Examination of Witnesses (Questions 362
- 379)
TUESDAY 6 JUNE 2000
MR JOHN
MORTIMER AND
MS JANE
TOPLISS
Chairman
362. Can I welcome you to the Committee for
the last session this morning and ask you to introduce yourselves
for the record, please?
(Mr Mortimer) Thank you, Chairman. My
name is John Mortimer, I am Chairman of the CBI Minerals Committee
and I represent the CBI input to your inquiry. We thank you greatly
for the opportunity to do so. With me is Jane Topliss who is Senior
Policy Adviser at the CBI, specifically working in the area of
minerals. If I may say why both of us, coming from a minerals
background, represent the CBI as a whole, it is because minerals
have a major impact and contribution to the issue of biodiversity
in Britain, and it is something which the industry has been working
on and taken to heart for many years. The CBI recognises the importance
of biodiversity and the importance of it contribution to the UK's
plans to enhance, protect and maintain the biodiversity that we
have.
Mr Cummings
363. To what extent do you feel it is the responsibility
of business in the United Kingdom to be involved in biodiversity
conservation?
(Mr Mortimer) I think we think it is a responsibility
of business to be involved. We think, also, that it is the responsibility
of everybody in the country to be involved in biodiversity. The
degree to which business is involved, I think, should depend on
the degree to which business interacts with the bio-environment.
Obviously, agriculture—and we have heard from them this
morning—the water industry and the minerals industry are
people who interact greatly with the environment and have significant
impacts, both positive as well as negative, on the biodiversity
of the country, so it is very important. For companies that are
not quite so at that interface they, too, have a responsibility—take
chemical companies, for instance—because of the discharge
question. So we have a responsibility to understand and control
discharges to land, air and water, because those can influence
biodiversity not only on a local level but on a global level.
So, yes, of course, industry has a prime responsibility to be
involved in this area.
364. What efforts are you, as an organisation,
making to ensure that your members are taking part in the biodiversity
conservation process?
(Mr Mortimer) The issue here is one of awareness and
we believe, in the CBI, that our members should be made aware—are,
indeed, aware, we believe—of the issue of sustainability
and it is our role, within the CBI, to ensure that the issue of
biodiversity within the sustainability question is something which
is not ignored.
365. Have you any practical examples of the
efforts you are making?
(Mr Mortimer) We have many practical examples of the
on-the-ground progress that is being made by the industry in biodiversity
matters.
366. What are you doing, as the CBI?
(Mr Mortimer) Within the minerals sector of the CBI,
which I am particularly qualified to speak about, we are working
at this moment, for instance, with the FRCA. Jane can tell you
about this.
(Ms Topliss) We are working on our steering group
at the moment with the FRCA dealing with producing guidelines
as to how to restore agricultural land back to the standard it
was—so taking into account drainage matters and making sure
that the soil is still viable. We are also working with the RSPB
on a steering group there to aid, again, the restoration of mineral
sites to make sure they are compatible to encourage bird life
as well as the necessary flora and fauna associated with it. On
a more general sort of example, the CBI deals a lot with the various
policy issues and environmental regulatory regimes and advises
companies how to do that in the best and most practical way. We
also have the benchmark CONTOUR which we encourage all organisations
to take forward and use as a way to look at the environmental
management systems, how they are coping and how they are improving—where
they can improve—compared to other organisations in the
same sectors.
(Mr Mortimer) The starting point for environmental
management is a real understanding of what your impacts are. That
is at the heart of the CBI's environmental programme at the moment.
367. What response are you receiving from your
members towards your efforts to make them more aware about biodiversity?
(Mr Mortimer) Members, like members of the public,
are very willing to take biodiversity issues on board. Obviously,
there is an issue of cost-benefit for the company as well as for
the environment. Business is business, and businesses will have
to evaluate the cost in any proposals. However, I think it is
well-recognised that there are many things that industry can do
to enhance biodiversity which, in fact, are not all that expensive.
Mrs Ellman
368. Such as?
(Mr Mortimer) Such as an example from the power generation
company, where the water used in the cooling towers to circulate
through the gases to cool the gases is kept in a reservoir. The
reservoir, rather than simply being a sterile reservoir for cooling
purposes, can actually also be a biodiversity resource. So, in
that way, they are looking at their whole process and saying "What
can we do here?". In the minerals sector, the opportunity
is enormous, and, really, from the very first moment that mineral
extraction starts to take place new opportunities for biodiversity
are created. An example from my career was working a sand deposit
in Bedfordshire, where we moved into a new area, removed the topsoil,
exposed the sand and within a very short time watched pop up something
called the childing pink. The childing pink is an extremely rare
plant—I do not know where it lists in the rankings of a
Biodiversity Action Plan—and it only lives in exposed sand.
So until the sand is exposed it does not have the opportunity
to live. So there is this understanding and awareness within the
industry, and it is very willingly accepted by industry that there
is so much that can be done.
Chairman
369. How far should that sand be stopped from
being extracted in order to allow that particular plant to thrive?
(Mr Mortimer) I think that is a bridge which, obviously,
has to be crossed when it arises.
370. Let us assume it arises now.
(Mr Mortimer) To take a slightly different example,
of Sand Martins—
371. No, no. Let us stick to—
(Mr Mortimer) You want to stick with the childing
Pink. Within a well-planned mineral operation the operator should
have options about where he is extracting, and the critical thing
in many species—both plant and animal species—is their
life-cycle, and in a situation where a rare species is found then
it should be incumbent on the operator to work with the authorities
and the NGOs to find ways in which the workings can be diverted
in order that that life-cycle moment of the plant can be accommodated.
Chairman
372. Who discovered the Pink? You?
(Mr Mortimer) We discovered the Pink.
373. You got in touch with who?
(Mr Mortimer) Forgive me, it is a long time ago. However,
taking a hypothetical situation—
374. Were you pleased? Who did you deal with?
Who protected the site? Did you have to negotiate a little bit
on the permissions so that that was protected and you got something
in quid pro quo?
(Mr Mortimer) You asked a very interesting question
"Were you pleased?" No production person is pleased
when his plans have been upset by the occurrence of, perhaps,
archaeology as well as flora and fauna.
375. So the Pink upset you more than it delighted
you?
(Mr Mortimer) I was going to say the immediate reaction
is "Oh dear, I was planning to produce here for six months"
but, increasingly, the industry as a whole is aware of its responsibilities
and, also, is able to take pleasure from discovery and is able
to take—and I think it is important to take—public
relations benefit from situations like that. So it is a question
of getting—
376. Forgive me. How would you guard against
the temptation of industry just saying "This is a bit of
a problem. We will carry on regardless and not tell anybody"?
How can biodiversity be protected in that kind of environment?
(Mr Mortimer) One cannot protect against that. One
can only rely on the sense of responsibility that operators have.
Responsibility which is trained in, or educated in, to industry
is something which we are all about and something we work very
closely with SCAs—
377. The CBI is engaged in that, is it?
(Ms Topliss) The CBI does not just encourage industry
on a national or international level to take part in biodiversity
conservation, and that kind of thing; it encourages individual
companies and individual site operators to go out and—you
speak about the minerals industry and a lot of the guys working
on the site are proud, they will go out, and a lot of the SSSIs
and other conservation areas would never have been discovered
unless somebody said "Look, we have got this, come in"
and it is designated.
Mr Gray
378. We have so far been very encouraged by
your remarks about the commitment of industry to biodiversity.
Ignoring the fact that you are a constituent, can I ask you a
couple of direct and difficult questions on the subject?
(Mr Mortimer) You always do.
379. Why did the CBI not make a written submission
to this Committee, if your commitment is that great?
(Mr Mortimer) I beg your pardon. The CBI did make
a written submission, Mr Gray, though I believe it was sent yesterday.
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