Examination of witnesses (Questions 40
- 50)
TUESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1999
MR MIKE
CHILDS and MR
RAY GEORGESON
40. Do you believe that is the reason why the
Environment Agency is not siting their monitoring equipment in
the right places and if they were to is your view that the findings
would be so dreadful that they would have to recommend closing
the plant? What is your view? What is your explanation?
(Mr Childs) I think that could well be the reason.
The consultants we engaged to look at that area, who are consultants
who used to work for the National Rivers Authority so they had
regulatory experience, certainly pointed towards that, that this
is perhaps the only case where the Environment Agency should close
down a plant because its environmental impact is so great. I think
perhaps the Environment Agency has shied away from that and that
has been to the cost of the local community.
41. So your advice would be to bring in someone
who is completely independent of the Environment Agency because
you do not have the confidence that they can assess this in an
open and impartial manner?
(Mr Childs) I certainly think that the local population
have lost complete and utter trust in the Environment Agency.
I think it will be difficult for anyone to go in there from the
Environment Agency and clean up the mess that has been created
in terms of mistrust around decision making. It does need somebody
else to come into that area to look at what is going on and to
make recommendations that the Environment Agency would have to
take very seriously. I would welcome the Government putting somebody
in that position and saying "well, okay, let us look independently
at how the Environment Agency is performing around this plant".
Whilst we have commissioned research to look into it, and we think
it is fair research, it probably does need someone else to come
in with a new set of eyes to take on board the concerns of the
local population there.
42. Is Castle Cement a one-off or are you aware
of other sites, either cement plants or for that matter any other
manufacturing process, where you have similar concerns that perhaps
the Environment Agency, for whatever reason, has got itself into
a position that is untenable?
(Mr Childs) In terms of the location of that site
and the need probably to close the site then I think that is a
one-off. In terms of public distrust of the Environment Agency
then I have not seen public distrust at that level at another
site but there are areas, poorer areas of the country, where there
has been a lack of communication between the Environment Agency
and the public and there is a general public distrust in some
of those areas of any positions of authority. That may need new
mechanisms to try to bring those people together. Certainly our
colleagues in Friends of the Earth Scotland have been working
closely with community development workers in those kinds of areas
to try to forge good neighbourhood agreements between industries
and the populations who live there so you have got an independent
arbiter to try to come to an agreement as to how that industry
can operate and still provide the jobs and employment needed and
produce on the whole, I would imagine, useful products for society
whilst also having the trust of the public. I think it is a new
approach that needs to be taken, yes.
Chairman
43. You might want to close down Castle Cement
but if I worked there I might not be so keen on closing it down.
If we left the secondary liquid fuels out of it, almost the whole
of the rest of the operation has been going on at that site for
a very long time and the people who work there will say that an
awful lot of the houses are much newer than the plant. Is it really
fair to suggest that it should be closed?
(Mr Childs) I think sometimes you have to reach very
difficult decisions on very difficult matters. Employment in those
areas is extremely important. To get a balance between employment
and the health of the children who are growing up in that area,
because chemical pollutants hit children hardest, is an extremely
difficult matter. That is why I think it needs somebody new and
somebody independent in there to bring together all those sides,
the people who work at the plant, people who own the plant, the
people who live around the plant, trying to find an outcome that
they are all happy with. Our perception at the moment is that
it probably needs to be closed but I do not think we would want
to be in a position to make that decision, I think that needs
involvement from all the different stakeholders.
Mr Olner
44. You need somebody to blame.
(Mr Childs) I beg your pardon?
45. You need somebody to blame.
(Mr Childs) I think there is a problem in that the
plant has been operating for a long time. Increasingly EU standards
will lead to increased performance anyway. When it comes to those
possibly unique circumstances I think you need to get people together
to admit that there may be difficult decisions to make. I do not
think that it is a perception of blame, it is about how you make
difficult decisions and accept those difficult decisions.
Mrs Ellman
46. How would you describe the relationship
between the Government and the Agency? Who is influencing whom?
(Mr Georgeson) Probably mixed. In recent times the
Agency certainly managed to upset the DETR earlier this year,
maybe at the back end of last year, when over 200 waste management
sites went for over a year with their licences having expired
with the Agency continuing to charge inspection fees and, indeed,
Customs and Excise continuing to collect landfill tax from material
that was put in those sites for which the licences had in fact
expired. It required a little bit of extra work in the last Pollution
Bill to put right that problem. I think that there have certainly
been tensions between parts of government and the Environment
Agency when it has come to matters of detail of that kind, although
I think it is more than just a matter of detail. I think I go
back really to where I started much earlier on; we wish to be
supportive of the work of the Environment Agency, but it can only
be an effective regulator in the context of some deep seriousness
from government in terms of how it approaches environmental protection
and sustainability in general, and we see that from Environment
Ministers most strongly and, as I said before, we do not necessarily
see it in other parts of government, and I feel that the Environment
Agency is possibly caught in a conflict between different parts
of government.
47. Could you give any examples of that?
(Mr Georgeson) How about the Packaging Waste Regulations
for a start. I do not want to open that particular can of worms
too deeply, but may I suggest to you, Chairman, that you might
like to take a close look at the Packaging Waste Regulations at
some point in the future. The Environment Agency is charged with
the task of now policing the Packaging Waste Regulations and compliance
schemes that have emerged without necessarily having had sufficient
input into the way that those packaging waste laws were produced.
They are a mess and they do not appear to be working in terms
of increasing recycling and the poor old Environment Agency has
got to do its best to pick up the pieces of that and is doing
its best under difficult circumstances, but I think that may well
illustrate a tension between a part of government which has pursued
one line and indeed the Agency which may well have chosen to undertake
packaging compliance in a different way.
48. Are there any areas where you feel that
the Agency is not following national policies and national priorities?
(Mr Childs) I think there have been frustrations within
government about the ability of the Agency to respond to directions
from government, so, for example, the Minister for the Environment,
Michael Meacher, made it very clear just after the general election
that he saw the introduction of a comprehensive pollution inventory
to be his priority and I think the Agency dragged its heels over
that and it took a lot of pushing from the Minister to get the
Agency to put sufficient resources into that area and this has
moved to a position now where the Agency is working, I think,
effectively with government and it worked with government in terms
of getting amendments to the Pollution Prevention and Control
Act, the amendments put down by both Labour and Liberal Democrats
during the passage of that particular Bill. I think there are
areas where it has got better, but I think there are still frustrations
with the Agency in other areas and I think packaging is one area
where there are frustrations that the Agency may not be delivering,
and I think there are frustrations in terms of the way the Agency
is working effectively with the poorer sections of society. Again
the Minister for the Environment has written some work in this
area for a pamphlet published by Catalyst and Friends of the Earth
recently saying that this is something we have got to address.
I do not think we have seen the Agency respond to that adequately
yet. What Friends of the Earth would like to see is an independent
and fair regulator that is willing to criticise government where
government is not performing as well as working on the Environment
Agency's agenda as given by the Government as well, and I do not
think we have that yet. I think one of the advantages of creating
an arm's-length agency is that you can have that independence
and it is separate from the day-to-day governmental control. 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".
49. At a regional level, would you say that
the Environment Agency is working closely with the regional development
agencies and regional chambers in drawing up plans for sustainable
development? You did refer earlier to regional committees which
you felt were not representative, but would you say that there
is a close working relationship with the RDAs and regional chambers?
(Mr Georgeson) I would find it difficult to answer
that frankly because I think it still feels like early days with
the regional development agencies for us as well and I cannot
honestly say that we have a clear sense of how the Agency is working
directly with regional development agencies. I can say from some
of the work that we have been doing at Waste Watch that we have
some good experience of working with the Environment Agency on
a regional basis on educational programmes and waste minimisation
programmes. That is patchy. Some regions are more proactive than
others and I think that was illustrated in our written evidence
to you and my guess is that the same, but more patchy approach
would apply to how the Agency is dealing with regional development
agencies, but I do not have evidence to substantiate that.
Chairman
50. You were not very happy about this "Hall
of Shame" campaign. Are you any happier about this floods
campaign that they have got on all the hoardings at the moment?
(Mr Georgeson) It has completely passed me by, Chairman.
If that means I am not susceptible to advertising, that is possibly
a good thing, but I am afraid that campaign has completely passed
me by, perhaps rather like the "Are You Doing Your Bit?"
campaign did earlier in the year.
(Mr Childs) I know that there has been criticism about
the Agency in terms of their performance on the floods of last
year and that is an area where they are increasingly putting resources.
I know that there have been commentaries saying that flood defences
should be moved from the Environment Agency, so whilst I am not
directly responding to your question, Chairman, because neither
have I seen the hoardings, our view on that is that flood defences
should stay within the Environment Agency and to start breaking
it up now would be exactly the wrong thing to do as it gets a
new Chairman, as it is getting the right political signals from
government to become tough and independent. I think we need to
see it maintain its size and structure at the moment for a couple
of years before it is considered to be broken up.
Chairman: Well, on that note, can I thank you
very much for your evidence this morning.
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