Examination of witnesses (Questions 600
- 619)
THURSDAY 20 JANUARY 2000
MR GREG
WILKINSON, MR
SUMA CHAKRABARTI
and DR NEIL
WARD
Mrs Dunwoody
600. Why did the minister think that it was
soft-focus?
(Mr Wilkinson) Without reading the minister's mind,
I think he was probably contrasting it with the greater specificity
that would come from the findings of the Rural White Paper. Clearly
if after a year's work the Rural White Paper team civil servants
had come up with just another vision statement people would have
said "what the hell have you been doing for the past year?"
The vision was out there in February 1999. The task for the Rural
White Paper team has been to—if I can mix my metaphors,
Chairman—put some flesh on the bones of that vision.
Chairman
601. I think the phrase it starts off with is
"creating a modern country". That is hardly a dynamic
phrase. Sorry, "The Government is committed to building a
modern country". That is hardly a very dynamic statement,
is it, it could not be much more soft focus than that?
(Mr Wilkinson) Are you asking us to comment on Mr
Meacher's statement?
Chairman: No, I am asking you to comment on
the Rural Economies discussion document.
Mrs Dunwoody
602. Which you discussed outside the Whitehall
village.
(Mr Wilkinson) Yes, Chairman. One of the views that
did emerge was that statement that was issued in February 1999
was a bit woolly and people were expecting more details.
Chairman: We have refined this now. The minister
called it "soft-focus" and you have called it "woolly".
We will leave it at that.
Mr Cummings
603. Do you acknowledge that your report adopts
a short-term view on some of the issues, for example agriculture,
and that a long-term strategic vision of rural areas should predominate
in the thinking behind the White Paper?
(Mr Wilkinson) I would not accept that criticism of
the report, Chairman. We did try to look forward over a ten year
period at the very least and arguably over a longer timescale
than that to think about what future the agriculture sector might
have in a world after CAP reform and after further rounds of World
Trade Organisation reform, if those are indeed to go ahead. A
lot of the ideas that we have put forward in the report are trying
to identify a future for agriculture that is sustainable not just
over the next one, two, three years but the next ten or 20 years.
604. Could you give us some practical examples
because you do seem to concentrate on current problems rather
than those problems that perhaps could occur in 30 years' time.
(Mr Wilkinson) One of the things that we have been
trying to look at is how UK agriculture competes in markets where
more and more competition is coming from other countries across
the globe who have got access to greater scale opportunities.
So if you are trying to compete as a supplier of agricultural
commodities as a high volume low unit cost producer it is going
to be difficult, for example, to deal with the competition from,
say, North America. What we are saying is that there are opportunities
for UK agriculture producers to focus on segments of the market
that are emerging within the UK and Europe. One example would
be the growing segment within the market for organic produce.
At the moment the UK is a net importer of organic food and demand
is growing at quite a significant rate. Although it is a small
proportion of the overall demand for agricultural goods it is
a growing one and we think there is more that the Government could
be doing to encourage activity in that sector. We think that is
likely to be a long-term trend rather than just a fad for the
next year or two.
Mrs Dunwoody
605. If everybody produces organic produce then
presumably we shall not be importing anything else and the price
will fall because we will then have lots of produce capable of
supplying all of our markets. Would you regard that as a long-term
response?
(Mr Wilkinson) Part of the process that we are trying
to encourage is one where fewer and fewer agriculture producers
are in the business of supplying a straight forward commodity.
In the long-term, Mrs Dunwoody is absolutely right, that is the
kind of market opportunity that is going to result in falling
costs and falling profitability. If we can look to encourage branding
and differentiation in the same way that every other sector of
the economy has moved from straight forward commodity production
to branded and differentiated goods we think there is the opportunity
for individual farmers to protect their prices and protect their
profit margins.
606. So we are going for niche marketing, are
we?
(Mr Wilkinson) Niche marketing is part of the solution,
we think, yes.
607. I see. You think that is a sufficient agricultural
policy for an island the size of the United Kingdom?
(Mr Wilkinson) Not sufficient but part of the solution,
we think.
Miss McIntosh
608. You spend quite a lot of time in your report
talking about rural transport but you do not actually make concrete
suggestions. You talk about stable funding for public transport
and better integration of modes, is there any reason why you have
not come up with concrete proposals? Is it because you do not
think that the Government will make the money available?
(Mr Wilkinson) Partly the reason is as I gave previously,
that we have published the document as a discussion document as
a contribution to the debate so it would not be feasible for us
to come forward with very specific recommendations for what the
Government should be doing. If you read between the lines of the
text we are making some suggestions about the direction in which
Government policy might head.
Chairman
609. There are some people who are quite good
at reading between the lines but if you are trying to justify
what you have said by what is between the lines, would it not
have been far better to have put it in the report, or did somebody
put a red pencil through those bits?
(Mr Wilkinson) Perhaps with the opportunity of having
a second go at this, the phrase "between the lines"
might have been ill-judged. Perhaps if I could use the phrase
that a close reading of the text will reveal some suggestions
and some ideas that we feel are concrete and could contribute
to the solution for rural transport problems. Three that I draw
your attention to are, firstly, around public transport. We do
highlight the need for improved marketing of services and improved
information about the services from providers to users but also
for the process in the other direction for the flow of information
to be equally effective. One of the thoughts that we have had
is that there are opportunities within some enhanced local planning
processes. If we were to use village design statements and village
appraisals more comprehensively across the country there would
be an opportunity for local people to identify their transport
needs and for those to be taken on board by local authorities
in local transport plans and bus quality partnerships. That is
one suggestion. Second suggestion relates to the current regulatory
framework for community and voluntary transport which goes back
to the 1985 Transport Act where we feel there may be some scope
for revisiting the restrictions that were placed on voluntary
providers under section 19 and section 22 of that Act. The third
thought that we had, again this was not expressed in too specific
a detail, was the idea that for many rural areas private transport
is going to be an essential part of the solution and, therefore,
the question is how can we increase access to private transport
for groups that are transport poor. There are some very interesting
innovations around the operation of the New Deal where people
have been given loans for driving lessons and also loans to purchase
mopeds and scooters. As the New Deal starts to extend to groups
other than the under-25s we think there may be scope to expand
that type of intervention to provide vouchers and subsidies for
other people to gain access to their own private transport. The
final idea that we had was around encouraging the greater use
of car clubs and car pooling. There are some specific ideas in
there but they are not expressed as concrete recommendations with
an idea of scale and costs for the reasons that we talked about
previously.
Miss McIntosh
610. Can I suggest that what you are proposing
is not going to resolve the social exclusion problem with 20 per
cent of households not having a car. If the increase in fuel duty
is hypothecated and passed on to increase public and community
transport, what impact do you see that having on rural areas in
particular?
(Mr Wilkinson) The way in which that money is used
is a matter for ministers. I think there is some potential for
any revenue raised from that source to go into the kinds of initiatives
that I have talked about. Making a success of car pooling would
require some investment from local authorities or the Countryside
Agency. Improving the quality of information in both directions,
from the supplier to the user and from the user to the supplier,
would require resources. I think in addition to those things ministers
will be looking to invest further amounts of money in the provision
of rural bus services. As I said at the start, that is probably
one to ask the ministers rather than us.
Mr Cummings
611. Many witnesses have commented on the need
for change within the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
One witness noted the "glacial progress in reshaping the
priorities of MAFF". Your report appears to concur with this
particular view. How do you believe that MAFF can be reformed?
(Mr Chakrabarti) I do not think we would say that
there has been glacial progress in MAFF. I think the 7 December
announcement by Nick Brown on rural development regulation suggests
quite rapid progress, where they adopted one of the ideas in our
report on modulation. MAFF is changing undoubtedly. There are
other reasons for MAFF changing. The Rural White Paper team is
a joint team with DETR, they are trying to integrate their thinking
much more than previously. There is also the Public Service Agreement
which is coming up, the Joint Public Service Agreement, and they
have been working with DETR on that. It is not as if it is fortress
MAFF impervious to all ideas from outside, I think it is a much
more open department than the question may have made out. In terms
of our report we see MAFF as moving in the right direction in
terms of some of the ideas that we have put forward.
612. So you have no suggestion as to how MAFF
can be reformed?
(Mr Chakrabarti) No.
613. Are you saying that everything is hunky-dory
at the moment?
(Mr Chakrabarti) Let me be very plain about this.
In terms of the pros and cons for the reform of MAFF, we think
there is nothing new we can say. That is the point I am making.
Many of the pros and cons have been set out in the evidence given
to you by other people here.
614. Many witnesses have informed the Committee
over a period of time that MAFF should be better integrated with
the various Government Offices for the Regions. This is evidence
which has been taken from the Local Government Association, the
County Landowners' Association, the Town and Country Planning
Association. They all seem to have ideas as to how MAFF can be
better organised.
(Mr Chakrabarti) On that point we absolutely agree
and our agreement with that point is set out on page 127, that
MAFF should be much better integrated with other departments at
regional level.
615. The question was how can MAFF be reformed?
(Mr Chakrabarti) On that basis you are talking about—
616. So you are answering that it can be reformed?
(Mr Chakrabarti) Absolutely, outside the headquarters.
We have set out at regional level what we think should happen.
Mrs Dunwoody
617. You said outside the headquarters, therefore
you do not think it should be reformed at the centre but only
at the edges.
(Mr Chakrabarti) What I said was at headquarters level
we have nothing new to say in terms of the pros and cons of reform,
it is a Whitehall issue, a Government issue, so we decided not
to say anything because it would be absolutely uninteresting,
whereas at regional level we thought we did have something new
to say and we did say it.
Mr Cummings
618. Do you believe it is practical to propose
a pooled rural development budget for a series of agencies funded
by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions,
the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food? I give the example
of budgets in relation to the Countryside Agency, English Nature,
the RDAs and local authorities.
(Mr Chakrabarti) Some pooled budgets work. Clearly
during the spending review as part of that cross-cutting review
of the development of countryside and rural policy they will be
looking at whether there is scope for the pooling of budgets.
There are pooled budgets already for things like Sure Start, the
Single Regeneration Budget, etc., which work perfectly well. There
are models out there which might be looked at to see if we can
go down that route.
(Mr Wilkinson) Just to add to that, Chairman, one
of the things that struck us when we did the research for this
project was how many different bits of Government have got pots
of money, apparently unconnected, trying to achieve the same objectives.
If you look at agri-environment expenditure, arguably because
quite a lot is happening within National Park Authorities, and
indeed within some local authorities, that could be joined with
central money to achieve a more effective delivery of Government's
objectives for securing environmental goods from agriculture.
But, at the moment, because that money is fragmented, you cannot
necessarily get as much value from it. We are quite keen to see
that pooling developed. I think the key question is whether the
Treasury in its Comprehensive Spending Review cross-cutting study
will be able to take this forward. Certainly we would endorse
the sentiments in your question, there is a lot of benefit to
be gained from that.
Chairman
619. Is not the tragedy of that that we were
going to have Regional Development Agencies set up and they were
going to have substantial budgets and then every department fought
like mad not to hand any money over to the Regional Development
Agencies, so we were faced with a situation in which it was very
difficult to put these pools of money together perhaps because
of departmental-itis?
(Mr Chakrabarti) We would not disagree with that.
One of the reasons why the PIU was set up was to try to make some
inroads into departmental-itis. One of our reports published last
week suggested a number of reforms we could make to try to get
around those sorts of problems, greater incentives to try to work
across boundaries, create pooled budgets where necessary. We hope
to make some progress with that in this spending review.
(Dr Ward) I think with some of the machinery of Government
reforms at the regional level, talking about pooled budgets, it
is very difficult to think in terms of an overnight one-off solution,
we have to have a more evolutionary perspective on that kind of
issue. With the announcement from the Ministry of Agriculture
on 7 December to apply modulation and to begin to expand the resources
going into rural development you can see a mechanism by which
over time there will be greater resources for integrated rural
development schemes in the regions.
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