Examination of Witnesses (Questions 246-259)
MR ELLIOT
MORLEY MP, MISS
SARAH NASON
AND MRS
SUE ELLIS
25 JANUARY 2006
Q246 Chairman: Minister, thank you once
again for appearing before this Committee, for which we are very
grateful. I know you are on a tight time schedule this afternoon,
so we will try to be as quick as we can. May I formally welcome
Elliot Morley, the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment,
supported by Miss Sarah Nason, Head of Flood Management Division
and Mrs Sue Ellis, Head of Waste Management Division of Defra.
Minister, we always like to spring a surprise on you, so we are
not going to talk about the Environment Agency straight away.
I hope you do not mind putting on your environment hat to clear
up a little point of concern. When the Secretary of State came
before the Committee in November for a very helpful session, we
wrote to her about when the results of your appraisal of the UK
Climate Change Programme were going to be published. Not unnaturally,
given the presidency responsibilities and Council responsibilities
she had, she said she thought it would be unlikely that the draft
of that would be in our box before Christmas and she gave us the
distinct impression it would be afterwards. I know she is not
still on holiday from Christmas and the New Year, but we have
not seen this document. Could you try to explain to us what has
caused the delay and is it going to appear, as some have suggested,
at the end of March or, as others have suggested, the end of February?
Mr Morley: The short answer, which
is not terribly satisfactory, is that we want it to appear as
soon as possible. It was always going to be the case that it was
going to be after Christmas because of the work that was in progress.
To be quite frank with you, Chairman, there is the issue of the
National Allocation Plan for the second phase of the EU ETS. We
do have to publish figures on the second phase. Those figures
have a direct bearing on the climate change review. We would expect
to get a very large carbon saving in the second phase of the EU
ETS. In terms of people evaluating the range of measures that
we are likely to put forward, I think it would be in everyone's
interests if we could coincide with those figures so people can
see them. In terms of the figures, that work is very close to
completion. It is not completed yet. I am not absolutely sure
the exact date that it will be completed. It is not that far away,
as I understand it.
Q247 Chairman: Just to press you
a little further on it, is it likely to be in the first quarter
of this year?
Mr Morley: Yes.
Q248 Chairman: The reason that we
are interested in it is that obviously we want to use the results
of that as a focus point for our own inquiry into it. We have
published details of that as you have probably seen. Knowing when
it is going to come would be of particular help to us.
Mr Morley: I think you could certainly
bank on it being in the first quarter.
Q249 Chairman: I am grateful to you,
Minister. Let us move on to the Environment Agency. It is just
about 10 years old and we thought it would be a good idea to have
a look at it. It is about six years since some people on the Select
Committee side looked at the Environment Agency's work. I was
struck by your own Department's evidence. Did you sign this off?
Mr Morley: Yes.
Q250 Chairman: You read it word for
word?
Mr Morley: Yes, just about.
Q251 Chairman: Did you think it answered
the questions that we actually put forward?
Mr Morley: Some of the questions
that your Committee asks are very wide-ranging and there are broad
answers to them.
Q252 Chairman: For example, the first
question was very simple: how successful has the Environment Agency
been in its role as enforcer of environmental regulation and controls
and how well is it managing its range of activities? You dealt
with that in three paragraphs. Each one of them simply said what
it did. It contained no commentary. I was intrigued as to why
you were reluctant to say even something nice about the Agency.
Mr Morley: For the record, I can
say that measurement of success can be a very judgmental issue.
In terms of my own view of the Agency, which is the second largest
Agency of its type in the world, and it is certainly the largest
in Europe, I think it has had a range of successes of which we
in this country can be proud. We did make it very clear that we
support the work that it has done. Regularly we monitor its objectives
and achievements. In terms of its delivery, any organisation,
as you will know, Chairman, always has to look at the way it performs,
the way it delivers and its objectives; there is always scope
for improvement in any kind of organisation. I think the Agency
has a very good record.
Q253 Chairman: The Agency told us
in its evidence that it has lots of meetings regularly with you.
You have formal review meetings and I am sure you have many phone
calls with the hierarchy. Can you give us a flavour of that? You
said in your last sentence that there is always room for improvement.
How can it improve? Whilst you have been Environment Minister,
what are the things you have asked it do better and what are the
things about which you have criticised it?
Mr Morley: I would not say that
I have particularly criticised the Agency. I have certainly asked
it too look at its regulatory functions to make sure that they
are efficient and properly reviewed. I have asked it to look at
its budgets to make sure that it finds economies within its own
operations. The economies it finds can be fed through to its spending
areas. I have asked it to make sure that it does recover costs
in relation to its work, but no more than the cost of the enforcement
of the particular area in question. I know that they have done
that. In the discussions that I have with them, particularly going
through their score cards (of course, like them, I am quite interested
in where they identify within their own score cards that they
could do better) they are doing better. I have no doubts at all
on their commitment to that.
Q254 Chairman: The Environment Agency
and indeed your own department vie with each other, it seems,
to be champions of the environment. When we had the Campaign to
Protect of Rural England before us last week, they said that there
has to be a limitation on the number of people vying to be champions
because there is a danger of overlap and duplication. Do you perceive
that as a problem and, if you do, what are you doing to deal with
that?
Mr Morley: I do not see it as
a problem in a sense. It is inevitable, if we have a body like
the Environment Agency with responsibilities for air, land, water
and pollution and responsibilities for flood and coastal defence,
that there are implications there in relation to biodiversity.
It has a duty to promote sustainable development. Of course we
have other agencies. Currently English Nature and the Countryside
Agency are going to form the new Natural England. In some areas
it is inevitable that, whatever structure of government you have,
there are going to be some overlaps. Where there are overlaps,
the Agency has been developing memoranda of understanding with
Natural England and the Forestry Commission. There have been what
I think are some very good examples of partnership working, particularly
in relation to the Water Framework Directive and agricultural
management. I think there are some good examples of that in terms
of the Agency and other bodies, and I very much welcome that.
Q255 Mrs Moon: One of the things
that we are aware you are moving towards is Defra's Marine Bill.
We have looked at a number of things in relation to this. One
of the things that you have suggested, for example in your Making
Space for Water document, is that the Environment Agency should
take responsibility for Shoreline Management Plans. The British
Ports Association has argued that perhaps there need to be clearer
guidelines on the Environment Agency's responsibility in relation
to marine issues. Could you clarify for us what role you see the
Environment Agency playing in either the development or the implementation
of the Marine Bill and the measures that will be in it?
Mr Morley: Of course the Marine
Bill covers a wider area than simply shoreline and estuary management.
The idea of the Marine Bill, apart from addressing issues such
as marine conservation and spatial planning, is also to look at
the objectives of trying to bring together the range of regulatory
functions that exist in offshore waters, which is currently divided
amongst a number of government departments and organisations.
It is an attempt to streamline that. Of course it very much depends
on the outcome of the consultation. The Government does not have
a fixed position on other ideas about a marine management organisation.
We are currently evaluating the kind of responses that we are
getting. The Agency is principally land-based but it does have
some roles, particularly in diffuse pollution that is flowing
from the rivers into the sea for example, in relation to shoreline
management plans, and also such things as coastal squeeze in biodiversity
terms. There would have to be close interaction between the Environment
Agency and the future development of a Marine Bill and a marine
management organisation, should that be the road that we go down.
Q256 Mrs Moon: Some of those who
have given evidence to us have expressed an opinion that the Environment
Agency already has too much responsibility in relation to marine
conservation and development. Would you agree that they already
have too much responsibility?
Mr Morley: I would not necessarily
agree with that. I think it is quite right and proper that you
keep an open mind about what is the most effective organisational
structure. What we should be trying to work towards as a government—and
I know, Chairman, that this has been the view of your own Committee
on a number of occasions—is a holistic management approach
where we have an integrated approach to issues such as water management,
marine management, coastal management and the implications those
have for agricultural land management planning and river and sea
defences. In that respect, the role the Agency has on coasts and
estuaries is appropriate for what it does.
Q257 Mrs Moon: If you saw it having
an enhanced role in relation to the Marine Bill and marine conservation
issues, would you see it having additional expenditure or taking
that from its current budget?
Mr Morley: That would very much
depend on whether it had an enhanced role in relation to the Marine
Bill. As I was saying, as it is primarily land-based and as we
are looking at marine-based activities in which the Agency is
not currently involved, there is not necessarily an expanded role
for the Agency and its approach.
Q258 Mr Reed: A Marine Bill is something
I personally welcome. However, I do think that the EA, or whichever
body is charged with implementing the bill, for want of a better
term, must surely have an international element to it, given the
international element of maritime legislation. In what way do
you see that affecting the EA? On the bill in particular, would
it replicate or complement or supersede the international treaties
such as OSPA and UNCLOS to which we are already signatories?
Mr Morley: I can make it absolutely
clear that a Marine Bill will not supersede those treaties. They
are binding treaties, treaties which we have signed up to. The
geographic scope of any potential marine management organisation
very much depends on the scope of the regimes that underpin the
functions that it delivers. There is also, incidentally, a devolved
implication here as well because of course there would be devolution
of management in Scotland and to quite a large extent in Wales
as well. I repeat the point that this is a new approach that does
not necessarily put extra burdens or responsibilities on the Environment
Agency.
Q259 Chairman: Can I be clear, as
part of your preparation for the Marine Bill, are you evaluating
two models of an Agency with a responsibility for the marine environment:
one that would incorporate it within the existing Environment
Agency and one a free-standing body?
Mr Morley: We are certainly looking
at a free-standing body. Many of the functions that will be encompassed
by a Marine Bill are not currently the responsibility of the Environment
Agency but of the Department for Transport, ODPM and the Department
of Trade and Industry, such as the licensing of offshore renewable
energy developments. ODPM has an interest in dredging. Defra has
an interest in dredging in relation to environmental impact assessment.
That is not an Environment Agency function. A lot of the functions
we are looking at are not Environment Agency functions. The issue
for us is whether there is justification for a new organisation.
The Hampton Review recommended to Government that we do not unnecessarily
set up more regulatory bodies and that we think very carefully
before we do that.
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