Examination of witnesses (Questions 260
- 272)
WEDNESDAY 1 DECEMBER 1999
DR MARK
AVERY and MR
MATT RAYMENT
Mrs Ellman
260. Are the RDAs developing environmentally
sustainable economic policies in rural areas?
(Dr Avery) I think it is a variable picture. It is
quite early to say but from the review that we are in the process
of doing, looking at the regional economic strategies, it is a
mixed picture. That is what one would expect when the RDAs have
such a weakly-worded sustainable development purpose rather than
a duty to promote sustainable development. There have been some
examples of good practice in the strategies that have been coming
out and we think it is important that those are built on and that
possibly those standards are developed more widely. As some examples
of good practice, in the south-east the RDA intends to commission
a study of the implications of its GDP growth targets in terms
of impacts on sustainable development. We think that is a good
thing. In the south-west, largely encouraged by the coming of
an RDA, there has been a study in which the RSPB collaborated
which looked at the economic benefits of the environment and came
up with a figure of £1.6 billion as the contribution of the
environment to the economy in south-west England. We think that
other RDAs should commission that type of study. There are good
examples of good practice but it is rather patchy at the moment.
It would be rather carping to criticise though because it is at
an early stage.
261. What about the north-west?
(Dr Avery) One of the things which has gone well in
the north-west is that the Government office produced a draft
sustainability strategy early on in the process and that is a
very good thing. Rather than sustainability coming behind the
work on economic growth, it actually came near the beginning and
that is a positive thing.
Mr Forsythe
262. What specific measures would remedy the
apparent lack of co-ordination of rural policies? Do you favour,
for instance, the new Cabinet Committee or do you think it should
be a Department of Rural Affairs?
(Dr Avery) Since there are no firm proposals to evaluate
we are all rather guessing as to what this might be, but if the
Department of Rural Affairs simply meant taking a small part of
DETR and somehow stuffing it into MAFF, we do not see that as
a very positive way forward. One reason for that is based on our
biodiversity experience, which is that we see the DETR as the
guardian, the policeman, of the biodiversity targets in this country.
MAFF ought to be a Ministry which has great responsibility for
delivering those targets. I am not sure it is at the moment but
it should be. Merging these two roles into one Ministry would
be unhealthy, I think. We would rather see them kept apart. We
did welcome the Cabinet Committee chaired by Dr Mowlam.
Mrs Dunwoody
263. Can I just ask you something about that?
You are assuming that the two things cannot run together and yet
in effect you cannot control the input of the agricultural community
into the work that you want to do. You will not be able to work
anyway, will you?
(Dr Avery) We are cynical really about MAFF. Let me
say that. We see MAFF as being producer-oriented, insular, takes
too much notice—
264. I am not asking you about your attitude.
That is quite clear. You are saying in effect that these two cannot
go together in a departmental unit because their interests are
so diverse that they cannot work together and they cannot produce
a useful plan. If that is the case, you are actually implying
that what you want is a kind of preserved countryside with no
involvement in food production at all, are you not?
(Dr Avery) No, that is certainly not what we are saying.
It would be possible for MAFF and DETR functions to be merged.
As I say, we are just cynical that without a huge cultural change
in MAFF no benefit would come from that in the short term. Certainly
in terms of what the countryside ought to look like, we believe
it does have to be farmed. We believe that farmers have a huge
part to play. Much of the wildlife in the countryside is dependent
on farming, but it is not benefiting from the type of farming
that we have got at the moment, but nor are farmers and nor are
rural communities, and MAFF has not taken that forward over the
last few years.
265. So you are not objecting to the idea; you
are simply saying that the creation of a unit that contained the
existing people from MAFF would be unacceptable?
(Dr Avery) It would be unacceptable but there is another
reason why the idea might not work, which was what I was going
on to say, which is that the Cabinet Committee chaired by Dr Mowlam
has a much wider representation of Departments than simply DETR
and MAFF, so it involves, as I understand it, Education, DTI,
Health, and so on. That is the range of issues that needs to be
tackled in the rural environment. The proposed Department of Rural
Affairs would just do a very small part of that and in present
situations we do not believe it would do it particularly well.
Mr Forsythe
266. Is it better for this new Cabinet Committee
or the Countryside Agency to undertake the "rural proofing"
task?
(Dr Avery) That is something that we favour. We think
that the Countryside Agency would have a role there and that they
ought to be given the job of reporting on a whole range of issues
in the countryside each year, and that would include most of the
issues that we have talked about in this evidence.
267. How can local people be engaged to a greater
extent in the democratic planning processes in rural areas?
(Dr Avery) I am not sure that we are expert on that,
so I am not sure we have any strong views. We do encourage our
membership to get involved both at the local level in terms of
influencing their local representatives and in active participation
on the ground, but we also encourage them to lobby Parliament.
(Mr Rayment) One thing which we do advocate in our
submission is that local people are involved in the planning processes
at an earlier stage rather than, as usual these days, in commenting
on planning applications, that local people should be more involved
earlier, at the stage of commenting on development plans before
they are finalised.
268. Should objectors have a right of appeal
then against planning applications? They have not at the moment.
(Mr Rayment) I am not a planning expert myself and
I think it is something which we would have to cover in supplementary
evidence.
Chairman
269. Is a Rural White Paper any good unless
it is going to have some targets and indicators?
(Dr Avery) The RSPB is a great fan of targets and
indicators. What we would suggest is that there are plenty of
these around at the moment. The Government's headline and other
indicators of sustainable development ought to be the ones that
are used and developed in the Rural White Paper. Some of those
indicators would need more work done on them so that they could
be broken down between rural and urban areas, but certainly it
would be very easy to do the wildlife indicator. We also think,
coming back to RDAs, that RDAs ought to use that same suite of
sustainable development indicators and we are doing some work
with DETR and RDAs to try to produce the wildlife indicator based
on birds for individual RDAs.
270. The CPRE have a tranquillity feature as
one of their indicators. That would mean the absence of birdsong?
(Dr Avery) That was one of our thoughts as well, that
unfortunately, if current trends continue, the countryside is
going to be all too quiet and we would not favour that.
Chairman: It is a bit sad, is it not? The RSPB
is probably the most successful non-government organisation in
the country raising more money than most political parties, and
yet we have this continual decline in the countryside bird population.
Mrs Dunwoody
271. What are you doing with your money, he
is asking.
(Dr Avery) We spend £40 million a year. The common
agricultural policy puts in £3 billion a year across the
country, so I think we are outflanked and outnumbered by that.
I would say that there several examples of species which have
been declining for many decades in this country—the corncrake,
the cirl bunting, the stone curlew, would be three examples where,
when the RSPB got involved in the last decades, those long term
declines have been turned round to population increases. I hope
you are all members. If you are, as you can gather, your money
is being well spent.
Christine Butler
272. And a lot more agri-environment schemes.
(Dr Avery) That is certainly what we need.
Chairman: On that note, can I thank you very
much for your evidence.
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