Examination of witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
TUESDAY 9 MAY 2000
MR JOHN
BALLARD, MR
HENRY DERWENT,
MR MICHAEL
GAHAGAN and MR
MARK LAMBIRTH
Mr Benn
20. Did you do any modelling on the point that
the Chairman has been pursuing, looking at the different levels
of the potential tax and what impact that might have on increasing
use of recycled materials?
(Mr Ballard) We certainly did do modelling in order
to inform the dialogue with the Treasury as to what would be the
appropriate amount.
21. In the further information you promised,
can you let us have the information on the modelling and what
that shows? Can we turn to biodiversity now, and in particular
the protection of species and habitats which are not SSSI. As
you will be aware, the suggestion has been made that the current
Countryside and Rights of Way Bill might be amended to give statutory
nature conservation agencies the power to enter into management
agreements with the owners of such land. Do you think such an
amendment could usefully be made?
(Mr Ballard) We have already acknowledged that we
think there may be a case for doing this, and we are looking carefully
at whether the existing powers are sufficient. We believe that
conservation agencies already do have powers to make grants to
land which is not notified as a SSSI. Nevertheless, we are looking
very carefully to see whether some additional powers would be
needed. We are doing that, obviously, in the context of the Countryside
and Rights of Way Bill which is before the House, so there is
a clear time frame within which ministers will reach a decision,
but they are actively considering at the moment whether or not
this is something that they feel does require additional powers.
22. What do you see as the weaknesses in the
current framework of powers?
(Mr Ballard) I think it is the other way round. We
are looking at the existing powers and seeing if they are sufficient.
23. In that case, in what areas are they insufficient
protection?
(Mr Ballard) The powers that exist at the moment are
those under the Environment Protection Act 1990 to make grants
for anything conducive to nature conservation. Those have been
used to support biodiversity plans. It is just a question of whether
those powers are wide enough to enable all plots of land or areas
outside SSSIs to be covered in a satisfactory way. As I say, ministers
are looking at it carefully at the moment.
24. You set up the Local Site Review Group.
(Mr Ballard) Yes.
25. As you know, they are concerned about the
different ways in which local authorities manage. We are talking
here about smaller sites that are important in terms of local
areas of wildlife conservation and so on. What about their recommendations
and incorporating those?
(Mr Ballard) They made nine recommendations, as you
know. Three of them require placing a duty on various people,
which would require primary legislation. What ministers are looking
at at the moment is whether or not that is something they want
to do; in other words, those are the first things they are considering.
If they were to impose a duty as recommended, that affects the
way in which you implement the rest of the recommendations; for
example, who does it, whether it is the Department or the Countryside
Agency or somebody else. They are actively looking, again in the
context of the current Bill, at whether they want to place a duty
in this way and endorse those three recommendations. Once they
have made a decision on that, we can then sort out how to implement
the other six. Obviously, however we do it, we will be working
closely with English Nature, but that is where we are at the moment.
26. What information do you have about the different
ways in which local authorities support and manage these sites?
What information base are you drawing on in deciding whether the
current situation is satisfactory or not or whether the duty is
required? How much do you know about what is going on?
(Mr Ballard) We are obviously working quite closely
with the LGA in trying to establish this. The purpose of setting
up the Local Site Review Group, of course, was to try and establish
a consensus. Indeed, there was a large degree of consensus established
in that group, which was drawn from a wide body of people, as
you know. What that consensus did not extend to was how we should
achieve the recommendations, which is why we are taking a bit
more time in trying to sort out how to do it.
Chairman
27. If you are going to do it, presumably legislation
is needed in the Bill that is before the House at the moment.
Is that right?
(Mr Ballard) That is one option, yes. We could, for
example, put something in the Local Government Bill.
28. So there is a prospect, if ministers decided
that they wanted to do it, that it could go into legislation before
the House?
(Mr Ballard) Yes, we could put a new duty in the Local
Government Bill to prepare community strategies. That would be
one option.
29. Is that likely?
(Mr Ballard) I cannot say at the moment. Ministers
are actively considering it.
Mr Blunt
30. Turning to air quality, how can local authorities
be expected to take the lead in implementing the National Air
Quality Strategy if they have no power to influence other enforcement
agencies such as the Highways Agency and the Environment Agency?
(Mr Derwent) There is a great deal that local authorities
can do themselves, making use of their own powers, to deliver
the objectives of our air quality policy in the policies that
they adopt themselves. As for the Highways Agency and the Environment
Agency, both of them are consultees for the process of the local
authorities' formulation of their Local Plans. Both of them are,
in slightly different ways, under the control of the Secretary
of State, and the Highways Agency is in fact in legal terms no
more than a part of the Department. If there were to be any serious
issue which arose between a local authority and the Highways Agency
where some sort of powers, for example, to introduce speed limits,
were not accepted by the Highways Agency, what would happen is
that the local authority, through the local Government Office,
making use of whatever other avenues they want to, would come
to talk to us, and we would have to engage in a discussion of
what the issue was. The Environment Agency is a little bit more
at arm's length, but we retain a power of direction over the Environment
Agency. On the whole, one might expect that the objectives and
desires of the Environment Agency, dedicated in large part towards
the control of pollution as it is, are likely to be similar to
what a local authority wants to do to control pollution. Frankly,
the answer is that we do not think they need specific powers.
If a situation should arise where there is clearly a failure of
minds to meet, we will get involved as necessary.
31. This in the end is a brilliant set-up as
far as central government is concerned because local authorities
get all the responsibility and all the blame if they fail to deliver
the targets, and central government can wash their hands of the
problem to an extent.
(Mr Derwent) I would not have said that. I would imagine
that it is quite within the powers of local authorities generally
to point out in no uncertain terms that they are not getting cooperation
from some part of the Department that has imposed these targets
upon them and to make life pretty hot for us.
32. What happened in Sheffield, when Sheffield
identified a pollution hotspot at junction 4 of the M1 and wanted
the Highways Agency to reduce the average speed from 80 to 50,
was that the Highways Agency declined to cooperate, probably for
entirely sensible reasons as far as the Highways Agency was concerned.
(Mr Derwent) I think you have put your finger on the
point there. You cannot expect the Secretary of State, operating
through the Highways Agency, to simply ignore all transport responsibilities
and functions of the roads in question. Undoubtedly there will
be turned up by the process of analysis that all local authorities
are going through areas where there is a particular hotspot, and
it is for the local authority to determine what the best way of
dealing with that is, consult upon it, including statutory consultees,
and try to come to some sort of conclusion. I am not saying that
problems will never arise where one set of perfectly understandable
objectives point one way and another point another. I am afraid
that is life; somehow you have to find a way through that and
ensure the best possible overall outcome.
33. The basic strategy is therefore to put the
responsibility on the local authorities to ensure that. They do
not have the power to force other agencies to deliver the targets
imposed upon them.
(Mr Derwent) To go back to my first answer, they have
a lot of powers themselves. No, they do not have the powers which
the Secretary of State has operating through the Highways Agency.
No, they do not have the powers of the Environment Agency. In
both cases those bodies can do things which would be helpful or
less helpful to the local authorities, so they have to talk to
them and come up with a conclusion. There are transport policies,
and there are broader environmental policies which the Environment
Agency is looking at as well. It has to be a balance.
34. One of the things local authorities can
do is to introduce low emission zones. What progress have they
made?
(Mr Derwent) There are two local authorities which
have really been setting the pace. The first is the City of Westminster.
They have made proposals which they are consulting neighbouring
boroughs on at the moment. The other is Nottingham, which is proposing
what they call a clear zone in their city centre—a lot of
other things may happen as well, but a low emission zone is part
of the overall quiver of policy objective instruments that they
are proposing to use. We are supportive in principle of the idea
of a low emission zone. We want to see how local authorities respond
to that, and whether they decide that that is one of the things
that they want to do in pursuit of their statutory obligations
to identify pollution hotspots and eventually come up with a set
of policies and proposals to deal with that.
35. How should low emission zones be (a) enforced
and (b) funded?
(Mr Derwent) I do not think we are at a stage at the
moment to give a precise answer to either of those. If you take
the enforcement issue, this is a concept rather than something
laid down with a particular agreed definition. It is a concept
which includes, most importantly, the idea that there should be
certain city centre areas where you say only certain types of
vehicles, those that you know pollute less than others, are allowed.
You can do things in concert with that like, for example, ensuring
that low emission fuel stations are available so that if people
want to run those low emission vehicles, they can. How do you
work out how to define the vehicles which are allowed in and those
which are not? Once you have defined that, how do you enforce
it? A lot of work is going on. Westminster is making proposals
and Nottingham is making proposals. One of the proposals that
has been put to us, because it impinges on the Secretary of State's
responsibilities, is that you could rely on some sort of "on
the beat" enforcement which would be aided if vehicle licence
discs included information about the emission status of the particular
vehicle that they related to. The sequence towards lower and lower
emissions over the past ten years or so has been a rather complicated
one, so the standards applied to 1990 cars are significantly different
to those applied to 1993, and so on. It is quite hard for a non-expert
enforcement officer to say, "That is something whose emissions
are controlled by an earlier EU Directive than the one which is
essential to keep this particular low emission zone down to the
air quality levels that we want." How do you work out whether
the car, lorry or taxi that you are faced with is actually in
accordance with one or other of the Directives or the emissions
regimes? You could put it on the licence disc, and we are looking
at that. It is by no means simple because, unfortunately, licensing
is principally about the date of first registration rather than
the date of manufacture. The date of manufacture is what determines
what pollution regime applies. You would have to have quite a
complicated translation programme to be clear that you could identify
the right data and put it on the windscreen.
36. This information is already on the registration
document, is it not?
(Mr Derwent) Not all of it, no. As I say, you need
a translation protocol from the information that is present on
the registration document. You can make a reasonably good guess,
but not absolutely perfect because it is the date of manufacture.
With an imported car, for example, first date of registration
would not be a good guide. You have to work out whether you can
make the link from the information on the register to the information
which determines what the appropriate pollution standard is. There
are various other ways of doing it. Usually they involve talking
to the people responsible for the vehicles. There is obviously
a great deal of work that needs to be done in identifying what
the best approach is. If you decide that you just want to make
it simple, you can look at individual classes of vehicles and
say, "We are banning all vehicles apart from delivery vans"
or taxis or whatever. That is one approach to a low emission zone,
but you could try and be more sophisticated.
Mr Olner
37. This is no good if you do not change the
rule that it is only police personnel who can stop a vehicle to
have it tested. What are you doing to make sure that, say, traffic
wardens or council officials or Environment Agency officials can
stop a vehicle and test its emissions? You can have all the data
in the world on the tax disc, but if nobody can stop it, what
use is it?
(Mr Derwent) You can get somewhere with enforcement
related to vehicles by taking information about a stationary vehicle,
but I agree that you do not tend to get very far into this debate
before somebody starts talking about the power to stop vehicles
on the road and extending that power beyond the pretty limited
categories of people to whom it applies at the moment. This is
a subject about which people tend to get pretty hot under the
collar, with people who speak on behalf of the motorist and the
rights of the motorist and those who worry about the safety consequences
of people other than policemen trying to stop the car tending
to have rather different views to those whose priority is enforcement
of local pollution or whatever else it may be. The Government
has set up a number of task forces involving people from different
parts of the industry, most particularly at the moment the Motorists'
Forum, which is looking at this and a number of other issues relating
to control of pollution at a local level, and will advise us.
But we are not at the moment saying yes, it is a necessity to
expand the classes of people who are able to stop vehicles. We
do not think it is necessary, but the debate is out there.
Chairman
38. You would confirm that air quality is steadily
getting worse? Would you like to estimate how many warnings we
are going to have to have this summer about poor air quality?
(Mr Derwent) I would both dispute the fact and shy
away from the invitation. Firstly, air quality is getting considerably
better if you look at the particular pollutants which we are able
to control. We have saddled ourselves with a single index which
includes the ozone-forming pollutants. The overall figure is,
if you like, tainted by the ozone pollutants, which tends to drift
around.
39. I understand with the French it is ozone
but people here have to breathe it whether it is ours or theirs.
(Mr Derwent) That is true. That means therefore that
we do not ignore it just because it is from the French. We just
adopt a different approach to it, and that means operating together
with other European Member States, and sometimes that can take
rather longer to do than acting on the pollutants which we are
responsible for locally.
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