Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
Wednesday 25 June 2003
LORD HASKINS
AND MR
MARCUS NISBET
Q20 Mr Jack: Well, let us take something
else, because you went on to say in the interview—and I
was awake by this point!—"If there is a real need for
the rural agenda to be championed within Whitehall which presumably
is what the creation of Defra was about then maybe, but I'd like
to see that phased out". Well, I admit it was early in the
morning and there is always a little frisson, but you were very
clear on this and I found this really quite interesting, because
the government had welded together in the formation of Defra out
of old MAFF and various bits of other departments a Department
for Rural Affairs, and when we had evidence from the Permanent
Secretary a year ago he expressed surprise that the total package
that is Defra actually arrived in the way it did. The implications
of what you said in this infamous interview are that the government
welded together a group of bits that did not really fit and could
now not deliver the rural affairs agenda of the government?
Lord Haskins: On their own they
cannot deliver it, and that is clear. The only way Defra can deliver
it is to persuade the Department of Transport that there is a
rural transport problem and to bring it to their attention. If
you like, rural proofing is another role that Defra has and that
Ewan Cameron has in terms of making sure that other departments
in Whitehall take full account of the rural interest. That is
Defra's rural affairs responsibility—not entirely but mainly.
Q21 Mr Jack: But you have made an
interesting point that, in your capacity as the Chairman and Chief
Executive at one time of Northern Foods, you would have given
the responsibility to the manager of a particular area to sort
it out. You then go on in the interview to say, "I would
like to see eventually in 10 years' time this Department becoming
the Department of the Environment because agriculture and food
would be dealt with like any other industry. The rural affairs
would be dealt with by the other Departments in a responsible
way and it would leave an environment agenda which has got to
be a priority going forward". Now, those last two points
are entirely consistent with what you have just said, but the
implications are that on a 10 year timeframe you are prepared
to see a sub optimal delivery of rural services because, by virtue
of what you said in the first part, Defra does not have the instruments
to deliver. I cannot believe that in your Northern Foods position
you would have allowed a key part of that business to moulder
on for 10 years delivering a sub optimal result until sometime
you got it put right?
Lord Haskins: I think you are
misunderstanding what I have said, whether intentionally or not.
Q22 Mr Jack: Well, you have the opportunity
to clarify it now.
Lord Haskins: I will clarify.
Firstly, on the issue of agriculture, many people before me have
asked the question why should we have a unique Ministry of Agriculture
looking after one industry, and the answer is because we still
treat agriculture in a unique way economically, with all the subsidies.
All I am saying is that, in an ideal world, if we got a real settlement
of the free trade in Cancun in September and agriculture became
just part of the single market, a trade agreement, we would not
need to have a Department of Agriculture any more than a Department
of Motor Cars. As far as the rural side is concerned, the government
has taken the view that the rural agenda is not being taken seriously
enough by other departments, and it has asked this department
to promote and champion the rural agenda with those other departments.
All I am saying is that in an ideal world they would do their
job so brilliantly that there would be no need for them to be
doing it in 10 years' time.
Q23 Mr Jack: "Road maps"
are currently the in vogue expression for the way forward. In
a world where the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is
completed and the WTO's work is done, are you going to put a paragraph
at the end of the report to say to ministers, "In the Haskins
ideal world when this nirvana occurs you should then strip out
all these other activities and let them go back elsewhere into
government"?
Lord Haskins: No, because (a)
it is not my job and (b) it is my job to make sure that the existing
policy remit that Defra has is going to be delivered as efficiently
as possible, and I hope I come up with proposals smelling of roses
which you will all applaud, and say, "This is the way to
run a modern department".
Q24 Mr Mitchell: That will not happen
because it is all pie in the sky—
Lord Haskins: I agree. This was
just early morning contemplation—
Q25 Mr Mitchell: But still you are
positing a kind of rosy future which is not going to happen?
Lord Haskins: I agree, and in
the agriculture world particularly it is not going to happen because
we are going to play around with agriculture for as long as I
am around—that is the reality. Governments will never realistically
leave food alone. They are all—
Q26 Mr Mitchell: Nor will Europe.
Lord Haskins: Not British governments,
European governments, American governments, Indian governments—none
of them will leave food alone. Food is too strategic for governments
to let loose. I would like to see a much reduced engagement by
governments and by Europe in the agricultural world—everybody
would—and we would like to see less money going specifically
into agriculture but that is going to take time to happen, but
if these reforms of Mr Fischler's do come through and even if
the French accept half of the proposal, in other words some degree
of decoupling, that will be the most momentous change in the Common
Agriculture Policy for 40 years.
Q27 Mr Mitchell: We will wait! The
Rural Review Team wrote to the Committee that, although the review
is not concerned directly with policy, confusion in the policy
background is having an impact on rural delivery itself. What
is that impact?
Lord Haskins: Could you say that
again?
Q28 Mr Mitchell: It wrote to us that
confusion in the policy background is having an impact on rural
delivery itself, so how is the delivery of rural services affected
by the way policy is formulated in Defra?
Lord Haskins: A lot of the delivery
of rural services exists outside Defra at any rate. These famous
buses are not controlled by Defra agencies but by agencies commissioned
by the Department of Transport. That is what I am alluding to—that
it is not as easy—whereas on the environmental agenda Defra
has all the levers for implementing that agenda through its own
agencies, and on agriculture the same applies. In the wider remit
of rural affairs Defra has to rely on delivery of other departments,
and it is a much more challenging remit than the other two.
Q29 Mr Mitchell: Even delivery on
other matters. When the Committee went to France, to Poitiers
or somewhere, and talked to the local Chamber of Commerce I was
struck by the degree to which farming policy and subsidies and
the regulation and management thereof is run by farmers for farmers.
What you are suggesting effectively is even more confusion because
you want to bring in local government, you want to bring in the
development agencies, the Countryside Commission, the Environment
Agency—we are going to end up with a totally confused situation
in contrast with the simple straightforward situation in France
which seemed to work very well.
Lord Haskins: I know the French
system but there the local authorities are involved with the farmers
in the delivery and other NGOs and pressure groups at local level
are involved, and the French system is good because there is a
degree of self-regulation. But remember, the French priority is
one of getting money into farmers' pockets as quickly as possible
whereas our priority is more complicated. We want to look after
farmers but we also want to promote our environmental agenda and
we also want to look after our rural affairs issue, and rural
affairs is absolutely embedded in the French system. France is
a much more rural country than we are. For instance, I went to
Amiens and you do have a sense that the rural agenda dominates
the French countryside. Now that is not the case here. I am afraid
the reality is that half the people now living in the countryside
within 100 miles of this city you cannot say are countryside people.
They are people who move in and out, they are urban commuters
creating their own forms of tension. If you take the issue of
planning in France, for example, you never get the tensions on
planning in the French countryside that you get here because you
do not have that battle between the urban commuter who wants to
go to the Cotswolds who does not get engaged with the countryside
but does not want the view to be changed in any way, and the people
who live in the Cotswolds wanting to earn a living being restricted
by that. You do not have that problem in France.
Q30 Mr Mitchell: Are you saying that
you would like to have a situation more like the French situation?
Lord Haskins: Ideally I think
the French situation has quite a lot to be said for it. It is
a very centralised system but the French agricultural policies
are very clearly established by the department in Paris; they
then hand them over to independent agencies; and they ask the
agencies to design how they deliver it—the government does
not deliver. The agencies then come back and say, "That is
the way we are going to deliver." The French government then
says "Get on with it", and this agency at local level
organises through the sort of unit you are talking about, the
farmers or whatever, and then lo and behold Napoleon's prefet
arrives at the end just to make sure that everything is working.
When we talk about joined-up government, that is the way to join
up government—at that local level—and the prefet is
there keeping a watching eye to make sure that environmental,
social and all those things are coming together. We are trying
to do that in Whitehall which is all very interesting but it has
nothing to do with delivery on the ground and we have to do it
the other way round. When people accuse me of trying to break
up an integrated sustainable policy, I am doing exactly the opposite.
I am trying to make it meaningful as an integrated policy at the
receiving end, in the regions.
Q31 Mr Lepper: Is this a non-informational
government?
Lord Haskins: Far be it from me,
a leading figure in the campaign for Yorkshire, to be saying anything
like that but I think it is an argument for revitalising the role
of local authorities and county councils. I think they are a very
underutilised asset, and we all of us are learning to regret having
run them down in the last 60 years.
Q32 Mr Lepper: And among the respondents
to your last consultation, have the Regional Development Agencies
had a lot to say to you?
Lord Haskins: They have, and I
am going to be recommending that the Regional Development Agencies
also take a greater responsibility for this rural agenda than
they have done. Criticism has been made to me that many of the
Regional Development Agencies do not pay adequate attention to
the rural agenda, and that is the reason why Defra has to be charged
to make sure that the Regional Development Agencies do.
Q33 Mr Lepper: Can you give us some
feel for the range of respondents you have had in your consultation,
or of those people who have been consulted?
Lord Haskins: I cannot give you
the numbers.
Mr Nisbet: Our written consultation
of customers and stakeholders has so far yielded 106 responses
from customers who are the direct customers and recipients of
services and services we are looking at, and 150 responses from
stakeholder organisations which covers a very wide range of organisations
right across the spectrum of sustainable development.
Q34 Mr Lepper: From what Mr Nisbet
has just said it sounds as if you are confident that the whole
range of the rural economy and those involved in it has taken
an interest in the work you are doing and has had something to
say to you?
Lord Haskins: I have conducted
hundreds of meetings up and down the country and I think anybody
who wanted to have a talk with us has talked to us.
Q35 Mr Lepper: You handed your interim
report over to ministers last month, and you anticipate the final
report in September?
Lord Haskins: Yes.
Q36 Mr Lepper: Will that be publicly
available?
Lord Haskins: Yes.
Q37 Mr Lepper: And the evidence that
you have had?
Lord Haskins: Yes.
Q38 Mr Lepper: All that will be available?
Lord Haskins: Yes. Absolutely.
Q39 Mr Lepper: Good. You used the
phrase in terms of the proposals that you are likely to come up
with of a vision of something happening half a generation ahead?
Lord Haskins: No. That bit was
daydreaming. The quote I am likely to come up with I hope will
be to enable Defra to deal with its agenda over a 10 year period.
The difficulty we are in is we are not entirely sure how Defra's
policy is going to emerge. The biggest period of flux has been
in the last 40 years and because of what is going on today in
Luxembourg and what is likely to happen in Cancun and all the
increased environmental regulation coming through from Europe
it is quite hard to plan, but that is the job of governments—to
anticipate the job that has to be done rather than waiting for
the policy to arrive and then start organising the delivery around
it. We are trying to get the organisation in place, to cope with
the policy as it develops.
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