Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
2 JULY 2003
FIONA MACTAGGART
MP, MS MARGARET
ALDRED, MR
RICHARD TIPPETT
AND MR
TONY EDWARDS
Q40 Sue Doughty: It is my understanding
that for a number of years in fact the Government's own procurement
guidelines have specified that HFCs should not be used on the
Government estate. I think this goes some way before the 1999
original design and bear in mind that other departments were signing
contracts within the same time-frame which were saying, "We
don't want HFCs in our air conditioning." It is worrying
to me that we are in a situation where these guidelines are not
being understood.
Ms Aldred: I think the Government
guidelines were not quite as prescriptive as you suggest.
Mr Tippett: The guidelines say
that HFCs should only be used where they are safe, technically
feasible and cost-effective and more environmentally friendly
alternatives do not exist. So those are the guidelines.
Q41 Sue Doughty: And other alternatives
do exist?
Mr Edwards: The decision was taken
on a value for money basis by in fact both bidders, but in this
case it was AGP's engineers, that this was the appropriate solution
for this building on the grounds that have just been read out.
It came down, from their point of view, to a very complicated
technical judgment which I have discussed with them on a number
of occasions. One of the alternatives to HFCs, the one which is
most prevalently considered is the ammonia chiller plant. That
does have a sustainable safety case but it is a dangerous gas
and this particular system has a dispersed chiller system, which
means there are chillers all through the building on each floor
and that is an especially significant risk. It would be safe to
put it on the roof but not to disperse it across the building.
So that is why, having adopted that very energy-efficient solution,
they found it extremely difficult to go for the ammonia alternative.
I am getting into engineering terms here and I am not an engineer
but that is the best I can do.
Q42 Joan Walley: Could I just go
on from there though because my understanding is that in the same
time-frame there were other Government departments which were
in the process of building other new-builds where they did have
regard to the advice that was available in respect of the use
of HFCs and did opt for alternative solutions. So why in a building
where you say you want to have state-of-the-art beacon status,
if you like, with the sustainability of the building processes
did you not do what other departments have done? Why was this
not something that was really looked at and disseminated through
the Green Ministers Committee? Were these issues not brought to
the Green Ministers Committee? What is the point of having a procurement
policy which is not used because opportunities to build new buildings
do not come along very often?
Fiona Mactaggart: I think these
issues were looked at. There is a number of very complicated things
about this building. It was designed to produce an output in terms
of warming and energy use of 10% below the Government's best practice
guidelines as a minimum and to seek a goal of 20% below it. So
in terms of our impact in global warming we are confident that
this building will produce, despite the use of HFCs and so on,
a very significant improvement on not just our present buildings
but actually on what the Government establishes as its best practice
guide. In order to achieve that on this site where the envelope
was very tight in terms of the agreement with Westminster Council,
where it was being done through a PFI and where companies were
bidding to produce that the HFC-based system was the one that
was signed up on at the beginning which could produce those outputs;
and outputs is the thing which actually this Committee has been
in the forefront of reminding the Government we should be concerned
about. We did revisit it and it simply was not deliverable to
produce one of the alternatives in this particular building.
Q43 Joan Walley: Could I just ask
on that, was that because of the PFI input? Were there special
circumstances which were related to the PFI or is that irrespective
of the PFI?
Fiona Mactaggart: I think the
special circumstances were the dispersed chillers, which have
already been referred to and not being able to have plant which
went up substantially. There are height issues with this building
and other systems require—I do not know what they are called
but things which go up higher and it is a problem.
Q44 Mr Thomas: Was no air conditioning
ever an option?
Fiona Mactaggart: The reason why
air conditioning was specified in the original contract was to
do with noise—
Mr Edwards: Actually we did not
specify air conditioning as such. What we specified was a particular
temperature range and there were security considerations to do
with the opening of the windows and the impact of things that
I suppose I should not talk about in public. While this particular
developer did actually look very closely at something called a
mixed mode system, which would have been air conditioning at certain
times and normally ventilated and centrally heated at other times,
and concluded it was not feasible. So in answer to your question,
that was the only occasion when it was specifically looked at.
Q45 Mr Thomas: Just to be clear,
was that looked at in advance of the contract being signed? Did
the contract specify air conditioning?
Mr Edwards: The contract specified
a security requirement and a temperature and ventilation requirement,
which the engineers concluded had to be delivered through air
conditioning. You could argue semantics but we in effect specified
air conditioning. We were offered, as I say, a mixed mode system,
which we were very pleased about at the time but when it came
down to it they felt it did not work and it was dropped.
Q46 Mr Thomas: What is the Green
Ministers' policy on air conditioning in buildings in general?
Is there not a presumption against electricity-dependent air conditioning?
We are sitting in a building which does not use that sort of air
conditioning.
Fiona Mactaggart: The presumption
is about output and that is what we sought to deliver in what
we are doing here. It is something which uses less energy, for
example the heating system in the building will not cut in until
the external temperature is very close to freezing because it
is a very energy-efficient building and mechanism. So it is the
output which is the focus for the Green Ministers, not a precise
solution.
Q47 Mr Thomas: Let us look at the
outputs then because your predecessor in a Home Office letter
to Greenpeace on 17 December 2002 about the air conditioning system
said: "The air conditioning scheme selected by AGP will be
highly efficient. It is expected to achieve a 10-20% improvement
on Kyoto Agreement best practice for energy consumption and CO2
production." Notwithstanding that HFCs are probably one and
a half thousand times more climate change damaging than CO2 in
the first place, could you say a little more to this Committee
about the Kyoto Agreement best practice for energy consumption
and CO2 production, which you stated you followed in your letter
to Greenpeace on 17 December 2002?
Mr Edwards: May I pick that up?
We met Greenpeace after that letter—
Q48 Mr Thomas: It does not exist,
does it? Just tell the Committee that does not exist.
Mr Edwards: We agreed with them
that the letter was misleading. What we were referring to was
the best practice energy programme which came out of the Kyoto
Agreement.
Q49 Mr Thomas: Which is the Government's
own best practice energy programme?
Mr Edwards: Yes.
Q50 Mr Thomas: So you would not now
stand by that letter? You would accept that that letter, as you
have just said, was misleading?
Mr Edwards: In the sense I have
described, yes. and we have told them we agree that.
Q51 Chairman: Just finally on this
particular issue, a Home Office official announced on 5 June that
there will be an inquiry into the timber used in Marsham Street.
Who will be undertaking this inquiry and when will you report?
Fiona Mactaggart: We have had
an internal inquiry and its conclusions have been reflected in
many of the things I have said and particularly it focuses on
ensuring that throughout Government and throughout the Home Office
firstly we are aware of the need to ensure that our timber procurement
policies do not merely apply to the timber which is used inside
of a building but—and this is the matter which I have dealt
within the first answer to this Committee—it also applies
to timber which is used in the construction of a building. It
is one of the reasons why I wrote to the DEFRA Minister about
it and why we will be promulgating that within the agreement.
Q52 Chairman: That is that you are
adhering to Government policy?
Fiona Mactaggart: Absolutely.
Chairman: Fine. Let us move on to greening
Government generally. I know Mr Wright wants to lead off on that.
Q53 Mr Wright: Minister, I wanted
to question you really on a series of questions about greening
Government and this is based very much on the Home Office questionnaire
responses published as volume 2 of the First Annual Report on
Sustainable Development in Government, I think it was in November
2002. I understand you have got around 65,000 employees within
the Home Office and indeed over 14,000 staff within central departments,
excluding agencies and the Prison Service. You have got one and
a third staff devoted to sustainable development issues. Why?
Fiona Mactaggart: Well, it has
improved since the point that you are quoting because centrally
we currently have two and there is going to be an additional member
of staff we are bringing in in order to do that. In addition to
that, I think it is important to point out that the Prison Service,
which is a large part of our estate, has a unit of three full-time
staff who deal with the sustainable development issues.
Q54 Mr Wright: What about setting
up a separate Sustainable Development Unit in the main department
to drive the agenda forward? Is that something you have considered
in detail and is that an approach you would look at? I accept
that in some senses you have got a mainstream thinking around
green issues and if that is going to be your response how are
you doing that?
Fiona Mactaggart: I think there
are two answers to this. First of all, in the Home Office units
are normally bigger than three people and I think that we have
what is in effect a unit but we just do not call it one. Looking
at it as a kind of new person coming in, that is how I would describe
what I see, but I do think that that is part of the answer because
they were like a unit but Home Office units are normally seen
as bigger than that. Secondly, I do think there is an attempt
to make this more part of our policies throughout the Home Office
and I think that that particularly connects with sustainability
now going beyond conceptually merely things which are specifically
environmental in terms of the impact on nature and so on to human
development and so on, which is absolutely at the heart of what
the Home Office does. If you look at sustainable development indicators
there are some which the Home Office is the lead organisation
on, specifically crime for example. There are others where we
make a significant contribution in terms of social exclusion and
so on, and these are part of the way that we go about our work.
So as well as having a team of people not called a unit within
the Home Office and a team of people called a unit within the
Prison Service we also have other people who are working as part
of their day to day job on ensuring that the sustainable development
indicators are going in the right direction for Government, particularly
for example on crime and so on.
Ms Aldred: If I could just elaborate
on that. The unit sits with our Estates Management Unit in the
central Home Office because of its origins and its original focus.
Q55 Mr Wright: Is that not a dilemma
in itself because there is a danger then that you are just looking
at some of those estate management issues instead of screening
all of your policy and development work in relation to environmental
impacts, which is what I think the Minister was alluding to?
Ms Aldred: If I could go on. That
unit reports to me. My responsibilities are resources and performance
across the whole Home Office Group and I have other units which
look at performance issues and indeed the unit reports to Charles
Everett, who is named in this document as the director responsible,
who is now responsible for our procurement policy, so I think
there is a synergy there between what the unit does and some of
his other responsibilities. I think that what we need to do is
think about how in the round the Home Office addresses sustainability
issues and as the Minister said, we do have two of the framework
requirements for which we are the lead in Government, which are
reduction of crime and the fear of crime, and the voluntary sector.
Those are two of the Home Office's seven aims. We have hundreds
if not thousands of people who spend their time addressing those
sorts of issues and where we have various considerable programmes.
I think that the issue for me is where are the responsibilities
of this unit best fulfilled and they have been best fulfilled
as part of the Estates Management Unit. I am not saying that is
the right answer for all time but that is where they sit at the
moment.
Q56 Mr Wright: I just want to follow
up this issue about screening impacts and then analyse it later.
I am a little concerned that in your Green Ministers Report and
the Sustainable Development in Government questionnaire in fact
you said: "To date a record has not been kept, largely because
of the difficulty of identifying Home Office policies which have
a significant environmental impact, and therefore justify the
resources to carry out a full appraisal." My concern is you
are mixing up appraisal with screening. It is okay to appraise
projects. It is about fishing them out before they actually get
to that point and understanding the impact. How are you improving
that process? How are you trying to define and screen activity
more effectively and can you specifically confirm whether the
Prison Service is now screening all policies and programmes in
relation to its work?
Fiona Mactaggart: On the ministerial
website we have exactly the point that you make, which is the
requirement that policies should be screened and that we should
not do an environmental appraisal on every policy because that
is a big thing but that we should consider what the impact on
the environment the policies will be. So I think we have got a
framework within which that ought to happen. It does not always
in every case and we are working on improving ensuring that it
does where appropriate and I think that in fact the broadening
of the sustainable impact measurements is very helpful to the
Home Office because by putting us in a lead on some of them and
by recognising that we as a department have a main responsibility
in some of these areas in ensuring that our policies are delivered
sustainably it becomes more the way we go about our business and
in effect that is what you are getting at, why are we not confident
that every time we go about our business we have looked at the
sustainability impact. I think from our point of view the shift
from Government reports on greening Government to Government reports
on sustainability impacts has really helped us in the process
of making that more explicit, more absolutely part of the normal
way that we do this. I have been struck, in looking at the Prison
Service, that they do have a good approach to these matters. They
produce an explicit report on these matters every year. They do
some ground-breaking things in terms of composting and some very
innovative schemes. There is one in the Wash where there is a
partnership between North Sea Camp, Young Offenders Institution,
RSPB, English Nature and English Heritage on creating a sea defence
and bird reserve using the land to enormously enhance the environment
around that camp and there are other examples in terms of using
waste and so on where prisons are doing really some quite innovative
things. They do report very explicitly on these matters and I
think they have probably got rather a good story to tell on this
question. One of the things about prisons is they are a very different
estate. They are not like offices; people live in them and they
need to do their business rather differently to much of the rest
of the Home Office but I think they have done some quite innovative
things. Four of our prisons have ISO 140001 certificated environmental
management systems in place. They are using that experience, which
has been quite expensive for those prisons to put in place, to
see whether they can pilot some guidance to other prisons who
might not yet be at a point where they can get that to nevertheless
have best standards and so on. So I think the Prison Service is
making quite significant progress on these matters.
Mr Tippett: Could I just add that
the Prison Service Management Board has agreed that policies and
programmes should be subject to environmental screening and appraisal
where appropriate and that applies to—
Q57 Mr Wright: When did they do that?
Mr Tippett: January 2002.
Fiona Mactaggart: The guidance
was issued in January 2002 within the Prison Service. If the members
of the Committee have not seen the Prison Service Reports could
I perhaps pass them up?
Chairman: I think we have got them actually
but thank you for the offer nonetheless.
Q58 Sue Doughty: Turning back to
the department, we were talking about sustainability indicators
and you mentioned some of the things you are looking at about
the Experience Corps, the voluntary work. You have got a public
service agreement in that area but what are you going to do to
specifically build environmental objectives into that programme?
Fiona Mactaggart: On our volunteering
programme we have not required organisations who are sponsoring
volunteering in different ways to do this in respect of the environment.
We have required them to generate and to sustain more opportunities
to volunteer. Some of them do that in environmental projects,
some of them do it in projects to do with supporting public services,
to do with child care and so on. I think it is appropriate that
we try to sponsor voluntary action in all sorts of fields. I think
if we were to request them just to be in terms of environmental
schemes then we would limit it and I do not think that is what
you are asking for either.
Ms Aldred: If you think it would
be helpful we could let you have a memorandum on the activity
and the expenditure which supports that programme over the last
year and how much of it had actually been to support environmental
projects. I do not have that information but we could certainly
provide it.
Q59 Sue Doughty: That would be very
interesting, yes. As part of SR2002 you had to submit a Sustainable
Development Report as part of your bid. Can you tell us something
about the issues and objectives that you covered in that report?
Did you have targets? Did you have specific objectives?
Ms Aldred: I am looking for my
copy of it, which of course was an internal document. What the
Sustainable Development Report did, which was produced for the
Treasury during Spending Review 2002, was to look at the bids
the department was making and address the sustainability issues.
Most of those focused on the sustainability framework, crime reduction
and volunteering. It was very useful in getting across the message
to parts of the department that do not normally deal with these
issues in a way in which they cared about because there was money
possibly associated with it, which meant that they began (some
of them perhaps for the first time) to start to think about sustainability
and what the Home Office was doing in that respect. What the document
did was look at each of the activities where we were seeking additional
funding in Spending Review 2002 and look at where they would have
either a positive or a negative impact on the sustainability framework
and I think that the vast majority of them were identified as
having a very positive effect on the sustainability framework
in issues like crime reduction, volunteering and social exclusion,
getting people back into the workforce, giving literacy and employment
qualifications as part of the correctional services programmes
and indeed health inequalities where part of the Spending Review
2002 debate was about how you address the almost uniquely disadvantaged
position of many people in prisons in terms of health inequalities
and the result of that was a decision over the period of the Spending
Review to transfer responsibility for prison health care to the
National Health Service and therefore mainstream prison health
care. So there was a wide range of issues which were addressed
in that particular element of the Spending Review 2002 process.
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