Appendix 2: Letter from the Chairman of
the Environmental Audit Committee
Letter from the Chairman of the Environmental
Audit Committee to the Chairman of the Liaison Committee
1. For the two calendar years before 2004, EAC voluntarily
committed itself to produce an Annual Report, in line with the
practice of departmental select committees. EAC understands how
useful the Liaison Committee finds these Reports, which provide
much of the matter for its own Report on the working of select
committees. For this last year, 2004, it has been decided that
current pressures of work, a result of the expected General Election
in May, mean that, instead of an Annual Report, the Liaison Committee
will instead have this letter to draw upon.
2. This letter briefly outlines the breadth of the
agenda that EAC followed during 2004, emphasising its continuity
with the work agenda from previous years - a distinct characteristic
of the EAC - and the range of different departments from which
it took evidence. It also stresses the significance of its inquiries
and Reports to the House, to the Government and to the wider public;
and finally points out some more procedural issues (in the widest
sense) relating to its work. Attached are two annexes relating
to our work and to the Government's responses to our Reports.
3. With regard to EAC's agenda during 2004, let me
stress at the outset that, mindful of its unusual cross departmental
remit, we have tried to pursue inquiries which take account of
the full breadth of Government activity. Inevitably, the Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has borne the brunt of
our scrutiny, but our work has also covered aspects of the activities
of HM Treasury (Budget and pre-Budget Report inquiries), the Department
for Transport (our inquiries into aviation, resulting in three
Reports during 2004), the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
(our Sustainable Housing inquiry), the Home Office, the Department
for Constitutional Affairs (both scrutinised in relation to the
Sub-Committee's inquiries into environmental crime), the Department
for Trade and Industry (energy), the Department for Education
and Skills (our current Sub-Committee's inquiry into environmental
education) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (our inquiry
into the challenge of international climate change). Memoranda
have been sought and received from all of these departments, Government
responses have been prepared by them alone or in conjunction with
DEFRA, and civil servants or Ministers have given evidence from
five departments other than DEFRA, with Ministers from two more
departments having given or due to give evidence on inquiries
begun in 2004 during the first month of 2005.
4. In addition, our annual Greening Government exercise
by its very nature covered every department of state, and EAC's
inquiry and Report into the Sustainable Development Strategy review
likewise covered the whole panoply of environmental activity undertaken
by Government. Both of these inquiries also carried forward patterns
of work or particular areas of regular interest upon which EAC
has focused in past years. Some significant areas of Government
activity - the Department for Health, the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport, the Department for Trade and Industry, the Department
for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Defence - are still to
come under specific scrutiny from EAC, but we hope and expect
that relevant opportunities will present themselves.
5. In terms of EAC's impact, obviously it is very
difficult to determine to what extent our recommendations or conclusions
directly bear upon changes or developments in Government policy
even when these follow in time. As we both know all too well,
a select committee will - knowingly or unknowingly - on occasion
be pushing against a half-open door: sometimes it will be banging
its head against a wall. EAC over 2004 has done a little bit of
both.
6. Our Sub-Committee on environmental crime, which
was established at the tail-end of 2003 and pursued its agenda
through four inquiries and reports - the last still expecting
its belated Government response - pushed against an opening door.
The issue of local environmental degradation, of fly-tipping and
fly-posting, and the connection between environmental blight and
anti-social behaviour and crime, was an issue or rising concern
amongst the general public and increasingly prominent in the media.
The Sub-Committee's inquiries coincided with a number of Government
consultations in this area, and a not insignificant number of
our recommendations found their way in some form or other into
policy - most notably visible in the Clean Neighbourhoods and
Environment Bill - or into ongoing policy development (such as
proposals to change some environmental offences from criminal
to civil offences).
7. Inquiries themselves can of course have an effect
regardless of their outcome. Concerns expressed privately to EAC
by several bodies close to Government early in 2004, that water
companies were going to be let off the hook by Government in terms
of the extent of the programme of environmental improvements that
they would be mandated to carry out, led to an immediate inquiry.
While the inquiry was in train, and before the Report was drafted,
it seems that heads in Government were knocked together, and the
water companies made aware that they would have to accept a more
substantial programme than they wanted, and one more acceptable
to the bodies who had initially expressed their concerns to us.
In this case, the Report that concluded the inquiry was in some
respects less important and less efficacious than the fact that
the inquiry took place at all when it did.
8. Sometimes, however, the Government is very resistant
to EAC's agenda. At the beginning of the year, it was clear that
we did not see eye-to-eye with the Government over the issue of
the GM farm-scale trials and plans to allow GMHT crops to be grown
commercially in the UK. Indeed, the Government made a statement
in the House only a few days after our Report was issued that
effectively dismissed its conclusions and recommendations. The
Government response when received was very poor. However, the
Report did act as a focus (and catalyst) for a lot of public discussion
and concern, and received a good deal of media attention; and
the Government's own reaction in policy terms, while still permitting
GM crops to be grown, was more prudent than it might have been.
And that very prudence has meant that to date no commercial manufacturer
of GM seed has gone ahead with marketing the product here.
9. Likewise, in continuing a stream of work begun
in its 2003 Report on the Budget and aviation, EAC continued to
emphasise a point of grave concern with regard to aviation emissions,
climate change and CO2 targets to which the Government,
and the Department for Transport in particular, was very resistant.
EAC's Report on the 2003 Pre-Budget Report and Aviation, which
came out in March 2004, stoked concerns about the environmental
impact of uninhibited growth in aviation, following the aviation
White Paper and Government decisions about future airport and
runway provision. Again, the Government response to our concerns
was very dismissive - not to say rude - but pressure from us,
the publicity generated by the Report, and the fact that similar
concerns were being raised by the RCEP and the SDC, created the
momentum which led to the joint PSA target for control of CO2
emissions being signed up to by the Department for Transport
- a clear successful outcome for our labours. Moreover, Government
rhetoric on climate change is now more likely to allude to the
problem of aviation emissions.
10. The debate on climate change has also been advanced
in another respect. For several years, the EAC has audited the
overall progress which the Government has been making against
its key 2010 targets - the 20% carbon reduction target and the
10.4% renewables target. Nearly two years ago, the EAC courted
the wrath of the Treasury by pointing out that the UK Climate
Change Strategy was way off course and that more action was called
for, a concern it reiterated most recently last August in its
Budget 2004 and Energy report. It therefore gave us a certain
ironic satisfaction that, in launching its review of the Climate
Change Strategy towards the end of 2004, the Government finally
acknowledged our point.
11. And with regard to these last two inquiry streams,
GM crops and aviation, it is only relevant to point out, as touched
upon above, that EAC still has concerns relating to the quality
of Government replies. EAC receives most of its Government responses
through DEFRA, although occasionally they come from another Government
department. Even responses originating within DEFRA often carry
a significant amount of material sourced extra-departmentally.
The responses received by us are therefore extremely variable
in content. While this is no doubt to a degree inevitable, and
in part contingent upon the extent to which the Government accepts
our recommendations or conclusions, it does lead to occasions
on which the nature of the response is so sketchy, or so wilfully
unhelpful, as to require some action from us. The Government response
to the Committee's Report on GM crops was very poor. It effectively
dismissed the Report without even bothering to answer several
of its key points, and also deliberately misinterpreted several
other points in an attempt to rubbish its conclusions and recommendations.
We therefore issued a Report very critical of the tone and lack
of real content in the Government response on GM, and expedited
its publication so that it was available for the debate on GM
on the Floor of the House on 5th May.
12. With regard to EAC's pre-Budget and Aviation
Report, the tone of the Government response and its singular lack
of content were even more noticeable. This lamentable response,
originating with DfT, scandalously failed to respond at all to
several recommendations aimed at the Government. We printed it
in our own 7th Report which took issue with its tone and failure
to engage with our conclusions. We also insisted on the Government
again responding to those points ignored or misrepresented in
its first response. To give DfT some credit, the second response
was a great improvement on the first, a point acknowledged in
our 11th Report which, for the moment, has drawn a line under
this saga.
13. Government responses have also been late (see
Annex B), a regular phenomenon which we are sympathetic towards
insofar as some of these responses have to be marshalled across
several government departments and collated within DEFRA before
they are sent on to us. However, EAC is not always alerted to
possible delays, and even when so alerted, delays still have a
tendency to extend themselves, suggesting that some departments
may well take advantage of the habitual delay with cross-cutting
EAC responses to be less than efficient.
14. Finally, I have to make mention of growing support
given by NAO to EAC. As you are aware, the Government's intention
in setting up EAC - at least in terms of the manifesto upon which
it campaigned - was for the Committee to be given support formally
by NAO, in roughly the same way that PAC is supported. Again,
as you know, that support failed to materialise. At the end of
EAC's first Parliament, our predecessor Committee pressed Government
for that support to no avail. However, over the last two years,
the EAC has made in its reports a number of requests for audit
assistance in certain specific areas - to which the NAO has proved
very willing to respond. The growth of an informal relationship
(helped by the ongoing secondment to the EAC of an NAO auditor)
is now resulting in a number of reports and briefings from the
NAO. The first of these was appended to the our Greening Government
2004 Report, and others have at the time of writing been received
or are in the process of being finalised before despatch to our
staff. This informal working relationship represents a step-change
in how the work of EAC is resourced and could have welcome implications
for the range of EAC scrutiny and for the breadth of its output.
Even more welcome, however, would be the formalising of this support,
for which EAC will continue to press.
15. I hope that the above gives a good indication
of the most significant points relating to EAC's work over 2004.
Peter Ainsworth MP
February 2005
ANNEX A
Table 1: Subjects covered by EAC Committee,
2004
| Subject | Evidence sessions in 2004
| Sub-Committee |
Outcome |
| Annual Report 2003 |
- | No
| Report, January 2003
(1st Report, Session 2003-04, HC215)
|
| GM Foods - Evaluating the Farm Scale Trials
| 4 | No
| Reports, March and May 2004
(2nd and 5th Reports, Session 2003-04, HC90 and 564)
|
| Pre-Budget 2003: Aviation follow-up
| 4 | No
| Reports, March,
June and September 2004
(3rd, 7th and 11th Reports, Session 2003-04, HC233, 623 and 1063)
|
| Water: The Periodic Review 2004 and the Environmental Programme
| 3 | No
| Report, May 2004
(4th Report, Session 2003-04, HC416)
|
| Environmental Crime and the Courts
| 4 | Yes
| Report, May 2004
(6th Report, Session 2003-04, HC126)
|
| Greening Government 2004
| - | No
| Report, July 2004
(8th Report, Session 2003-04, HC881)
|
| Environmental Crime: Fly-tipping, fly-posting, Litter, Graffiti and Noise
| 3 | Yes
| Report, July 2004
(9th Report, Session 2003-04, HC445)
|
| Budget 2004 and Energy |
5 | No
| Report, August 2004
(10th Report, Session 2003-04, HC490)
|
| Environmental Crime: Wildlife Crime
| 4 | Yes
| Report, October 2004
(12th Report, Session 2003-04, HC605)
|
| The Sustainable Development Strategy: illusion or reality?
| 4 | No
| Report, November 2004
(13th Report, Session 2003-04, HC624)
|
| Hazardous Waste and Waste Policy
| 1 | No
| Evidence to be published in 2005
|
| Housing; building a Sustainable Future?
| 7 | No
| Report to be published in 2005
|
| The international challenge of Climate Change: UK leadership in the G8 and EU
| 4 | No
| Report to be published in 2005
|
| Environmental Crime: Corporate Crime
| 3 | Yes
| Report to be published in 2005
|
| Environmental Education
| 2 | Yes
| Report to be published in 2005
|
Table 2: Visits by the EAC Committee in 2004
| Location | Purpose of Visit
|
| Bonn, Germany | Attending International Parliamentary Forum on Renewable Energies
|
| Berlin, Germany | State Visit Climate Change Conference
|
| Brussels, Belgium | EU Policy and the Environment
|
| Farnham Castle | Study Seminar - Putting the Environment First
|
| Leeds Council | Inquiry Fly-tipping, fly-posting, Litter, Graffiti and Noise
|
| Aberdeen, Scotland |
Inquiry Housing: Building a Sustainable Future and future inquiries into renewable energies
|
| Hackbridge, Surrey |
Inquiry Housing: Building a Sustainable Future
|
ANNEX B
Government responses 2004
| REPORT
| PUBLISHED 2004
| GOVERNMENT REPLY RECEIVED 2004
| DAYS TO REPLY
| DAYS
OVERDUE [233]
|
| GM Foods Evaluating the Farm Scale Trials
| 5 March | 28 April
(published with the Committee's 5th Report on 10 May)
| 54 | 0
|
| Pre-Budget 2003: Aviation follow-up
| 15 March | 19 May
(published with the Committee's 7th Report on 7 June)
| 65 | 4
|
| Water: The periodic Review 2004 and the Environmental Programme
| 6 May | 8 July
| 62 | 1
|
| GM Food - Evaluating the Farm Scale Trials: the Government Response to the Committee's Second Report
| 10 May | Not applicable
| - | -
|
| Environmental Crime and the Courts
| 12 May | 12 October
| 152 | 91
|
| Aviation Sustainability and the Govt Response
| 7 June | 13 September
(published with the Committee's 11th Report on 23 September)
| 98 | 37
|
| Greening Government 2004
| 27 July | 27 October
| 92 | 31
|
| Environmental Crime: Fly-tipping, Fly-posting, Litter, Graffiti and Noise
| 28 July | 25 October
| 89 | 28
|
| Budget 2004 and Energy
| 11 August | 12 October
| 62 | 1
|
| Aviation: Sustainability and the Government's Second Response
| 23 September | Not applicable
| - | -
|
| Environmental Crime Wildlife Crime
| 7 October | Reply due 7 December
| - | 24 as at 31 December 2004
|
| The Sustainable Development Strategy: Illusion or Reality
| 8 November | Reply due 8 January
| - | -
|
233 For the purpose of these calculations we have assumed
two months to equate 61 days. Back
|
