Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-279)
30 NOVEMBER 2004
MR NEIL
SINDEN, MR
TOM OLIVER,
MS RUTH
CHAMBERS, MS
DONNA O'BRIEN,
MR MICHAEL
ALLEN AND
MS STEPHANIE
HILBORNE
Q260 Mr Jack: But if we have an Integrated
Agency, Chairman, that focuses predominantly on rural and unbased
issues, will that not set at nought the extensive work and reputation
that has been built up by English Nature for their focus on urban
and marine aspects, for instance? Could they not be marginalised
if we just single-mindedly tunnel vision down the route that seems
to be suggested?
Ms Hilborne: When we say "natural
heritage" we mean the natural heritage in the urban environment,
in the rural environment and in the marine environment. In fact,
we do not see a distinction between the rural and urban environment
in the way that we operate as organisations, and we feel to an
extent that the rural focus that has instigated this shake up
of English Nature and the other agencies has led to opening the
door to much wider issues which, I think, were not envisaged to
be part of discussions, such as the increasing urgency for us
to address the natural heritage of our marine areas, which, of
course, are of critical importance in the European context, and
the urgency for us to make in-roads into urban areas in terms
of encouraging or allowing people to have an appreciation of the
natural environment wherever they live. In fact, now that we have
shaken that up and it is in the context of the Government's final
and eventual high level recognition of climate change and the
context of what is happening regionally, surely this is an opportunity
to invest a great deal more in this new agency in terms of its
capacity to deliver what we need in terms of a resilient countryside
and environment in a marine as well as an urban context to tackle
that.
Q261 Chairman: Could I take that on a
little bit? I know, Stephanie, that The Wildlife Trusts and the
other bodies are very keen to see a new approach, new legislation
on the marine environment where English Nature, by definition,
needs to be a driving force on that. Given the scale of changes
that are in front of the organisation, given the multiplicity
of tasks, is there not a slight reservation that the kind of process
issues will detract from the focus on priorities?
Ms Hilborne: Do you mean by that
the process of the restructuring will detract from the urgency
of the issues?
Q262 Chairman: Yes.
Ms Hilborne: We always have that
concern, and it was that which very much drove our opposition
to previous proposals for mergers between English Nature and the
Countryside Commission, as was. There is clearly a nervousness
there, but we do appreciate that there is a definite benefit in
bringing together the aspects of the natural heritage, landscape
and wildlife, and we therefore do back, in principle, that bringing
together. It is certainly critical we do not lose the plot particularly
over marine issues from a conservation perspective.
Q263 Mr Jack: All of you have used the
word "sustainability", I think, and it has become a
word that people use almost because they feel they have to use
it. Could each one of you give me a priority sustainability issue
which you hope the new agency will address?
Mr Oliver: I think, to answer
your question directly, I would say that we need to ensure that
the legislation and the outcome of that legislation is not subject
to the vicissitudes of reinterpretation of what sustainable development
and what sustainability mean. In other words, I would argue that
we are very conscious that it is not possible to attach a single
common understanding of the term, and, as such, any legislation
should avoid using it statutorily to prevent confusion and misdirection
of that organisation and its associated activities.
Q264 Mr Jack: You have given me a definition
of what I must not do as a legislator with the word sustainability,
but you have not actually answered the question I asked. I was
seeking a practical example, or something which you would put
at the top of your agenda for the new agency to tackle to fulfil
those things which you think are important in terms of sustainability
from a CPRE stand point?
Mr Sinden: If I may come in there,
whilst I would emphasise fully the comments that Tom has made
about the vital importance of the agency not getting tied up in
its own knots about the interpretation at that time of the concept
of sustainable development, I think at the moment, from CPRE's
point of view, the overriding priority is to make a reality of
the Government's commitment to the creation of sustainable communities.
I think this debate, which is beginning to erupt in a very real
sense in parts of the south east and the eastern region about
proposed levels of massively increased house building in some
of these areas, is a key challenge: not just, we think, for the
new Integrated Agency, when it comes into being, to get to grips
with how we can make more sustainable and effective use of our
scarce land resource in England, but also at this moment it is
a very urgent issue for English Nature and for the other environmental
agencies that are in existence to show that they can have a purchase
on the way in which these plans and proposals are evolving and
emerging.
Ms Chambers: We would pick, for
the sake of having a different issue, land management in its wider
sense, and we feel that National Parks here have a very vital
role to play in helping the Integrated Agency tackle the many
issues associated with land management, particularly at the regional
agenda, which we may come on to later. That is the issue we would
pick.
Q265 Mr Jack: Does that take into account
the fact that the Forestry Commission is not part of this new
agency?
Ms Chambers: The Forestry Commission
is not something that we have a particular view on per se
around the table.
Q266 Mr Jack: National Parks?
Ms Chambers: In terms of their
relationship with the Integrated Agency. That is not something
on which we hold a strong view.
Mr Allen: I think for the Wildlife
Trusts part of what we are trying to do with our large landscape
projects is to demonstrate that sustainability and the development
of rural communities can go hand in hand with proper environmental
protection and development. For example—I am sorry this
is becoming rather Fen-centric this afternoon—in the north
of Cambridgeshire we have the Great Fen project, and I am Chairman
of the Wildlife Trust that is responsible, in partnership with
English Nature, the Environment Agency and Huntingdon District
Council, for developing a scheme which will link two massively
important national nature reserves and recreate the Fenland between
them, and we have been working very hard to establish that this
will also produce additional employment and sustained communities
which actually would be very difficult to sustain were the land
to stay as it is (agricultural). So I think genuinely we are looking
to build a truly sustainable operation there, and I think that
would be the answer that you might be looking for from us.
Q267 Chairman: I think it was Stephanie
who made a point about the independence of English Nature, and
we were promised a draft Bill in the New Year defining in law
what the English Heritage Agency is going to be. What are you
looking for in this draft Bill? What do you want the legislation
to say about the Integrated Agency?
Mr Oliver: We wish the legislation
to make it blindingly clear that we have a bone crackingly independent
force which is resourced satisfactorily to achieve all its statutory
purposes: that it has a constitution and a council which is not
influenced beyond the expertise of those appointed to it: that
it has a seamlessly good connection with its existing expertise
and the different elements which are being brought together and
that it should have an independence of research commissioning
which would be on a par with that which the Nature Conservancy
achieved in the 1950s in dealing with the huge problem of organo-chlorine
pesticides, for example.
Q268 Chairman: That is pretty clear.
We can get that into one clause of the Bill! Does anybody else
want to add to that?
Ms Chambers: One thing that we
would be very keen to see in the draft Bill is absolute equality
for the natural heritage of the new agency and access and recreation.
One thing that we think might help the thinking in that is looking
at Defra's PSAs. At the moment there are not any PSAs for Defra
on landscape or recreation beyond 2005, and we think that would
certainly help the thinking about this in the context of looking
at the draft Bill as well.
Q269 Chairman: Somebody suggested that
climate change ought to be an issue for the new agency. What do
you think about that?
Mr Oliver: We suggest in our evidence
that the monitoring anticipation and response to the effects of
climate change on the English landscape and the English bio-diversity
and natural systems should be a statutory obligation of the new
agency.
Q270 Mr Drew: There are a lot of good
words going on here, and if I was to relay the question which
I am asked to relay to you there would be even more good words.
It is not very sharp-edged, though, is it? This is all about good
people doing good things in partnership with everybody and it
all coming right. How is this going to work in practice? Can someone
give me some real hard evidence that all this partnership is really
going to make a lot of difference?
Mr Sinden: If I can kick off on
that one I think that is a critical question, and we have tried
to make it clear in our oral evidence so far that we believe this
new Integrated Agency should be the leading spokesbody for the
protection and enhancement of the natural heritage of this country.
It should be unequivocal in pursuing those primary purposes and
it should not be afraid of taking its views and its arguments
to government departments which may be rather disinclined to listen
to the views of such an agency. I would add, just to emphasise
a point that was intimated earlier on, that we have a real challenge
in this country now in terms of land use and land management across
the board, not just as a result of land use change driven by housing
and house building projections, but also landscape management
in terms of changes in the funding mechanisms surrounding that
crucial function. What we would like to see is a very forceful
powerful advocate for the protection of natural heritage and,
as a result of this body performing that function, perhaps rather
more serious debate and discussion about many of the proposals
some government departments are pursuing in relation to land use
and landscape change.
Q271 Mr Drew: Does anyone else want to
add to that?
Ms Chambers: We would very much
agree with all of that and certainly stress it is independent,
its nature as a strong environmental champion, the strong national
presence of the agency at the centre, but that should very much
be complemented by adequate funding for delivery at the regional
level because the two are completely interdependent, in our view.
We will be looking for the right words and the hard words, if
you like, in the draft Bill, but also making sure that the agency
is set up with the right culture and that we learn the lessons
from, for example, the establishment of CCW in Wales on that,
and that the relationship with Defra is set at the right tone
from the very beginning. So those are some of the places we will
be looking for the right words and messages.
Ms Hilborne: I think "bone
crackingly strong" was quite a good expression for how hard
hitting we want the agency to be, and it is certainly representing
an interest that has never faced as many challenges as the natural
heritage currently faces in the sense of the Government's
priorities for large-scale development of all descriptions and
in the context of climate change being such a threat to the natural
heritage. Not only should it be an exceptionally powerful advocate
nationally and have considerable resources for delivery and solutions
regionally and locally, but should be a powerful advocate regionally
where so many more decisions are now being taken where in the
last five years there has been an absolutely inadequate attention
of government resources on the environmental strand of the debate.
Can we add, slightly off the question, if that is fair, taking
forward the climate change issue and something that I know you
have touched upon before in this Committee of the need for us
to look to the Integrated Agency to not only cement the positive
work it has been doing on the nationally protected sites, but
to look beyond that at sites which have not to date received national
protection but perhaps hold as much, if not more, by way of biodiversity
resource, about linking them up, about landscape scale change
and about the necessity for increasing resources for the Integrated
Agency to do that.[25]
Q272 Mr Drew: Let us imagine that Defra
calls you in and says, "If we are going to make this Integrated
Agency work, what should we do as a lead ministry?"—quickly
from each of the three organisations—what would your advice
be?
Mr Oliver: Our advice would be
that the new Integrated Agency must be able to survive, even if
Defra does not, in its present form. I think one of the most important
things is that this is more than about departmental reorganisation.
If we take the Government's word seriously, and we do on this
subject, it is crucial that the Integrated Agency is able to deliver
a permanent understandable and reliable presence at all policy
levels, including the highest, and in that regard the strategy
is excellent when it talks about the ability of the Integrated
Agency to anticipate, to be there at a timely moment, to be there
before decisions are made: the authority and respect that will
go with that level of independence is the single most important
thing Defra can do to help.
Q273 Mr Jack: The RDAs, as you gather
from our previous questioning, obviously form a central part of
the economic development side. I suppose I was interested to know
what your various views were as to whether they had the necessary
environmental credentials to combine that with economic development.
Particularly my eye was caught by a comment in the CNPs evidence
where you say (paragraph 10), "However, the strategy fails
to mention the important role that the Integrated Agency will
have in protecting. . ." This was the disappointment that
you had of the Integrated Agency to work in partnership with other
agencies to develop sustainable tourism. In other words, the RDA,
I can just see them thinking what a gung-ho idea, carve up all
the national parks, develop tourism, lots of economic activity,
lovely priority, everybody happy with the countryside, but that
does not seem to be your agenda.
Ms O'Brien: What we would say
there is that the Government sees national parks as role models
for rural revival, sustainable development and integrated working
on all sorts of issues, social inclusion, socio-economic issues,
as well as making sure that that fundamental goal of protecting
the landscape is ensured, so just to have a mention within the
Strategy, in fact the only mention of the partnership working
that national park authorities do being on sustainable tourism,
that is where our disappointment lay really.
Q274 Mr Jack: What I am interested in
is the friction. For example, if the RDA in the north-west of
England under the new arrangement says, "Hey, whoopee, lads!
We can really get things moving in the Lake District. We will
lean on these nasty national park people and tell them they have
got to rescind the ban on the use of ski boats on Windermere because
we think it's a very good idea, but all the economic activity
is being lost by this thing disappearing, so we will put the screws
on them and get things changed round", how are you going
to react to an RDA that takes a line like that?
Ms Chambers: We hope very much
that it will not get to that. Certainly there is one brake in
the legislation, Section 62 of the Environment Act, whereby all
RDAs have to have regard to the statutory purposes of the national
parks and AONBs also as they make their decisions or carry out
their work, so we would hope that it would never get that far.
The planning framework is going to be absolutely crucial here
as well, as set out in the emerging Regional Spatial Strategies
which all bodies in the regions, RDAs and others, will have to
abide by. Clearly we do not know what those are going to say yet,
but they will be very important for the RDAs and others, but by
far and away the most important thing for the RDAs is going to
be proper engagement with the national park authorities in the
regions. Both organisations have a lot to learn from each other
and can deliver much, much more in partnership than they can through
conflict and opposition.
Q275 Mr Jack: So where is the RDA going
to beef up its awareness of these issues in comparison with the
sort of expertise it currently has at its disposal?
Ms Hilborne: Can I just come in
on this because Michael and I have both had a lot of dealings
with our respective RDAs which are East of England and East Midlands,
and I think the RDAs said when they were here that they did not
have currently the capacity to take on and deliver in terms of
expertise a wider environmental agenda. It would be frankly wrong
to expect them to be able to, given that they are primarily an
economic driver, just as they would laugh if the Integrated Agency
said it was going to start delivering heavyweight on the economy
with its current staff because ultimately we have got to respect
the huge amount of expertise and skills that have built up in
both agencies, and in the Nature Conservancy Council that is 50
years of expertise and skills built up there. The question really
to me flags up the essential need for the development agencies,
and the centre to advise this to the development agencies, to
work very closely with a bolstered Integrated Agency and with
the voluntary sector which in this country is one of the most
powerful parts, our voluntary sector, and yet it is often overlooked
for its expertise and the advice it could offer at the regional
and local level.
Q276 Mr Jack: Mr Oliver, do you think
there is enough mechanism in place for the kind of consultation
because at the moment it is all sort of optional? You would all
like to be consulted, but there is no obligation under the new
arrangements by RDAs to do any of that. Do we need, as legislators,
to think of some way that all of you who have expertise, knowledge
and thoughts should be plugged into the RDAs in some way, in other
words, you have got to be taken into account as they move forward
as opposed to they can do it if they want to?
Mr Oliver: In 1998 the CPRE was
instrumental in getting sustainable development into the legislation
for the RDAs, into the statutory framework, and we see that as
a start, but we also, as you intimate, see that there is a great
weakness at the moment in that connection. I think there are two
good things which will arise from the Rural Strategy being implemented.
The first is that, as Stephanie was saying, a very strong Integrated
Agency at the regional level as well as nationally, the national
one, if you like, facilitating the strength of the regional ones
as well, will ensure that the RDAs will take note because on a
planning issue of any consequence, the Integrated Agency will
have a very substantial mass of evidence and authority to bring
to bear. The other thing about this in terms of authority and
connection is that you were hearing from the LGA the importance
of local consultation. I think that RDAs have not missed that
significance of the need to devolve down, and we strongly support
that, where appropriate, particularly at the sub-regional level,
for example, with National Parks and AONB boards.
Mr Sinden: Just to emphasise that
point, I think the environmental voice at the regional level,
to be clear, is not very loud at the moment. It is clear that
the Government and the RDAs not just in relation to specific schemes
such as the one you described, are driving the development agenda,
the spatial development agenda, in many regions. We have seen
this with the Northern Way proposals emerging in the north-west,
Yorkshire and Humberside in the north-east, and we are beginning
to see this happening in the Midlands as well. I think we are
seeing the indirectly elected regional assemblies and regional
planning bodies in the south-east and the eastern regions finding
it extremely difficult to get to grips with the environmental
impacts of the regional development proposals which are being
imposed on them by government.
Q277 David Taylor: The work of the Council
for National Parks, and this final question is to their two representatives,
is ever more important in the increasingly urbanised country and
we have seen the New Forest designation and there is the upcoming
South Downs designation, I believe, so when I looked at the Rural
Strategy I was annoyed and upset about the cursory references
to the Council for National Parks. You were diplomatic in expressing
disappointment. You talked about your experience, and this is
widely recognised, in delivering sustainability and formulating
the Rural Strategy at the sub-regional level and you said that
of course that ought to be immensely valuable to regional assemblies,
if they continue to exist, and regional development agencies which
will continue to exist. What has gone wrong? Why should the Government
have set aside some of the successes for which you are well known?
What should you be doing to promote yourselves? What role might
you have because it is immensely important, what you have done,
and it has been widely recognised by a large spectrum of people
as being successful, so should it be incorporated in the future
Rural Strategy of the United Kingdom?
Ms Chambers: I think we share
your disappointment with the role that national parks played in
the Rural Strategy. After all, they cover 8% of the land area
of England and, as you say, there are a huge number of very positive
examples of how they integrate the objectives that we are all
talking about, but also deliver real sustainable development on
the ground, so we are disappointed. We hope that Defra will give
them a greater role in the Rural Strategy and that the Integrated
Agency will play a more prominent role in terms of promoting them,
as the Countryside Agency has done recently as well. There are
lots of examples not just in the Rural Strategy, but, for example,
in regional and rural affairs fora where national parks simply
are not represented despite the rural constituency that they bring.
Only one national park has been elected as a pathfinder project,
so there is lots more that could be done, and I will hand over
to my colleague for some more specifics.
Ms O'Brien: Just talking really
about their bottom-up approach, if the Strategy really is to deliver
and they are there, delivering on the ground, they are really
enthusiastic about the first-stop shop for agri-environment schemes
and helping to deliver advice to farmers on that, the management
plans of national parks are in effect a sort of mini-Rural Strategy
for that landscape. It has got all these sorts of cross-cutting
ideas that the Integrated Agency can learn from, so we hope that
the Integrated Agency will be able to learn from them.
Q278 David Taylor: There is an all-Party
group here, is there not, Chairman, and that has recently been
formed for the national parks? Do you believe that the CNP and
your members use that as fully as they might, the existence of
that group and the powers and influence it has?
Ms Chambers: I think that the
short answer has to be no. Inevitably, the members of the all-Party
group are all passionate individuals who care very much about
the protection and the conservation and the future of the national
parks, but all-Party groups, by their definition, are quite often
poorly attended and I do not think that any of us have used it
to its full effect and that is something certainly we would like
to look at with its members.
Q279 Chairman: Are you saying that as
well as pathfinders, we should be using national parks in a sense
as a learning experience for the new Agency?
Ms O'Brien: Absolutely, yes.
Ms Chambers: I think they have
got 50 years' experience of integrating these objectives together
in a way which they have learnt from themselves and if the Integrated
Agency does not try and learn from that experience, in many cases
there is a danger that it could be reinventing the wheel.
Mr Oliver: If I may just interject
here, with reference to English Nature's evidence at your last
session, and following, and germane to, what Ruth has just said,
it is crucial that we recognise that the resources which will
be given to manage the land throughout the environment reform
are adequately managed through a statutory organisation which
can cope with that both nationally and locally. When one talks
about National Parks, and they are 8% of the land surface, and
then one adds AONBs, which are another substantial proportion,
and then one thinks about the SSSIs and National Nature Reserves,
these are all targeted for protection in the PSAs. There is a
huge task for the new Agency within the wider environment. As
English Nature referred to in their evidence, which I think we
would emphasise, the National Parks example must be rolled out
to a much wider amount of England for the public benefit.
Chairman: Well, that is great. Can I
thank you all very much indeed. If, on reflection, there are other
things where you think, "We should have told them that",
sitting on the train going home, can you let us have a note fairly
quickly. Thank you all very much indeed.
25 Local Sites important for their biodiversity and
geological value have been identified across the UK and are recognised
in planning policy guidance. Back
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