Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 116 - 139)

TUESDAY 26 OCTOBER 1999

THE RT HON MICHAEL MEACHER, MP, MS GLENYS PARRY AND MR TONY BRENTON

Chairman

  116. Good morning, Minister. Good morning, Ms Parry and Mr Brenton. Welcome to the Committee. Thank you for coming together. It will certainly help our Committee to have a preview in regards to questions, although obviously some of them may be directed to one of you rather than the other. I am sure that will be clear. In your memorandum to us you said that: "The information in this memorandum is up-to-date as at the beginning of October." and indicated that you might want to add something to it. Have you something to say at the beginning?

  (Mr Meacher) Mr Chairman, I will, if you wish, but my feeling of Parliamentary events is that when Ministers come with prepared statements like the opening of questions, there is not a great deal of interest because people want to engage, and so perhaps we should move straight to the supplementaries.

  117. That is a fascinating argument I have never heard before. The Minister willingly giving up a slot. I do not know whether to congratulate you on your benevolence or your subtlety!
  (Mr Meacher) I think we should wait till afterwards!

  Chairman: We will carry straight on then. One thing we do want to look at—and it may be that our questions may be more directed to Mr Brenton than yourself to begin with—is the Helsinki Summit and exactly where the environment fits into this. I know Mr Blizzard wants to lead on that issue.

Mr Blizzard

  118. I wondered if this approaches a new cross-Governmental initiative—to get to the nitty-gritty. We have Helsinki coming up, of course. Can you tell us what exactly is going to be on the agenda at the Summit and what the United Kingdom's top priorities are going to be for it? Where do you see environmental policy integration initiative fitting in? How will it link to other parts of the discussion on enlargement or external trade?
  (Mr Meacher) I will start on that but I think Mr Brenton is possibly the main person to respond to that. The Presidency has certainly indicated that the Helsinki Council will review overall progress on integration and we are very keen that it should. Of course, it does include the great issues of enlargement and the IGC. I think it is not clear at this stage whether there will be substantive discussion on the question of environmental integration but it will certainly be addressed in the conclusions. On the wider agenda, perhaps Mr Brenton.

  119. Will you be pressing for it?
  (Mr Meacher) Yes. We are very keen that Heads of Government should get their minds round environmental integration and the whole issue of the sustainable development. I think to be fair to Heads of Government we cannot expect them to engage in the details of Council reports but, of course, they will have been discussed by Member States and they will certainly be fed in to the deliberations from Member States.

Chairman

  120. How can you say there can be no debate but possibly conclusions?
  (Mr Meacher) There will be conclusions, of course, at the end of the Helsinki Council.

  121. But will those include conclusions on environmental integration?
  (Mr Meacher) We anticipate they will. As I say, the conclusions at the end of Heads of Government discussions are, I think, pretty exhaustively worked over before by people I think called "sherpas". There is, of course, a debate of Council. We are keen that Heads of Government should seriously consider these issues.

  122. But not optimistic, from that you say?
  (Mr Meacher) No. I believe there will be some discussion but there is no doubt that the emphasis is going to be on enlargement and the IGC.
  (Mr Brenton) I do not really have very much to add. Enlargement and the IGC are the two big items for Helsinki but, as the Minister has also said, we see the environmental integration dossier as an important part of the likely output of the Council, not least because we, the United Kingdom, launched this dossier back at the Cardiff Council two years ago. The amount of time that Heads of Government will devote to it is likely to be limited because the Heads of Government tend to devote most time to items on which there is likely to be disagreement amongst them. One of the good things about this dossier is that, on the whole, there is a substantial measure of consensus among members of the EU. So while they will certainly go over the draft communication on this issue and will give their weight to those conclusions in adopting them, most of the drafting is likely to have been done at a lower level for them.

Mr Blizzard

  123. So we are due to have papers from, I believe, nine councils who are all at different stages of looking at the EPI. They are due to be presented at Helsinki. How will they be handled then and where do you want to see them go from here as papers on the nine central councils?
  (Mr Brenton) As I understand the process, only three councils' strategies are going to be coming to Helsinki: transport, energy, and agriculture councils. There are strategies for the other six. There have been successive waves of these things. Three now come up for Helsinki, three come up in a year's time, and three come up the year after that. So the first three come up at Helsinki together with the Commission's proposals on how they are going to be doing the integrating process in the general manner in the Community. That is quite an important bundle of documents which are obviously, on the whole, too long and complex for Heads of Government to digest. I am not suggesting that the Heads of Government are not capable of digesting them but I am suggesting that they have very limited time. So they will be taken and digested at a lower level in the EU machinery and there will be conclusions which we hope will point forwards and give new impetus, integration and enterprise in the EU, which will come out of the Council.
  (Mr Meacher) That is a very fair statement of what we expect. The first three reports on transport, energy, and agriculture are mixed. The transport one is probably the best; very largely meets our requirements in terms of setting out specific targets for integration and timescales. The energy one is not quite so precise or detailed. The weakest is agriculture, which largely reflects the shift towards integration objectives, which were encapsulated within the Agenda 2000 project. But there are specific problems there. I think there is also good progress, if I may say, in respect of the Development Council report. I think it recognises that project cycle management procedures are not always followed. Environmental impact appraisal procedures and guidelines are not always followed and that they should be. The industry and internal market reports[5], which are the next wave, the second tranche, also do have some useful material in terms of recognising that environmental costs and risks should be included in company reports. Development of EMAS.[6] It has a market based tool. The proposal of the Commission to have a Green Paper on integrated products policy. These are all important detailed micro-level environmental integration objectives. So the matter is being progressed at that level and we expect the broad conclusions of that to be discussed at Helsinki.

  124. Will Helsinki get the other councils going, the other 14 or so?
  (Mr Brenton) I would expect Helsinki to inject a new political impetus into the whole process. I do not think the machine has capacity to take on 14 strategies simultaneously, so I think the process of doing it three by three in a sort of wave process is probably the best way of ensuring an even flow of work and maintaining that work in the right direction.

  125. So on the EPI, what particular outputs is our Government looking for from Helsinki? What specifically do we hope to get out of it in terms of moving things forward? It has been called a milestone or a staging post. Is there anything more specific you would like to think of after Helsinki will be here?
  (Mr Meacher) The Amsterdam Treaty, of course, laid down that environmental integration and sustainable development was the over-arching objective of the Community and a central goal for the European Community. Now, we would certainly expect the Helsinki Council to review progress that has been made; to take cognisance of these reports, their general conclusions; possibly some recognition of some of their deficiencies; and to give a strong steer to the councils and to the Commission that environmental integration is making progress. However, there is still some considerable way to go. Nine councils, that is three tranches of three, is, of course, only some of the councils. The key one which is so far not included is ECOFIN. There has been, of course, the request that this particular council which is so important should also reflect environmental objectives.
  (Ms Parry) May I interject there. Minister, ECOFIN is in the third tranche of councils, along with fisheries.
  (Mr Meacher) We are getting there faster than I realised, obviously.
  (Mr Brenton) In answer to your question, could I step back a little bit. One of the problems that the Community has had in its general approach to Community business is that the individual councils, and indeed individual bits of the Commission, tend to operate Chinese walls and tend to get very focused on their own subject matter: on agriculture, or economic matters, or energy, or whatever. What we are engaged in here is really quite a major departure from the way the Community traditionally operates: a breaking down of those walls and an injection of substantial outside interests into the very concentrated wall say in agricultural matters that the Agricultural Council traditionally focuses on. Against that background, what I see as being the key output that we hope to get from Helsinki is the fact that we have a strategy from the Energy Council, which they have been persuaded to construct, which injects environmental concerns into their on-going activity and the Community on-going activity on energy matters, which has been approved by Heads of Government; so in that sense they are constrained not to lose it, not to forget it, not to put it on a back-burner, and to maintain that attention to environmental concerns in their on-going business.

  126. How can Helsinki play a part in stimulating public interest in the European Union? There is evidence from the past that the public have some time ago looked quite positively at the European Union as a vehicle for making environmental progress. Can that be rekindled at Helsinki?
  (Mr Meacher) I think there is a reasonable expectation that it can. As I say, this is going to be one of the key issues at the Summit. It will certainly get coverage in the communication arising from it, and it will reflect the fact that environmental integration is now entrenched within the workings of the Community. Also, that we do expect it to be taken further in specific areas. Now, that is not a particularly sexy subject, I have to say. The whole issue of integration—because it is rather high level and structural and framework orientated—it is not concrete. It does not hit people between the eyes in terms of their every-day life. But we all know it is extremely important and those people who want to see environmental considerations taken on board have to feed them into policy making and the preparation of policy right across the board. That is what we are trying to do in the United Kingdom with the greening of Government here and that is our similar objective for the greening of the EU. I think good progress is being made and I think we should make a flourish out of it. How much impact it has we will see.

Dr Iddon

  127. Could we look at the two Treaties, Amsterdam and Rome. How important is the shape of these two important Treaties in driving forward policy development in this area within the EU?
  (Mr Meacher) Maastricht—

  128.—Amsterdam and Rome.
  (Mr Meacher) I think very important. Amsterdam, in particular, corrected what I do not think was a fault in the Maastricht Treaty, but it was an unfortunate consequence that environmental integration was set in the environmental section of the Treaty, so that those people handling other policy areas were often unaware of it. That was corrected by the Amsterdam Treaty which moved the provision outlining the principles of the Community and, as I say, it made sustainable development one of the objectives of the European Union and an over-arching objective of the Community. I think it is difficult in the light of that to see what further Treaty changes could be made which would take this further. I think the framework is there now in place. What we need is the continuous political dialogue, not within the councils, but within the Commission where there are real problems. What Mr Brenton was saying about Chinese walls between the directorates: breaking those down and getting them to talk to each other in the preparation of policy I think is the single most important area of improvement.

  129. The views of some of the NGOs we have taken evidence from so far is exactly that. That the over-arching Article VI in Amsterdam is probably adequate and that they would like to see it made to work. I presume from what you have just said that this is also your view rather than any tinkering with the Treaties at the moment.
  (Mr Meacher) That is my view. It is very similar, as I say, to the structures which we have in the United Kingdom. We have a Green Minister's report which we have just published. We have Green Minister's meetings. You quite rightly are repeatedly saying to us: It is all very well. You have the framework, but is it working? Are you doing enough? What about this area? What about that area? It is exactly the same in the case of the EU. We did at Chester, in the British Presidency in April last year, have a Joint Environment and Transport Council. I think it worked pretty well but it is pretty unwieldy to have 30 Ministers at the same time together with officials. I do not think it is a model for how we can do these things generally, but I do think that you could get joint working between officials at a lower level to a much greater degree than exists at the present time. It is that sort of micro-organisational change which I think will channel this improvement, this infusion of environmental considerations, right across the spectrum. That is where I think the task now lies.

  130. It is our feeling that the individual directorates and councils probably do not have enough ownership of the process at the moment. Is that a fault of the Treaty or a fault of what you have just said, the political will is not driving it in that direction?
  (Mr Meacher) Well, I think it is important, as you have said, that they have ownership. I think that is a very important idea. It is all very well for the European Council to ask nine of its formations to prepare strategies for environmental integration and sustainable development; that is an iterative process and it is one where they produce a draft, it is criticised, they change it again and it is widely discussed. That is the basis of the process, that it should not be imposed, but that they should internalise the objectives that we are trying to achieve through this process, and I do think there is some evidence that the Ice Age is gradually melting and there are talks between councils and between officials to a greater degree than before. There is still a long way to go, but it is happening. We have invited, for example, at the Environment Council the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Frans Fischler, to come to our Council and to talk about the environmental aspects or environmental integration into agricultural matters. He did so and we had an exchange. I attended the Energy Council when I was the President of the Environment Council and I took part in a debate on environmental considerations in energy policy. Now, we could do this a lot more and I would be strongly in favour of doing so.

  131. Will there be time for discussion at the next meeting about how the process is working or will we be considering the results of the Agriculture, Transport and other councils?
  (Mr Meacher) Those reports are of course taken on board by other councils and, in particular, by the Environment Council, and I would certainly expect that we would have debates and discussions about those reports and that we would consider what further representations to make in order to try and ensure that environmental considerations were further taken on board.

  132. Unanimity is still required in the area of fiscal instruments, including environmental taxes of course. Bearing in mind that such taxes are a useful tool in driving the environmental agenda forward, do you think that qualified majority voting should be extended to economic instruments?
  (Mr Meacher) That is obviously a very sensitive issue and we have made clear that we are happy to look at an extension of QMV on a case-by-case basis and we have made it clear, as have other Member States, that we will not accept QMV in taxation matters. Other Member States regard, for example, defence issues or border controls as matters again which should be left to an individual state where they should not be overriden by majority views. The fact is that almost all environmental policy of course is now subject to QMV and I think very little is now unilateral, and I think that is basically issues of a fiscal nature, but the answer is that we are prepared, for example, in the case of the Energy Products Directive, to take account of fiscal measures at a European level and we are prepared to discuss that, provided there is an understanding that we will not change our policy on its application to domestic energy taxation.

Mr Shaw

  133. I just want to talk a bit about the EU's Sustainable Development Strategy. Whilst there is no overarching EU Strategy for Sustainable Development or measurable framework for action, the UK intends to monitor the impact of our Sustainable Development Strategy and indeed we are seen as one of the world leaders in our Sustainable Development Strategy. In the conclusions in your memorandum, you say that you hope that the Heads of Government will consider the need for an EU Sustainable Development Strategy, so do you think there is a need for such a strategy?
  (Mr Meacher) I do and I was prominent in proposing it at the Environment Council just a couple of weeks ago and it was a decision of the Environment Council. We adopted conclusions about the need for a comprehensive EU-wide Sustainable Development Strategy. We also noted the importance of indicators and I feel this very strongly, that it is so easy to come up with the rhetoric of the grand frameworks, but the question is what it actually means on the ground, what actually happens as a result that is different from what would otherwise happen. I do think that indicators and targets, where again the UK has been in the lead, our 14 headline indicators which we published and which I hope we will soon roll out and begin to apply are, I think, a model. The European Environment Agency has also been very good at preparing a report on the changes in the European environment and again setting out the number of targets as a benchmark for future improvement. There have been improvements in some areas, but in other areas we continue to go back. The Environment Council also noted the need for all major Commission proposals to have an environmental appraisal. That again is something that we need to keep a check on, that we need a continual rain-check on as to whether that is so, but yes, we do need a comprehensive strategy, we have recommended it, and I do hope, partly as a result of Helsinki, that we will move strongly towards that.

  134. So indicators, targets and timetables?
  (Mr Meacher) Yes, and timetables. Certainly targets must include timetables.

  135. And you will be pushing the UK model for the EU to adopt? You will say, "This is the blueprint" and pushing our banner forward?
  (Mr Meacher) I think we would say, and this is what we have said, that the UK has done this, that we are not only recommending it, but we have actually done it ourselves. We will obviously offer that data and the manner in which it was put forward for their consideration. I do not think we want to try and force absolutely our model on them; after all, the EU is different from the UK and different criteria may well apply. What we have tried to do with targets is to make them resonate with public consciousness so that when people hear about an indicator or a target, it has an impact on them and they realise that things are going right or things are going wrong and, therefore, action needs to be taken. That is what the British Government have said and that is what we think the EU should do.

  136. What do you think the scope and focus for this core set of indicators should be? Are you in a position to say?
  (Mr Meacher) I cannot answer that at this point. It does need very careful consideration. We did find, when we proposed our 14 headline indicators, that it was as a result of months of analysis because it, first of all, has to be an indicator which is meaningful, which reflects a slice of the environmental dimension which is relevant and meaningful, secondly, as I say, it has got to impact on people's minds and it has got to seem realistic and, thirdly, it has to be measurable so that over time, say, a year, there is a measurable change and one can see the direction in which you are going. Now, when you try actually to determine concrete indicators which meet those three criteria, I do assure you that it is harder to do than you think, so I think if you want it, we can certainly come up with suggestions and I have no doubt that the EU can do that and I do think the European Environment Agency based in Copenhagen has done some excellent work and they could certainly come up with a set of indicators.

  137. Who do you think should be responsible for monitoring or reporting on progress? Whatever the indicators are, if they are finally agreed, we have got the strategy which we have agreed would be an important stepping stone and we have agreed the indicators, but who is going to be responsible for monitoring them?
  (Mr Meacher) Well, basically the Commission and of course the appropriate council. I do think both should be involved and I would like to see regular reports to each of the relevant councils about the progress which is being made in its area so that they can take account of that and decide what changes in policy are needed.

  138. Leading on the strategy, hopefully that is agreed, and you talked about the Ice Age melting and Mr Brenton talked about Chinese walls being broken down, but who should take the lead on the review of the strategy? Should it be the over-arching General Affairs Council or the Environment Council? Or is there a need for the creation of a Sustainable Development Council that can have a flexible membership, so rather than you going to put in guest appearances at other committees, there is actually a body which is delegated to discuss it?
  (Mr Meacher) I would not favour a Sustainable Development Council. I cannot see that this could conceivably be created. Even if it were, it would be undesirable because everyone would say, "That is fine, that is a matter for the Sustainable Development Council, it is not a matter for us." What we have to do is to make all the relevant councils think in this way. To internalise this value system and to translate it into policy. To translate it, as they prepare policy, to take real cognisance of these concerns. I do not think it should be the Environment Council because the Environment Council again has the same problem, I have just referred to, as the Sustainable Development Council. "That is a matter for the environment, it is not a matter for us." And, of course, it is for all these other councils. Whether it should be the General Affairs Council, or whether one does look to the six-monthly Heads of Government Councils to keep a regular rain check on integration, I would prefer the latter, the Heads of Government, to co-ordinate this.
  (Mr Brenton) It is worth taking two things here. First of all, we are actually engaging in the process of trying to cut down the number of councils as EU business is fragmented, which is quite a strong argument against creating yet a new one here. The Minister is absolutely right that if you want to maintain a strong political impetus behind this, the logical place to put the monitoring is with the European Council itself at the Summit. However, this is going to be a matter for discussion within the EU instances as the idea of a Sustainable Development Strategy gets carried forward.

  Dr Iddon: If we had a European Environmental Audit Committee, this might sharpen up the act?

Mr Shaw

  139. He is not going to say no!
  (Mr Meacher) I think there is a very real case for consideration for a European Environmental Audit Committee. I am not quite sure how it would fit into the current structure of councils. I do not just say it when I am in your presence, but I have a great regard for the achievement of this Committee.


5   Three more council formations (development, industry, internal market) though not required to produce strategies will report to Helsinki. Reports from ECOFIN, Fisheries and General Affairs are due by the end of 2000. Back

6   Eco-Management Audit Scheme Back


 
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