Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360
- 379)
WEDNESDAY 21 JULY 2004
MR ELLIOT
MORLEY MP AND
MS SHEILA
MCCABE
Q360 Chairman: In your memorandum
you said to us that you had three aims in relation to housing:
to ensure that new communities are as sustainable as possible,
particularly in eco efficiency terms, I assume you also mean new
houses as well.
Mr Morley: That is right.
Q361 Chairman: To promote sustainable
infrastructure and to minimise adverse environmental consequences.
How are you setting about achieving those aims?
Mr Morley: The new communities
is a good term because when you are talking about new developments
and new build and if you take as an example the Thames Gateway
proposals and the four new communities, the word communities is
quite deliberate. If you are developing sustainable housing then
you need to look at it again as a whole. You have to take into
account the transport links, water, resource management, green
spaces, recreation, how you can also get a number of objectives
in that. Green spaces can give you buffer zones in relation to
flood management, it can be used for sustainable urban drainage,
it can be used for cycleways and it can be used for recreation.
So you can build all these things in. There is also the issue
of schools and medical provision that you have to build within
a community. There are a number of government bodies and government
committees which are designed to bring together all the various
parts of government and our agencies that have an interest in
all these areas so that we achieve those three principal objectives.
Q362 Chairman: Are you confident
that those objectives will be achieved?
Mr Morley: I think we should never
be over-confident because I think there is always a need to review
where you are, I think there is a need to challenge your structures
and there is a need to test the delivery. I have been an MP since
1987 and I have seen the Government move away from a silo approach
over that period of time towards a much more collegiate approach
and I would like to think that has accelerated in recent years
because of the recognition that some of the struggles in the past
have not really delivered. Indeed, in the past it is certainly
fair to say that there was minimal consultation between government
departments in terms of the formulation of a strategy and we can
see that in some bad planning that has taken place in years gone
by. I should emphasise that this is a dynamic process. There are
always going to be arguments about the best structures for an
integrated delivery, but I have no doubt at all that the need
for a change has been accepted within the structure of Government.
Q363 Chairman: There is still bound
to be nip and tuck and compromise and give and take. I noticed
that this first aim of yours, which is "to ensure that new
communities are as sustainable as possible", implies that
they might not be very sustainable at all in some circumstances.
If we are building huge numbers of houses, we have a duty to ensure
that they are sustainable. They cannot be only a bit sustainable.
Mr Morley: That is absolutely
right. You are going to get tensions and cost, of course, is one
of the key tensions in that there is some nervousness about the
kind of standards that you apply to buildings and the impact that
will have on the price of the homes.
Q364 Chairman: We have had evidence
to suggest that you can make a sustainable house at very little
extra cost. We will happily pass it on to you.
Mr Morley: I do not necessarily
accept that is a major problem myself because—and I am sure
you have had evidence, indeed I have seen the evidence myself—it
does not take into account the fact that there are cost savings
to the people who live in those homes and you will recover the
extra costs in due course. I am a very strong advocate of raising
standards in relation to building standards and design but also
in the way that communities are planned and developed. There are
some external costs as well, not least issues of transport which
are being taken into account in things like the Thames Gateway
development.
Q365 Mr Challen: What are Defra's
concerns with the implications of the Barker report?
Mr Morley: The Barker report advocates
a very large expansion of housing and addresses the fact that
new build has dropped to historically low levels. The Barker report
in my view could perhaps have given a bit more attention to the
environmental and sustainable aspects. It is touched upon in relation
to the report, but there is no detail within the Barker report.
I would have liked to have seen a little bit more of that.
Q366 Mr Challen: Defra commissioned
its own report from Entec and in their Executive Summary they
say that the subject of the study is very broad, but you only
gave them six weeks of desk space to do their work. Given that
the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is allowing 12 months
for responses to Barker, why was Entec's remit so short?
Mr Morley: Do you want to comment
on that, Sheila?
Ms McCabe: The reason why it was
so short and why it was just an overview was that ministers were
going to discuss the follow up at the MISC22 meeting and our ministers
needed to be informed of the environmental impact of the Barker
proposals for those discussions. We have always said that Entec
is just a first step, it is a global assessment. I am talking
actively with ODPM and with Treasury about ways in which we can
elaborate and refine that research.
Mr Morley: It was designed as
a scoping study to give you an idea of the on-going debate, but
you could not make it too long otherwise you would miss that information
as part of the debate on this.
Q367 Mr Challen: Was this a case
of trying to set the agenda or simply responding to Barker?
Mr Morley: It is responding to
Barker, but it does help set the agenda because, of course, the
Entec Report does quantify the kind of savings that you can get
in broader society terms from the higher standards in relation
to the buildings. It is very useful to have some quantification
of that.
Q368 Mr Challen: In your memorandum
to us you said that further work may be necessary. Are you now
saying that that work will be carried out, and will it be a much
more substantive report?
Mr Morley: I think it is inevitable
there will be further work on this.
Ms McCabe: We are discussing with
colleagues what work is needed. Some sectors, like energy, are
quite advanced; other sectors are not so advanced, such as waste.
We will need to consider it and ministers will need to think what
their priorities are.
Mr Morley: Water is quite vast.
Q369 Mr Challen: Is that further
report going to be jointly commissioned by yourselves and the
ODPM or is it going to be a Defra report?
Ms McCabe: It is our wish to have
joint research. This is a cross-government project. We want to
do it in concert with our colleagues.
Q370 Mr Challen: Do you find that
there is enthusiasm within the ODPM for such a report?
Ms McCabe: Yes, certainly. The
Deputy Prime Minister himself has made a reference to better efficiency.
Q371 Mr Challen: How has that manifested
itself? Could you give us some examples of things that have come
out of your joint discussions which bears that out?
Mr Morley: I think the Deputy
Prime Minister as far back as 1997 launched the water summit which
addressed the whole problem of water supply in relation to communities
and identified, for example, the unacceptably high level of leakages
that there were. There has been a 20% reduction in water leakage
since 1997. That is very important in terms of areas like the
South and South East because this is a water stressed area and
it is important as a way of addressing the issue of sustainability
and also setting up such things as the Better Buildings Task Force
where that was also an issue from the very beginning. That was
a joint initiative and the Deputy Prime Minister was very involved
in that.
Q372 Chairman: On the question of
how joined up the Government is when it approaches these matters,
given your responsibility and your personal commitment to environmental
consideration which is well known, do you not feel disappointed
that the Government was capable of commissioning a report into
housing which had clearly enormous implications for the environment
and sustainability without asking for the environment to be taken
into account?
Mr Morley: In the Barker report?
Q373 Chairman: Yes.
Mr Morley: The Barker report did
actually consider the environmental and sustainability challenges,
but it is fair to say that the report did not address that particular
dimension in detail, that is true.
Q374 Chairman: That is disappointing,
is it not?
Mr Morley: It is disappointing
in the sense that that is of particular interest to myself and
to Defra. It does considerably widen the scope of the report and
that adds to the costs and timescales as well.
Q375 Chairman: It is also of considerable
importance to millions of people whose communities will be affected
by Barker's recommendations if they are adopted by Government.
Mr Morley: That is absolutely
right. Barker's recommendation was predominantly, although not
exclusively, on housing demand and housing supply. In relation
to how that is met through the Government's structures, it is
absolutely essential and an integral part of the delivery that
sustainability factors are built into that. That is a role that
we have in terms of being part of that, it is a role we have taken
very seriously and it is a role we are very keen to push the boundaries
of as well.
Q376 Chairman: What role did you
have in setting the terms of reference of Barker? It was a report
commissioned by the ODPM and the Treasury, was it not?
Mr Morley: It was. I think we
were consulted on the report, were we not?
Ms McCabe: Not on the terms, but
we were consulted in the course of it.
Q377 Chairman: You were not consulted
about the terms of reference of the Barker report?
Mr Morley: Apparently not.
Q378 Paul Flynn: The report is published
as an Entec report rather than a Defra one. Was that your intention
when it was first commissioned?
Mr Morley: It is an independent
body that we finance, so it is their report.
Q379 Paul Flynn: What specifically
in the report are you unhappy with?
Mr Morley: We are not particularly
unhappy with the report. It is an independent report.
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