Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 119)
TUESDAY 16 MAY 2000
MR ROGER
PRITCHARD, MRS
HILARY NEAL
AND MR
JOHN OSMOND
Mrs Ellman
100. What are you doing to implement the EU
Habitats and Birds Directives outside of protecting special sites?
What else are you doing?
(Mr Pritchard) There are provisions within the Directive,
particularly Article 12, which looks at the issues involved with
protected species off special sites. Through the Habitats Regulations
1994 we have already transposed into UK domestic legislation the
required, or what we believe are the required, provisions to deal
with that.
Chairman
101. The Commission have told you that is not
good enough, have they not?
(Mr Pritchard) No, they have not yet.
102. I understood they were telling you that
as concerns the Habitats Directive you had not gone for enough
areas.
(Mr Pritchard) That is a different question. Do you
want me to answer that question?
103. Yes.
(Mr Pritchard) As a small aside may I explain that
position? The Chairman is referring to something slightly different
and that is that last autumn all the Member States in the Atlantic
biogeographic region underwent a process called moderation. Moderation
is the process which the Commission has invented which tries to
assess whether the site lists submitted by national governments
for species and habitats listed are adequate. The UK, along with
every other Member State present, was found to be inadequate and
over the last six months we have set in train a major exercise
to reconsider the UK list. The conservation agencies were asked
to go back and look both at the interests represented, the boundaries
of sites and indeed whether the number of sites was sufficient,
based on the information we gleaned from that process. We are
in the process of receiving advice from the conservation agencies.
You will realise that this is now a process which is largely devolved
and therefore there are four exercises going on in parallel. We
hope that within a very short period—that means weeks rather
than months—we will be able to start moving forward with
significant extensions to the UK list and that we hope that process
will be substantially completed by the end of the calendar year.
I think that is the answer to your particular point.
104. The worry was that we were told by people
at the Commission that if you did not come up with extended lists
they might start to stop regional aid and things like that.
(Mr Pritchard) It is true that the Commission has
suggested that to seven European states—it may be more European
states now. A collective agreement has been established that we
are all to have a period of grace to resolve this problem. We
are by no means at the end of this particular chain of deficiency,
not by any means whatsoever. Everyone is working hard to remedy
the situation.
Mrs Ellman
105. Could you give us any indications of the
deficiencies which you accept as being real?
(Mr Pritchard) We are basically looking at three issues.
The first is whether enough interests have been identified on
individual sites. There is a nice debate about exactly how significant
a particular species or habitat needs to be on an identified site
to be worthy of recognition at the European level. You will recognise
that most of these sites are very complicated. They do not just
comprise one habitat with one species, there is a mosaic of habitats
and species. We have decided on advice that we should recognise
more of the subsidiary interests which exist on sites. That is
the first issue. The second issue is that we are looking very
hard at the whole issue of whether the geographic and ecological
range of the sites identified is adequate within the United Kingdom.
You recognise again that this is an exercise being conducted on
the European basis and that many of the habitats and species which
we are looking at may be at the relative edge of their range within
the United Kingdom. Some may be concentrated here. We are trying
to make sure that we have adequately covered that range of sites
to make sure that the main areas where habitats and species are
represented do have a site identified. Thirdly, we are simply
looking at whether we have enough sites. I do not think anyone
has ever disputed that the UK from the start has always identified
the best sites, but there is clearly an interesting debate as
to how far down the spectrum "best" should come. We
are looking with regard to some of the species and habitats as
to whether we should bring more sites on stream as being of European
importance.
106. Are you still looking solely in terms of
sites and not looking for example in terms of species which might
not focus on specific sites?
(Mr Pritchard) In terms of the requirements to establish
the Natura 2000 network, yes, that is a site network. It is a
site network which comprises sites identified both for habitats
and species but it is a site based network. To return to your
question where you started, there are also provisions which we
are trying to ensure are delivered as fully as they should be,
which deal with species which do not occur on sites or do not
occur in sufficient concentrations to warrant a site. We have
already transposed into UK law through the 1994 regulations, which
I mentioned earlier, provisions in Article 12 in particular of
the Directive which we believe meet this. I have to say and was
going to say this before the Chairman drew me off in another direction,
that at the moment across Europe as a whole there is an enormous
emphasis on the site based work and indeed the very process that
the Chairman mentioned has caused all Member States to put far
more resources into the whole issue of identifying sites and how
they should be managed. If anything, my feeling is that in the
UK there is more work on species off sites than there is in many
other European countries.
107. Do you accept the criticisms that the work
the UK is doing in relation to the Directives is too focused on
sites and insufficiently paying attention to issues outside designated
sites? Do you accept that criticism?
(Mr Pritchard) It is a fair comment that we are concentrating
on the sites at the moment.
108. Do you accept the criticism that you are
not looking at issues outside the sites? Do you or do you not?
(Mr Pritchard) Do you mean we should do more work
on sites?
109. No. Do you accept you should do work outside
of the sites as well as the work you are doing?
(Mr Pritchard) Yes and I told you that we are doing
work off sites. I am also saying that in the UK as in all the
other Member States at the moment, the Commission itself is driving
all the Member States to put far more effort and priority into
the issue of site identification and management, for the very
reasons that the Chairman himself indicated five minutes ago.
110. You accept that you are also doing work
off sites.
(Mr Pritchard) We are certainly doing work off sites.
Whether we are putting as much priority into the work off sites
at the moment, might be a valid criticism, but the reason why
we are putting our priority into site identification is for the
very reasons the Chairman has suggested.
111. Do you intend to give any increased priority
to the work off sites?
(Mr Pritchard) Inevitably. Once the UK list and indeed
the Natura 2000 network across Europe as a whole is established,
there will inevitably be much more interest and priority on the
work which occurs off the network. We still have a long way to
go in terms of establishing the Natura 2000 network.
112. What about funding issues in developing
biodiversity action plans? Do you think those funding issues are
solved with the increased monies which are being made available?
(Mr Pritchard) I hesitate ever to say there is enough
funding available for any area of public policy. It is very rare
indeed that anyone will be bold enough to claim that. What we
would say is that we have put enormous effort into trying to cost
the actions we are committed to. It might be helpful if I ask
Mrs Neal to say something about both the process which was originally
carried out and the work we are currently undertaking to validate
those costs. Then we could say something about how we are trying
to meet the costs we have identified.
(Mrs Neal) Just to recap and inform you about the
process of estimating the action plans which has been done since
the start of the process. The original plans which were published
in 1995 were costed on a fairly broad brush basis. Subsequent
plans have been estimated on a much more methodological system
on the basis of cost per hectare, average cost of research and
guidance and so on. The objective was to identify the additional
costs of implementation of the action plans over and above any
responsibilities which might already exist through statutory programmes.
At the moment the estimates of costs are being pulled together
in a single volume and that will be published fairly shortly.
My understanding is that the total estimated cost over and above
the current programmes is estimated to be about £60 million
for the public sector per year. The assumption is that the great
majority of those costs will be expended through agri-environment
programmes. Because of the substantial uncertainties which surrounded
the estimating process, we have let a research contract which
actually, on the basis of a sample of plans, will look at the
actual costs of implementation so that future estimating exercises
can be done on a much more rooted basis in terms of what is actually
happening on the ground.
Mr Blunt
113. When will MAFF produce the code of practice
for conservation which has been under discussion now for some
time?
(Mr Osmond) Yes, I believe it has. I gather that the
suggestion originally stemmed from a recommendation by the Agriculture
Select Committee in 1997. We have codes of practice for water,
soil, air and we have the green codes for pesticides and those
are things which MAFF promotes and encourages farms to follow.
The idea was that possibly there should be the same sort of thing
for conservation. We did do some work on drafting that code and
consulted some people on it, but the situation recently has been
changed by the rural development regulation which came in last
year. Previously we had viewed codes of good practice as high
standards to which we should encourage people to aspire. The rural
development regulation defines good practice as the reference
level which everybody should be expected to do without being paid
for it and that you only begin to pay people for things they do
going beyond good practice. The reason that makes a difference
is that if we included in a code any activities we would like
people to do and might be prepared to pay them to do, we potentially
debar them from receiving money for that because the good practice
under the terms of the rural development regulation is something
that people are expected to do unpaid. What we have done is put
the work on the draft conservation code on hold for the time being
while we have been drafting the rural development plan and trying
to get Commission approval for it. In the process of that we hope
that some clarification about their attitude towards good farming
practice will come through. At the moment it is on hold.
114. That is on hold but when are you going
to bring in legislation to meet the obligations under the EU Environmental
Impact Assessment Directive to provide for environmental impact
assessment in relation to projects concerning agricultural intensification?
(Mr Osmond) The main implementation of that Directive
is under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment)
Regulations 1988. I assume that the question is referring to the
other bits about agricultural intensification.
115. Yes; ploughing unimproved pastures, draining
wetlands.
(Mr Osmond) That again is a topic which does not actually
come within my division's responsibilities but I am aware that
there have been long-running debates over further implementation
in relation to those operations.
Chairman
116. We just want to know when.
(Mr Osmond) I apologise but all I can say today is
that there are some very complex legal and policy questions involved
and Ministers are currently considering those issues at the moment.
Mr Blunt
117. There appears to be a bit of a problem,
does there not? If I then ask whether you are going to apply cross-compliance
to meet the United Kingdom's obligations under Article 3 of the
common rules regulation to ensure environmental protection, I
am going to get a similar sort of answer, am I?
(Mr Osmond) Not quite. On cross-compliance there are
some things we can point to. The Government has said that the
existing cross-compliance measures which we run will remain in
place. In the livestock sector there are measures to prevent significant
over-grazing and inappropriate supplementary feeding of livestock
in the hills and in the arable sector we have conditions on the
management of set-aside land to ensure that it is managed in an
environmentally friendly way for birds and so on. On the further
extension of cross-compliance, we carried out consultation last
year in the context of the Agenda 2000 reforms and we got quite
a lot of responses with suggestions about things which could be
done, various options for cross-compliance. The DETR commissioned
a report from the Institute of European Environmental Policy which
was just delivered last month to government. That is quite an
authoritative report which provides material which government
can now look at. Essentially that is where we have reached. What
Ministers have said is that any emerging options would need to
be considered very carefully with regard to whether they would
be easily understood, their ease of enforcement, the environmental
benefits and the costs to farmers. That is what Ministers said
in their "New direction for agriculture" document last
December.
118. That brings us back to a similar sort of
answer to the previous two. May I take a specific point? We have
received advice in the memoranda which have been submitted to
the Committee which has called for the UK to apply cross-compliance
to all farm subsidies as a way of promoting biodiversity in the
wider countryside. For example, if you made subsidies conditional
on upholding environmental law or following codes of good agricultural
practice, that would obviously act as a powerful incentive for
improving the environment. That is precisely the reason that you
will not introduce a code of practice.
(Mr Osmond) It has connections but it is not exactly
the same reason. If there were a requirement to follow codes of
practice, we would need to make sure that that was actually enforceable.
We presume there would be environmental benefits, which is why
we promote codes of practice, but we need to have standards which
are actually enforceable.
Chairman
119. Not getting the grant is quite a powerful
pressure, is it not?
(Mr Osmond) Sorry; yes. What I meant was that officers
can actually go out to check as to whether the code of practice
has or has not been followed. A lot of the existing codes of practice,
which are several hundred pages long, contain material which is
simply exhortation or encouragement to do something in a particular
way. It is not drafted in terms that you can actually go to test
whether it is being complied with or not. There are points of
principle there which one would need to sort out about whether
it can actually be properly applied at the farm level.
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