Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380-386)
1 MARCH 2005
BARONESS YOUNG
OF OLD
SCONE AND
MS MARIAN
SPAIN
Q380 Chairman: Where do local authorities
figure in this?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: In
the recreation thing?
Q381 Chairman: No, in this whole business
of delivering a rural agenda. I am just reminded that my recollection
is right. Lord Haskins on the face of it seemed to be very pro-local
authorities as local delivery bodies. Looking at the Bill, they
do not seem to figure very much and local plans are important
in delivering local benefits.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Outside
the Bill there is still quite a strong emphasis on local delivery.
The economic and social funding streams as of 1 April will be
delegated to the RDAs and of course there is debate and dialogue
between the RDAs and the LGA about how local government will fit
into that and the various pilots, which Marian knows a lot more
about than I do and can talk about, are testing that in each region
at the moment. In terms of the bit in Haskins that says, "Why
does the Agency not do a lot more of its regulatory delivery through
local authorities?", there has been an examination of that
to establish some principles about when various bodies might take
on regulatory roles on behalf of Defra and that is coming to fruition
at the moment. I do not think there is a lot of appetite anywhere
in the system for local authority delivery of the agency regulatory
roles. We looked quite considerably at the overlap between what
local authorities do on the ground in things like animal welfare
and health and safety and environmental health, but really the
overlap between those roles and the things we do were not huge,
so there was not a huge amount of synergy or cost saving which
could be achieved by that. Marian may want to talk about the pathfinders.
Q382 Chairman: These are the rural pathfinders?
Ms Spain: Yes. I think this is
one of the areas where the strategy is not yet perhaps as mature
as other elements of the strategy setting up some new structures
and other elements for regional and local delivery. We still have
not worked our way through that yet. There still is not yet policy
clarity on just what that means in practice and where decisions
will be taken and where delivery will be done, which are two quite
distinct things. Progress so far has perhaps been more in socio-economic
elements, perhaps because some of that is easier to tackle in
the local or regional area. The pathfinder pilots are largely
focusing on social delivery and we are still having discussions
with Defra about where the environment fits in beyond the general
environmental approach to make sure we address sustainable development.
There is quite a lot more thinking to be done (and it is going
on) about that and also about the regional role priority frameworks
and where environmental issues come into those and what value
they could add to the work the Environment Agency and the Integrated
Agency are doing. That is perhaps the area in our minds which
is the least progressed of the whole strategy.
Q383 Mr Jack: I see in paragraph 2.7
of your evidence that you seek another purpose for the Bill, which
is to enhance your flood defence byelaws. Could you explain why
you think this is a priority issue and what difference it would
make between the current situation and that which you propose?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: At
the moment we can only introduce flood defence byelaws for the
purposes of our land drainage function and that sometimes causes
us some difficulty in that we might want to produce byelaws that
are more about other of our functions, including conservation
and environmental protection, in conjunction with a flood defence
scheme and we cannot use flood defence byelaws for those purposes
and we would like to be able to. At the moment we could be put
in the position where we have to allow a scheme to go ahead because
it is necessary for land drainage purposes but that nevertheless
has adverse environmental impacts that we cannot mitigate against
by byelaw provision.
Q384 Mr Jack: One of the problems I encounter
with any kind of water course is who is responsible for doing
what. Do you not think the time has now come where there ought
to be area by area some kind of register where, if a piece of
land has a water course on it, you can look it up to see, if there
is a problem, who is responsible for fixing it?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: You
have asked me a question that I do not know the answer to. I think
from our flood maps you can probably determine now which are the
main rivers and the critical ordinary water courses that the Agency
has a responsibility for.
Q385 Mr Jack: For you but it is all the
other people. The reason I raise that here is that if we look
at the Integrated Agency's functions, particularly the protection
of biodiversity, and picking up on the points that you have just
made in justification of amending your bylaws, what we start getting
involved in are some of the lesser order issues about water courses,
not the big ones, it is all the little ones, the streams, the
ditches, all the things, the riparian owners' responsibilities,
the local authorities, the Drainage Board, the Environment Agency
and so on. If all of these people have an interest, bearing in
mind what the Integrated Agency's work is and what you are talking
about, I come back to the question I started with: is it not time
that we had something that where there was a water course, big
or small, there was some kind of register, perhaps an on-line
one, you could look up and if there was a problem there would
be a list there of those who could fix it?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Perhaps
we could come back to the Committee with a more sensible account
than the one that I am going to be able to give of what we have
got available at the moment, but certainly if people are in any
doubt about the responsibilities for water courses they can contact
the Agency and we can find a man who knows, if it is known, because
we know of several water courses that we presently have difficulty
with because we find it difficult to understand just exactly who
has responsibility for what, particularly with new development
where there has not been clarity on the adoption of some of the
land drainage facilities that have been created. It sounds like
a jolly good idea if somebody would give us some money to do it
but we can come back to you with what we can do at the moment.
Q386 Chairman: If you will not only come
back to us saying what you can currently do but what you would
like to do as well. Maybe you would like to give us a note on
that. If there are things that you have not had a chance to say—although
we have had a good run and you have got us off to an excellent
start, thank you very much—perhaps you would let us have
some supplementary evidence on that as well. Thank you both very
much.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
would like the new Agency to be called English Landscape and Nature.
Mr Jack: I think the Lotus Car Company
might have a say in that.
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