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10.30 am
Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford): I pay warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) and to the other members of the Environmental Audit Committee for producing an extremely interesting and important report which will move the debate forward significantly in enhancing the green agenda both inside government, and by its example, beyond government.
By the comments of hon. Members during the debate and by the very nature of the debate, it is clear that the environment is, fortunately, not a partisan, party political issue. Certainly there may be differences of opinion on how to achieve objectives, but it is a subject too important to be despoiled by narrow party political point scoring. We have been fortunate both today and in the work of the Committee, during its short existence, that the issue has not been marred by such point scoring.
I agreed very much with the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Savidge) when he said that he would like the Committee to evolve into something similar to the Public Accounts Committee--a respected Committee to which people listen because of its impartiality and its work towards the common aim and the common good, a Committee that attracts a significantly greater audience in the Chamber than at present when it is the subject of debates.
I add my voice to those of the many hon. Members who have rightly said this morning that they believe that there should be an annual debate on the Floor of the House to highlight environmental issues, including the
progress that is being made and the problems that have been encountered. I hope that the Minister for the Environment, who, above all Ministers, has a strong commitment to the environment, will take that message, loud and clear, back to the Government Whips Office and to the Government, to try to establish such a precedent.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington rightly said, the Labour party had a manifesto commitment to put the environment at the heart of policy making. I make no bones about it: I welcome that commitment. However, it would be churlish of me not to mention the work that, first, Chris Patten and then my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) undertook while in office to put environmental considerations at the heart of government. They set the example that the Labour Government have rightly chosen to follow and emulate.
By their very nature, environmental considerations do not respect national boundaries. That being so, there must be a global approach to green issues and problems. At a national level, environmental issues cannot be isolated and dealt with on an ad hoc basis by individual Departments. There must be an holistic approach across the broad range of Departments. Even if there is a lead Department such as the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, it will have simply a co-ordinating role to ensure that other Departments pull their full weight in advancing solutions to the problems that face us.
In its report, the Select Committee has rightly drawn attention to that approach. It comments on the progress being made by the setting up of the Cabinet Committee on the Environment and the role that Green Ministers can have in a Government's pursuit of sustainable development. I believe, however, that the Government should pay special attention to the Committee's recommendations in paragraph (f). First, it recommends:
I welcome the Government's response to those recommendations in paragraph 11 of their document. I hope that, in the spirit of the Select Committee's recommendations, their reporting of progress will be a genuine way of advancing the debate and the Government's actions, rather than a glossing over if the going gets tough. It is in no one's interest or advantage simply to produce an air-brushed report. It must be positive, coherent and accurate. The Government, whether the current Administration, a future Conservative
Government or whatever, must have the maturity to accept the difficulties facing government and the problems that they have in achieving their aims and aspirations.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, in a very good brief that it provided to hon. Members before the debate, made a valid point on this subject, when it said:
I urge the Government to give serious thought to a suggestion made by the RSPB, which I believe is worthy of further consideration and involves the use of strategic environmental assessment policies. As the RSPB said,
Similarly, I hope that Ministers will pay particular attention to recommendation (mm), which suggests that the Government
Similarly, the Committee recommends that the Government
The Government, to their credit, have carried forward the environmental agenda left to them by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal, as I have said,
but there is a view abroad that the Government are sometimes not living up to their rhetoric in their actions. There are two areas where the Government have moved on from the agenda that they inherited. First, as hon. Members have said, the recent Budget was certainly a step forward in this context, and I recognise that. I do not criticise the Budget in that respect. A second step forward was the Government's response to the Marshall report.
On the Budget and the introduction of green taxes on industry, I share the view of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that green taxes to deal with environmental problems must be met by a corresponding tax cut elsewhere, to ensure that the overall impact of the taxation is neutral. That view was outlined by my right hon. Friend in a speech on the environment that he gave in Oxford a few months ago.
"the authority and status of the Green Ministers Committee should be further underpinned by a clearer statement of its relationship to the Cabinet Committee".
Secondly, it adds:
"the Green Ministers Committee should report to the Cabinet Committee on progress on an annual basis and that this report should be published".
As I said earlier, and as the debate has clearly shown, these matters should be debated annually on the Floor of the House. Thirdly, and possibly most important, the Committee recommends:
"the Green Ministers Committee's forthcoming programme of action should contain concrete objectives and targets for advancing of the take-up of best practise with regard to greening operations, environmental appraisal and policy integration".
It adds:
"the Committee should make full reports . . . on its meetings and its progress"
to Parliament.
"The Comprehensive Spending Review was a test of the departmental commitment of their"--
the Government's--
"policies."
The RSPB was therefore
"disappointed that the review showed little evidence that an environmental appraisal had been carried out."
I suspect that few would disagree with that analysis.
"carrying out such an assessment during the preparation of policies ensures that environmental objectives are included at the stage when all the policy options are being considered, rather than when the final option has already been chosen."
In many ways, that dovetails with the point made in June 1997 by the Prime Minister, when he was saying that the environment must not be a bolt-on, added extra. I hope that Ministers will see the merits of such a proposal and give serious consideration to moving towards that aim.
"should require all departments to have begun introducing an environmental management system by the end of the Parliament with a view to all having extended them across their estate by the earliest practical date."
That is an important recommendation. I know that the Government have responded by saying that they accept the recommendation in general, but with the crucial proviso that they
"would limit this to cases where that would be efficient and cost-effective."
That suggests that the Government might be seeking to avoid their responsibilities if the going gets tough. I would appreciate it if the Minister would elaborate on what exactly the Government mean and what they really intend to do. There is a danger that that response could become a cop-out for any Government if they wished so to exercise the proviso.
"should adopt for itself the challenge it has thrown down for the top 100 FTSE companies, namely that at least 75 per cent of government departments should have at least one site registered to ISO14001 by 2001."
That seems to have been sidestepped by the Government in their response. Logically, whatever the Government expect of industry should be followed by the Government. They should lead by example. I hope that they will think further about these matters. The impression given in their response--it may be only an impression--is that they are brushing the idea aside.
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