House of Commons - Liaison

Select Committee on Liaison First Report

APPENDIX E

ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT COMMITTEE

Memorandum to the Liaison Committee

"Talking about sustainable development is not enough. We have to know what it is, to see how our policies are working on the ground. We must hold ourselves to account—as a Government but also as a country"—The Prime Minister, UK Sustainable Development Strategy.

"We must make the process of Government green. Environmental considerations must be integrated into all our decisions, regardless of sector, they must be in at the start, not bolted on later"—The Prime Minister, Speech to the United Nations, 1997

"Growth must be both stable and environmentally sustainable"—The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Statement of Intent on Environmental Taxation, July 1997

"Sustainable development is vital to ensure a better quality of life, consistent with higher and stable levels of economic growth and employment...Sustainable development is a global challenge, and there can be no relaxation in efforts to achieve it. Action is needed globally, nationally and locally" Pre-Budget Report 2001, November 2001

1. In March 2000, in its Report, Shifting the Balance: Select Committees and the Executive, the Liaison Committee asked Select Committees to provide an annual report on their activities and the impact of their recommendations.[69]

2. As the Environmental Audit Committee had not, unlike some other Committees, produced such a Report before, it chose to report on its activities through the 1997-2001 Parliament.[70] The resulting report was an extensive piece of work which included not only a review of the Committee's activities and impact but also an analysis of Environmental Audit practices in other countries and a series of recommendations and conclusions about how the process in the UK might be improved. It was published in January 2001, shortly before the House was dissolved at the end of the Parliament.

3. This memorandum therefore reflects on the activities of the Committee in the previous Parliament from 1st January 2001 until the dissolution of Parliament on 14 May 2001 and on the activities of the current Committee from our appointment on 16 July 2001 to December 2001.

4. The Environmental Audit Committee is appointed under Standing Order No. 152A

to audit their performance against such targets as may be set for them by Her Majesty's Ministers; and

to report thereon to the House".

5. Sustainable development is often said to be in the pursuit of synergies or win/win approaches across three strands—economic growth, social progress, and environmental protection. Over the last Parliament, the Committee chose to make environmental protection a priority. As the Committee in the last Parliament noted, while economic impacts of policy may become apparent within months and social impacts within years, manifestation of environmental effects may take generations.[71] Thus, it is easy to understand why environmental considerations often lose out to more immediate concerns when policy is made by a system vulnerable to public opinion polls and media attention and to a major test of public opinion only every four or five years. While we have persisted in this theme over the last twelve months, it is our intention to examine how we can expand our activities to encompass more broadly the sustainable development and audit elements of our remit without reducing our role as an environmental champion (see paras 19-21, below).

The General Election

6. Following the general election in June 2001, most select committees were appointed more quickly than has ever happened before, with the House making select committee nominations for the majority of Select Committees just one month after State Opening.[72] We welcome the reduction in time taken to appoint Select Committees compared to previous Parliaments. We recognise the efforts that many made to enable such progress. Nevertheless, the general election still represented a significant break in the process of scrutiny of government: there was no Environmental Audit Committee from 14 May 2001 until 16 July 2001. We urge the Liaison Committee to build on the work of its predecessor Committee in the last Parliament by continuing to seek means by which Select Committees can return to work more quickly following a general election.

7. The general election also marked significant changes in the structure of Whitehall and in the allocation of Ministerial responsibilities in relation to sustainable development. Among myriad smaller changes, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions was broken up, with the bulk of its responsibilities going to the new Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, and its Environment Directorate joining with the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to form the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Such sweeping changes in the very parts of Whitehall responsible for taking the lead in the delivery of sustainable development would have been worthy of immediate scrutiny but in the absence of select committees in the period immediately after the election, has had to wait several months. We believe the potential, indeed likelihood, of government restructuring following a general election makes it all the more important for select committees to be quickly established.

The work of the Committee

8. We have published two Reports during the year:

Environmental Audit: The First Parliament,

The Pre-Budget Report 2000: Fuelling the Debate.[73]

We have also published four Special Reports, all containing Government Replies to Reports.[74] The Government has also published a Reply to one of our Reports as a command paper.[75]

9. Towards the end of the last Parliament, the Committee held several single oral evidence sessions on various themes with which it had been concerned throughout the Parliament. These included a hearing with the Rt Hon. John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister and then Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and Rt Hon. Michael Meacher MP, Minister for the Environment, on the 6^th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP6) and a session in March 2001 with Mr Stephen Timms MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on the 2001 Budget.

10. Scrutiny of the Budget process, the allocation of public expenditure and the ways in which they contribute, or fail to contribute, to environmental protection and sustainable development was a persistent theme of the Committee in the last Parliament. The significance of these cross-cutting mechanisms make them particularly worthy of regular assessment; we have continued this strand of work in the new Parliament by examining the Pre-Budget Report 2001.[76] We expect to Report to the House in due course. Similarly, we have continued the precedent set by the Committee in the last Parliament of maintaining a close watching brief over the Kyoto process and international negotiations on climate change, examining the Rt Hon. Mrs Margaret Beckett MP, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shortly after her return from climate change talks in Marrakech in November 2001.[77]

11. We chose as our first inquiry in the new Parliament, to examine the new Government structures and allocation of Ministerial responsibilities relating to sustainable development. We took oral evidence from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and a Report is currently in preparation.

12. The Committee visited the European Commission in Brussels in January 2001 to discuss environmental and sustainable development in the context of the European Union, and in particular the development of the EU's Sustainable Development Strategy and the Commission's Sixth Environmental Action Programme.

13. Also in January 2001, the Committee's Report on Greening Government was the subject of a debate in Westminster Hall.[78] The Chairman, members and staff of the Committee have also taken part in conferences, seminars and other meetings, organised by Government and others, to explain our role and to encourage further progress with greening government and interest in the sustainable development agenda.

14. We have also agreed to continue with an inquiry into Renewable Energy initiated by the Committee in the last Parliament. Oral evidence sessions are planned for spring 2002.

Attendance of Ministers

15. Our purpose with our first inquiry of this Parliament is to establish, early in the Parliament, a clear understanding of where responsibility for environmental and sustainable development issues and decision-making now rest within Government. Sustainable development is an issue which affects all aspects of policy. The Rt Hon. Michael Meacher MP, Minister for the Environment, has previously made it clear to the Committee that all "Ministers, officials and key representatives of the governing process have got to take account of the sustainability process".[79] Thus we were not especially surprised to note the 10, Downing Street statement of 11 June 2001 which stated that the Deputy Prime Minister would retain a leading role in international negotiations on climate change particularly when viewed in the context of the Cabinet Office's work on other cross-cutting issues such as social exclusion and e-government. It was this fact that led us to invite the Deputy Prime Minister to give evidence to us as part of our inquiry.

16. The Deputy Prime Minister declined to do so, stating that policy responsibility in this area rested with Mrs Beckett, as the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Similarly, when questioned, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, made it clear that it was for her, and her Department to take the lead in such international negotiations, describing the Deputy Prime Minister's role as one where he "continues to take an interest in these issues".[80] Consequently we were surprised to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer, during his statement on the Pre-Budget Report, on the day before Mrs Beckett's evidence, say that "to stem the tide of global warming the Deputy Prime Minister is leading the pressure for new international agreements".[81]

17. There is an apparent confusion within Government over where Ministerial responsibility for making progress in international negotiations for climate change ultimately rests. If we are to scrutinise Government policy in this area, it is imperative that such confusion is resolved and we have the ability to examine the appropriate Ministers. We requested a memorandum of clarification from the Deputy Prime Minister and were pleased to receive this on 26 November 2001.

Following-Up recommendations

18. By the nature of our audit role, we regularly return to issues which have been considered previously. Thus we regularly put questions to Ministers an others about earlier recommendations, Government responses to them and progress with implementation where appropriate—our work with the Budget process is an example of this. (Details of the fruits of this endeavour can be found in an earlier Report.[82]) However, where appropriate, we have also taken more specific action to follow up on Reports and recommendations. In February this year, the Committee took evidence from Mr Philip Fletcher, the Director General of OFWAT, and other officials, on the Government's Response to and recommendations contained in the Committee's Report on Water Prices and the Environment.[83]

Environmental Audit Resources

19. The Committee in the last Parliament drew attention to its own inability to fulfil its audit remit partly as a result of a dearth of auditable targets, but more significantly because of the absence of an independent environmental auditor general.[84] The Committee proposed a resolution to this problem through the creation of an independent environmental auditor general within the National Audit Office, working in a manner analogous to that in which the National Audit Office currently supports the work of the Public Accounts Committee. A draft Bill to achieve this was included with the Report.

20. In response the Government agreed "in principle that the Committee should have additional support to assist it in its investigations" but drew attention to a number of issues that would have to be resolved before taking such a step and invited further debate.[85] Similar comments on the Committee's proposal were made by Lord Sharman of Redlynch in his report Holding to Account: The Review of Audit and Accountability for Central Government.[86] We welcome the Environmental Audit Bill introduced by Mr David Chaytor MP, a member of the Committee in the last Parliament, as a means of furthering the debate and of increasing the pressure on Government to respond more positively.

21. Nevertheless, such is the importance of adequate environmental and sustainable development audit, that we are currently considering means of developing our audit activities within our existing resources. We do not see these as an alternative to the creation of an independent environmental audit facility, but as interim measures to increase our audit capacity immediately. We will be considering these plans at a seminar planned for January 2002.

69 First Special Report from the Liaison Committee, Session 1999-2000, Shifting the Balance: Select Committees and the Executive, HC 300, paragraph 52. Back

70 First Report from the Environmental Audit Committee, Session 2000-01, Environmental Audit: The First Parliament, HC 67-I. Back

71 First Report from the Environmental Audit Committee, Session 2000-01, Environmental Audit: The First Parliament, HC 67-I, para 13. Back

72 Hansard Debates, 16 July 2001, col 25. Back

73 First Report from the Environmental Audit Committee, Session 2000-01, Environmental Audit: The First Parliament, HC 67-I; and Second Report from the Environmental Audit Committee, Session 2000-01, The Pre- Budget Report 2000: Fuelling the Debate, HC 71-I. Back

74 First Special Report, Session 2000-01, The Government's Reply to the Environmental Audit Committee's First Report, Session 1999-2000, EU Policy and the Environment: An agenda for the Helsinki Summit, HC 68; Second Special Report, Session 2000-01, The Government's Reply to the Committee's Second Report, Session 1999-2000, World Trade and Sustainable Development: An agenda for the Seattle Summit, HC 69; Third Special Report, Session 2000-01, The Government's Reply to the Committee's Third Report, Session 1999-2000, Comprehensive Spending Review: Government response and follow-up, HC 70; and First Special Report, Session 2001-02, the Government's Response to the Second Report from the Committee in the last Parliament, Session 2000-01, The Pre-Budget Report 2000: Fuelling the Debate, HC 216. Back

75 The Government's Response to the Environmental Audit Commission (sic), Environmental Audit: The First Parliament, March 2001, Cm 5098. Back

76 Minutes of Evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 5 December 2001, Pre-Budget Report 2001, HC 363-i. Back

77 Minutes of Evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 28 November 2001, Departmental Responsibilities for Sustainable Development, HC 326-iii. Back

78 Fifth Report from the Environmental Audit Committee, Session 1999-2000, The Greening Government Initiative: First Annual Report from the Green Ministers Committee, HC 341, Westminster Hall debate, 18 January 2002, col 143 Back

79 Seventh Report from the Environmental Audit Committee, Session 1999-2000, Water Prices and the Environment, HC 597-I, para 214. Back

80 Minutes of Evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee, 28 November 2001, Departmental Responsibilities for Sustainable Development, HC 326-iii, Q.249; See also QQ.244-248. Back