- Chairman: Can I welcome Elliot Morley to the Committee, thank you very much, Minister, for coming to see us.
Mr Morley: It is like home from home.
Chairman: We wish you both a very Happy New Year. We hope you will continue to come and visit us during 2004, we always enjoy our exchanges. I would like to ask Mr Tipping to commence our proceedings.
- Paddy Tipping: I will follow that very kind introduction by asking a hard question, in our evidence this has turned out to be an even more complex situation than I had originally thought or the Committee had originally thought, how far is the complexity of the legislation going to continue to damage the marine environment?
Mr Morley: Before I answer that I would like to introduce John Roberts from Defra who is accompanying me this afternoon. It is an important issue in relation to the changes which have taken place in our marine environment in both inshore and offshore waters both within our EZs and outside our EZs as well. I understand that the Committee has received a copy of Wavelength which outlines a lot of the issues which I think are very pertinent to your investigation and explains a lot of the work which the Department is undertaking. I think the short answer is that our seas are becoming a more crowded place in every sense of the word. There is a lot of offshore oil and gas activity, there is aggregate dredging and there is offshore wind farming now. Our knowledge is also improving of sensitive areas, both marine and seabed, wintering areas for sea ducks and sea birds and all of these do need to be addressed. We do have in place in the United Kingdom quite a comprehensive set of regulations in relation to controlling activities which come within our own United Kingdom sphere of influence, and that includes a lot of the offshore work in relation to oil, gas, aggregates and offshore power. There is also fishing, which is of course an EU competency. Some of the shipping issues fall within IMO competency, so there is quite a range of issues and there is indeed a range of regulations and a range of consents. There are a number of government departments who have an interest in both marine and coastal issues. We do have a review underway looking at the issue of consents with the possibility of streamlining management and making it more open, transparent, simpler and more effective. That is likely to go out for consultation some time this year I think.
- Paddy Tipping: This year has just begun.
Mr Morley: I take your point.
Mr Roberts: I hope it will be in the spring.
Mr Morley: In the spring.
- Paddy Tipping: You say there is a lot of activity going on, the regulations and legislation is taking place, what would you make of people who say that we need new legislation, there is a need for a new Marine Act, for example?
Mr Morley: That is a distinct possibility. I think we should look at that issue seriously. We do have to ask the question that if you want a Marine Act what do you want in it, what will a Marine Act do that we cannot do at the present time in relation through the range of regulations that we have available? There may well be a very strong case for a Marine Bill, we are considering that issue at the moment in Defra. Obviously because we are in an area where there are a number of government departments we have to consult with other government departments, we have to consult with the devolved administrations, which are all quite right and proper, but there may well be a case for it. We do need to be clear that if you are going to have a bill what it will do, what will go in it and what is justification for it. It may well be that that case can be made.
- Paddy Tipping: If you cast your mind back it was not very long ago there was a Private Members Bill, John Randall's Bill, and I will not press you too hard on it because I suspect that Defra saw merit in part of it, and it was blocked in the Lords one gets the feeling through concerns within the department of Trade and Industry.
Mr Morley: It was blocked by individual Lords in the House of Lords for reasons which only they can explain, I cannot speak for them. What I can say to you is that Defra supported John Randall's Private Bill, it was amended to take into account the concerns that the Government had and also to make sure it was workable. On that basis we were happy to support it and we did. John Randall's Bill was very narrow in what it set out to do, it was to do with protecting sensitive areas, of which there is a very strong argument. We can declare marine nature reserves now but there is an issue of protection and enforcement which John Randall's Bill quite rightly addressed. That may well be a relevant aspect of a future Marine Bill. These are the things that we do take seriously and we are looking at it at the moment. It is covered in Safeguarding Our Seas, which sets out government policies and strategies in relation to the marine environment.
- Paddy Tipping: If you cannot get a narrow bill through, even a Private Members Bill, what is the prospect of getting a more extended piece of legislation through? What discussions are you having with colleagues across Government to try and align all of this?
Mr Morley: We are actively engaged with colleagues across Government in the whole issue of marine legislation, marine protection and marine consents. There is also some quite old legislation and there is a plethora of legislation where there is always an opportunity for consolidating and streamlining, and one should always look for those in terms of reducing bureaucracy and making things more transparent and simple, and so we always look for those opportunities. There are some key concerns which I think would merit a Marine Bill. Obviously this is still under discussion and no decision has been taken on this, as you will appreciate. I also think that just looking round the Committee I know there are people here who have been involved in Private Members Bill and there is a big difference between a Private Members' bills and a Government Bill.
- Paddy Tipping: We talked about the national context and touched on the EU, the sea is an international matter, how are discussions going to try and bring forward a series of measures that have international consent? Even if you have that international consent how good is it? How are you expected to be able to police it?
Mr Morley: We are the first European country to extend the Protection of the Habitats Directive beyond our coastal limits, that is the Darwin Mounds. It is currently under interim protection under EU temporary powers but we will have it in place this summer, the longer term protection for the Darwin Mounds, and we are the first European country to do this. We also very strongly argued at the OSPAR meeting of last year for a measure for the first time to seek agreement to extend protected areas into international waters. That was agreed at OSPAR. Obviously most contracting parties to OSPAR are in the North Atlantic but there is the Convention on Biodiversity coming up this year, in fact very soon, and I will be arguing through the EU group, because it is an EU competency issue, to support calls for extending protected areas to the high seas. It is a sensitive issue, it is quite technical, and there is the issue of enforcement, as you quite rightly say, but I will be asking the UN to look at the feasibility of this with the possibility of identifying sensitive areas internationally that would warrant protection. It is being made easier in that the most damage to sensitive areas is caused by fishing activities. Most fishing vessels which come within regional fisheries organisations these days carry transponders, for example that is how we will enforce Darwin Mounds. I think there is the possibility of enforcement but of course it is not just fishing, there is also things like tanker routes and other marine activities which can be damaging to the environment.
- Paddy Tipping: Who will be the opponents to the kind of approach that you are setting out?
Mr Morley: I think it is difficult to say in the international context and the UN context until we have the debate at the Convention of Biodiversity. I believe we should have that debate and the United Kingdom will be supporting it.
- Mr Mitchell: I think you are being unfair to fishing, are you not?
Mr Morley: They have not been very fair to me, Austin.
- Mr Mitchell: It is unfair to lump it altogether because there is some kind of fishing which does damage, beam trawling and industrial fishing are classic examples and in a sense should be banned anyway. You would not include same net trawling or long lining in the same equation.
Mr Morley: Or pelagic.
- Mr Mitchell: So you were in favour of it?
Mr Morley: I did qualify my statement to say that it was not just fishing but there are other forms of marine activities, for example the carriage of hazardous materials, gas and oil exploration, which can also be damaging. I would not want to say that it is all fishermen. It is not being unfair to fishermen to say that just by the nature of their activities, which is not a deliberate activity, that bottom trawl does cause damage to a lot of very sensitive features. Because of the pressure on fish stocks we are seeing the development of new and different and more efficient kinds of gear, particularly for deep water trawling, which did not exist in the past. There are also changes that present new threats.
- Mr Mitchell: I agree with that. I am advocate, a supporter of the idea of a Marine Act because would it not clarify the situation, because we have so many authorities each with their own area of responsibility, if we had one simple, clear act setting out responsibility and attributing it to one department or authority, would that not be a much more sensible situation than what we have now?
Mr Morley: I think there is a possibility of that. Obviously different departments have different areas of responsibility and because they are different it does not necessarily mean they are not carrying it out effectively or well. Where we can find opportunities to streamline legislation, to make it less complicated, to make it more open and transparent and to make it more effective then we should always take that opportunity.
- Chairman: Can I just press you a little bit further about this Marine Act, you have given the Committee an indication that work is progressing on a piece of legislation, can you just tell us in a bit more detail where you think the current arrangements are deficient and in particular what the Act would do to correct those?
Mr Morley: I would not want to give you the impression we are as far as advanced as work is progressing on a Marine Bill. All I am saying is that the issue has been raised. We are considering the merits or otherwise of such a measure, we are talking to our colleagues in the other departments in the normal way and I what I am saying to you is that there may well be a case for a Marine Bill. I just want to leave it at that for the moment, this is still under consideration, the arguments for and against. If you ask me what I would see a Marine Bill doing, I did mention there are issues of how we apply the protection of sensitive areas, it does need strengthening and you will probably need primary legislation to do that. There is an argument for looking at the very least at the range of consents and bodies that do it and whether you can consolidate that in a more effective way. On smaller issues, there are also issues like sea fishing committees, of which you will be familiar, and their legislation is very old. Sea fish committees would benefit from more modernised legislation which also gives an element of much more local management of fisheries, which I think is desirable. There are a range of opportunities but I do come back to the point I think you are hinting at, the justification has to be there, you do have to look at what would be in a Marine Bill and what it would do and whether you would need primary legislation to achieve those objectives compared to the range of powers you have at the present time. That may well be the case and I am sympathetic to the argument that we should look at that to see whether or not there is a case for a Marine Bill.
- Chairman: In that context are you giving thought to a revised what I would describe as an institutional arrangement? For example yesterday the Home Secretary made an announcement bringing together two key parts of the criminal justice system in terms of looking after prisoners, you might say consolidation of responsibility is a broad, and given the fact that you think Mr Tipping's questions indicate there are many players in this field is thought being given, for example, to some kind of agency or arrangement that would also help to coordinate all of these things?
Mr Morley: There is an internal review going on within Government and there are a series of options in this review, one of the options is an agency. No decision has been made on this. There is discussion taking place within Government and that will form part of the consultation we will want to have before we come to a conclusion on that.
- Chairman: Could I seek your assurance that if a piece of marine legislation is produced that this Committee would be invited to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of such a measure?
Mr Morley: Personally I would welcome that. I have always been a supporter of the idea of draft bills and of pre-legislative scrutiny and that might be the most appropriate route for a bill of this kind if that is a decision that the Government comes to, which it has not at the present time.
- Mr Lazarowicz: Can I come back to the effect of deep sea trawling on the seabed. It is encouraging to hear there are developments in some of the equipment but the message that came on a number of occasions from the evidence that we have taken is that the situation is so bad now that action is needed very urgently indeed and that if we wait for the processes to go through their full possible duration then as one witness said, "There will be irreparable damage to the seabed environment". The argument has been put forward in a number of cases that what you need now is emergency measures to close the whole deep sea fishery in the continental shelf, what is your response to that?
Mr Morley: Personally I have not seen evidence which would justify closing down the whole deep sea fishery on the continental shelf. I do not doubt that there are examples of severe damage in certain sensitive areas, which is why we have taken action to protect the Darwin Mounds, which we are aware of. Incidentally that was discovered by work done by DTI in terms of exploration that was taking place. We do need to identify sites which are at risk. Secondly, we do need measures put in place to protect them. We are using the Habitats Directive to protect the Darwin Mounds but we can only apply that out to our 200 mile zone or our EZ, which is not 200 miles because it depends where the boundaries are. That is why we are also seeking action through international bodies such as OSPAR and also the UNCBD.
- Mr Lazarowicz: Are the Darwin Mounds a good example? As I understand it since the initial damage was discovered some years ago there has not been any follow-up work? For all we know there could be much more substantial damage to the Darwin Mounds. One of the problems is we could be faced with a situation where the damage is so extensive that by the time the survey work is carried out it could be too late. There are equal or larger areas similar to the Darwin Mounds which do not have any protection and I think the concern is that it could all be too late by the time we put the protection in place.
Mr Morley: There are risks, I do not dispute that. All I can say to you is that where we have evidence that there is a problem we will have no hesitation in taking whatever action we can and whatever the most appropriate action is in terms of dealing with this.
- Mr Lazarowicz: One brief point on the Darwin Mounds specifically, I note you said that the long-term protection will be in place in the summer of this year, the initial protection measures were for a six month period from August last year, will they be extended to the summer of this year?
Mr Morley: There will be no gap.
- Mr Mitchell: I did make a New Year's resolution not to be unnecessarily nasty to the European Union, it gives me a lot of scope, but we are now at 7 January.
Mr Morley: So that is the end of that then!
- Mr Mitchell: How true is it that the competency of the European Union is holding up legislation for a Marine Act? After all the new constitution does give a unique competence to the European Union over the marine resources of the oceans and the seas, how can we legislate a Marine Act for this country and for our waters without being part of a broader European measure?
Mr Morley: Can I make it clear that the European constitution does not change the situation in relation to common sea or marine issues, it is no different. The European Union is competent on fisheries resources. It is true that if you want to have a closed area like the Darwin Mounds ---
- Chairman: The marine resources of the sea are much wider than fish.
Mr Morley: It relates to fish, it does not relate to oil and gas, I make that absolutely clear. It is basically just a statement of the situation as it is now, no change, no difference, I make that absolutely clear. Yes, you do have to seek agreement through the European Union if you want to close an area where there are fishing interests because it is an issue of EU competency, that is true, however when we went to the EU in relation to the Darwin Mounds they were very supportive, as indeed were other Member States, and we did get the support and backing that we sought. The EU is also bringing forward a thematic strategy on marine issues and that will be addressing a whole range of issues, including protected areas of fishing and marine conservation, so the EU itself is developing a strategy of which we will have input into in how that is shaped.
- Chairman: Minister, in your evidence to the Committee, unless there is something I have missed, there is not any reference in your commentary on how the existing mechanisms within the United Kingdom Government which co-ordinate work in this field actually operate, perhaps you can give us a little taster as to, first of all, why there is an omission of commentary on that subject in your evidence and secondly what is going on? What is the Committee structure to co-ordinate these matters? How often does it meet? What kind of things is it currently discussing?
Mr Morley: Any environmental issue is dealt with by the ENV Committee, which is a Cross-Government Environmental Committee. ODPM deal with things like planning consents in relation to dredging, although we have an involvement in that in relation to licences in the Food and Environmental Protection Act.
- Chairman: Who chairs this committee?
Mr Morley: It is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister.
- Chairman: The DPM chairs this committee, how often does it meet?
Mr Morley: It meets whenever there is an issue to be discussed. It does tend to operate more by internal mail.
- Chairman: How many times in 2003 did it meet?
Mr Morley: I would have to find that out for you.
- Chairman: It would be interesting to know that. Perhaps you can also tell us what the issues were that were discussed because clearly if there is an element of doubt or mystery in your mind perhaps it did not meet all that frequently?
Mr Morley: It is a Cabinet sub-committee.
- Chairman: Are you personally content with the degree of co-operation and co-ordination that you and your officials get from other departments? It does seem that there are an awful lot of fingers in the marine pie in addition to yourselves, the DTI with their SEA activity. For example you have the Department of Transport with all of the seaborne trade activities, I am sure there are others, possibly even the Ministry of Defence will have an interest in marine matters. One could go on, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have an interest with underwater archaeological activity, are you happy that everybody is working in complete and perfect harmony in these matters?
Mr Morley: There is always a case for looking at the best working conditions. Even if you have some streamlining it is not unreasonable that DCMS should take an interest in underwater archaeological fisheries. What is important is that there is cross-government communication on issues where there is common interest. I can tell you that I have had recent meetings with my ministerial colleagues in DTI on such things as offshore wind development, we regularly talk to ODPM on planning issues, we are involved with local authorities in relation to coastline management plans and in relation to coastal management for defence, we are in touch with English Nature in relation to environmental issue and the Department of Transport in relation to potential pollution issues. Although it is true there are a lot of government bodies and a lot of activity and a lot of agencies that have an interest in the sea that is always going to be the case. I think the co-ordination is good at the present time. I would not want to be complacent about this, which is why I have come back to the point that if there is a case for making it more streamline and more effective and more efficient then we should certainly look at that, and that is part of the consideration that is taking place internally at the moment in this review.
- Chairman: Would I be right in assuming you would consider yourself to be the minister in charge of policy for the marine habitat? I am trying to find out who in Government is Mr or Ms Marine?
Mr Morley: I think there are so many facets of this. As you quite rightly pointed out there are a number of departments who have an interest in this. In relation to marine biodiversity that is certainly an area for Defra and it is an area of responsibility for me bearing in mind that we are talking about a complete United Kingdom coastline. The lead agency for the total United Kingdom marine biodiversity is JNCC, the Joint Nature Conservancy Council because you do have to approach this on a United Kingdom basis.
- Chairman: At the end of your evidence is a remarkably long list of activities and projects, whose responsibility is it to monitor progress and see if Government in total is moving all of these different agendas forward?
Mr Morley: On the sustainability agenda, which is not quite the same as what you are talking about it, it is a matter for the ENV(G) Green Ministers Group in relation to having an overview on aspects of sustainability within government. That is not entirely relevant to that list, as you will appreciate, but a lot of the lines of accountability are through individual agencies and departments.
- Chairman: Have you ever had a phone call from the Deputy Prime Minister saying, "I am really concerned about marine policy", if he is the managing director of this operation does he get agitated? He is a diving man, he goes down, he knows about these things, does he pop up and say, "I am really concerned about this, come on, Mr Morley, what are we going to do about this or that?" Does he stir the pot?
Mr Morley: He is interested in terms of the totality in relation to the marine environment and marine development. He has an interest in all of the various activities in relation to oil, gas and offshore power linking in with the various White Papers. It is worth saying it is pulled together in relation to a strategy document. All of those various activities in relation to a thematic strategy are very clearly outlined within this document here.
- Mr Lepper: The Deputy Prime Minister has not always chaired that sub-committee, has he?
Mr Morley: To my knowledge he has.
- Mr Lepper: He has. I had the impression that in the past it was chaired by Defra?
Mr Morley: Defra has never chaired it, it is a Cross-Government Committee.
- Mr Lepper: I understand that, it is a misunderstanding on my part then.
Mr Morley: Are you thinking of ENV, which is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and there is ENV(G) which is chaired by me, there are two committees, which is a bit confusing.
- Mr Lepper: Could we just hear a bit more about ENV(G)? Is that cross-departmental?
Mr Morley: Yes.
- Mr Lepper: It has the status of a cabinet sub-committee?
Mr Morley: Yes. ENV(G) is the green ministers committee. Every department has a nominated minister who is designated a green minister. Their responsibility as individual ministers is to oversee the sustainable policies of the individual departments, linking in with the broader government policy on sustainability. Now, that is not quite the same as ENV because this relates to sustainability, it relates to what departments are doing, it relates to a co-ordinated approach. ENV is a broader and more strategic committee.
- Mr Lepper: Well, let's concentrate on ENV(G) then and cover perhaps some of the ground that the Chairman covered in relation to the wider strategic committee. ENV(G)'s considerations of marine environment matters, are they fairly frequent?
Mr Morley: ENV(G) has so far concentrated primarily on sustainability within the government estate and internal government policies. It does not have the kind of mandate to develop a national marine strategy for the Government; that is not part of its function.
- Mr Lepper: But it has from time to time considered issues related to the marine environment?
Mr Morley: When there are departments who have an involvement in marine, then what the whole principle of ENV(G) is is to look for the best environmental practice and to look for the best sustainable practice. Now, some of that will be in terms of environmental management. It might be involved in dredging, for example, which is of course an issue which is about sustainability and good management, and we would have an interest in that, yes.
- Mr Lepper: You have listed already for us some of the ways in which a whole range of government departments do have various responsibilities and interests. The DTI has cropped up several times in the debate so far.
Mr Morley: Correct.
- Mr Lepper: ODPM obviously, the Department of Transport, DCMS, et cetera.
Mr Morley: Yes.
- Mr Lepper: So I come back to my initial question really. You say whenever the need arises, there will be discussion about issues related to the marine environment, but does that need arise very frequently? Do departments bring to the table ----
Mr Morley: I will ask John to come in on this, but before he does I just want to say that the discussion which is taking place at the present time, for example, in relation to streamlining and marine, that is an inter-governmental discussion and that involves government departments in relation to exchanging ideas and views, so there is internal government discussion in this case in relation to the range of activities which take place in the marine environment.
- Mr Lepper: And is ENV, without the "G", co-ordinating that?
Mr Morley: At this stage it will ultimately have to go through the ENV Committee, but that can be by letter. Most of it is by letter rather than by meetings.
Mr Roberts: It may be helpful perhaps if I can illustrate some issues where we have sought collective agreement fairly recently. First of all, of course Safeguarding Our Seas itself was agreed inter-departmentally at ministerial level by correspondence through ENV. The European Commission in 2002 produced the document which is starting the process of leading up to the EU strategy and the UK had to agree the line that we would take on the issues covered in the Commission's communication. That communication covered a very wide range of issues from offshore oil and gas, shipping, fishing, nature conservation, so a large number of departments and the devolved administrations have an interest in the way that strategy is going, so Defra has the role of negotiating that strategy in Europe, but the line we took was negotiated first between the fishing industry to get a common line and then agreed by ministers through correspondence from the relevant Cabinet committee to give us a mandate to represent the whole of government and to an extent it was not too difficult to achieve an agreed line, but we had to resolve minor issues between the Department of Transport who might have preferred it slightly differently, but we took a view and we agreed a common line to reflect what we would say in Brussels.
- Mr Lepper: That is helpful, but the fact remains that many of the witnesses who have appeared before this Committee so far in this inquiry have told us that they feel that the impression of co-ordination, of collaboration and of consultation within departments does not always appear to be happening. Can you understand that that is a perception outside government?
Mr Morley: I can understand that that can be a perception. There is more co-ordination within government departments than people realise, not least because of course it is mainly carried out internally, so it is difficult for people to take any judgment on this, so I do not think that there is a lack of co-ordination, but I would not wish to be complacent about this and I would not wish to say that there may not be ways that we can do this better.
- Alan Simpson: Can I press you on this. The reason that I am becoming increasingly sceptical about the virtual relationships of sub-committees that meet by e-mail is that the Committee were treated to the realities of this when we were looking into the gangmaster operation and we had a whole line-up of staff here from the different departments and it turned out that none of them had ever met each other, so I would just like to question this sort of virtual relationship. I was sitting here, looking at you and thinking, "Well, it is almost like one of these sort of blind date adverts: 'Good-looking ministerial lad with long-term interest in birds, looking for compatible relationship with like-minded minister', and you wait for a reply". You have met face to face, not virtually, but you have met last year?
Mr Morley: Yes.
- Alan Simpson: So that was a meeting that you chaired?
Mr Morley: The ENV(G) has certainly met and so has ENV as well. I have been to ENV meetings last year as well.
- Alan Simpson: But ENV(G) you have chaired?
Mr Morley: Yes, absolutely, since becoming Minister of course.
- Alan Simpson: And in that process then, in terms of the co-ordination that David was addressing, do you have a remit that says to people, "Okay, how do we audit this?"? People have responsibility for being champions, but do you have an overarching responsibility to audit what that championing role is?
Mr Morley: The real, the actual role for the auditing is the Environmental Audit Committee in relation to the work that we do in Defra. That is their role and indeed there is a very strong argument for having a separate audit which is of course made up of Members who can look at the work that is done by individual departments as well as Defra. The concept of ENV(G) is really to look at what is being done in delivering the overall strategy in relation to sustainability and sharing good practice and good ideas as well, but the idea that you cannot have effective consultation by e-mail and letter, I think, is a mistake because it does go directly to the ministers responsible and it does make sure that they are involved within the actual decision-making processes and also of course officials do meet from time to time. If we take gangmasters, we have been discussing gangmasters quite a lot recently with both the DWP and the DTI.
Chairman: We will have to leave that one to another time.
- Mr Drew: Could we move on to the regulatory regime and you have already said that because it is such a confusing area with the number of different ministers involved, inevitably there is going to be a lot of overlap. I am aware when I look at the report, your Appendix A with the sort of work-in-progress, how that goes all the way through to meeting our obligations which are both international requirements, but also the national drive.
Mr Morley: Yes.
- Mr Drew: Is it not a little bit disappointing that we are waiting for the review of the development to really see how we can get a regulatory regime in place? That has been delayed for some time and the JNCC, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, has been sitting on this for how long now?
Mr Morley: It is not the JNCC who have been sitting on it, but there has been work-in-progress for some time.
- Mr Drew: So why is it delayed? Is it because it is too difficult to get hold of?
Mr Morley: No, I think it is simply that it is a big job. It does demand staffing resources in relation to dealing with this. It is a big area, as indeed you quite rightly identified. It has not been done before, but I think it is worth saying that because there is no one body, there is not effective regulation, I think it is wrong to say that because those departments which are responsible for areas within their own responsibilities do regulate, do enforce, do monitor and do have those kind of audits that you were talking about. What has been under discussion within government is whether or not there is a more effective way of streamlining this and dealing with it. That is what has been under process. Now, that will be consulted on in due course.
- Mr Drew: We had a visit to Southampton where, as you know, we went to look at not just the oceanographic centre, but also to talk to some of the port operatives there. How much consensus is there on the way forward in terms of a regulatory process? We talked to people about this idea of a marine consents agency coming into place. Is that a done deal in terms of the idea or where is that? Is that parked currently while the JNCC look at the feasibility of it or has it moved beyond that into how you are going to introduce it?
Mr Morley: It is still under discussion. It is an option. No decision has been made on this and indeed it may be one of the options that we will consult on. I am a bit confused about the JNCC role. I do not think the JNCC have a role. They do not have a role on this in relation to consents.
Mr Roberts: The JNCC are involved in the review of marine nature conservation which is a parallel exercise.
- Mr Drew: So that is parallel?
Mr Roberts: That is parallel.
- Mr Drew: But that surely will impact on the regulatory regime that you want to put in place?
Mr Roberts: Yes, but the review of the regulatory regime is about the institutional arrangements. The review of nature conservation will then help us set our nature conservation objectives which we want that regulatory regime to deliver.
- Mr Drew: I think it would be quite useful to get a paper from you on exactly what that means and how the two things are in parallel because it sounds a bit like the reason for the delay in getting a regulatory regime in place is so that you can keep going on and on and on with the review of the information you have got, but somebody at some time has got to make the decision on what is an appropriate regulatory body, presupposing that you do not believe you are doing that effectively at the moment or you would give it a clean bill of health.
Mr Morley: Yes, that is absolutely right.
- Mr Drew: What are the advantages then of creating a marine consents agency?
Mr Morley: You would have a one-stop approach for the various consents that people with an interest in marine development could call at. You would have one agency which would have an overview in relation to marine development, offshore development. It would potentially be useful in terms of fitting into a spatial planning approach, for example. There are pros and cons to this kind of approach and it is premature to decide whether it is the best way forward.
- Mr Drew: So we are expecting the review to be completed and we are expecting there to be a decision taken by the Government on whether or not to create a marine consents agency, so is this going to come to a head this year or next year?
Mr Morley: It will have to come to a head this year because of course we do not want to drag this on and we also have to consider the case for a Marine Bill. If we conclude that there is a case for a Marine Bill, then of course that would have to be submitted through the normal government process.
- Diana Organ: In your considerations about both a marine consents agency and a Marine Bill, you have already said that what is happening in the marine environment is very complex and that there is a working together of departments, albeit in some cases it might be a little bit tentative, but of course the way that we solve problems on the land is we have planning legislation, we have spatial planning, so you consent to whether you can have mineral extraction from the land or whether you can safeguard a bit of archaeology, and the same could apply to the marine environment. I just wondered whether you had plans in the Marine Bill or the marine consents agency development, which seems a little hazy, to implement spatial planning within the UK waters.
Mr Morley: There may be an argument for spatial planning. Spatial planning is not as straightforward at sea as it is on the land, mainly of course because we do lack as much information in the marine environment compared to the land environment for all sorts of obvious reasons. Therefore, it is not quite as neat to say that you can have one particular development in a bit of the sea and another development in another bit of the sea, but you cannot have anything anywhere else because of course gas and oil involves prospecting and there is still a lot we do not know about optimum areas in relation to offshore wind. We do of course need this information. The JNCC has carried out a study on seabed areas, for example. We will expect monitoring as part of the consents in relation to offshore wind. There are some parts of the sea which are candidate SVA areas and of course that will influence what goes on in them and our knowledge is improving all the time about sensitive areas in relation to the case for particular areas of protection, so I think yes, we should take the concept of spatial planning seriously, but it is more complicated than a land-based approach.
- Diana Organ: But you cannot have it both ways, can you? If you say, "Well, we don't really know enough information about spatial planning, but we do know enough information to allow dredging to occur here and we allow exploration of gas and oil somewhere else and we allow a harbour wall to be built", we do have quite a wide knowledge, particularly about inshore stuff, but the only way that we are really going to take it forward is that the activity over the marine environment has increased exponentially and if we do not do something soon and have spatial planning in place, whether we have the information or not, we are going to damage the environment irreparably.
Mr Morley: Well, bear in mind that strategic environmental assessment is coming in from this summer and indeed the DTI, although they do not have to, they are already applying strategic environmental assessment in relation to offshore development and we very much welcome that, and I think the DTI are to be congratulated for taking that decision. Now, a strategic environmental assessment does address some of the issues that spatial planning does. I know it is not quite the same, but it does address them, but it is a complex issue. I think John might comment on this.
Mr Roberts: I simply wanted to add that we are doing work in OSPAR to examine if spatial planning might apply.
- Diana Organ: I wonder if you could give us a bit more information about the progress you have made then because if the Government is not really pushing forward a Marine Act which might have marine spatial planning involved in it, what are the partners in OSPAR doing?
Mr Morley: There was a conference actually last autumn that looked at this issue and I think it is actually mentioned in this document we circulated to you which I thought was very useful in terms of looking at the pros and cons of this.
Mr Roberts: There was a conference in the UK which a lot of people interested in this participated in last November. OSPAR is holding a workshop of the North Sea states which in fact is taking place tomorrow and Friday to identify how OSPAR can take this forward, so the aim of the seminar is to identify a work programme within OSPAR to identify what is practical and how OSPAR can help the member states address the issue.
- Diana Organ: So it is very imminent that the parties to OSPAR are actually looking at marine spatial planning, and what could be the response? Let's say that after two days they come back and say, "Well, actually member states may or may not have a marine consents agency, and they may or may not take legislation", but they actually do push for there to be some kind of framework for marine spatial planning. Would the UK Government say, "Absolutely right. This is the thing we should do. This is how we are going to protect our marine environment and we will respond", rather than let it drift on for another decade or so?
Mr Roberts: What I can say is that the UK is playing a very major part in the seminar tomorrow and Friday because we are doing, I think, two of the four presentations, particularly because we have the experience of the Irish Sea pilot project which was done as part of the marine nature conservation. That has looked at the information we have, how you might categorise the different parts of the Irish Sea and I think that is giving us a very good basis for developing an approach to spatial planning and when that pilot study is completed in March, one of the things we want to look at is how we might then develop that to see whether we can make spatial planning work for our circumstances.
- Diana Organ: I know others want to ask questions about the Irish Sea pilot because it is very interesting what is going on there. Would you conceivably say then that when the results of the pilot are through and you have looked at all of the evidence of what you have from the running of the pilot, you might actually say, "This is a model for how we could implement marine spatial planning"? Is that what you are looking for the pilot to render for us?
Mr Morley: It might give us that information and it certainly might help us in relation to decision-making of that kind. There is a process issue in that in that you can apply spatial planning to issues under our competence which is just about most things within our remit apart from fishing and shipping.
- Diana Organ: Just lastly as a sort of wry comment on it, if after the Irish Sea pilot we say that actually marine spatial planning can be delivered and we can do this, would you see that there would be an opportunity for the public, as they deal with land planning applications, to appeal, to object, to go to those planning meetings and put forward their points of view? It is just as much a part of their interests in democracy as land planning is, is it not? Would you hope to see that democratic element in it?
Mr Morley: I think you are way ahead of the development of these policies.
Mr Roberts: If I might add, with the DTI experience on the SEA for oil and gas, they did that with a steering committee that involved the NGOs and the nature conservancy agencies, and, if my recollection is correct, they then published it on their website with an opportunity for the public to respond to that SEA before it was finalised.
- Diana Organ: That is not quite the same thing.
Mr Roberts: It is not quite the same.
- Diana Organ: It is consultation rather than democracy.
Mr Morley: Well, okay, but we do consult with all the various stakeholders in relation to marine developments.
- Mr Wiggin: Can I just ask you a little bit about the DTI involvement because one of the problems, I think, is that when you are looking at spatial planning, there are number of different parties and a number of different people involved, so is it helpful to have them doing these assessments. As you said, they do not need to do them at the moment, but they are doing them anyway and, going forward, is that not going to be your area of competence? Are they poaching perhaps to some extent?
Mr Morley: I think that the range of activities in the marine areas goes way beyond Defra's areas of responsibility and over the years the DTI of course have built up an enormous expertise in oil and gas, for example, so you can understand that the Department has specialism and experts and it is understandable that they are the Department that does that kind of work. We are a Department which has specialism and experts in relation to marine biodiversity, and the DCMS of course will have experts in relation to marine archaeology, so it is not a contradiction to have different departments with different areas of expertise and involvement in the marine environment. What is important is that you do have a co-ordinated approach.
- Mr Wiggin: And going forward, some of the more exciting renewable energy is tidal, so who is going to be responsible for that?
Mr Morley: At the present time that will be the DTI.
- Mr Mitchell: I was interested in Diana's point. With this kind of spatial planning and consents, what is going to be the role of the devolved governments? If I was in the Scottish Executive, I would want control of all that is out there, so how is it going to be run?
Mr Morley: Well, that is an issue of course which demonstrates that it is important that when you develop these strategies, you do have to have full consultation not only with other government departments, but also with the devolved administrations. The devolved administrations, quite rightly, have an interest in this and, quite rightly, they would want to have an input in relation to areas within their own boundaries and I do not think there is anything wrong with that. At the present time issues like oil and gas, for example, are UK reserved issues and I think in relation to the Devolution Settlement, a lot of this was resolved in relation to reserved issues as to what is UK responsibility, Westminster responsibility and what is devolved responsibility.
David Burnside: When the Chairman asked me for obvious reasons to flesh out something on the Irish Sea project, I thought, Minister, that it would give me my opportunity once again to ask you about the failure of the Government to negotiate proper quotas in December for the Irish Sea for the increasing stocks of cod, whiting and white fish to benefit the fishing industry in the ----
Chairman: You are going to resist this!
- David Burnside: I am not going to abuse my position and ask that question again from a previous incarnation, but it was not a very good advance this year and we are not going in the right direction to protect the Irish fishing industry in Northern Ireland and the east coast that I have raised many times in the House. Just on the Irish Sea project that has been referred to, can we flesh it out a bit more on the timing. You have declared that you are going to report in March on the pilot scheme, but what comes after that? Do you expect the full review? Do you expect legislative action? What is the sequence of events and action after the pilot scheme reports in March, as we have already been told?
Mr Morley: Well, the whole idea of the pilot scheme is to help us to understand ----
- David Burnside: You can comment on the fishing matter!
Mr Morley: Well, what I will say on fishing which is relevant to the inquiry is that there is no contradiction in having sound environmental and marine ecological strategies and a successful industry. It is part of the general approach and I think if we are to have a successful fishing industry, then we do need to ensure that we do have good eco-management of our seas and that is no contradiction. I do not think the industry would actually disagree with that particular point, but the whole idea of the Irish Sea pilot scheme is to help us improve strategies and develop potential spatial strategies in relation to what is the best way of trying to manage in an effective way the range of activities that take place within our seas which are many, and fishing is indeed one of them, but it is by no means the only one. I think that when we have the conclusions of that report, that will guide us in the development in relation to the strategies we have put forward in safeguarding our seas and indeed in a potential Marine Conservation Bill about what we may or may not need to put into that Bill.
- David Burnside: Do you expect ministerial action or legislative action or both?
Mr Morley: Well, that very much depends on what comes out of it and the decisions in relation to the discussions under way about the desirability or otherwise of a Marine Bill. It comes back to the point of what do we need this Bill for, what should be in the Bill and what are the outcomes. Now, some of the outcomes that we may get from the pilot may actually help us in making those decisions.
- Chairman: One of the things that slightly concerned me about a lot of this, particularly if you look at, for example, OSPAR work programmes and your own departmental publication, all of them talk in general terms about the need to protect the marine environment, they all talk about the use of the precautionary principle and there are a lot of general declaratory statements, but not much, what I would call, before and after. For example, in terms of land-based activities on bird species, I will not say it is relatively easy, but you can quantify or commentate on the effects of agriculture on bird species by looking at before and after, you can look at species, you can measure them and you can make a commentary to say that if we change policy, something beneficial will occur. In the context of the Irish Sea project, are you looking to produce, if you like, some benchmarks by which you can then judge before and after marine policy and also to be able to quantify what are the risks and what is at risk?
Mr Morley: There are certainly attempts to quantify the risks, and I am not absolutely sure as to whether it is providing enough information to make those kinds of judgments, Chairman. I think that might be something we might have to check for you. What I can say is that you are right with the general principle and it is much easier to have before and after measurements in relation to quantification on land, and species is a classic case, but you can do some work. One of the arguments which we used successfully to get a closed area to industrial fishing off the north-east of Scotland was so that we could do a proper scientific analysis of the impact of that on sea birds, and kittiwakes was the species in question. That was using the birds as a kind of bio-indicator so that by closing the area, which is a kind of approach to marine management, we could do a before-and-after study which was based on sea bird productivity, so it is not impossible to do this kind of analysis, but you are correct to say that it is more difficult at sea than it is on land.
Mr Roberts: One of the things that we are keen to do is to develop a set of indicators which will actually enable us to measure the state of the health of the marine environment. Within OSPAR we are developing a set of ecological quality objectives, the aim then being that they will provide a signal to us about whether the situation is getting better or worse. There is quite a lot of methodological development still to be done before that indicator set will be validated and we can be confident that it is helping us to move in the right direction, but we are conscious that we do need something better than we currently have to measure progress.
- Chairman: But you are doing this under the umbrella of OSPAR and the Minister said earlier that OSPAR was attempting to help Member States meet some of their marine habitat responsibilities, and we have been discussing the role of the national governments, but what mechanisms exist to ensure that you do not have unnecessary duplication or three sets of definitions dealing with the same issue?
Mr Morley: Well, OSPAR is an international body and you sign up to it. It is a voluntary agreement, but if you sign up to it, then you can apply the agreements which have been negotiated within OSPAR. Obviously you do not want to have conflicting agreements and conflicting standards, but a lot of that is within our own power.
- Mr Lazarowicz: Is not one of the problems that the current EU legal regime is not really designed for the deep sea marine environment? This is a point which was made by a number of witnesses. When we visited the Southampton Oceanography Centre, which is an excellent facility, we found out that the Habitats Directive was not intended to cover deep water habitats and was ill-equipped to do so. Would you agree with that assessment?
Mr Morley: I think there is an argument for saying that we are not absolutely equipped in relation to dealing with deep water habitats. We can apply the Habitats Directive now out to 200 miles and I think that is helpful, and we have discussed the Darwin Mounds. It does give us a mechanism which did not exist before.
Mr Roberts: This summer OSPAR adopted a list of threatened and declining species that covers the whole of the marine area, not just the coastal area and there is work now going on in the European Commission and in Europe (the UK is chairing the committee) which is looking at the definitions of the Habitats Directive, which I agree is biased towards coastal and inshore environments and does not deal adequately with the types of habitats found in deeper waters, to see if the list in the Habitats Directive needs to be modified given the work that has been done in OSPAR.
- Mr Lazarowicz: Are there particular marine species and habitats off the UK which you are concerned about and which are not covered by the Habitats Directive as it is currently set out?
Mr Morley: I am not aware of particular species that are not covered by the Habitats Directive because I think you can extend it to that.
- Mr Lazarowicz: Another issue is this question of we cannot take action to get the evidence because we have not got the mechanisms to get the evidence, which is obviously a circular position. Is there not a case for the UK government to be commissioning more research now into some of these deep sea water environments which we think might be at risk and then to decide whether or not action needs to be taken?
Mr Morley: We do carry out a range of research, Chairman. Defra spends around about ,
10 million a year on marine research and across government you can probably boost that to around about ,
30 million. So there is quite a lot of activity going on in relation to marine research.
- Mr Lazarowicz: One of the issues which highlights the difficulties in the marine environment is when you contrast the Special Areas of Conservation in the marine area with the SSSIs and where you have mainly terrestrially based difficulties sometimes in policing the regime with the SSSIs. Is it not the case that the policing of these marine SACs will be even more difficult? What is the Department's view on how that policing should be carried out given those difficulties?
Mr Morley: There is always the issue of enforcement on whatever it is. If you have areas of SACs which are generally features with SAC designation or SPAs then the best way of protecting them is to prevent damaging activities from taking place in those particular areas. That is the principal way of preventing damage and protecting them. In relation to other tools that you can use, you have the marine nature reserves which again are designated areas and you can clearly mark them, they are marked on charts, all the various marine users are aware of them and it is also possible to have designated sensitive areas in relation to marine seaways as well. So there are a range of tools that can be used to protect sensitive areas.
- Mr Lazarowicz: On the question of the SACs in the deep seawater area, when do you expect there might be more declarations along the line of that declared for the Darwin Mounds?
Mr Morley: The JNCC are carrying out a survey for the Government at the present time to identify a range of potentially sensitive sites. When we receive the details of that survey by the JNCC then of course we will take a decision on what is the most appropriate way forward.
- Mr Lazarowicz: Have you any idea when that information will come to the Department?
Mr Morley: No, it is a matter for the JNCC.
- Patrick Hall: I want to follow up on this issue of evidence and the lack of it and the fact that there is a problem about what comes first. Is it not the case that where there has been survey work carried out there is evidence that deep water seabed fishing has done a great deal of damage which in cold water conditions would take hundreds of years to recover? Would you not agree that this suggests there is a need to adopt the precautionary principle here and that where there has been survey work there is evidence and where there has not been survey work there is no knowledge? Should not the precautionary principle be applied much wider than the area of the Darwin Mounds?
Mr Morley: It is an attractive argument and I can understand why you are saying that and I am not unsympathetic to this particular line, there are problems with this. Where we have evidence, as we did when we received evidence on the Darwin Mounds, we will take action and we have taken action and we would do so again where the case warrants it. What you are saying is that there may be other areas of the seabed where we do not know what is down there, we do not know whether there is damage being caused and that is an indisputable point. The problem with that is because of the lack of knowledge the logic of that would be closing huge areas of the seabed to a range of activities, most notably fishing and the danger with that, apart from the socio-economic consequences, is that you will displace fishing effort into other areas where you could maximise damage in other areas. So it is a very complicated situation and there is not an easy answer to this.
- Patrick Hall: Or a certain type of fishing.
Mr Morley: That is even worse in a sense in that if you concentrate deep water trawling in a comparatively small area then you are guaranteed not only to do environmental damage but huge damage to fish stocks as well.
- Patrick Hall: It raises a question about that method of fishing, which is a valid question not just for the areas where we have evidence and there should be a debate about that.
Mr Morley: This is a wider issue. In terms of deep water trawling, whatever fishing method is applied should be sustainable and that should be on the basis of good science. I would be the first one to accept that there are examples of deep water fishing in the North Atlantic which I do not believe are sustainable.
- Chairman: Let us just follow that up. You used the phrase "should be" three times. When we were at Southampton we got can quite a chilling piece of evidence about the Orange Ruffy. This fish has a remarkable life-span, about 70 years, breeds twice in the life cycle, people are going after the Orange Ruffy in no uncertain terms, it is a very valuable fish, but people have got no real idea of what the stock level is and therefore what the replenishment cycle is, so the poor old Orange Ruffy could be fished out and extinct before we know it. You have just said we should do all of these things, but here we have a piece of sound science that says we ought to put the brakes on activity with a species like that because what we do know is its replenishment cycle is very slow yet no action appears to be on the horizon.
Mr Morley: That is not quite true. ICIS are the scientific body for advising the European Union in relation to deep water stocks. Where it is outside our territorial limits then it comes within the remit of regional fisheries organisations such as NFAC for example. That is not to say that everything is perfect there because it is not. I personally think that there are examples of deep water fishing which are unsustainable because there has been a failure to agree a precautionary TAC, Total Allowable Catch. You are quite right, when there is doubt scientists set a precautionary Total Allowable Catch to ensure that the stock is not being over-exploited. There has been what I think is a quite disgraceful lack of agreement in some high seas deep water fishing.
- Chairman: What is going to be done to address that issue? I go back to the point I was making before. You have organisations like OSPAR which look great on paper and yet, for example, we had a delegation from the Canadian government who made it very clear to us how bad they thought the enforcement was in the areas of the ocean to which you have just referred. So some of the most valuable areas of the marine habitat appear to have the least effective forms of protection and policing.
Mr Morley: I think there is a real problem here, Chairman. To be fair to the EU, the EU has taken a responsible position by unilaterally setting a precautionary Total Allowable Catch. That has caused some resentment within the EU fleets because they are watching non-EU countries which have refused to follow the recommendations from ICIS. It is a real problem. We have made our views on this very clear within the regional fisheries organisations, but it is a matter, in the end, for the regional fisheries organisations to get a grip on. That is why there is a case for looking at the potential of some high seas sensitive area management. That would have to be done through an international body, through the UN, I would have thought that is the competent body, but the difficulties are enormous and it is a question of individual countries taking a responsible and sustainable position and I am afraid on some deep water species some are not.
- Paddy Tipping: Can we return to the SEAs that came into force in the summer, but of course the DTI have already been using this approach. What lessons have been learned from the DTI's work on this? Has it been shared across Government?
Mr Morley: We have taken a particular interest in this in relation to the work that the DTI has been doing. It is very early days. It is a new concept. It has only recently been applied and as I mentioned, Chairman, the DTI are doing it in advance of the regulations which come into effect in the summer of this year, but it does help us experience how you apply a Strategic Environmental Assessment, it does help us in relation to learning how to use it and the factors that you get. It is probably a bit on the early side to evaluate that but I am sure that will be done.
- Paddy Tipping: We have talked a lot about fishing in the last few minutes and deep water fishing is outside the control of government, as is most of shipping. I think your own evidence to us says that these are the two big cumulative effects on the marine environment. How do they impinge upon an SEA approach?
Mr Morley: You could, in theory, have an SEA approach that could identify, for the sake of argument, important spawning grounds. That also, of course, is to the benefit of the fishing industry because it also could protect sensitive spawning grounds, breeding grounds, nursery grounds from inappropriate development. It is a two-way process here. Apart from protecting fish stocks and the marine environment it can also protect the industry. Coming back to the point I made to Mr Burnside, I do not see a contradiction with a strong eco approach in relation to the marine habitat and the needs of commercial fishing.
- Paddy Tipping: So are you telling us that an SEA approach could be used to control fishing?
Mr Morley: I think it would be limited because I come back to the point that while an SEA approach could identify some sensitive seabed areas which could have relevance both to commercial fishing and indeed just to general marine conservation, it is an EU issue, such issues would have to be decided with the EU. Those are issues that we need to fit into the EU thematic approach in relation to the marine habitats and we will, but it may have a benefit in the sense that there is nothing to stop us as a Member State, if we identify particular sensitive areas, from asking for EU action, as indeed we did with the Darwin Mounds.
- Paddy Tipping: Are discussions going on with the EU around extending SEA approaches towards fisheries?
Mr Morley: Not on that level, but there is the thematic approach which of course does cover this principle.
- Chairman: Minister, could you say a brief word about Marine Environmental High Risk Areas and their interaction with the IMO's designation methods of areas that are Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas?
Mr Morley: That is right. Work has been taking place on this for some time. A number of areas have been identified and some of the recommendations in Lord Donaldson's report have been put in place. Not all of them, I accept, but that work does continue.
- Mr Lazarowicz: It has been ten years since the Donaldson report. Are we actually going to reach any conclusions when it comes to the designation of Marine Environmental High Risk Areas or has that now been superceded by the concentration on the Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas?
Mr Morley: The Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas does fulfill the same purpose in relation to particularly sensitive areas. There is the problem that you can identify and globalise this but you then have a much broader approach in relation to the sea lanes and the marine sensitive areas. I am not sure that there is an adequate explanation for why it has taken so long.
Mr Roberts: It has proved a difficult task because we have had to do two things. We have had to identify the environmentally sensitive areas and then mesh that with the shipping information in terms of the frequency of the areas where shipping is most likely to be at risk of causing an incident which would impact on the environment and that has taken far longer than had been hoped. There has been consultation on it. I think it is also true to say that the resources in the Department for Transport, who are taking this work forward, have been severely stretched over the last few months with the Prestige incident and the follow up to that in the EU measures that have been introduced which have essentially been using the same people as were developing MEHRAs.
- Chairman: Minister, I wonder if I might press you to produce a slightly enlarged document or paper to flesh out some of the issues that you have teased out on this because I think we could have quite a long session on probing you a bit more on the point Mr Roberts has just made about resources and the point that Mr Lazarowicz was teasing out about the timescale, but I am conscious of the time this evening.
Mr Morley: I am sure we could arrange that, Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
- Alan Simpson: Minister, the Committee went to the Southampton Oceanography Centre and at one point just before we arrived, when we were talking about what questions we should put, someone quipped "What do we know about the marine environment?" and I think the answer was "There's a lot of it!".
Mr Morley: That is certainly true.
- Alan Simpson: I want to focus on what you feel is the current state of our scientific knowledge about the marine environment particularly in terms of the deep sea. Do we have a clue what it is that we are trying to conserve let alone how best to go about doing so?
Mr Morley: We certainly have a clue, Chairman, in that we have ideas about what is down there, where some of the sensitive areas are and where there are differences. There are huge gaps in our knowledge, there is no denying that, in relation to the marine environment and the deep sea environment is of course even more difficult.
- Alan Simpson: What are the main obstacles to filling those gaps?
Mr Morley: I think the main obstacle is just the very nature of a deep sea environment and what you can and what you cannot survey, the large areas involved, trying to identify where the sensitive areas are, the kind of technologies that you have available, who has those technologies, how they can be applied and the resources available.
- Alan Simpson: One of the worrying comments for me came from the JNCC submission which was the fact that one principle all the agencies have trouble with is the requirements from the Treasury to maximise their income from whatever data they hold as against the requirement for the management of the marine environment which perhaps needs better flows of that data when there is no money in the system to do it. I was worried that that came as an across the board observation about the agencies involved in the marine environment. Have you attempted to look at the constraints that come from the requirements to maximise your income from the flow of data that agencies have?
Mr Morley: I am not sure it is quite as restrictive as it is being suggested.
Mr Roberts: Marine data is an important area and I am convinced that there is a lot we can do to make it more easily available and that will help improve the database that we need to have, things like SEAs for example. Much of the data is available and free in the public domain, particularly environmental data, because of the requirements under the Freedom of Information Act that require that information to be made available. I think the issue there is making sure that it is available in an easily accessible format with appropriate protocols so that people can access it easily and integrate it with other data, but there are certain types of data which are held by government agencies that are trading funds and they clearly have a commercial interest in the data which they collect. The prime example in this area is probably the hydrographic office which is an agency of the MoD and they operate as a trading fund and their remit is to exploit commercially the bathometric and geographic information which they hold. From the point of view of the marine environment agencies, it would be convenient if their information was available to us free but that would remove that source of funding for the UKHO. It would have to be substituted in some other way, perhaps by some sort of public interest payment for their information.
- Alan Simpson: What you are saying is that in terms of the development of a coherent, integrated government strategy there is currently information held by government agencies that is not available to you in the development of that coherent strategy. Surely that is the first thing that has to go. You cannot be coming up with a coherent strategy if you do not have access to the information that is in another pocket of your suit.
Mr Roberts: I have a lot of sympathy for that in the sense that Defra has to pay a licence fee to the UKHO in order to access the bathometric data that we use as part of our day-to-day work, but of course if we were not paying that fee then the MoD would have to increase the support they gave to the UKHO.
- Alan Simpson: How do we get over this?
Mr Morley: I think it is a difficult one in the sense that it is not unusual to pay agencies for data in a wide range of scientific activities. It is worth perhaps just spelling out very briefly the range of scientific programmes that the UK and Defra support. We do have a UK national Marine Monitoring Programme which is rated as one of the best internationally in terms of our seas. We have done a lot of work on the marine data gateway, the Defra Spatial Information Programme that was launched in 2003 and that covers the integration of data on land and land use, the environment, water courses and coastlines. Most of this is available in the public domain. So it is not just a question of having information restricted in the way that you have mentioned, there are an awful lot of scientific programmes which are funded both by Defra and by other government departments and that is made available both within government and it is also made available externally to those people who are carrying out research and development themselves.
- Alan Simpson: Mark Lazarowicz mentioned in response to one of your comments earlier that the work that has been going on has been going on for some time, perhaps ten years. If we were looking at pulling this together, at what point would you feel that you were in a position to be able to identify what it was that you were seeking to protect and how are you going to do it? When would you be in a position to do that? Give us a ballpark figure.
Mr Morley: I think we are in a position to do that now in relation to identifying sensitive areas. There is a range of sensitive areas that we are well aware of and I did mention to you the Marine Monitoring Programme, the work that JNCC has done and we are adding to that knowledge all the time. Incidentally, some of that knowledge does not come from government sources but from private industry sources that are carrying out environmental impact assessments under our regulations. For example, we have got fairly recent information on some very important wintering areas for seabeds which have come about because of environmental impact assessments. That has all been added to the database that we have available.
- Alan Simpson: I am not asking for specifics about fragments or sections, I am saying at what point do you think you will be in a position to identify the whole picture that you are seeking to address?
Mr Morley: When you talk about a whole picture, it is a whole picture of what and what you mean by that, what you intend by that. We have a whole picture around our coastlines, quite a detailed one. We have a picture in relation to sensitive seabed areas for a variety of reasons. We have a picture of where there is gas and oil developments taking place, where there have been blocks which have been allocated in relation to aggregates dredging. They themselves have been subject to environmental impact assessments. They all fit into the overall picture. That is in place now.
- Alan Simpson: I just wanted to see if that included the deep sea as well as the coastal areas.
Mr Morley: The deep sea is more difficult because a lot of that is outside our territorial waters. Once you are outside our territorial waters then of course you are into international agreements, where they exist. There is a great deal lacking in international agreements. That is why, from the UK point of view, we want to try and progress this at the UNCBD meeting this year.
- Joan Ruddock: We move on now to the more mundane issue of dredging. The UK Major Ports Group told us that Defra have proposed that in future maintenance dredging should be treated as a plan or project under the Habitats Directive which would mean that any dredge could require that there was an assessment as required by the Directive. Can you tell us what led Defra to make that proposal?
Mr Morley: Do you mean in relation to the assessments?
- Joan Ruddock: They said any maintenance dredging would have to be considered as a plan or project under the Habitats Directive and that would mean that an assessment would have to be made of that maintenance dredging.
Mr Morley: It is basically that all dredging has an environmental impact. We do not want to be too restrictive in relation to maintenance dredging but it can have consequences and therefore there does need to be a plan of action for how it is carried out. My impression was that the plan for maintenance dredging was to make life a bit easier rather than more difficult.
- Joan Ruddock: I do not think that was the impression they gave us at all. We had a really lengthy exchange about that. If there was going to be a new development then everybody was quite clear, you started from scratch, but if you were doing maintenance dredging the impression they gave us was that this was something that was not such a regular occurrence, that masses of material was coming in and going out and you had to keep dredging otherwise your ports would silt up etcetera, so why make such a fuss about it. They were saying it had been going on forever.
Mr Roberts: I will make a couple of points. First of all, we have always taken the view that in principle maintenance dredging is potentially subject to the Habitats Directive, so it is not a change of view. Secondly, our view is based on our advice on the legal interpretation of the Directive and that view is consistent with the guidance which the European Commission has given, that although the activity is ongoing it is potentially subject to the requirement under the Habitats Directive for an assessment to be made.
- Chairman: Can I just ask you, you said "potentially", is it or is it not?
Mr Roberts: Sorry?
- Chairman: You used the word "potentially".
Mr Roberts: I was using the word potentially in the sense that an assessment is required if there is going to be an environmental impact. So the process is when any project under the Habitats Directive comes in the first test is whether there is an impact on the environment and then, if there is, an assessment is required and our statutory nature advisers will advise the consenting authority on whether there is likely to be an impact on the environment.
- Chairman: Just to be a little bit rude to Joan Ruddock, can I just say have you checked that other Member States' interpretation and methodology is in parallel with the one you have just outlined to the Committee?
Mr Roberts: I am not aware of the position in other Member States but if we have legal advice and the Commission guidance points us in that direction - they are consistent - then we would feel the need, I think, to apply the directive as we think it needs to be applied. Can I say we are aware of the issue which arises here and the potential burden that this imposes potentially so what we have been doing with DFT and the Nature Conservation Agencies is working with the ports industry to try and find a protocol for applying this in a way which is less burdensome.
- Joan Ruddock: Before you get on to that, can I just check, you said you had Commission advice?
Mr Roberts: Yes.
- Joan Ruddock: So we presume all Member States have got the same advice from the Commission?
Mr Roberts: Yes.
- Joan Ruddock: Defra then sought to get legal advice. Would that be what you would normally do? Is it possible that other Member States, having had the same advice from the Commission, choose not to take legal advice and therefore could move no further from what the Commission says? Why did you take legal advice specifically?
Mr Roberts: I think if there is any doubt about the application of a legal requirement then any good regulator will seek to get legal advice to clarify that.
- Joan Ruddock: Does that suggest that the Commission's advice caused there to be some doubts in your minds?
Mr Roberts: I am afraid I cannot give a direct answer to that because it is not an area for which I have personal responsibility so I do not know the order in which the various pieces of advice were received.
- Joan Ruddock: I think the evidence that we were being given orally was suggesting that the UK, perhaps once again, is more strictly interpreting this measure or the advice of the Commission and other Member States might not do similarly.
Mr Morley: All I can say to you is that we are very careful to check whether or not we are gold plating regulations. That is also one of the reasons why sometimes legal advice is sought as to whether or not we do have to take such steps. As you have heard the position the UK has taken is consistent with the Habitats Directive, the advice we received both legally and from the Commission.
- Joan Ruddock: I do not think I am surprised but I think the British Major Ports Group was.
Mr Morley: As John has said, we are very happy to work with the ports to try and minimise the impact of this on them.
- Joan Ruddock: Right. Sorry, I interrupted you.
Mr Roberts: The way that we hope to approach this is through a protocol which has just been agreed and it is being trialled in three areas during 2004 that is Cowes, the Humber and Truro/Penryn. The idea is that each port will produce a base line document bringing together existing data which it largely routinely collects about the status of the site. Then if the conservation agencies are satisfied that the scale of any proposed continuing maintenance dredging operation is not going to have a detrimental effect on the site then it is unlikely that any further assessment will be needed. So once the environment has been characterised and the impact of routine maintenance dredging has been assessed once then it will not be necessary for that assessment to be repeated whenever maintenance dredging is required to be done. In that way we can satisfy the requirements of the Habitats Directive, we can be certain that the environment is not being damaged without imposing additional burdens on the port industry.
- Joan Ruddock: Can I assume that is what came out of a meeting on December --- it would have been about December 3? They said they were having a meeting with Defra the next day.
Mr Roberts: That is that process.
- Joan Ruddock: That is what has come out of that protocol and that process.
Mr Roberts: Yes.
- Joan Ruddock: I think one of the other questions that arose during that evidence was whether the Department treated applications for dredging licences from the Queen's Harbourmaster differently from the way in which it treated applications from commercial ports? I wonder what your answer to that is?
Mr Morley: They are not treated differently.
- Joan Ruddock: Thank you very much.
Mr Morley: The MoD could theoretically use Crown immunity in relation to matters of dredging, they do not. The dredging is normally carried out by private commercial contractors and they go through the same procedures for consensus as any other dredging company.
- Joan Ruddock: Can we assume - with all this new protocol in relation to dredging -it would be theoretically possible that maintenance dredging was found to be so harmful that action had to be taken, and one of the things they raised as a possibility was could a port actually be closed as a consequence of maintenance dredging not being permitted as a result of this new arrangement?
Mr Morley: I think that is very unlikely for the very reason, as you quite rightly said, that the dredging has been taking place in many cases for a very long time. Of course many ports are in special areas of conservation. There is an environmental impact and in relation to your question about what are other EU Member States doing, I understand that the Department is actively checking to see exactly what other Member States do in relation to dredging through SACs.
- Chairman: Can I just follow up one area of concern from some of the outside bodies who have written to the Committee and expressed a worry about the overall impact of aggregate dredging as opposed to channel type dredging. When we visited a dredging organisation they were at pains to point out the very considerable amount of work which has to be undertaken in terms of their application.
Mr Morley: That is correct.
- Chairman: There does appear to be a conflict between those who regard dredging on the seabed as a severely damaging operation, almost irrespective of where it occurs, and the industry which regards itself as highly responsible carrying out all the scientific requirements almost under great pressure to carry on what they would regard as quite a traditional form of activity. Where does Defra stand on the question or, if you like, the principle in the first instance of marine aggregate dredging because there are certain sensitivities in terms of the effect on fishery implications for breeding and I know those are assessed very carefully but where does Defra stand? Are we dredging too much; too little; have we got the balance right?
Mr Morley: Where Defra stands is in relation to the assessments where the dredging is taking place, the issue is what impact the dredging is having on the area where the activity is taking place, not the activity in itself, which is why for new consents there is very detailed assessment in relation to the dredging and the issuing of the FEFA licence that we do. In terms of the existing dredging there is obviously an impact which cannot be ignored but we recognise also as well that it has been established for a long time and there is a socio-economic part to it of course. In relation to aggregate dredging it is confined to a series of blocks. They cannot just dredge anywhere, as you will be aware, even where there is suitable aggregate and even within those blocks which are designated for aggregate dredging, as you quite rightly say, there has to be a detailed environmental impact assessment carried out within the block. That may lead to the application being rejected, and we have rejected licences from Defra for particular areas of dredging. Even where dredging has been approved, we may, for example, stipulate controls, that they can only dredge in certain particular parts of the block; it has to be spread out. Dredgers themselves also carry satellite positioning so that they are very carefully controlled in the areas where they are active. There are tight controls. So the bottom line is the assessment that we place, it is an aggregate licence that we issue for the aggregate dredging as compared with the FEFA licence which is for construction and normal dredging.
- Chairman: Mr Roberts, did you want to make a little contribution to this as well?
Mr Roberts: It is not actually an activity which we licence, it is an issue controlled by the Crown Estate but we offer the environmental advice which does not change the burden of what has been said in any way but just in terms of the statutory basis it is slightly different from the other activities we have been discussing.
- Chairman: Would you say at the moment that there is too much pressure on the available dredging resource or is the balance between demand and supply about right?
Mr Morley: I think that in relation to the identified resources there are enough resources in relation to it to keep the impact within reasonable bounds. There is clearly pressure in certain parts of the sea because of the different kinds of aggregates and that pressure has to be managed and that is part of the role in relation to the Crown Estates and also ourselves.
- Mr Drew: As we presumably ratchet up the aggregates tax, what are the implications for this industry? Has anyone actually done a cost benefit analysis about what would happen if we began to put increased tax revenue on aggregates?
Mr Morley: There was a regulatory impact assessment done in relation to the aggregates tax when it was introduced and that is available but of course the whole concept of the aggregates tax is to encourage alternative uses, to find alternative sources in relation to aggregates. I think that is desirable for a variety of reasons. For example, green glass, which is difficult to recycle, is increasingly being used as aggregates and so therefore you are taking pressure off the seabed and indeed land based aggregates and you are finding also an outlet for a material in relation to recycling. Now that is the kind of encouragement that an aggregate tax brings in.
- Chairman: Minister, you have been very kind on this. There is just one other area which has got a marine connotation which I just wonder if in a couple of minutes you might just bring the Committee up to date on. As you know we had a brief evidence session on the question of the American naval vessels which were taken to Hartlepool for dismantling.
Mr Morley: Yes.
- Chairman: I am led to understand that you have had some further discussions recently with the local authority on this particular matter. Now we have got three ships which are here.
Mr Morley: Four.
- Chairman: Four now. It is not entirely clear to the Committee what comes next. I wonder if you could just give us a thumb nail overview of how matters stand currently?
Mr Morley: Yes, Chairman. The four ships are here. They have been inspected in relation to their structural condition. They have passed those tests; they are regarded to be in good structural condition. As a precaution, there is also a floating bund blocking off the harbour that they are in just in case there is a spill of any kind. There is an injunction preventing dismantling work on those ships. They will remain in storage over winter until the late spring when there is a weather window open and then the consideration will be for the best environmental option for these ships, whether there is a legal and sound environmental option available within this country or whether they will have to be returned to the United States. That decision will be taken at that time.
- Chairman: Who will determine the best environmental option?
Mr Morley: It will be the Environment Agency who will determine it.
- Chairman: The same agency which said yes and then said no?
Mr Morley: We have been through the background to the history of the actual ships and we are where we are. The company is currently talking to planning authority and talking to the Environment Agency in relation to the procedures it will have to go through if it wishes to put the necessary consents in place for the dismantling of vessels generally. As I say what needs to be decided is the best environmental outcome for these ships and that decision will be taken when the weather window opens. One option of course is return to the United States but what I am interested in is the best environmental outcome for them.
- Paddy Tipping: Surely the courts are controlling this whole activity?
Mr Morley: I think the courts do have a role in this because the injunction has been set by the courts. It may well be the case that the company concerned - the ships are in the joint ownership I think of Able and MARAD I think - may have to go back to the courts in relation to the future of the ships but the decision is the Agency's, the planning authority's and the company itself in relation to what happens.
- Alan Simpson: Minister, the Stockholm Convention comes into effect this year. So when you talk about best environmental solution, will that be based against compliance with the Stockholm Convention?
Mr Morley: It certainly will. The Stockholm Convention relates to the shipment of organophosphate chemicals, stipulated chemicals. I am not absolutely sure it is entirely relevant to the issue of dismantling of ships.
- Chairman: Minister, as you can see, our interest in that subject is undiminished. I wonder, given that we have discussed the question of revisiting this subject if I might ask you on a monthly basis if you would be kind enough to keep us posted of developments starting at the end of February because clearly there may be some more developments which have occurred and it would be useful to be kept up to date about what is actually happening. I ask you this to save me writing a letter every month to you saying what is happening or tabling questions to elicit that information. I think it would help us in determining our future course of inquiry subject to the Committee's wishes in this area.
Mr Morley: Yes.
Chairman: Can I thank you very much indeed for your patience in answering our questions in this detailed and sometimes complex and technical area and likewise we extend our thanks to Mr Roberts for your kindness in coming and giving evidence to us this afternoon. Thank you.
