Examination of Witnesses (Questions 349-359)
1 MARCH 2005
BARONESS YOUNG
OF OLD
SCONE AND
MS MARIAN
SPAIN
Q349 Chairman: Can I welcome Barbara
Young, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency and Marian Spain?
Marian, this is the second time that you have been to see us.
My recollection is that you used to work for the Countryside Agency
until fairly recently.
Ms Spain: Yes.
Q350 Chairman: Barbara is an old friend
of the Committee. What the Committee want to do is have a fairly
quick overview of the draft NERC Bill (I have been told it is
now called the NERCO Bill) and try and produce a report before
the Easter break in order to get a feel for the Bill. We are very
pleased that you have been able to come and join us. You have
followed this discussion fairly closely, Haskins' rural strategy,
now the Bill. Does it all hang together? Has it got the same sense
of direction and are there any surprises in the Bill?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: The
Bill is a very clear strand in the delivery of the strategy following
Haskins but it is, of course, only one strand and there are a
whole lot of other things that we would want to see delivered.
Particularly for us the delivery of the strategy is going to be
heavily dependent on extremely good working relationships between
us and the new agency, delivering a kind of model for how we achieve
change in the countryside both for natural resources, which is
what we are responsible for—air, land and water in an integrated
fashion, and the agency working on biodiversity, landscape, access,
recreation, and between the two of us, holding hands, as it were,
shoulder to shoulder, deliver a model of change that is partly
about the incentives that can be delivered through environment
schemes, partly about regulation and partly about a whole range
of other instruments like economic instruments, voluntary agreements,
cross-compliance, the whole panoply of stuff that needs to happen
if we are going to see some change in the countryside. For us
the Bill is just the bit that sets up the agency really.
Q351 Chairman: Lying behind that then
is a set of agreements, a memorandum of understanding or whatever
it is going to be called, that defines your relationship with
the new agency?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: I
think there is a range of things that we would be looking for,
partly the memorandum of understanding between us and the agency,
to make sure that there is a clarity of roles between us. We had
a moment of terror when there was a suggestion that the agency
might be called the Natural Environment Agency because that implied
that we were going to be the Unnatural Environment Agency.
Q352 Chairman: Some of your clients say
that.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
were a bit worried about how confused the public and others could
get about that. There needs to be a distinctiveness of the roles
described in the memorandum of understanding, as I think they
are described in the Bill. We need to make sure that the arrangements
we have nationally, regionally and locally are clear about those
distinctive roles and how they are going to operate together,
and particularly how the bit that straddles the middle will operate,
which is the Rural Development Service, because that is the funding
that delivers not only for the new Integrated Agency's objectives
for biodiversity, recreation and landscape, but also for our objectives
in the protection of air, land and water, so the RDS needs to
deliver for both of our objectives so we have to have a joint
role in tasking it to do so with Defra.
Q353 Chairman: So where has this memorandum
got to? Have you started discussions yet?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
have. It is in a fairly embryonic stage at the moment. We are
now pressing ahead with it because I think we need a bit more
detail in it, to be honest. It is a gentlemen's agreement between
the two colleague organisations. We do not necessarily deal with
it as a statutory instrument or instrument of government. We have
already got an agreement, for example, with English Nature and
we are able to meet it and it is really taking on the tradition
of having a clarity about what we are both trying to achieve and
then some clear programmes in terms of things like how the agri-environment
schemes would work, how we will contribute to special site conservation
and habitats directive, SSSIs, how the new agency will contribute
to our work in flood risk and management. Those two-way processes
will need to lie as a series of agreements behind the memorandum
of understanding.
Q354 Chairman: So how is that decision
being taken forward?
Ms Spain: It is being taken forward
between the five bodies because the Forestry Commission are also
working with us on this.
Q355 Chairman: Is there a round table
discussion?
Ms Spain: Yes.
Q356 Chairman: Just explain the practicalities
of what is going on.
Ms Spain: There is a round table
discussion, kick-started at chief executive level, as these things
are, and as Barbara has described. The way forward is that we
have a general agreement which sets out where our shared objectives
come together. We are not starting from scratch. We have already
got a number of joint programmes. We have a joint programme with
English Nature on SSSIs and our role on aquatic SSSIs and their
role on terrestrial, if you like, and we have identified three
areas which are probably the most significant budgets, where we
are developing new collaborative programmes, one on tackling catchment
management and all the big challenges ahead under the Water Framework
Directive, one on agricultural land use policy and looking ahead
to changes in European policy. The third area, which is perhaps
the trickiest to try and catch in a box if you like, is how we
are going to work together with regional government and how we
bring an environmental voice into decisions at regional level.
Q357 Chairman: Because there are no firm
signposts there?
Ms Spain: Absolutely.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: If
we were talking about the generality of the policy and how it
is reflected in the Bill, the areas that are clearly not in the
Bill but I do think need clarification outside the Bill are the
issues of regional delegation and how that is going to work, how
we make sure there is a clear national framework, how relationships
are going to happen at regional level, not only between the new
agency and ourselves but also the Regional Development Agencies
and a whole load of other new regional stakeholders, and how we
make sure that national priorities for air, land and water and
for biodiversity and landscape and access are able to be delivered
with a distinctive regional flavour but without losing sight of
the national priorities. That does not necessarily need to be
delivered at a local level by local bodies. It can be delivered
at a local level by a body like the agency which has got a national
role, a regional perspective but very local delivery on the ground.
Q358 Chairman: I think, Marian, you were
telling us there were five strings to this.
Ms Spain: Three. The other point
I was going to make if I may is that the other thing we think
we need in order to pull this picture together is the work agencies
themselves will do, but we are also keen to see some clarity from
government on where they see the priority areas for the joint
working; we are looking to see some guidance coming along. The
model we are developing is that we are two bodies delivering two
halves of the same whole and that whole is government's environmental
policy.
Q359 Chairman: What is the timetable
for these decisions?
Ms Spain: We hope to have at least
some frameworks agreed by the start of the financial year, so
that at the time when the Integrated Agency comes together as
a confederation we are already starting to pull together these
new programmes.
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