Examination of Witnesses (Questions 201-219)
9 NOVEMBER 2004
DR MIKE
MOSER AND
DR ANDY
BROWN
Q201 Chairman: I think you are going
to make a very short opening statement.
Dr Moser: Thank you very much,
Chairman. Firstly, I would like to pass on the apologies of Sir
Martin Doughty, our Chairman, who would have loved to have been
here in the hot seat today. Sadly, he has had quite a serious
operation recently and he is recovering very well and will be
back with us shortly.
Q202 Chairman: Give him our best wishes.
I have written to him but we would like to see him back and bouncing
about.
Dr Moser: Thank you. I am very
grateful for the opportunity to add a little bit to our written
evidence. Our written evidence focused very much on the sort of
outcomes that we were seeking, and what I wanted to do in this
opening statement was just to tell you a little bit more about
where English Nature is coming from in relation to this process,
and perhaps where we want to go to, and I will keep it to five
minutes. Firstly, English Nature's Council is extremely proud
of our organisation. We are a strong organisation, we have a very
motivated staff, and the last decade has really been quite an
exciting time for the organisation, where we have been able to
turn round some of the trends in the environment of quite significant
loss and degradation of habitats and species. As you have seen
from some of the PSA targets that the Government has set, some
of those are now beginning to show positive trends, and I think
that is very much due to the public support that there is for
environmental work and also for the role that English Nature and
others play in the environment. There is a huge amount still to
do and I would emphasize the marine and the urban agendas as two
which really have to be focused on in the future. Another important
area that we have focused on is the people side. We have got a
lot more people involved with our work, giving them access to
sites that we are involved with and providing more information.
On that basis, it is very gratifying to hear Lord Haskins and
also the Secretary of State's statement about the global reputation
of English Nature as an organisation we very much welcome that.
You can imagine that, in that light, English Nature's Council
views the abolition of English Nature, which will be the consequence
of the creation of the integrated agency, with some caution. We
are very excited by the opportunities whilst mindful of the risks.
In particular, Council is concerned that there are quite a lot
of agendas working at the same time here, alongside a very rapid
pace on the development of the legislation, those two factors
together combine to give some risks in terms of what we will actually
end up with. We have strongly, from the very outset, supported
the merger of English Nature's functions with the landscape, access
and recreation functions of the Countryside Agency. It is a model
that is being used in many other countries around the world, and
we believe has great potential for success. After all, the public
do not distinguish between nature and landscape, unless they are
specialists, we believe that by bringing them together, will give
a stronger voice for the environment and gain greater support
from the public. It will obviously also give an opportunity to
move out into the wider environment. English Nature's history
has focused on special sites. We are beginning to move into the
wider environment, but we really want to major on that in the
future. There is also no logic in splitting some of the protected
areas between the organisations: National Parks and AONBs with
one agency, SSSIs and NNRs with others. In terms of the RDS, our
Council has always had mixed feelings about whether the RDS functions
should come across into the integrated agency, but we are persuaded
that really, the opportunity of targeting the additional funds
to the priorities is going to bring really big benefits, but these
are very big schemes and there is a risk of ruralising English
Nature's functions, which cover the whole of the terrestrial environment,
including the aquatic environment, the marine environment, and
urban areas. We are worried that the very heavy focus on rural
here has the potential of skewing the direction of the organisation.
Very early in the process, our Council welcomed Lord Haskins's
publicly expressed view that the additional functions from the
CA and from RDS could be added to English Nature to create something
new and entirely different, and we are slightly disappointed that
that was not examined in more detail as an option, because it
would certainly have led to less disruption, potentially less
cost in putting it together, and would potentially have been simpler
for everyone. Because of the extent of the change that is involved
in the process here, we sought to persuade the Department to issue
a White Paper on the proposals prior to issuing a draft Bill.
In fact, that was, I think, part of the discussion that we heard
earlier. This would have clarified very much the purpose and the
rationale in actually going ahead with this, as well as facilitating
the task of aligning the different organisations that are coming
into the integrated agency. It would also have allowed a very
informed parliamentary debate and significant input from other
stakeholders, the non-governmental community and others, to really
make sure that we are getting a buy-in from everyone on the new
scheme. What are we looking for in terms of the future? Since
the publication of the Rural Strategy, we have worked very positively
and constructively with the Department, with the CA and with the
RDS to really make the best of the proposals that are here in
front of us, for the benefit of nature and for people in England.
We recognise that there is a reality in the legislative timetable,
very rapid, and we do stress that it is very important that the
content of the legislation is right. We welcome very much the
assurance that we have had from the Secretary of State about the
independent NDPB status. We feel that is absolutely critical and
we want to ensure it is not eroded in the process. The real priority
now is that we get a clear statement of purpose for the integrated
agency so that we can be sure that it achieves more than the sum
of its current component parts. We strongly endorse the statement
in paragraph 70 of the Rural Strategy that the integrated agency
must reflect the twin, mutually reinforcing objectives of conserving
and enhancing the resource of nature together with realising the
social and economic benefits for people of so doing. The primary
task of the integrated agency is to make a fundamental contribution
to the attainment of sustainable development through the exercise
of its functions. The environment has to be the primary focus
for the agency and should be reflected in its purpose and in the
nature of its statutory duties. Finally, in terms of resourcing,
it is vital that the resourcing for the agency is adequate, both
to realise its purpose and to get us through the considerable
costs of change and disruption over the coming years. Penny-pinching
now would doom the future of a successful integrated agency. We
are concerned that the parallel efficiency agendas that are running
have some risks in terms of actually perhaps deflecting what we
end up with in outcomes, and I would particularly mention the
proposal for passing the office estate of English Nature into
the Department for rationalisation before it is then passed back
to the integrated agency. We feel very much that that gives a
risk of eroding the independence of an NDPB and we feel that it
should be for the governance of the NDPB to make the decisions
on what is best for that organisation.
Q203 Chairman: Let me start with the
Council's position. At the time of the Haskins announcement, or
slightly before, if my recollection is right, one or two of your
Council members were, putting it in crude terms, hopping up and
down and saying, "Over our dead bodies! We are being run
down because we have been critical of the Government's GM policy."
The press carried that story. From what you have said this afternoon,
you are well through that now.
Dr Moser: We are certainly well
through that as a Council. We are convinced that there are gains
to be had by the merger of the functions. I think Council's main
concern has been that the process has been somewhat cart before
horse. There has been a major focus on institution building and
reorganisation before we have really got the rationale as to why
we want to get that together, the vision and the purpose, and
together with our colleagues in the CA Board and in RDS, English
Nature's Council is now working very rapidly on that to try and
catch up on all these issues you have been talking about, so we
can really get ahead and understand what the future purpose and
vision is for the agency.
Q204 Chairman: This is the key issue.
You want the "vision thing" sorted out, before the institutional
organisation takes place. My impression is that so far, the discussion
has been about rearranging the institutional furniture rather
than defining the vision or, as the Countryside Agency said a
few moments ago, the brand.
Dr Moser: That is absolutely correct.
The content of Lord Haskins's report is mainly about the institutional
restructuring, and our feeling is that really, we need to know,
before we start looking at the whole issue of the structure of
the organisation, whether it is going to have stronger national,
regional or local focus, exactly how it is going to operate, what
it is going to be called, what types of people we need in the
organisation. We really need to understand the vision and mission.
Q205 Chairman: Let me be clear about
this. You heard the Countryside Agency talk about being told to
find an office in a less favoured rural area. You are being told
you have got to make efficiency savings. We are also being told
that all your estate is going back into Defra, maybe to be reallocated.
This does not sound a very sensible way of managing change.
Dr Moser: We have addressed this
as a Council very much on a step-by-step basis. Because the process
has moved so rapidly because of the legislative process, we have
needed to work extremely closely with the Department. What I would
say is that we have had an excellent working relationship with
the Department in the last two months in terms of putting together
the instructions to parliamentary counsel. It has been a very
effective way of working. The main problem is it has been very
difficult for Council to engage in that because of the speed at
which it has gone, and there has obviously been very little external
stakeholder engagement. We are really keen that when this comes
through the remainder of the process, it has strong endorsement
from those partners that we have to work with in the future.
Q206 Chairman: So you are expecting a
draft Bill in the Spring or early in January maybe. Is this really
a draft Bill? Is it going to be scrutinised? Is there going to
be that stakeholder debate and involvement that you have talked
about? That is the first point. The second is, you may get your
draft Bill out, but you still do not have a clue when you will
get parliamentary time to discuss it. What is your understanding
of the timetable?
Dr Moser: Can I take the opportunity
to hand over to Andy, who is closer to that than I am?
Dr Brown: As I understand it at
the moment, the Department is expecting to produce a draft Bill
early in the New Year, January time. The timescales are very tight
to achieve that and I am concerned that we might not have a complete
draft Bill. We may have certain sets of clauses and it then becomes
extraordinarily difficult to relate one set of clauses to others
and bits that you do not have in front of you. The earliest opportunity,
as I understand it, for Second Reading would be June/July, depending
on a May election, but that is obviously yet to be decided and
announced, so the earliest you could realistically get a completely
new body up and running, in my view, is the beginning of 2007.
Q207 David Taylor: Chairman, you described
members of English Nature hopping up and down. That was a very
fair summary, but were they not right, to a certain extent? They
were very brave words at the start of your prologue here in relation
to the opportunity that is in front of you, which is routinely
described as an "exciting" opportunity. I should like
to make illegal the linking of those words. Every damned opportunity
in this world seems to be an exciting opportunity. I do not believe
that is possible. But you talk in particular, and you mention
this both in your evidence and in your prologue there, positively
about Public Service Agreement targets and the opportunities that
there are in the area of SSSI. You mentioned farmland birds in
your evidence and I think you mentioned the UK biodiversity action
plan targets as well. Are you really convinced, or is it a brave
face that is being put on the demise of English Nature?
Dr Moser: Firstly, it was largely
the press that was jumping up and down at the beginning. English
Nature's Council certainly made some strong comments about the
process, which I have put in front of you this afternoon, but
it was largely the press that interpreted those. We have had some
quite strong successes in terms of putting strongly evidence-based
advice in front of ministers. GM crops, for example, would be
one where I think we have been able to influence the way that
has run quite significantly, and I think the press were very much
looking at that and thinking back to the demise of the Nature
Conservancy Council. That is the first part of your question.
The second part of the question: we are pretty convinced that
there are some really big opportunities there. We have done a
lot of work in the last decade in getting the network of protected
areas into place. On the terrestrial environment, that is pretty
much complete. There is a lot to do in the marine environment
still. We are getting them into good condition. The PSA target
shows that we are making a lot of progress on moving towards that.
But what we have really got to do is to move out now into the
wider environment. At the moment we simply do not have the levers
or the money to actually really achieve that. We believe having
landscape and nature together, with recreation and access, with
sufficient money to put in and really target where it is needed
in the wider environment, will make a huge difference in raising
environmental quality for people. People will be able to experience
nature and environmental quality closer to their homes. We are
talking about urban areas as well as rural areas. We feel that
that really is a benefit. Many of the sites that we are managing
depend on the quality of the environment around them. You cannot
manage eutrophication, nitrate and phosphate pollution in a small
lake in a rural area unless you have control over the nitrates
and phosphates going into the surrounding rural area.
Q208 David Taylor: With New Labour, every
strategy has to be joined up, in the same way as every opportunity
has to be exciting. Do you seriously believe that Defra does have
a joined-up strategy for managing our land and our natural resources,
as far as you can see?
Dr Brown: I think there is some
way to go. There are clearly a number of parts of the agenda which
are set out in a variety of strategic documents. The England Biodiversity
Strategy, the Sustainable Food and Farming Strategy, but what
I have not seen yet is something that pulls it all together in
terms of land use and what we actually mean by sustainable land
use and management, and that is an area where I think there is
more work to be done.
Q209 David Taylor: Presumably you agree
with Fiona Reynolds, the Director General of the National Trust,
who said in relation to the absence of such a strategy that it
needs urgent attention if the new integrated agency is to get
off to the right start. Without it, the agency will be, in my
terms, a tune without words; in her terms, a delivery body in
search of a purpose. Are these fair criticisms?
Dr Moser: I think you are hitting
the nail on the head in relation to the purpose and vision and
mission of the agency. We really have to work on that, because
that is not in place at the moment. We have got the strands as
to what needs to be put together to arrive at the vision. We have
not really yet bottomed that out, and we are going to have to
work pretty hard to catch up with the legislative process. That
process is under way but it is a challenging timetable.
Q210 David Taylor: Dr Brown just used
that lovely phrase, that the joined-up strategy is some way away
from being in existence. What needs to be plugged into the gap
that you, in my view, rightly identify before what is planned
here really will deliver a better natural environment for people
in England?
Dr Brown: I would agree in part
with what the National Trust said. I think there is work to do
on that overall land management and use strategy. I do not think
it will be down solely to a new agency to deliver sustainable
land management, even if we knew exactly what it meant; lots of
other people will have to make a contribution. The agency can
certainly champion some of the ideas around sustainable land management
and make its own contribution from its statutory remit, I disagree
in part with the National Trust statement, I do not think it would
be an agency without a purpose, because I think already there
is a very substantial natural environment and people agenda to
be delivered, with a lot of very demanding targets to deliver.
So there is a lot to be getting on with whilst we develop some
of these bigger ideas about how to integrate different land uses
and objectives so there is a multiple of public benefits achieved
in the way we use and manage land.
David Taylor: She did not quite say it
would be an agency without a purpose; she said the agency would
be a delivery body without a purpose. The two are subtly different,
I think.
Q211 Mr Drew: Can I ask a question that
has not really come up so far but I just wonder if you have any
fears about this. As we look for a new funding stream for the
way in which it is going to be possible, we hope, to support environmental
goods rather than production bads, if you want to look at the
opposite, that will result to some extent in individual farmers
getting paid for it, but there is this notion of economic encouragement
to communities, to get some money into rural pump priming, which
is what we are interested in in terms of rural delivery. Does
that hold any fears for you at all inasmuch as at least you know
when you are dealing with farmers where farmers are coming from.
You could be dealing potentially with a much wider group of people,
who could have quite conflicting views, who may actually say "The
environment is not that important to us. We are going to have
affordable housing, come what may." I may have sympathy for
some of those views in some circumstances, but does this open
up a new dialogue which could be quite a tense dialogue in your
case? You have a very clear perspective; others may have mixed
perspectives or even express mixed metaphors. What is your view
on all that?
Dr Moser: I think this is where
we really need to bottom out the sustainable development duty
of the organisation, because we need to recognise that this organisation
is not a body that is there to deliver sustainable development.
It is there to make a fundamental contribution to sustainable
development by building and enhancing the environmental resources
so that they can contribute to these activities. We have to ensure
that that is understood. There has to be a bottom line somewhere.
When we get to a proposal which is threatening the environmental
quality of an area, we have to have a bottom line whereby it then
becomes a political decision. We are clear that the environment
is going to be damaged by this decision, therefore it is not going
to be of benefit to future generations, and at that point it needs
to go over to the planning process or through the normal process
of democracy that actually addresses those issues. The organisation
has to have a very strong environmental remit with regard, obviously,
to the other aspects of sustainable development.
Q212 Mr Drew: If I could just add a corollary
to that, who will arbitrate if disputes arise, either at local
level or, more particularly, at inter-agency level, over where
and what is the most appropriate place to put money? Do you see
a mechanism being necessary or is it all going to be sweetness
and light, so there will be a good feel and the money will all
go out and do the things we want it to do?
Dr Moser: I think the key to it
is in getting the actual outcomes that we want to deliver really
defined, and if we know where we need to target the money and
we have a strategy that all the agencies involved beyond the integrated
agency as well have signed up to, then I think it is relatively
straightforward to agree on allocation of funding within that.
Q213 Mr Jack: First of all, I would just
like to put on record my appreciation for the visit which English
Nature facilitated to enable me to get a better idea of what you
are doing at the present time. It was very interesting to see
some of the challenges at first hand. With that experience in
mind, where your role is very clearly defined, one of the things
that struck me by your evidence, where you put down this exciting
menu of things that you want to do, the one thing that you impressed
upon me on that visit, which was to maintain an independence in
terms of delivering sometimes difficult and unpalatable messages
about the environment, is not mentioned. It does not appear in
this litany of joyous challenges to which you are going to be
responding to. I do admit that there is some mention of it later
on, but it does rather play to the agenda that Defra have not
quite worked out what this new body is supposed to do. I just
wanted you to develop a bit more some of the boundary issues.
What you have described is the need to have an agency that takes
into account everything in terms of the natural environment. I
wondered how you were going to work, for example, with the Environment
Agency in defining where their responsibility started. In our
last evidence session we talked about overlap, so let us focus
on that. How do you think this new agency will cope with overlap
when many of the issues of the environment for which you are now
responsible also have a clear implication for the policy responsibilities
of the Environment Agency?
Dr Moser: Obviously, your point
on independence, we really have pushed that very strongly indeed
in terms of the way the whole process has evolved. I think our
first response to the Haskins proposal was that this was absolutely
fundamental, that we had to maintain that independence as an NDPB.
We may perhaps, having got the assurance that we have had from
the Secretary of State, have been a little bit remiss in not putting
that into our evidence, but again, it was something that I stressed
in my introductory remarks. In terms of the boundaries, it is
an interesting question. The first thing to say is that these
are not new relationships. We are not dealing with a completely
new organisation. We are actually dealing with existing organisations
that are going into a new organisation. Even before the whole
process started we had relationships and boundaries. One very
positive thing that has come out of the MRD process has been that
it has actually forced a really rapid assessment of cooperative
ways of working, both within the three partners that are going
in and with other partners such as the Environment Agency and
the Forestry Commission. Even if the whole process stopped now,
there would actually be a very positive outcome in that regard,
because it really has led to much better ways of working. We are
doing regional statements at the moment on how we are going to
operate both with RDS and CA and with the Environment Agency and
the Forestry Commission. With regard to the Forestry Commission
and particularly the Environment Agency, in terms of the legislation,
we need to get as much clarity in there as we possibly can. We
do not see a particular problem. We do not see this as a particularly
big issue.
Q214 Mr Jack: But you said in your earlier
remarks "We want to move out into the wider environment."
That suggests that you want to expand the empire, the area of
the environment, focusing, as it does, on SSSIs and good, pure,
mainstream environmental advice. When you say you want to move
out into the wider environment, this suggests you want to invade
the space occupied by other players.
Dr Moser: I think you need to
recognise that—I am not sure what the figure is; Andy will
correct me on this—there is probably an awful lot more
biodiversity outside special areas than there is inside them.
It is just that it is very concentrated and there are some very
rare species in those areas.
Q215 Mr Jack: What do you mean by the
phrase "move out into the wider environment"? If you
do not move out, within this new integrated agency, that suggests
that something in your judgment is not going to be handled as
well as it could be in a very important area of the environment.
What is it that could go by default if you do not move out into
this wider environmental area?
Dr Moser: I have slightly missed
the tone of the question.
Q216 Mr Jack: You said you wanted to
move out into the wider environment, and you have just indicated
that beyond the remit of English Nature at the moment there are
other environmental issues which you feel should be brought within
the ambit of the new integrated agency. You also indicated that
there may be resource problems in doing that. I am just wondering
(a) what these wider environmental issues are and (b) if they
are not brought into the orbit of the agency, where do they go?
Dr Moser: Understood. The issue
that we face is that, as English Nature, we have focused a very
large proportion of our attention in the last decade or more on
special sites. There are two issues there. Firstly, it is very
difficult to maintain a lot of these special sites without actually
addressing the areas around them, and secondly, much of our biodiversity
and certainly much of the biodiversity that people appreciate
it actually outside special areas; it is in their gardens, it
is in their local nature reserve or their park in urban areas
or it is in farmland. We see really a big opportunity there, particularly
with the agri-environment schemes getting at the rural areas,
but also, with the much stronger people agenda brought on by the
access and recreation functions that will come in, the opportunity
to really address these issues in what I call the wider environment.
Q217 Chairman: Just take me through the
steps that you think need to be taken to make this big change
operation move smoothly. I was going to say swiftly, but part
of the problem is that it is too swift, is it not?
Dr Moser: I think, as Andy is
going to be responsible for putting that change into place, I
will hand over to him.
Dr Brown: We are working now on
breaking down some of the barriers between that part of the Countryside
Agency and RDS to get more joint working, understanding of each
other's agendas, break down some of the cultural issues that you
have between these different bodies in much closer partnership
working. We need to continue to develop that over the next couple
of years. It is critical that we get the legislation right. Everything
else flows from that. A lot of the tension now is trying to get
the right definition of purpose and range of functions into the
legislation. We will then move on to the wider issues about preparing
the ground for a new body under the whole raft of activities you
need to address in order to do that, and it will simply depend
on how much time we have to pursue all of that change agenda.
If it is too compressed, I think we will really struggle and current
delivery may well suffer as a consequence. You do not want it
so long that it drags on endlessly. I think we have a reasonable
feel for what would have to be done if we were aiming to get a
body up and running by 2007, and I am reasonably confident that
we could bring about those changes if properly resourced to do
it.
Q218 Chairman: What about this notion
that is around that there ought to be a shadow board with a shadow
chairman and shadow chief executive? What is your view on that?
Dr Moser: There are a couple of
issues that we have debated around there, and these are slightly
broader than that. The first is that, of course, the legislation
is not guaranteed, and therefore we have wanted to build a feature
of reversibility into all the decisions that are taken in the
run-up. The second thing is one of erosion of the existing brand
that we have, and also confusion to our staff as to where their
responsibilities lie and confusion to external stakeholders as
to where they should actually be focusing. Our view is that, whilst
it is, obviously, very important to get a shadow governing body
and executive in place at some stage, it needs to be done at the
right stage—not too early, because that will lead to those
problems that I have mentioned. Our feeling would be that it probably
would be useful to have a shadow Chair and governing body, probably
six or nine, maximum twelve, months prior to the agency actually
coming into effect, and that probably that body would then appoint
its chief executive perhaps three months after it has come into
being. So it seems to us that that sort of timetable is probably
the right timetable not to fall into the traps which could lead
to confusion.
Q219 Chairman: The final spanner in the
works: the Forestry Commission.
Dr Moser: Again, we have a very
good working relationship with the Forestry Commission. The process
of MRD has helped greatly in cementing this working relationship.
We have MOUs, joint work plans and everything else. There is a
lot of opportunity for actually working with the FC on landscape-scale
projects, on farm-level projects. They have a fantastic estate
of land which, put together with our NNR estate, will give the
most fantastic chance for the public agenda to be developed, and
that is something that we are very keen to go on. In terms of
the way they have evolved, in terms of their overall goals, they
have moved very much closer to where we are in terms of English
Nature going into the integrated agency. As I understand it, the
reviews that the Forestry Commission have gone through already
and the review that Lord Haskins made have indicated quite a fine
balance as to exactly where they lie on that one. Should there
be legislative change which would perhaps break up the GB function
of the Forestry Commission, we would see it as entirely appropriate,
and I suspect there would be quite considerable benefits from
bringing them in, if there is an aligning of funding streams and
expertise.
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