Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-83)
PAMELA TAYLOR,
JOHN ROBERTS
AND COLIN
SKELLETT
29 OCTOBER 2003
Q80 Chairman: I have one final question
for you. You said earlier on, Ms Taylor, that the present periodic
review worked well originally but now things have moved past it
and we need a different mechanism. You say it does not provide
an effective mechanism for dealing with issues which are long
term or require co-operation with other agencies. Could you outline
what mechanism you would have in mind which would solve this?
Because the Director General of Ofwat is going to be before us
next week and I will want to ask him the same question. You might
want to give the briefest outline now and perhaps a fuller one
in writing.
Ms Taylor: With pleasure. What
concerns us is that the periodic review was devised at time when
the UK was an island and the decisions were taken within the UK
and issues were addressed within the UK but, as your Committee
has been exploring with us this afternoon, now the drive is for
the environmentalists and just about 100% coming from directives
that we are seeing coming through from Brussels. The periodic
review process is not designed to cope with the complexities of
that and the time scales with that. We have got almost the crude
five year pulling the plant up, inspecting the roots and putting
it back again and then let us see where we go from there. So what
we would like to see instead is an agreed framework regarding
the priorities of the water industry, what they should be, and
this framework should be agreed in consultation. It is not something
that should be done quietly, it is something that should be agreed
in consultation involving people such as yourselves, NGOs and
others. Then we could use the periodic review as, if you like,
milestones and a check along the way to how we are doing rather
than big debates should it be customers this time or should the
environment win this time. That really does fly in the face what
we are talking about, which is sustainability as we go forward.
Q81 Chairman: I picked up from what
Mr Skellet said earlier that there is a concern that some of the
environmental measures, the ratio between cost and benefit, has
not really been worked out effectively. We all live in the age
of the precautionary principle, perhaps we need a proportionality
principle as well. Do you think that we already have or may be
in danger of simply seeking to refine it to such a degree that
the actual volumes of money required to achieve a measurable or
minimal result need to be addressed?
Mr Skellett: I certainly do.
Q82 Chairman: Is there a mechanism
within the way that things are negotiated in Brussels whereby
you can do that?
Mr Skellett: I think we can try
to influence Brussels, but there are also things that we can do
here because there is discretion about how these things are implemented
and particularly about some of the time scales. Some of the things
we cannot. Some of the things are absolute time scales but they
are not things where we do have discretion. I think we need to
start from what can people afford and what are they prepared to
pay for and then what are the priorities within that. It may be
that we do not do some of the things right now, we do some of
the things later. Part of the problem is that there is this view
that we have got one set of customers who are only interested
in price and then others only interested in the environment. Of
course customers are interested in both. They are interested in
a balance. That is what we need to achieve and the regulatory
system, I think, has worked extremely well over the last few years
to deliver real benefits. Now is the time just to say can we now
bring it together more so that we have a co-operative framework
to making these decisions and it does not become this sort of
five year battle between we have got everything we can in for
the environment and we have got to get the biggest price cut we
can because that is not helpful.
Q83 Chairman: Thank you very much.
You passed on three questions. So you have a written reply to
Mr Jack and also the last one for myself. So if you could that,
that would be helpful. If there is anything further which you
want to let us have which you wish you had said or you feel that
clarification is needed, do not hesitate to get hold of us because
it is not Blind Date here. We are very grateful for your evidence.
Thank you very much.
Ms Taylor: That is very helpful.
Thank you very much for all of your time.
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