Examination of Witnesses(Questions 500-505)
MR MICHAEL
PASKE, DR
ANDREW CLARK
AND MR
MICHAEL PAYNE
WEDNESDAY 4 DECEMBER 2002
500. Are they not up to speed because they are
not up to speed or do they have a comforting belief that their
national administrations will understand when there are little
problems of definition and problems about whether zero means zero?
(Mr Paske) I would rather leave that interpretation
to you, Chairman.
501. It is a serious question.
(Mr Paske) I know it is a very serious question. I
think you are right. I am sure you are right.
502. COPA COGECA is, by all accounts, a pretty
ghastly organisation, and, as you know, mainly because of anthropology
and archaeology, not looking forward, but it does have a sort
of statutory access to the Commission. It is one of the organisations
that is able to be consulted and make its point of view felt.
Are you confident that it has given you the mandate to enable
you to take advantage of that to try to get some of these questions
answered?
(Mr Paske) No. We have a limited mandate because this
organisation, the NFU, is representing that organisation in one
area, but we do believe that there are other areas where we do
need to be taking a greater lead and indeed are doing something
to try to achieve that.
503. Do you think there is a level playing field
issue which may need to be addressed here? Even though the Commission
has set up a particular machinery to supervise the implementation
and to try to get a common view on what implementation means,
do you still have some fears that the United Kingdom Government
may end up being more rigorous in its applications and elsewhere
and this will cause problems?
(Mr Paske) Yes, I do, Chairman, because unfortunately
that has been the case on so many other occasions.
504. Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for
coming before us. If you think there is anything else you would
like to say to us, we would be very glad to hear from you. You
have promised, I think, that you are going to try to send us some
illustrations of what this would mean in practice, some sort of
models. I know the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors did
some work when it came to how modulation might work in practice.
(Mr Paske) Yes, they did.
505. And did some interesting modelling. I am
not sure whether they are looking at this or whether it is possible
to look at some similar modelling but that obviously requires,
I am aware, the resource as well. Thank you for coming. We will
no doubt look forward to our continued contact with you.
(Mr Paske) Thank you, Chairman.
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