Agency influence on public debate
and on environment and sustainable development policy
19. The Agency's failure to set out a clear
role for itself and a vision of what it is aiming to achieve has
compromised not only its operational effectiveness but also its
ability to influence public debate and Government environmental
and sustainable development policy. As a result, the Agency is
currently "punching below its weight". We were unconvinced,
for example, by the Agency's explanations of why it had not taken
a strong public line on genetically modified organisms. This issue
has been arguably the most high-profile environmental concern
in recent months: it seems to us that to argue, as the Chairman
of the Agency did, that "we have a very limited view because
our statutory remit is very limited"[53]
is an abnegation of its central statutory responsibilities to
protect the environment and to contribute to the promotion of
sustainable development. We find it difficult to believe that,
with its knowledge of environmental media, the Agency has nothing
useful to say on the subject of GMOs, and its stance compares
unfavourably with that of English Nature, which has taken a much
more active line.
20. Furthermore, the examples which we were given
of areas in which the Agency has been influential were, for the
most part, hardly high-profile. Groundwater monitoring, the introduction
of integrated pollution prevention and control, and agricultural
waste are important issues and ones on which we were very pleased
to hear that the Agency had been influential,[54]
but the Agency's work on these issues has been very much 'behind
the scenes'. Even on climate change, cited by the Chairman of
the Agency as a controversial issue on which the Agency had put
forward "a strong set of views",[55]
we feel that the Agency has been following the debate, not leading
it. Mike Childs of Friends of the Earth summed up the relationship
between the Agency and the Government by saying, "At the
moment I think we see the Agency very much looking towards the
Government, trying constantly to please the Government and failing
often, but not quite having the confidence in itself to stand
up and say, 'We think this is the right thing to do for sustainable
development.'"[56]
The Agency needs to recognise that if progress is to be made
towards sustainable development, then it will need to be more
active. The matter cannot be left solely to central government
policy and voluntary initiatives.
21. The Minister for the Environment, in response
to a question about whether the Chairman of the Agency had a role
in speaking to the media, for example, on environmental issues,
replied,
I certainly think it would
be totally proper for the chairman of the Agency to be asked,
for example, to go on the Today programme or a public affairs
programme of a similar kind. I would encourage that ... I believe
it would be good if we had key personnel, for example, in the
Environment Agency, and of course there are other agencies such
as English Nature and HSE, where appropriate going public and
talking to their brief.[57]
He went on to say,
I have always taken the view
- and I have to be careful because I am not sure this is necessarily
shared by all my colleagues - that I do believe in open discussion.
I would not expect the Chairman of the Agency to make an outright
attack on the Government. If he felt the need to make that kind
of criticism, I would expect him to come to me and say it very
frankly to me. If any of these public officials at a high level
wish to take a view which was different from the Government's,
perhaps particularly where they had given forewarning that they
wished to do that, I see no reason why they should not do so.
I think the important thing is the genuine frankness of public
debate and there are issues, as we all know, where there is more
than one view, which is perfectly reasonable.[58]
22. The Environment Agency has a large number
of highly trained staff and is a substantial repository of expertise.
As an important advisor to Government on environmental issues,
we would like to see the Agency engage more vigorously in public
debate and raise its profile on matters of importance where protection
and enhancement of the environment and sustainable development
are concerned. Clearly, the Agency must conduct itself in accordance
with Government policy, but it should also play an important role
in influencing that policy as it is formed. The phrase
used by the Deputy Prime Minister of the Environment Agency's
fellow NDPB, the Countryside Agency, was that it should be a 'champion'
for the countryside.[59]
The Environment Agency should become a 'champion' of the environment,
and of sustainable development.
23. We welcome the Minister's enthusiastic
support for the Agency, and we hope that it will continue, particularly
in the critical coming months as the new Chairman takes over and
the Agency develops its new environmental strategy. As the Agency
becomes, as we hope it will, a more effective and confident organisation,
we fully expect that it will start to say things which the Government
may not want to hear. The Minister's support for its right to
do so will be crucial if it is to become an effective 'champion'
for the environment and sustainable development.
24. We now go on to examine a number of matters
relating to the way the Agency carries out its functions.
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