The Committee's impact and follow-up work
27. Assessing the influence of a Parliamentary Select
Committee and the impact of its recommendations is a subjective
exercise, prone to frustrations. The link between a recommendation
and Government action is often indirect. Our Reports are firmly
based on evidence gathered from a range of independent witnesses
and the Government itself. Our recommendations are influenced
by that evidence to such an extent that few can be accurately
described as original. These difficulties have been compounded
this year by the delays in the Government responding to our reports
which means that in some instances we do not yet know even the
Government's initial opinions, let alone whether it is giving
serious consideration to change. For us, in particular, where
moving towards sustainable development requires a cultural change
as much as individual policy initiatives, positive developments
are often incremental and can take many months to come to fruition.
A thorough analysis of the impact of recommendations made in the
last Parliament was published last year and the comments we make
here are intended to build upon that work.[12]
Moreover, the thematic pattern of the Committee's work and its
insistence on follow-up means that it is appropriate for us to
comment on recent developments connected to the Committee's earlier
work as well as to highlight some achievements over the last 12
months.
28. On environmental taxation, we have consistently
welcomed the progress the Government has achieved. But in our
review of the Government's 2001 Pre-Budget Report, we argued forcefully
that the Treasury still lacked a coherent strategy for implementing
the Statement of Intent on Environmental Taxation which it originally
issued in July 1997. We were therefore pleased and surprised that
the Treasury should announce in Budget 2002 a review of its environmental
tax strategy. The relative secrecy and limited scope of the review
were, however, somewhat disappointing. We plan to comment more
on these issues when we report early in the new year on the Government's
latest Pre-Budget Report.
29. The Committee in the last Parliament criticised
both the Comprehensive Spending Review and, to a lesser extent,
the Spending Review 2000 for not taking adequate account of sustainable
development. We welcome the requirement that, as part of Spending
Review 2002, each Department was required to prepare a Sustainable
Development Report as part of its bid — despite our frustration
over the confidential status accorded to these reports. Overall
we agree with the Green Alliance that the 2002 Spending Review
was the "greenest yet", both in terms of process and
outcome.[13]
30. One example of our longer term influence is the
Committee's 1999 Report on water pricing. For example, in November
2002 DEFRA published "Directing the Flow" which sets
out the Government's long term priorities for water policy. We
recommended that such a document should be available at the outset
of a Periodic Review to inform those engaged in the process.[14]
We are also pleased to note that the Water Bill, currently before
the House of Lords, gives the water regulator a duty to contribute
to the achievement of sustainable development thereby in effect
implementing our recommendation that the Director General of Ofwat
should be directly accountable for ensuring that Ofwat makes a
positive contribution to the Government's sustainability agenda.
Our recommendations have also been highlighted for discussion
in some of the preliminary Review consultation documents. We are
particularly encouraged to see that Ofwat is seeking to respond
to the criticisms made about the approach it has previously employed
to assess water companies' investment needs for maintaining assets
such as pipe networks and treatment plants. [15]
31. At the time of the 2001 General Election, the
Green Ministers' Committee became a formal Cabinet sub-committee.
We have persistently demanded that sustainable development should
indeed be placed at the heart of Government, and to this extent
we welcome the transition. The new status of the Committee has
practical consequences which assuage previous concerns of ours.
It will, for example, have the power to set formal targets; and
attendance by Ministers will be obligatory. However, the fact
that its proceedings - even the number of times it meets each
year - will now be shrouded in the cloak of secrecy, under Cabinet
Committee rules, is a significant negative factor, and one which
will make it harder for us to assess its effectiveness.
32. Our oral evidence session in May 2002 with the
Minister for the Environment on the Sustainable Development Headline
Indicators resulted in improvements in the presentation and interpretation
of the Indicators even before we had made our Report to the House.
In June 2002 DEFRA published an updated Quality of Life Barometer
leaflet. This summarised the current position for the headline
indicators. We were pleased to note that this version of the barometer
incorporated a number of presentational changes which the Committee
proposed in its oral evidence session with Mr Meacher.
33. As well as helping to influence the Government's
approach to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, DEFRA
has acknowledged that our first inquiry, which looked the preparations
being made, "helped to raise the profile" of
the Summit.[16]
34. In our First Report of 2001-02 we commented on
the difficulty of measuring performance against targets when the
baseline and methodology for measuring were unclear and when the
nature of the targets may subsequently be changed. We recommended
that the Government should submit an explanatory memorandum to
us for each sustainable development target that Ministers set.
We subsequently discussed with DEFRA's Sustainable Development
Unit how this could be taken forward and proposed some practical
criteria which should be included. We were therefore pleased to
note that the Framework for the Government Estate, parts of which
were first published in July 2002, now incorporate a commitment
that all departments should, within 4 months of announcement of
each suite of targets in the Framework, make public a strategy
showing how they plan to deliver targets. While this commitment
does not entirely fulfil our recommendation - either in remit
(as it is limited to operational aspects of performance) or in
the requirement to inform us - it is at least provides a foundation
on which we can build.
12 First Report from the Environmental Audit Committee,
Session 2000-01, Environmental Audit, the First Parliament,
HC67. Back
13
Minutes of Evidence taken on 11th December 2002, Q.
2. Back
14
Seventh Report, Environmental Audit Committee, Session 1999-2000,
Water Prices and the Environment, HC 587, para 94 Back
15
Ibid, para 208. See also "Maintaining water and sewerage
systems in England and Wales: Our proposed approach for the 2004
periodic review", Ofwat, May 2002, para 5 [check this hasn't
been updated after consultation] Back
16
Minutes of evidence taken before the Committee on 20 November
2002, Q. 1. Back
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