually be accounted for in those
submissions and for there to be some indication as to how they
have been addressed or appraised. I think that is a very good
model for all departments to follow, so reporting on the requirements
that have been established within the departments is very important
as well.
(Ms Hill) Perhaps I could just add to that briefly
a couple of other points about reporting. There are three distinct
ways of doing it. One is through the departmental annual report
which is an annual individual department exercise. Another is
through the news releases that come out at the end of the Green
Ministers' meetings which, to our view, do not really offer any
genuine accountability of what they are doing because they are
not detailed enough. Whilst we would not ask for absolutely full
attributed minutes, I think we do need some summary report of
what the meetings discussed. Then, as we said earlier, an annual
report from the Green Ministers' Committee, perhaps to yourselves,
which would give a year's summary on a collective basis, which
is in a way a collection of what has happened over the meetings
and hopefully a bit of what has happened in between. There are
some clear mechanisms that do not add a huge amount of work to
what has gone before.
Chairman
815. That annual report would have to look
into policies which went across departments, would it not, as
well as simply being a collection for the Green Ministers' Report,
so it would have to do both of those things to be worthwhile.
(Ms Hill) Yes.
816. Do you not also think that there is
scope, if we are really to make maximum impact on public opinion
and to lead public opinion, not merely to lead the Government
itself, for some sort of annual event, like the Budget in the
case of current policy, and if you go to America, the State of
the Nation address by the President at the beginning of the year?
Could you see a role for some sort of event which was around a
specific time of the year where sustainable development was discussed
and reported on?
(Ms Hill) We have often advocated an annual statement
to Parliament.
817. At a specific time of the year?
(Ms Hill) Well, on an annual basis at a regular
time of year so that there can be a parliamentary debate. Environment
debates in Parliament at the moment are very ad hoc.
818. Because there is a great danger in
all of this that these admirable initiatives are dissipated throughout
government so that no one at any stage feels that the Government
has really got this on board and no signals are sent to the public
that this is a very important thing for the Government.
(Ms Hill) There needs to be a parliamentary row
from time to time.
Chairman: That is
a very good point.
Dr Iddon
819. What makes you think we do not have
them?
(Ms Hill) On environment.
(Mr Madden) But also if we do develop these headline
indicators which mean something to people and that are appearing
on the news, that the sustainable development or quality of life
indicators have gone up or down, if there is an annual reckoning
on those and then a debate in Parliament, that would provide a
popular benefit.
Mr Grieve: I am sure
that is a very good idea and I think the idea of the Secretary
of State for the Environment actually having to make an annual
report and identifying those headlines and having a debate on
it would be a very powerful mechanism for promoting public awareness.
Mr Savidge: In fact
almost specifically doing it not as the Secretary of State for
the Environment, but as the Deputy Prime Minister reporting on
overall government policy.
Mr Dafis: With the
Prime Minister sitting beside him.
Chairman
820. Well, I think we shall finish on that
visionary note! Let us hope we achieve it during the lifetime
of this Parliament. Thank you very much indeed.
(Ms Hill) Thank you.
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