Examination of witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
TUESDAY 9 MAY 2000
MR JOHN
BALLARD, MR
HENRY DERWENT,
MR MICHAEL
GAHAGAN and MR
MARK LAMBIRTH
60. Come on, then! You offer me a more optimistic
view.
(Mr Ballard) Given that this scheme was announced
on 7 December, this major switching of resources, I do think we
need to see what comes through from the industry in terms of proposals.
I think at this stage it would be too early to try and quantify
exactly how much, but we will be monitoring it very carefully,
and it does obviously link in with action on hedgerows.
61. What about cross-compliance? Could we not
have firm cross-compliance so that people who got grants for general
agricultural activities had as a condition that they had to maintain
their field boundaries?
(Mr Ballard) That is something we could look at.
62. You have been looking at it for some time.
The Government was firmly against cross-compliance. It seems to
have changed its view slightly, but you are not hopeful it is
going to happen in the near future?
(Mr Ballard) I have nothing to indicate that it would,
no.
63. When we looked at field boundaries as a
Committee, we were told that primary legislation was needed to
give better protection to hedgerows. What is happening about that
within the Department?
(Mr Ballard) We have been looking at the Hedgerows
Regulations, the 1997 regulations, to see whether they could be
improved. We think that any action that is required can be done
through regulations rather than primary legislation. We would
expect to be able to publish draft regulations for statutory consultation
later this year and we will see where that takes us. As part of
the development of those regulations we have looked closely at
the effectiveness of the existing regulations. It has been quite
cheering, in the sense that the effectiveness, as I think we have
said previously, is proving to be about 60 per cent of hedges
are protected rather than the earlier, more pessimistic assessment
of about 20 per cent. We think that existing hedges are considerably
better protected than had been thought. That does not mean to
say that we do not think there is a case for extending beyond
60 per cent, and that is what the draft regulations will canvass.
64. So in this leisurely timescale, the message
is that if you have a hedgerow or field boundary that you want
to get rid of, do it fairly quickly, but we will have consultation
regulations in the autumn. How long is the consultation period?
(Mr Ballard) I would hope we could do better than
the autumn. We would normally give a consultation period of three
months.
65. So the earliest we could have new regulations
would be January/February next year. Is that right?
(Mr Ballard) That is probably the order, yes.
66. So people still have six months to rip them
up.
(Mr Ballard) As I say, considerably better protection
is already there than we had anticipated.
67. But we are not talking about the ones that
have got more protection, are we? We are talking about a new category
that might be brought in.
(Mr Ballard) There is always a balance, is there not,
between carrying out a consultation and getting people's views
so that people feel they have participated in the process and
swift action, which does not do that, which may or may not be
the right action to take?
Mrs Ellman
68. How are the allocations to RDAs' budgets
made?
(Mr Gahagan) The bulk of the allocation is determined
by the inherited programme, because they took over, as you know,
a number of programmes which had a lot of existing commitments.
The allocations have to honour those commitments. The spare cash
is allocated according to the criteria of the individual programmes,
a Single Regeneration Budget which is done basically on a deprivation
indicator. The allocations for development land are done more
on a site by site basis. It is done according to the individual
programmes.
69. The Government's reply to the report on
RDAs that this Committee put together said that the relative needs
and opportunities of each region should be considered. Is that
being done?
(Mr Gahagan) Yes. There is a review going on at the
moment to put the new system in place for next year which is looking
at alternative ways, moving as far as a block grant system and
variations within that. That is being conducted with the RDAs.
70. What is that looking at?
(Mr Gahagan) It is looking at the flexibilities there
are to operate within and between programmes. It is looking at
the way in which the RDAs operate their programmes. It is looking
basically at the entire financial set-up within which RDAs work.
71. Is it looking at the amounts of funding
allocated?
(Mr Gahagan) Yes, that is going on within the individual
programmes anyway, and will be part of that review. At the moment,
for example, the formula that allocates land and property is being
looked at. There is a continuing process of doing that.
72. When would you expect the results of that
review?
(Mr Gahagan) It will have to be in place to influence
next year's budgets, that is, 2001-2002.
73. How much provision has been made for match
funding for Objective 1 and Objective 2 programmes?
(Mr Gahagan) The basic provision of matching funding
is that there is sufficient money available in the existing programmes
in order to match, so that an RDA is not disadvantaged through
lack of matching funding. But again, it does depend on the schemes
that come through from the programme committee as to from which
programme the matching funding comes.
74. Who says they can have match funding?
(Mr Gahagan) The Government has given that assurance.
75. That there is now or that there will be?
(Mr Gahagan) Certainly that there is now.
76. That does not seem compatible with Government
statements that this matter is being reviewed and that the Comprehensive
Spending Review will provide further support. How do you equate
those things?
(Mr Ballard) Clearly, it is part of the Spending Review
2000 which is under way now. What forward provision we need to
make is a key factor and will be factored into the allocations
of individual programmes in the same way that the Comprehensive
Spending Review did the same thing for the years up to 2001-2002.
So the same process will go through in terms of deciding what
prudent assumptions to make about what is coming through from
the EC and therefore make provision.
77. That is not answering the question. Are
you not aware that the Commission needs to finalise the programmes
in June of this year at the very latest, and that the match funding
needs to be in place?
(Mr Ballard) The Commission can finalise their programmes.
What we would need to do through the Spending Review is to make
sure that we are in a position to provide matching funding, and
that is what we would do as part of the Spending Review. There
should not be a problem at the end of the day because clearly
we are seeking to influence the way in which the Commission disburse
funds through our representation in Brussels, and the information
as to how that is going feeds back to the people who are putting
together bids and estimates for the Spending Review. We would
not expect there to be a problem overall, as indeed there has
not been an issue in the current spending period.
78. You sound remarkably complacent. Are you
prepared to give a commitment that no Objective 1 or Objective
2 projects will be unable to go ahead because of lack of match
funding?
(Mr Ballard) I think I would be foolish to give such
a blanket assurance for three or four years ahead. What I can
do is to say that what we would be doing in the course of the
Spending Review is making our best estimate of what we think we
need to provide for, and we would then seek to provide that through
the spending review. There are safeguards in the process. For
example, if there is under-spending on one programme at the moment
in one department, any under-spending is pooled between departments.
It is what we call "end-year flexibility". If there
is a requirement in one programme for additional funds in any
particular year, they can draw on this collective pool, and that
has worked quite well, because inevitably one cannot always forecast
exactly how programmes are going to develop. Work, for example,
particularly in the ERDF, tends to slip and you get under-spend,
and you can recycle that money into another area where you find
that the programme has run ahead of what you anticipated. There
are safeguards in the way the system operates to pick up cases
which you may not fully anticipate.
79. Are you then assuring us that match funding
can be provided for Objective 1 and Objective 2 programmes without
putting at risk other projects outside of the Objective 1 and
Objective 2 areas in all the regions concerned?
(Mr Ballard) I cannot go further than describing what
the Spending Review process is seeking to do, which is to take
account of all the different pressures that are out there, all
the bids and demands for all sorts of things, and taking a view
about what is a prudent provision based on present knowledge.
Clearly, the aim is to ensure that we are able to draw down from
Europe all the resources that are available for Objective 1 and
Objective 2. That would be the aim, and that we are seeking to
do. I cannot give a guarantee that we will do it because I cannot
see into the future with such clarity, but I can give an assurance
as to what the aim is.
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