APPENDIX 26
Letter to the Chairman from the Deputy
Prime Minister
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES BILL—SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
Thank you for your letter of 20 May about the
Regional Development Agencies' objectives in relation to sustainable
development, as set out in clause 4 of the Regional Development
Agencies Bill. This is an important issue, and one which we have
looked at very carefully in the light of concerns expressed during
the passage of the Bill.
There were three ways in which we might have
included sustainable development in the remit for RDAs. We could,
as you suggest, have made it their primary purpose. However, that
would have made them fundamentally different bodies, and would
have distorted out intentions. Their primary role is economic
development.
Alternatively, we could have specified the first
four purposes as they now appear on the face of the Bill, and
then added a specific rider to all four, along the lines of: "in
pursuing the above purposes, an RDA shall have regard to sustainable
development." However, our own view, and the advice we received,
was that this formulation would be weaker than our intention.
We therefore arrived at the current position,
in which sustainable development is explicitly based on a par
with RDAs' other four objectives. We think that provides the right
balance and will have the effect we want to achieve, of ensuring
that RDAs are required to take a coherent and sustainable approach
to all aspects of their work.
The simplest way of expressing the fifth purpose
would have been to follow the same model as the first four. This
would have given the wording: "to contribute to the achievement
of sustainable development in its area". We took the view,
however, that this was too restrictive, given the nature of the
balancing considerations that make up sustainable development.
Hence we broadened the formulation to cover sustainable development
in the United Kingdom where it is relevant to the RDA's area.
Obviously anything that happens in the RDA's area is relevant.
Anything outside the RDA's area, but within
the United Kingdom, may be relevant. We included the UK restriction
because it seemed to us to be right that there should be some
practical limitation on RDAs' activities.
I know some concern has been expressed that
this formulation is ambiguous, and that it might be open to an
RDA to decide that sustainable development is somehow not relevant
to its area. This interpretation would be false, and I am clearly
advised that it could not be justified by the words on the face
of the Bill. If Parliament decides—as it will do, if it
passes the Bill in this form—that sustainable development
is one of the five purposes for RDAs, then it is not open to an
individual RDA to set aside Parliament's intention and determine
for itself that sustainable development is not a relevant purpose
for its activities. But to reinforce the point, we intend also
to give RDAs guidance on sustainable development matters. My officials
will be working closely with interested organisations in developing
the guidance.
I am sorry if it appears to you and your Committee
that the approach we have adopted implies some kind of add-on
status for the sustainable development purpose. I continue to
think on the contrary that, by placing sustainable development
alongside the other four purposes of RDAs, and thus giving it
equal status, our Bill makes very clear that sustainable development
is to be at the heart of RDAs' activities.
June 1998
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