Examination of Witness (Questions 40-59)
RT HON
MARGARET BECKETT
MP
2 NOVEMBER 2005
Q40 Lynne Jones: What is the mechanism
for that?
Margaret Beckett: It varies. It
can be official and ministerial cabinet committees, it can be
correspondence, joint working; a range of the usual techniques
that apply in any organisation.
Q41 Lynne Jones: It sounds a bit
unstructured?
Margaret Beckett: Sometimes it
is structured, sometimes it is not. What matters is does it work:
do we get the results we want?
Q42 Lynne Jones: We have not got
the Climate Change Review, so it has not worked so far.
Margaret Beckett: If you would
rather have had a Climate Change Review that was less sound, then
we could probably have produced that.
Q43 Mrs Moon: I wonder if I could
take you back to a point you touched on there in terms of planning
departments. I wonder if Defra issues any advice or guidance to
planning departments in relation to environmental issues when
it comes to looking at planning applications in particular for
environmental assessments. Does Defra issue any proformas or have
any standards that they advise planning departments to work to?
Margaret Beckett: No. I think
I would be right in saying that we do not give advice about planning
to planning departments, but what we do is work with the Office
of the Deputy Prime Minister to discuss with them and work with
them on the advice that they give and how we can do more to embed
environmental issues in that. We do have an input and we do have
an influence, but we have it by that route. You can imagine what
local authorities would say if they were getting advice from a
string of different departments about one set of issues; so things
are channelled through the department that deals with these issues
with local government.
Q44 Chairman: Before we leave the
environment and to move to capital, Lynne Jones probed you a second
ago about bio-fuels. The Government triumphed at the fact that
there is going to be a 5% inclusion by 2010 as if this is some
great new policy initiative. This Committee has probed the area
of bio-fuels on many occasions. Could you enlighten us as to what
your estimate is of the UK bio-ethanol content of this target
that will come from indigenous UK produced raw material?
Margaret Beckett: What I am going
to say first is that I am not aware that a specific target has
been announced, but it is clear that lots of people are discussing
what such targets should be and how they should be implemented.
Q45 Chairman: This was a reference
to the European Directive. It was pretty clear on the media yesterday
when this thing was announced. It sounded as if the Government
were saying, "We are now about to do this amazing new thing.
We have suddenly discovered bio-fuels", which I appreciate,
in the case of your department, you have been long-time protagonist
for.
Margaret Beckett: We have just
had the report of . . .
Q46 Chairman: If there is a doubt,
let us get the facts on the table. What is the plan for inclusion
for the United Kingdom?
Margaret Beckett: I hope that
there will be a reference to this issue in the Climate Change
Review, and so you will appreciate that I do not want to pre-empt
that.
Q47 Chairman: At this moment in time
there is no government commitment to a specific number for the
inclusion of bio-fuels, either in bio-diesel or bio-ethanol?
Margaret Beckett: There is, as
you quite rightly say, the Directive, but, of course, the path
that we pursue to meet the goals that are identified for the European
Union as a whole in that Directive is not a path that we have
set out in detail. The question you asked me, which is about UK
content, is one of the most pertinent and interesting, I think,
in that area. As I say, you will you know, I think, we have just
taken receipt, although I readily admit I have not had a chance
to study it, of the Task Force Report by Sir Ben Gill.
Q48 Chairman: That was on bio-mass
and not on things like bio-diesel?
Margaret Beckett: I was about
to say, that is about bio-mass, but these two issues, I think,
in a sense somewhat come together as being an area—they
are what I call Defra issues—where the potential interests
of British agriculture in the long term and the potential interests
of the environment . . .
Q49 Chairman: If we are going to
get somewhere near inclusion by 2010, that is five years away.
On bio-ethanol there is an interest shown by British Sugar in
building a plant, and I think a planning application is about
as far as we have got. That one plant is not going to be able
to produce sufficient bio-ethanol if there were to be a target
by 2010 of 5% inclusion, but is it still an objective of your
department, as witnessed by the very nice coloured brochure you
produced three years ago advocating the use of bio-fuels, that
the United Kingdom should have a significant role through its
own indigenous production both for bio-ethanol and bio-diesel
of its own bio-fuels industry?
Margaret Beckett: That is something
that very many people would like to see.
Q50 Chairman: But would you like
to see it?
Margaret Beckett: Yes, I would.
Q51 Chairman: And you are still committed
to it?
Margaret Beckett: It is something
that I would like to see. What we are considering and what we
are examining is what is the potential, what are the tools that
could deliver that potential, and I am constantly hearing from
various people in the farming community—you mentioned a
potential proposal from British Sugar, but I am told that there
are other players who are expressing interest, and one of the
things that I think it is important to do but we have not yet
finished doing is to explore what this potential is.
Q52 Chairman: What was Defra's reaction
to the Public Accounts Committee Report saying it was a complete
waste of money subsidising bio-fuels from the UK?[2]
Did you agree with that?
Margaret Beckett: I am always
reluctant to in any way appear to dissent from or criticise the
observations of any select committee of this House, least of all
the PAC, but I think it is evident that while that is a perfectly
legitimate point of view it is not a point of view that everyone
shares.
Q53 Daniel Kawczynski: Mrs Beckett,
just before I come on to my question on CAP, you mentioned in
a previous question that your Department is very keen to help
work with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in planning
applications when it is an agricultural project. This is obviously
joined up government, but I have to tell you that in Shrewsbury
it took the local authority three years to get the Deputy Prime
Minister to adjudicate on our new livestock market. I would hope
that in future your Department would take a really keen interest
in forcing the Deputy Prime Minister to make these decisions on
a quicker basis if they are of great concern to the agricultural
community.
Margaret Beckett: I think the
issue that was raised with me was the issue of environmental aspects
of planning, but I am conscious that the Office of the Deputy
Prime Minister is anxious to speed up the way in which planning
applications are dealt with, consistent, of course, with proper,
thorough and sound assessment of such planning applications, and
is very mindful of some of the delays that have occurred in the
past. I am sure you will be aware, even though you are a comparatively
new member in the House, that for all of those who want to see
speedier consideration of planning applications when people are
less than enthusiastic about them, there are others who say, "No,
no, no, we do not want anything rushed. We want proper scrutiny.
We do not want any short-cuts." It is not an easy balance
to strike, but I know that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
does try to strike that balance.
Daniel Kawczynski: I take that upon on
board. Moving on to the question which is on the Common Agricultural
Policy, both yourself and the Prime Minister have spoken about
the need for change to the CAP, but we have not heard much of
the nuts and bolts of that, the actual substance. Could you kindly
tell us what you envisage from reforms to the CAP? That is my
first question. My second question is this. I think, politics
aside, it is a great privilege to have the Secretary of State
for Agriculture to come to one's constituency. My farmers, for
example, are extremely interested—most of them voted for
me, but they would be extremely interested to have the opportunity
of meeting the Secretary of State for Agriculture. I wrote to
your Department over a month ago to kindly ask you to come to
Shropshire. I have not received a reply. Would you very kindly
come to talk to my farmers about CAP reforms at the opening of
our new livestock market?
Chairman: He may be new but is taking
every advantage!
Q54 Daniel Kawczynski: Would you,
on the second point, very kindly come and talk to my farmers about
CAP reform in the New Year when the livestock market is open?
Margaret Beckett: First of all,
Chairman, the request was: what do we envisage from reforms? I
think the first thing that I ought to say is that I am very conscious
indeed that our farming community are engaged in a process of
reform, which is on-going now as a result of the negotiations
which took place in 2003, and that there would be great anxiety
if people thought that in some way that process of reform and
change on which we are embarked was going to be torn up and we
were going to start all over again. The first thing I ought to
say is that the emphasis that came out in the sense of the discussions
on the financial perspective is that we ought not to leave assumptions
about the handling of the overall resources of the European Union
unscrutinised. What people were and are talking about is at what
point, as we approach negotiations on the next financial perspective,
do we say that we should look again at how the European Union
uses its resources, and it is in that context that the issue of
what happens with regard to the Common Agricultural Policy was
raised. There is not any doubt that a great deal has been done
to begin to address some of the worst aspects of the Common Agricultural
Policy as we have historically known it, not least, as I mentioned
earlier, the break of the link between production and subsidy,
but it is very much the case that in the UK we would have liked
to see that process of reform proceed further along the lines
that we originally proposed. These are the ideas that shape our
approach, and to a certain extent I think it would be fair to
say something of the approach of successive British governments
in that it has long been the view—I hope I am not doing
anybody an injustice, and if anybody want to disassociate themselves
from that please feel free to do so, but it has long been the
view that we ought to have less resources devoted to this particular
area, that the resources that do go in should go, not so much
as they have done in the past to production and subsidy, and that
has begun to change, but that we ought to put more resources into
stimulating rural development in its wider sense and also into
environmental support. The sort of shorthand phrase that we now
tend to use for it is that, where there is public money, the public
money could legitimately be used to purchase public goods, and
in that context I put things like the undoubted role that farmers
have as the custodians of our landscape. So there are a range
of things there where we would prefer to see resources directed
rather than in some of the ways that it has been directed in the
past, and that would be the overall kind of direction and intent,
but we recognise, I would anticipate, there will always be a need
for some common framework of policy: because otherwise you undermine
the single market and you create a position where there could
be uncompetitiveness and there should be disadvantage within different
Member States, depending on how the agricultural policy was pursued.
Q55 Daniel Kawczynski: On the second
point?
Margaret Beckett: On the second
point, of course I am always honoured to receive invitations to
visit honourable member's constituencies. I cannot at this time
give you an undertaking that I would be able to come to your constituency
in the New Year or, indeed, on the date when the new livestock
market is being opened, not least because, if I may say with the
greatest respect to your farming constituents, I am not the Secretary
of State for Agriculture or, indeed, the Minister of Agriculture,
I am the Secretary of State for the Environment, for food, which
includes the whole farming industry, fishing, forestry, et cetera,
and also for rural affairs, and I know this is a source of regret
to some in the farming community, but I do have a different remit
and I have a much more international remit than did my predecessors.
The Agriculture Council itself meets about 12 times a year, the
Environment Council somewhere between six and eight times a year
and during my 10 years of this post, as it happens, on the environment
side there are always various international conferences, like
the Commission for Sustainable Development which meets in the
spring in New York and the Climate Change Convention which always
meets towards the end of the year, but in both the major areas
of my portfolio that have international dimensions there have
been a series of major international conferences and events—the
Johannesburg World Summit, the World Trade Talks. It is the Foreign
Office and the Department for International Development who are
probably the people who are most directly concerned internationally,
but we come pretty close to them in the international agenda,
and that inevitably restricts the amount of activity that my predecessors
would have undertaken on the domestic front.
Daniel Kawczynski: On the CAP reforms,
I would actually like to congratulate Defra. I have had a personal
experience of the way that Defra has helped farmers. My own wife
has turned a redundant dairy farm into an equestrian centre. She
received a grant from Defra to do that and she now runs an equestrian
centre with 30 horses. I have to say that the experience we have
had from Defra has been absolutely superb on that front.
Chairman: You do not want an official
opening of this as well, do you!
Q56 Daniel Kawczynski: No, but I
am always happy to see Mrs Beckett in my constituency. I wanted
to put that on record because sometimes secretaries of state come
and it is just a process for us to have go at you, but when there
is something good, I have to tell you, it is very, very good.
I hope when the Prime Minister talks about CAP reforms that the
Prime Minister and yourself realise that underpinning CAP reforms,
these sort of projects, to diversify, are real success stories
for the future of our country, and I just wanted to tell you that
I think that is very good and I hope you continue with those sorts
of projects.
Margaret Beckett: I am extremely
grateful to you for two reasons. One is because I am genuinely
appreciative. It is entirely understandable, and this is not a
criticism of anybody, but inevitably the process of questioning,
whether in the House or in select committee, tends to be to focus
on the failures, the difficulties, or whatever, and my staff very
rarely indeed hear a word of praise from the political sector;
so that will be very welcome and I am sure it will probably be
a front page lead in our departmental magazine! Secondly, I am
particularly grateful to you because I know that there are such
schemes, and I know we do give grants, and, for one reason or
another, I never seem to meet anybody who has got one or is grateful,
so I am personally very grateful to you.
Q57 Chairman: Can I pursue that in
a little more detail to get down to the nitty gritty again. I
am sorry to disturb the love-in that is going on here! In terms
of the statement that the Prime Minister makes that the CAP must
have further reforms, what I am struggling to understand is what
do you see in specific terms are the next areas for reform? You
have presided over one of the biggest single changes in the configuration
of the CAP since it was first brought into being—the decoupling,
the digression, the modulation and all of the current purchase
of environmental goods are very welcome and necessary reforms—but
is this reform designed to reach a number lower than the present
financial perspective—is that the objective—or is
it some other objective in terms of what the CAP is designed to
do? I am not clear what reform actually means.
Margaret Beckett: You will have
to forgive me, Chairman, if I am very cautious here, because I
must not stray into the territory of negotiations on the financial
perspective, which are a matter either for the Prime Minister
or for the Chancellor. All I think I can really say is, first
of all, that of course, because they came up in the context of
the financial perspective, it is in part about how the budget
of the European Union is used that stimulated that dialogue, and
one thing, I must admit, I had not immediately appreciated (and
it quite shocked me when I did, and I am not sure how widely it
is known because of the way that these things tend to be reported
in the broad brush and not in the detailed picture), I had not
fully appreciated that certainly in the final set of proposals
put forward by the Luxembourg Presidency there were cuts in the
budget for research and development and for, I believe I am right
in saying, things like skill training, and so on. So when our
Prime Minister was saying, "Look, if we are to adapt to the
new working of the global economy, these are the areas where we
should be putting investment rather than in some of the ways that
we have put in hitherto", not only were we not putting more
money into those areas but an integral part of that proposal was
to cut the money going into those area, and that, I think, did
inevitably raise the question, "Oh well, if we are not going
to make those cuts or we do not think those cuts should be made
and, indeed, we think there should be expansion, where are the
areas where we should look for greater efficiency and greater
change?" It is in that context that it came up. I do not
think there is much more I can say to you at this time about the
direction that we would wish to see things go. As you know, we
have the sugar discussions now. There are further discussions
about some of the specific regimes—fruit and vegetables,
wine, I think, from memory—in the pipeline as some of the
bits that were not dealt with in the big reform negotiation in
2003 but which we have agreed we should look at, and I would hope
that the same kind of pattern of approach to those particular
regimes would be followed as was followed in the main negotiations.
That is on-going work and, as I say, there is not much I can add
really to what I said earlier.
Q58 Chairman: Before we leave the
CAP, you, being, I am sure, an early riser like me, have been
listening with avid interest to Farming Today's discussion about
food and security, and I was very interested, because a member
of the public very kindly sent me a copy of a letter that they
had received from your department, signed by a Sunni Mitra, and
in this mouth-watering paragraph in this letter it says that your
department takes food security very seriously and that Defra economists
have begun to research the issue around food security and to review
the academic literature on this subject. It goes on to say, "It
is a complex issue, which ranges wider than simple concepts of
self-sufficiency. This research will not be complete until the
first half of next year." Are you aware of this work, what
scope does it cover and are we going to see some kind of public
manifestation of the outcome of this study?
Margaret Beckett: I am not massively
aware of it. I certainly cannot give the Committee any details,
but if you would like a note about it, I am sure we would be very
happy to provide one.
Q59 Chairman: I think we would be
interested indeed.
Margaret Beckett: We have recently
upped the staffing of our economics side of the Department, and
this may be partly in consequence of that.
2 Committee of Public Accounts, Sixth Report of Session
2005-06, Department of Trade and Industry: Renewable energy,
HC 413. Back
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