UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 642-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

 

 

THE WORK OF DEFRA

 

 

Wednesday 2 November 2005

RT HON MARGARET BECKETT MP

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 83

 

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

on Wednesday 2 November 2005

Members present

Mr Michael Jack, in the Chair

James Duddridge

Lynne Jones

Daniel Kawczynski

David Lepper

Mrs Madeleine Moon

Mr Dan Rogerson

Sir Peter Soulsby

Mr Shailesh Vara

Mr Roger Williams

________________

Witness: Rt Hon Margaret Beckett, a Member of the House, Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, examined.

Q1 Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this afternoon's session of the Committee. May we welcome you, once again, Secretary of State. It is always a pleasure to have you here to be quizzed on a wide range of issues. I think it would be useful, as this is the first time you have appeared before this new Committee - some colleagues come to Defra's activities for the first time - if you could spend a moment or two outlining the top priority agendas for Defra, as you see them, now we have embarked on a new Parliament?

Margaret Beckett: Yes, thank you very much. Without any disrespect to your previous Committee, it is nice to see so many new Members taking an interest in the work of the Department. I hope, perhaps, in the not too distant future we will be able to arrange a familiarisation briefing for them of the kind the previous Committee had because I think people did find it helpful. Basically, the key things that we have picked out for this Parliament at this point in time are implementing our rural manifesto, and in particular not least setting up the Rural Housing Commission to look at the issue of affordable rural housing which so many parliamentary colleagues continue to tell us remains one of the biggest issues in rural areas; environmental leadership on issues like waste, environmental industries, agri-environment schemes and so on; work continuing on improving the quality of the local environment, Members will probably be aware that we passed the Bill in the last Parliament but, of course, some of its provisions will only come into effect next year, and domestic and international climate change remain a very substantial priority for us, as I think the Committee would expect. Those are the key elements of our work which are very much dominating our more strategic agenda but, of course, in the short-term the Department is incredibly heavily engaged with the ongoing work of the UK Presidency, still of the G8 and also of the European Union. There are still a great number of meetings taking place and also, of course, as we move into December colleagues will probably appreciate that we will then have the Montreal Climate Change negotiations, the World Trade talks, in which agriculture is still a very key element and, also, we will have the ongoing issues in the EU Councils themselves. It is an agenda which up until the end of December will continue to be very heavily dominated by Presidency work against the background of those overall priorities.

Chairman: Let us concentrate for a moment or two on the Presidency because Shailesh Vara wants to follow that up.

Q2 Mr Vara: Secretary of State, in Prime Minister's Questions earlier on today the Prime Minister was asked whether he regarded his Presidency as a success and his response was "There are another two months to go" which was not exactly very assuring that it had been a success. As far as your Department is concerned, would you say that it has had success in the past four months and, if so, what are they?

Margaret Beckett: I would say judging from the comments of my peers and colleagues in the European Councils and, indeed, on the international scene, people do believe that this Government has had considerable successes. Of course, certainly we hope to be able, through the work on chemicals in the Environment Council - we passed it on to the Competitiveness Council actually - to approach that issue which we hope may be decided in November and also, of course, in the Agriculture Council, I was talking about December a few moments ago but in November we hope to conclude the negotiations on sugar reform, at least the discussions in the Council itself. Of course, with both of those things we are, to quite a large extent, in the hands of the Members of the European Parliament. I think one of the things which is an uncertainty as we come towards the end of our Presidency is the timing of their views, delivering their opinion and so on and that may affect whether or not we are able to reach agreement in the UK Presidency on a couple of those very major issues. I would say to the Committee that our colleagues in the Austrian Ministry, who will inherit the chairmanship of both Councils from us - because like us Austria combines agriculture and environment in one department - are even more anxious for the decisions to be made in the UK Presidency than we are. They are particularly anxious not to inherit those decisions. All I can say to the Committee is in terms of the work that has been done, the preparation, the work on Presidency compromises and so on, the efficiency with which the Presidency has been run, our colleagues are extremely flattering.

Q3 Daniel Kawczynski: Secretary of State, I want to be able to ask you questions in a respectful way as I am going to Hong Kong with you in December.

Margaret Beckett: Very wise!

Chairman: Tell us more.

Q4 Daniel Kawczynski: To the WTO talks, obviously. I do have a concern with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria into the European Union. I supported the Bill yesterday for those two countries to come into the European Union but I did speak in that debate about the amount of money that will be ploughed into Romania to help with its agriculture. The Minister for Europe indicated a figure of somewhere over €6 billion. Now at the same time as our farmers - my farmers in Shrewsbury and Shropshire - are having to make stringent cuts and cutbacks to subsidies we are pouring all this money into Romania. I just want to have your thoughts on that?

Margaret Beckett: It was an accepted feature of the negotiations to bring Romania and Bulgaria in that that would have an impact on the distribution of resources. One of the things that everyone is trying to do - certainly everybody in the United Kingdom, including the representatives of farming interests - is to make sure that we can assist and support UK farming to become competitive in the market place and not to be reliant, as they were driven to be in the past, on funds and subsidies from the European Union. Of course the complete severing of the link between production and subsidy, which is a feature of the reforms that we are pursuing, is something that will very much encourage and help and facilitate. We are doing other things, as I am sure you know, working with the farming community to try to help them to overcome some of the problems that they have experienced and make them more market-orientated so they can thrive irrespective of what subsidy regime exists in the EU.

Q5 Chairman: Secretary of State, you mentioned in your opening comments about the Presidency that you were hoping that you would conclude discussions in November on the subject of sugar. The United Kingdom's position, according to Lord Bach, who appeared before the Committee last week, falls square behind the Presidency proposals. There do appear to be one or two recalcitrant members of the Council, particularly France, for example, who does not seem to be quite so enthusiastic as we are in terms of reform of the sugar regime. Would you like to give us your political assessment as to how the land lies and whether there is a genuine move towards coming to an agreement or are we going to see some last minute heels go into the ditch to stop progress and agreement?

Margaret Beckett: It is, as ever, quite difficult to tell but there are a number of extremely important factors which encourage the Council to bite the bullet and make decisions about reform. For example, the existing sugar regime expires in July next year, now obviously at that point a decision will have to be made whether it is possible to rollover the existing regime, and it is by no means clear that that would be practicable or possible. Or, if we have no reformed regime in place then it is straight to the world price which is at present three times the price being paid in the European Union and, of course, the compensation that is on the table as part of the reform proposals now would no longer be there. That is one very important factor which drives colleagues to think about the decisions they have to make, a second is that as a result of the WTO panel ruling, which the European Union lost, we have to keep within our market or cut production, something like four million tonnes of sugar. Now that, on its own, is going to totally disrupt the sugar market, if nothing else if no other steps are taken. That is a second important driving factor to encourage colleagues to contemplate reform. A third is the combination of, on the one hand, the fact that there is a compensation package available and, on the other, the pressure from both the farming interests, from the producers and growers of sugar, and also from the industries whether they are processing sugar directly or industries which use sugar. All of these players want to know where they stand. There are two or three, I think I am right in saying, Member States, for example, who have already sown the crop for this coming year; the longer we take to make decisions the more likely it is that more farmers will make that decision, not knowing where they stand in terms of reform. There are quite a number of significant external factors. What we are seeing in the Council is that we have had a round of exchanges where many colleagues gave a very clear indication of opposing reform. The last round of exchanges we had at the last Council a few days ago was to the effect that, I think I am right in saying, every Member State said that they accepted the need for reform, but then of course to varying degrees people raised their own particular concerns, as you would expect. As I am sure you would expect, also, because I know you have experience of conducting some of these affairs, the Commissioner and I have had a series of trilateral meetings. We have now met every Member State, and that has supplemented a whole lot of official meetings, to try and explore where the greatest sensitivities lie for particular Member States. It appears to us that it will not be easy but that it is not out of the question to get agreement at our meetings in November which, incidentally, the Council has scheduled for three days.

Q6 Chairman: Can you help to clear up a little bit of a mystery because last week we had Lord Bach in front of us and you used the word a moment ago to "know" where people are. We were probing him about how the United Kingdom delegation - as opposed to you being in the chair of the Presidency of the Council - were going to advance what clearly are some points of concern that have been put to us during our evidence-gathering exercise. I am sure those have been very clearly communicated to you and to your officials. If I look at the list of things we have got down, for example that there should be no coupling of compensation in the future; that from the United Kingdom's point of view the price reduction was deemed to be perhaps over-zealous; that there were some technicalities of the UK price in relation to the A and B quota ratio that we have presently; that there was a very serious issue put to us, for example, by Tate & Lyle about the very future of their Silvertown Refinery, all of those seem to be perfectly legitimate points to put into the discussion. Now I do not expect the United Kingdom to tell me how they are going to negotiate but what we did not get was a clear steer that that kind of issue was on the UK's agenda, that Mr Bradshaw as our Minister at the Council was going to be taking the issues of concern from the UK sugar industry as part of the debate. Can you help us on that point, are those points going to be talked about by the United Kingdom's representative?

Margaret Beckett: I think it is important not to forget that we have only been in the Presidency of the European Union since July, we have been discussing sugar for longer than that, interminably it seems sometimes. Everybody is very well aware - the Commission and officials - of the concerns that the United Kingdom has. Many of those concerns are shared with other Member States. For example, there are a variety of views about coupling but there is no doubt that some Member States very strongly share the view that outside the Presidency the UK has expressed about coupling payments, there are others who equally strongly take a different view. There are lots of Member States who have concerns about handling a quota, again with a variety of different views and also about the price cut. I can assure you that the Commission are very well aware of the concerns not only of Tate & Lyle but of British industrial interests and will remain so, but you will appreciate that I am in a somewhat delicate position in the Presidency. All that I can say to you is that there is no doubt that these concerns are not being ignored and that they have been raised in the proper way. Can I say one more thing, on the issue of the price cut, I think one thing that is perhaps quite helpful to get across to the Committee is the Commissioner's very great concern for the level of the price cut. I will say to you what she is saying in the Council and outside it, indeed, to Member States because I think it might be helpful to the Committee to grasp this point. Her proposal for the level of price cut, which is of course greater than the original one, is driven by her belief that if we do not make a price cut, which in her judgment is sufficiently substantial, the disruption to the market will ensue as a result of other things, including not least the fact - one of the things which I left out in my list of drivers - the Everything but Arms Agreement gives free access to goods from the LDCs in 2009. She believes that as we approach, and particularly as we move into 2009, if we have not made a sufficiently substantial price cut to rebalance the market in sugar from now, there will then need to be a further review and a further reform. Her concern about that is first that that would be destabilising and, second, that at that point she would be unable to secure a compensation package which would help to ease the burden of that change in the way that compensation packages would ease this change.

Q7 Chairman: Just for the record, you mentioned about the trilateral discussions - Presidency, Commission and Member State - has the United Kingdom had such a meeting?

Margaret Beckett: The United Kingdom has had such meetings at official level.

Q8 Chairman: But not at ministerial level?

Margaret Beckett: Not at ministerial level so far, but I have little doubt that one of the many colleagues with whom we shall have entertaining discussions in the small hours in the middle of November will be Mr Bradshaw.

Q9 Chairman: Okay. I hope he has on board the agenda of some of the issues which have been put to us. I would like to move away from the Presidency for a moment and just go back to one other issue which must be very high on your short-term agenda and that is the question of avian flu. You came to the House last week and made a statement about that but Madeleine Moon has points that she would like an update on.

Q10 Mrs Moon: Minister, following a review of quarantine arrangements on 31 October, are there any further steps being taken and can you update us on any reports of change in the disease and its move into Europe?

Margaret Beckett: The announcement of 31 October was the announcement of the setting up of the review with Professor Dimmock, to the best of my recollection, in the chair. We are very hopeful - obviously we will take advice from him - that he will be able to come back to us on that within something of the order of a month because we do think it would be helpful if he was able to do so. I do not think there is much more information about the movement of avian flu across Europe than that with which the Committee will probably already be familiar. The Croatian case was a suspect case until a few days ago, it has now been confirmed. I am not aware, from memory, of any new suggested cases but obviously that is being monitored. Some time ago, before the event that occurred in quarantine in Essex, we discussed and made arrangements with the various ornithological societies and people like that to step up their monitoring and observance and to keep us up to speed with anything which came in from their monitoring of tanked birds, and this kind of thing. That is ongoing and, as I say, we very much hope that we will have a relatively speedy response from Professor Dimmock and his colleagues.

Q11 Mrs Moon: You are carrying out a simulation exercise I believe in 2006, Exercise Hawthorne?

Margaret Beckett: In 2006?

Mrs Moon: I thought it was 2006.

Chairman: I think you are getting some body language behind which might be helpful.

Q12 Mrs Moon: In 2006, Exercise Hawthorne, I wonder if you can tell us what will be happening in that exercise? What form will it take?

Margaret Beckett: I have not seen a scenario for it yet. I hesitated and asked you if you meant 2006 because there is a desktop exercise that is taking place at an earlier time than that. I think what perhaps I can do is see if we can provide any information to the Committee. The whole point about having such a contingency test is that we do not know what are likely to be the contingencies which are tested. There is a limit to what I can say to the Committee. We can certainly undertake to let you have some kind of a note, even if it only says we cannot tell you but I hope it will be able to say much more than that.

Q13 Mrs Moon: Finally, I wonder if I can ask you to clarify, in the statement made to the House there seemed to have been some indications in the press at the weekend that the Belgian Government is claiming that it had set out animal health concerns in making its proposals for a ban on the import of wild birds. I wonder if you can clarify your statements?

Margaret Beckett: Yes, I can, and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to do so. This is from memory now, I believe that it was on the morning of the Wednesday when I made my statement that the Belgian Minister was on Farming Today and made his observations. When I was preparing to come to the House we had not been able to unearth the paper trail for what was, in fact, just an item of any other business at an Environment Council meeting. I was reliant on what I might call the collective memory of participants and that collective memory was, as I understand it, he made two suggestions. One was that he had called for a ban on the import of captive wild birds on the grounds of avian flu and, secondly, that this had not taken place because Britain, and Britain alone, resisted it. Now, to be frank with the Committee, it was clear from the beginning there was something wrong with that recollection because Environment Council proceed by qualified majority on everything other than Council conclusions. It would seem singularly unlikely that Britain alone could have blocked such a rule. Moreover, the recollection was very different, it was that the issue had been raised on conservation and biodiversity grounds, which would be understandable because those are matters for the Environment Council whereas animal disease is clearly much more a matter for the Agriculture Council, so it would be understandable that they came up in the Environment Council. Clearly we felt there was something wrong. As I say, the recollection was that he had raised the issue on the grounds of biodiversity and conservation. Since then I have had a chance to see the papers which related to that particular claim and it is indeed the case that the letter from him relates to biodiversity primarily and also touches on conservation. It is true that in the penultimate paragraph there is wording about clearly other major concerns with regard to public health, animal welfare and policy efficiency which I also addressed. Now we are reliant on memory from what took place in the Council but, again, the recollection is that it was a biodiversity and conservation issue. When I wrote back to him I wrote back supporting the expressed view of the Commission which was that such a ban was not justified on any of the grounds on which it had been raised at that time. It is clear that the Commission did not share his view and opposed his proposal, to the best of our recollection and understanding because there is no detailed minute of it because there was no vote. Perhaps one Member State may have expressed some qualified support, but it is also our recollection that a number of Member States shared our reservations. On his recollection that Britain alone had prevented this, there is no evidence to support that because, of course, the Commission did not support it. On the issue of the degree to which he raised avian influenza as a concern or animal disease as a concern, as I say, two-thirds of what I said in the House was totally accurate, it was the second reference that said it did not touch on animal disease that was less than accurate. I am regretful for that, because I always do try to be accurate with the House and have the opportunity of setting it straight before the Committee. It would be helpful to the Committee to have a copy of the letter, and I am perfectly happy to send it to them.

Q14 Lynne Jones: On that point, could you give us a note on what the reservations were at that time you just mentioned?

Margaret Beckett: Yes.

Q15 James Duddridge: Secretary of State, I would like to probe in a bit more detail about avian flu. If there was an outbreak of avian flu in a Member of Parliament's constituency, would you hope to inform the Member of Parliament and, more specifically, emergency planning authorities? Following on from that, did that happen in this case in Essex on the site or sites involved?

Margaret Beckett: No, we would not look to involve the Member of Parliament, I am afraid, because it is a very, very longstanding matter of policy in my Department and in its predecessor Department that we do not publicise the sites of potential animal disease. Now I completely understand that it is a matter which Members might feel somewhat sensitive about but I hope you will understand the anxieties which have led the Department always to adopt a policy of not publicising, particularly at the stage when people are not quite whether it is an animal disease site or not. The last thing you want - I say so with deep respect to those who might be here - is the friendly local media trampling all over it. That is the approach. Of course, the emergency authorities, or the relevant authorities, the enforcement authorities and so on, would be informed as appropriate.

Q16 James Duddridge: Would that mean, for example, the district council would be informed of the specific site at first possible notice so they could liaise with Defra over a containment zone because when we had a technical briefing I think there was a one mile containment zone if there was an outbreak around the area where birds would be confined?

Margaret Beckett: Certainly we would expect to be informing and involving the local authority. Indeed the local authority, although we have technically not had an outbreak in the UK because the outbreak occurred in quarantine, is aware and involved where we have had this episode in quarantine.

Q17 Sir Peter Soulsby: Secretary of State, I entirely understand the reason for not publicising cases of animal disease, and the reason for policy behind that. Of course avian flu in the public mind has got somewhat confused with human pandemic influenza.

Margaret Beckett: Indeed.

Q18 Sir Peter Soulsby: Of course there have been some fairly lurid headlines, including one I think I recall which went something like "Bird flu, 100,000 deaths predicted". Of course they are mixing up two related but separate issues. It causes me to ask you whether your Department, perhaps working with the Department of Health, have taken steps to clarify and inform the public about the differences between human pandemic influenza and avian influenza and, of course, the relationship, potentially, between the two. I do feel if it is going to be the case of not publicising animal disease the public does need to understand that it is an animal disease that is not being publicised and not something which is an immediate threat to their own health.

Margaret Beckett: I completely share that view and I do understand the concern you are expressing, Sir Peter. All I can say to you is certainly we are trying very hard, so is the Department of Health, very hard to get across the message. Indeed, I think my colleague, the Secretary of State for Health said only a few days ago that while, of course, there is a concern about the fact that there is a widespread expectation in the scientific community that in some year or some decade there will be a flu virus in circulation to which people will have less resistance, not necessarily an avian flu virus but maybe just this year's variation on the theme of human flu viruses, that is very different from saying we know it will come, for example, from avian flu virus. She did say in terms not only has this not yet happened but it may never happen that this or any other strain of avian flu transmutes in some way into a human form which affects human beings. We have tried very hard to get that message across. I think you and every other Member of this Committee will understand that it is not always as easy to get across messages of reassurance as it is to get across messages of alarm.

Q19 David Lepper: Just on that question of getting the message across, Secretary of State, MPs received last week from you a very helpful note, including a number, I think it was 49, of questions and answers about avian flu. Am I right in thinking in that form information is available on the Department's website? This seemed to me a very good way of setting out the information.

Margaret Beckett: I believe so.

Q20 Chairman: Could I just ask you if you might reflect on the policy of not advising the Member of Parliament about an incident breaking out. I tell you for why: it never fails to amaze me how quickly the media do get hold of information and, God forbid that it got into the commercial poultry flock in this country, I can imagine what would happen with someone like Sun Valley, a huge local concern, because all the workforce would know and who might they turn to, they might turn, amongst others, to the Member of Parliament who is sitting in blissful ignorance that an event is occurring whereas when the local media come to the MP they are properly briefed. It can sometimes be a help as opposed to a hindrance, but if you are in the dark then you will find it very difficult to respond to the kind of searching questions which are put to you. I appreciate you do not want unnecessary publicity, and one understands it, but might I ask you to think about that because I think it is a serious issue. One point of detail, looking at a Parliamentary Question which a Mr Patterson, one of our colleagues, asked you. He asked what assessment had you made of the presence of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in Taiwan, obviously reflecting the possibility that one of the birds which has been affected had come from there. Rather carefully worded, Mr Bradshaw answered saying "We continue to closely monitor the spread of H5N1 virus in South East Asia" but then rather surprisingly said "Taiwan has not officially reported an outbreak of H5N1". I suppose if the supposition is the bird came from Taiwan, it is a bit odd that something has not emanated from that end.

Margaret Beckett: As far as I am aware, still to this day, there is no recorded incident of avian flu in Taiwan. Taiwan is regarded as an avian flu-free country and is adamant that it is so. It is only fair to the Taiwanese Government to put that on the record. You will be aware, Chairman, from the exchanges that we had in the Chamber that recently a consignment of smuggled birds was intercepted on its way to Taiwan from China, and that was reported by the OIE. Those are the facts that are in the public domain. Mr Bradshaw's response was accurate and the information as we know it.

Q21 Daniel Kawczynski: During the Defra questions that we had in the House some days ago, in reply to the Shadow Secretary of State for Agriculture you stated that there was a review that your Department was currently going through in regard to the way that birds are kept in quarantine. Would you give this Committee an assurance that in future birds from different countries will be kept in different units as opposed to being in the same building?

Margaret Beckett: No, I cannot do that at this moment in time because that is the review to which I referred when I spoke to Mrs Moon, and that review has only just begun to operate. What I can tell the Committee, certainly, is that is specifically one of the questions that I have asked the reviewers to consider, this whole issue of whether or not different consignments are kept in the same air space - I think is the accurate description - and I am sure they will have views about that.

Q22 Lynne Jones: Based on the precautionary principle, should you not be adopting that as a policy or is it just not practical to do so?

Margaret Beckett: I do not know the answer to that question. It may well be very difficult to make it practical to do so but that is exactly the kind of issue that I very much hope the review group will consider.

Q23 Lynne Jones: Would it be sensible to do that where it is possible based on the precautionary principle?

Margaret Beckett: I think where there is a capacity in a facility to house different consignments separately, whether it be animals or birds, that will be desirable, obviously.

Q24 Lynne Jones: Should there not be guidance issued to that effect?

Margaret Beckett: It is an issue of what legal powers do we have? What is the general run of arrangements that take place in quarantine facilities? These are all issues that the review will consider.

Q25 Mr Rogerson: We have talked about one presidency, and another is that of the G8. The Prime Minister made it very clear that climate change was to be a priority. What programme has been made in your opinion thus far during the G8 Presidency?

Margaret Beckett: I think, again, it would be fair to record there is still more progress that we hope can be made before the end of the year because in some ways one of the things that will be an indicator is what happens at the climate change convention in Montreal where this will be the first meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol, the first meeting since the Kyoto Protocol has been ratified and come into force. At that meeting there will be a number of important ends to tie off which could not be tied off in terms of giving effect to the decisions which have been made in the consequent past, and giving them a legal force. Also, of course, the issue will be raised, and the European Union will seek to encourage some form of development of a process to what we do beyond the end of the first Kyoto commitment period. A great deal of what we have done during this year of the G8 Presidency has been designed to help to create greater momentum in that UN process and to use other and more informed channels to facilitate greater understanding, and hopefully the establishment of greater common ground. There have been a huge number of events. This week alone we had the first meeting of the Gleneagles dialogue which was set up at the summit, that was yesterday. Today in the UK we have facilitated and hosted a two-day conference for officials on energy efficiency with the new Energy Commissioner looking at his energy Green Paper. There were delegates from 20 countries at the meeting yesterday, that is very much the same countries that were at the round table meeting that we had in March, and there are delegates from some 30 or more countries who have come to the energy efficiency meeting today. The year in effect began in January in Davos where the Prime Minister persuaded the organisers of the Davos Conference to make climate change a major issue on their agenda. He spoke at that meeting, he made a key note speech, and we had, also, a breakfast meeting with the heads of some 30 global companies, all from different sectors, with whom there was an exchange about the issues of climate change who went back to their companies and their sectors to try and raise awareness in their sectors and report back before the summit about what the business community felt they could contribute and what were the steers and levers that they needed. We had the scientists meeting in Exeter to review the latest science and give advice. We had the energy environment ministers round table in March. The 20 countries, by the way, are the G8, the plus 5 who were at Gleneagles and other countries who are already major energy users and growing energy users, those were the broad criteria. You get the picture, I think, of a string of events which have been very well attended and very much welcomed. In Ottawa at the pre meeting for the Montreal gathering of a couple of weeks or so ago, there was an absolutely universal acceptance that climate change was the issue of world leaders and world governments in a way that it had not been before, and that is very much regarded by all of our peers, particularly those who take an interest in issues of climate change, as a major achievement of the UK's G8 Presidency. Indeed, some people have gone so far as to say that they believe the UK under the present Prime Minister has made use of the Presidency of the G8 in a way that no previous presidency has done, which may be rather a large claim but that is what they say, and in a way they think that will make it more difficult for subsequent presidencies to treat it as an occasion to get together and exchange information and ideas about the economy and so on. The Russian Presidency, who are the next to take over from us, have said that they will have a big focus on energy and energy efficiency, energy security in their year and they said yesterday that they hope to keep up the pace and momentum that has been set by the UK. The Japanese, who take over the presidency in 2008, have said already that they will wish in their presidency to have a report back at their summit on the follow-up to Gleneagles and the work that has been done. The perception of our peers is that not only have we put climate change absolutely at the top of the agenda for many world leaders but also that we have set up a process that will continue that. The whole hope is that this will also have an effect on the discussions in Montreal. I am sorry that was such a long answer but a lot has been done.

Q26 Mr Rogerson: A couple of things to raise: basically, you are talking about raising awareness of the issue and starting the process which will be ongoing in the presidencies of other countries?

Margaret Beckett: Yes.

Q27 Mr Rogerson: Coming back to yesterday's meeting, what was achieved there, the first meeting of the dialogue?

Margaret Beckett: There was quite a lot of attendance of energy and environment ministers, and this has not always been easy. We had a report from the World Bank about some work on which they are engaged, which they hope to publish a little later, on how climate change can be a greater priority and embedded in the judgments made in international financial investment and the International Energy Agency also reported back on some practical work that they are doing to promote more effective and efficient use of energy in particular, and also to talk to people about the diversity of how they are able to secure energy security. Also, I think from that meeting we will be writing - Alan Johnson and I who co-chaired it - to those who participated suggesting the setting up of some specific working groups with a feeling that probably people who are interested in particular issues will volunteer for the specific working groups. The idea is, for example, to assess on the basis of all our collective and different experience what are the time lines within which we might be able to make greater use of some of the existing technologies, what is the road map for not just developing but deploying. There is a phrase which I have forbidden my officials to use, and now they are going to be very annoyed because I am going to use it myself, which is the Valley of Death. People have these great ideas of innovation and so on, on issues like environmental efficiency and some people develop ideas, proposals and technologies and then they do not get deployed, and that is the Valley of Death, they disappear into it and never come out the other end. What is the road map for stimulating technological development and also deployment, a lot of practical issues of that kind. What I forgot to say is as a further indication that we have set up something which will be ongoing work, the Mexican Government has volunteered to host the next meeting of the dialogue next year.

Q28 Chairman: If I had parachuted in from somewhere and knew nothing about what was happening, I would think there was a growing world consensus, an agenda for action on climate change and that suddenly we were going to really make progress. You mentioned the "valley of death". In one country in the world they have already got Death Valley, in the United States, but, unfortunately, the United States' government as a collective have not even admitted, seemingly, that there is a problem. The Prime Minister at the Gleneagles G8 seemed to indicate that he had given up trying to get President Bush signed up to Kyoto and was looking for the birth of some kind of new international consensus. Can you shed any light on the seeming reluctance at a national level of the United States to admit there is a problem, whereas at a state level some of the states in the United States, and at the enterprise level some American companies, are actually taking action? What I do not understand is that the United States, which is a major energy importer of hydro-carbons, is in hock to some of the most politically unstable parts of the world and yet collectively seems to be unwilling to pick up all the messages of reassurance, from what you have just said, and to say, "We have seen the light out of the valley. Let us have some action." Why not?

Margaret Beckett: First, can I say that perhaps less attention has been given than I think it merits to the content of the G8 Summit statement, and, indeed, certainly either before the House or before this Committee I have a feeling I remember being pressed before the July Summit on, "Surely you must know what is going to be in the statement because these things are precooked in advance", and I distinctly remember saying to people that this was one negotiation that was going down to the wire, and, indeed, it most certainly did; but in that statement all of the heads of the G8 signed up to the fact that human activity is contributing to climate change, that greenhouse gas emissions - and in some ways I think this is the most significant phrase in the whole statement - need to slow, peak and reverse. They all signed up to the fact that we need to act to make substantial cuts in emissions and agreed to act with resolve and urgency now.

Q29 Chairman: What is the United States' agenda on that to the best of your knowledge?

Margaret Beckett: The United States is continuing to develop. There is a new Asia/Pacific partnership, you may have heard, which I believe is hoping to have its first meeting in January, where again they are looking at practical ways in which they can work with other countries to help cut emissions across the world, and at the Dialogue they took part in the discussions, they will be coming to Montreal and will be part of the discussions there and they are certainly very interested in the kind of practical work that we were discussing at the Dialogue.

Q30 Chairman: Have you in the quiet moments of dialogue that you have had with representatives of the United States got the remotest idea from them as to what they think they could achieve in the United States by any or all of the measures you described, and things that we may not have heard about, to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases? They seem to be reluctant to talk about numbers. It is all right talking about great initiatives and partnerships, but I am not seeing a practical agenda endorsed from President Bush downwards in the administration as to practically what they want to achieve?

Margaret Beckett: They do have, of course, an existing framework of proposals and a goal to reduce the intensity of their emissions. Most of the rest of us do not believe that is satisfactory, we do not believe it is enough, but it is undoubtedly the case that they are making some changes. I believe that only a few days ago they have published a new energy paper, energy strategy, something along those lines. I have not, frankly, had a chance to study it yet, but I believe that is giving an indication of some of the ways in which they think policy is developing. You said to me also that the Prime Minister had indicated in advance of Gleneagles that he had given up on the United States signing the Kyoto Protocol. That is unquestionably true. We had accepted for some considerable time that the United States is not going to sign the existing Kyoto Protocol, and, indeed, if they were to do so it is very unlikely that they could get it through their senate and their congress, which did unanimously reject the original proposal to endorse the Kyoto Protocol when it was put them.

Q31 Chairman: There is such a lack of political endorsement to this process?

Margaret Beckett: We now have the Kyoto Protocol in force, which I think very many people in the United States believed would never happen - over 150 countries have now ratified it - but we are all anxious to say what more can we do than is done in the Kyoto Protocol, which, worthy and important though it is, is a very small amount, and how can we move forward on that forward agenda engaging those who are not engaged in the Kyoto Protocol as it presently stands in that first commitment period, and that includes the United States and, of course, other countries.

Q32 Chairman: We are giving though to our future work programme, and I think the Committee would find it of particular value perhaps if it would not trouble your Department too much to send us a short paper on the British perspective of the American commitment to climate change against the backdrop of the conclusions of Gleneagles, the Dialogue and the forthcoming Montreal meeting, because it is difficult to understand what is happening and what the real commitment is. You obviously have an overview, and I think it would be very helpful if we could have that information. The UK climate change programme and review: there was a hope that by the end of the year you were going to publish a report. Can you be a little more specific as to what progress is being made on this and when we might expect to see the report?

Margaret Beckett: I cannot be absolutely specific. I can certainly tell the Committee that work is continuing. We had, as you say, Chairman, hoped to publish earlier in the year, but, of course, when that commitment was given it appeared that it had not factored in the occurrence of a General Election; so that meant that once the election was safely out of the way there was clearly a reassessment of the timetable. Also we found that there were gaps in our analysis and in the information available to us, and we wanted to remedy that; so that work is on-going. I think we are now close to bringing together the strands of the different material, different advice and so on, and I hope that it will be not too far away. I cannot give you a date at this moment,Chairman. I would if I could.

Q33 Chairman: Let us just probe a little on this, because not too far away is a wonderfully elastic piece of ministerial terminology. Do you think it will be before the end of 2005, or is it more likely to be in the first quarter of 2006?

Margaret Beckett: We are in an unusual position, Chairman. I am genuinely uncertain, and I will give you a very simple reason why. I mentioned that I am the UK, not just the UK, the EU lead negotiator in Montreal and also on agriculture issues at the World Trade Talks. This means, I am afraid, that I leave the UK on about 5 December and do not return it to for some considerable time. I will have to go straight from Montreal to Hong Kong, and immediately after Hong Kong it will be the Christmas Agriculture and Fisheries Council of which you may have fond memories.

Q34 Chairman: Indeed?

Margaret Beckett: Need I say more? Either the Climate Change Review will be ready to be published before I go away at the very beginning of December (and also I have an Environment Council on 2 December), or it may have to wait a little longer than I would ideally have wished.

Chairman: It sounds to me that it might just possibly creep into your box as your post Christmas reading as far as that is concerned.

Q35 Lynne Jones: May I ask some questions on that? The Prime Minister wrote an article about climate change in The Observer, and the one concrete idea that he raised was five per cent of transport fuel to be bio-fuel. Apparently at the moment it is only point zero three per cent. To get to five per cent by 2010, if that is going to contribute to meeting the target, there is going to have to be some pretty nifty footwork to achieve anything like that, and that is only one small contributory element. I am worried, in view of the Climate Change Review, that there does not seem to be a sense of urgency about this if we are going to take seriously meeting the 2010 target.

Margaret Beckett: No. I can assure the Committee that there is no lack of urgency about it; it is just that we want to be sure that any proposals that we make are as soundly based as we can make them. I think it is perhaps wise to recall that the assessment of the original climate change programme proved to be not as robust as people had hoped - some things delivered more by way of carbon savings than had been anticipated, others less - and we are anxious to get a set of proposals that is as robust as we can make it, and that is the driver. It is not a matter of lack of urgency and it is not a matter of wishing to see delay; it is a matter of trying to get something that is as sound as possible.

Q36 Lynne Jones: There is not any inter-departmental wrangling on this delay?

Margaret Beckett: There is, as ever, inter-departmental discussion, as you would expect, and quite right too.

Q37 Lynne Jones: But is it not important, if you are going to be going to these international fora, that we should be setting a good example in this country and you are able to say what we are doing to achieve our targets?

Margaret Beckett: Yes, and I do hope that we will be able to report for the whole European Union at Montreal where we stand vis-à-vis our collective and individual Kyoto Protocol targets, but, of course, although, quite rightly (and I do not in any way regret it), the focus here in the UK is on the things that we have not achieved and how much better we need to do along with everybody else, I can assure you that on the world stage the perception is that Britain is way out ahead of most others, and the only other people who are close to us are fellow members of the European Union and only a smallish number of them in terms of how well we are doing, but we believe we will be able to show that the EU will be able to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets by 2010, 2012.

Q38 Lynne Jones: We have got to do much better than that, and you yourself said it?

Margaret Beckett: I agree, but you were making the point to me, I thought, that if we are to justify being seen to be (as we are seen to be) in the lead on the world stage, we have to do more to justify that and to stand it up as thoroughly as we can at home. I do not dispute that for one second.

Q39 David Lepper: I was just wondering whether we might make even more progress if energy policy were within the remit of just one major department rather than split between at least two, but I would not expect you necessarily to say here what your view is on that.

Margaret Beckett: I hate to sound as if I have got departmental'itis, but I would certainly not wish to see energy efficiency cut out of my department, and if the corollary to energy being in one department were that all of energy came to us, I suppose we would have to consider it. I think that it is easy. There are lots of people who think that planning ought to be in the hands of the department that deals with these issues. It is always easy to see how these issues mesh together. It is the job of governments to try to make sure, wherever the departmental lines are drawn, that the departments do work together to achieve the necessary goals.

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 five per cent 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 five per cent 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? 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 ten 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, 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 loving 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 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.

Q60 Mr Williams: Secretary of State, just to refine the CAP arguments a little, in the summer the Prime Minister indicated he was willing to give up the UK rebate if President Chirac agreed to a fundamental reform of the CAP and yet the European Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, has said recently, "Let me be clear. It is absolutely and unequivocally not the intention of the Commission to use the Doha Development Agenda negotiations to precipitate a new phase of CAP reform", and yet then he goes on and we are told in negotiations he was prepared to give up 40 per cent of the traditional farming subsidies in this country in order to get the agreement to go forward for the WTO meeting in Hong Kong. It is against that background that people in the agricultural industry are very confused as to what really is the intention of the Government.

Margaret Beckett: First, can I say, without in any way trespassing on the Prime Minister's or the Chancellor's territory, I think it would be perhaps a better reflection of the Prime Minister's view to say rather that he felt that it was not sensible for others to try and raise the issue of the British rebate without considering the circumstances which led the rebate to be awarded in the first place, namely the existence of the Common Agricultural Policy. I think I am right in saying that it was that way round rather than the other way round. Secondly, you raise the issue of the Doha round, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to put on record the fact that Commissioner Mandelson, of course, is a commissioner, he has his own role and his own responsibilities, but what he says about not seeking to use the process of negotiation in the Doha round to drive further CAP reform is not only his view and his expressed view, it is also the expressed view, the shared view, of the Agriculture Commission, and I am sorry if it has caused anxiety, and among the farming community I can see that it might if the context of it were not made clear, the context of those observations is that there are those who have argued that it is not possible for the Commission to make further negotiating offers in the Doha round without that requiring a further reform of the CAP. That is not the analysis of the Presidency or of the Commission. Of course one of the reasons for raising that concern is that questions have been raised about the Commission's mandate. In a sense the Commission has mandates coming out of its ears actually, but part of the Commission's mandate is the phraseology about "not reopening the major settlement of the last CAP reform", but that, of course, does include not only the Turin Hausman III negotiations but the steps that have been taken since, and they include being able to reach agreement on sugar, but they also, of course, have the Doha mandate which, for example, talks about substantial increases in market access; so they are negotiating their way within the framework of these different mandates and of those who are watching, inevitably very closely, the progress of those negotiations some have asserted that they are doubtful as to whether the Commission is still within their negotiating mandate. These are not doubts that we share. We believe that including the offer that has just recently been made, the Commission is within its negotiating mandate and that nothing that they have opposed so far requires further CAP reform.

Q61 Mr Williams: I understand that it is the Government policy to keep the EU budget to within one per cent of GDP. Is it your opinion that EU could deliver the common agricultural policy as it is within such a budget?

Margaret Beckett: Yes, I believe that we could. There would be some differences, of course, but, I repeat, the Common Agricultural Policy is changing. There are those who believe that there are potential further changes that could come in the fullness of time, but, as you will appreciate, we have major changes underway now, and, although, from the point of view of the negotiators, it is some time since that major settlement was reached, as this Committee more than anyone else will appreciate, we are very much in the throws of implementing now that process of reform.

Q62 Mr Williams: On a day where a number of MPs received representations from Trade Justice, what role does Defra have in promoting the interests of third countries in these negotiations?

Margaret Beckett: Of course in one sense we do not have a direct role, but I can assure you that we have very much the interests of, for example, our ACP partners at heart, and you may know that in the Luxembourg presidency we had a full meeting of the Agriculture Council with representatives of the ACP states, we also had such a meeting in our presidency in September and we are, as a council, very mindful of their interests and concerns and very anxious to ensure that any changes that we negotiate, in particular in the sugar regime, are balanced by assistance to them to deal with the impact that will inevitably have on their economies.

Q63 Mr Williams: I understand that the chief executive of the RPA is a board member of Defra responsible for delivery. Do you think those two positions are compatible given the difficulty that the RPA are going to have in paying the single farms payment?

Margaret Beckett: It is obviously a matter of judgment, and I can understand people raising the issue, but, frankly, I would have thought there are few people better placed to understand the difficulties and appreciate the necessity of good delivery than somebody who is at present the head of the RPA.

Q64 Mr Williams: Can you tell us why you think the Rural Payments Agency are unable to make payments under the single farm payment scheme at the start of the payment window in December?

Margaret Beckett: Yes, I can. As I think many of the Committee will be aware, we already were in the throws of making substantial changes to the RPA when the CAP reform negotiations took place and were agreed, and what we have had to do, and what is never easy to do in any IT project, is to incorporate into a change programme which was already challenging and difficult a new set of policies which had to be implemented; and it has been very disappointing, in fact, that we have not had as much success in putting together the relevant IT programmes as we would have wished, but I can assure you that at the highest level in my department this is under a process of continual scrutiny and pressure.

Q65 Mr Williams: Will farmers receive an interim payment in advance of the new February target?

Margaret Beckett: We have not at present made a decision or plan for an interim payment. I think the great anxiety is that that would be such a substantial further complication that it would jeopardise or could jeopardise the February payment date. I think, on balance, probably farmers would rather have the greater certainty of a payment in February rather than risk that for the sake of an interim payment, but obviously that is something that we keep continually under review, and I really mean that. I know ministers are always saying that, but I mean it.

Q66 Mr Williams: But there is no obstacle in terms of the EU or CAP bureaucracy to stop an interim payment being made?

Margaret Beckett: If we felt that we had to make an interim payment, then clearly that is an issue we have to raise. I do not envisage there would be insuperable obstacles, but, I repeat, the main concern is that what I think everybody wants is to get the scheme going properly and the payments being made.

Q67 Mr Williams: I understand the Welsh Assembly are going to be in a better position to make the payment on time than the RPA. Perhaps there are lessons that can be learnt from the Welsh Assembly in this one?

Margaret Beckett: Indeed. It is always good to know that our colleagues in the devolved administrations are performing so well.

Q68 Chairman: Secretary of State, just to be specific, I read a quote from the RPA which said it was "in line to make the payments in February" which is language which allows a certain amount of 'wrigglery' if something does not quite happen en route as planned. When do you expect to hear from the RPA definitively whether they will or they will not be able to pay in February?

Margaret Beckett: That is a very good question, Chairman. I cannot answer it at this moment in time.

Q69 Chairman: Could you let us know?

Margaret Beckett: You have made me think I ought to know that actually.

Q70 Chairman: Yes. I am just a bit worried with you being away from the shop in December.

Margaret Beckett: It is a good point as to what is the absolute deadline.

Q71 Chairman: Yes. You will tell us know, will you?

Margaret Beckett: I will.

Q72 James Duddridge: Following on from my other colleague I feel I ought to make a plug for Rochford and Southend East, but it is a coastal area which has a tenuous link to flooding, hopefully tenuous. In all seriousness, the Environment Agency has identified just over two million houses that are either at risk of flooding or in floodplains, and it is an issue that is certainly heavy in my post bag. I would be interested in three points: (1) the progress made on Making Space for Water, (2) what is going to happen to properties that are uninsurable in the mind of the ABI (Association of British Insurers), uninsurable on a commercial basis, and (3) I am fascinated by the degree of public engagement in the issues of flooding and there is a need to be open and honest, rather like the avian flu, but at the same time not to cause panic in areas that are likely to be affected in terms of property prices?

Margaret Beckett: I do not think I can give the Committee a complete update at the moment on where we are in terms of the Making Space for Water work. If I may I will offer to send the Committee a note about that, because I know there is a huge amount going on, but, as I think you will appreciate, I have latterly been engaged in other issues. As to the issue of uninsurable properties, of course, as you know, we were able to reach agreement with the Association of British Insurers that if the Government were prepared, which indeed we are and have been, to make more resources available for flood investment that they would maintain, broadly speaking, insurance cover; otherwise there was a very real risk of a substantial withdrawal of insurance cover and that was overcome; but since then we have also been in further talks with them because we are very mindful of the fact that it is a matter of great concern to individuals. I remember reading only the other day, which I cannot now find in my notes, but we have been in talks with the Association of British Insurers who have agreed that they would be prepared to involve themselves in talking to people in areas of particular risk where there is a risk of losing insurance to see whether there are steps that can be taken that could sufficiently reassure their members for insurance covers to be maintained, and we hope by such means to be able to really whittle down to a very small number of areas those where in fact insurance cover might be withdrawn. It is a matter of engagement. Are there demountable defences that could be erected? Are there practical steps that can be taken to diminish the danger of flooding? If there are such steps, that is something that the insurance companies and industry would take into account.

Q73 James Duddridge: Before you go on to talk about the public engagement, perhaps I could probe you on the point about uninsurable housing and joined up government. What concerns me is that in the Thames Gateway there are proposals to build more housing, and I know in my own constituency - again I apologise, but being a new member of Parliament I know a lot more about the constituency I represent rather than the whole nation - there is an area that used to be a lake that was then filled in and is now a golf course, it regularly floods and is likely to have 600 houses built on it. At the same time, literally a mile or two down the road, there are people worried about the advice they are getting from the Environment Agency in relation to the likelihood of flooding, and this was an area in 1953 where people were killed due to flooding, so it is not simply about property prices, it is about risk to life as well. Could you comment on that, particularly in terms of joined up government? I was interested in your earlier comments.

Margaret Beckett: There is no question that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister are very well aware of these issues, of the overall implications of any future development. I am also very conscious of the fact that people should be taking into account environmental impacts, including such things as flood risk, when development is being considered, but, broadly speaking, I think what they would probably say is that if development is being considered in an area where there is already development - for example, I think the argument would be that there is a difference between building on potentially part of a floodplain where there is no development now so you are creating a new risk, or whether it is an area where there is already development, there is already a risk - there are therefore already issues of precautions and protection and so on within which new development could be protected or sheltered. I think those are the differences that I would identify.

Q74 Mrs Moon: I was waiting, also like James, to hear the comments in relation to public engagement in issues of flooding. Like James, Secretary of State, I represent an area of coastal constituency where people are very conscious of issues of flooding in particular, as we have a couple of times had inundation into properties on the seafront. I have particular interest as my own property is 500 yards from the sea. Personally I do not find that the public in my constituency lack information. It is more that they are aware of the issues and risks of flood. What they are not necessarily always aware of is the potential in relation to climate change. I do think that there is a need to have an informed debate on that issue and I wonder whether this is something that Defra needs to take a lead on?

Margaret Beckett: As it happens, we are in the quite near future planning to start an awareness campaign about climate change issues, and I have little doubt that the potential and the impact of flooding will be part of that campaign because it is one of the things that people can readily comprehend, and it flags up some of the difficulties. As you say, I had not realised that a specific point was being made about public awareness, but I think the Environment Agency do a pretty good job in general. I certainly find when there are flood warnings, and so on, that they turn up on the local news. Obviously there is always more that can be done and we do try to keep that information going, but I also would rather assume - I do not know whether it is the up side or the down side in the exchange we have just had about the involvement of the Association of British Insurers - of course, if your insurer is saying to you, "Have you considered the flood risk?", that I would have thought concentrates the mind wonderfully.

Q75 Mrs Moon: There are two sides to living on the coast. One is that obviously if your property is near to the coast you want all the coastal protection issues in place, but also we need to educate the public that there are certain areas of the coast where we have to allow nature to take its course. I am unclear whether that is something that comes from yourself or from the ODPM?

Margaret Beckett: I think it is us.

Q76 Mrs Moon: Then, I would urge you, that is a debate that we need to be far more proactive in?

Margaret Beckett: I completely agree. Indeed, it is one of the most difficult debates, I think.

Q77 Mrs Moon: Yes.

Margaret Beckett: Because, as you quite rightly say, I think probably any sensible person can see and recognise that trying to manage withdrawal is something that is not always going to be practical, that there are some areas that are simply just not possible reliably to protect for long periods of time, but it is one thing to see that in the abstract and it is quite another if you happen to live in such an area.

Chairman: I am aware, Secretary of State, that our time of having you here is drawing to a close. We have a couple more things we would like to probe you on very quickly.

Q78 David Lepper: I am not going to plug any local event or association, Secretary of State, but you know you are always welcome in Brighton Pavilion or the neighbouring constituencies that form Brighton and Hove! Supermarkets: there is increasing concern, I think you would acknowledge, about the role of supermarkets and the power that they exert across the food chain. The Office of Fair Trading audited compliance with the supermarket code of practice I think just last year and there is a suggestion that it was hampered in that by a lack of submissions, partly because some suppliers were too nervous to complain about their own situations. I know the OFT has just announced that it would at least reconsider its decision not to refer the grocery market to the Competition Commission for review, but I wonder what your view is of the supermarket code of practice particularly in relation to its effect on standards of production, employment practices and so on?

Margaret Beckett: Obviously the code of practice is an issue for the Office of Fair Trading and very much in their hands. If the feeling were that it was leading to concern about food quality, food safety and so on, I think that would be a matter of quite general concern. It is certainly the view of my department and something we have tried to encourage and support, both practically and by way of advice and so on, that a good path for the future for the British farming community lies in higher added value production, and so certainly we do not wish to see a decline standards and quality and very much try to encourage a co-operative supply chain working in the development - I am sure all the Committee are familiar with the little red tractor - of things that encourage people to think about the provision and the quality of their food. It might be of minor interest to the Committee to know that during our European Union Presidency we sent a hamper of food from Britain to the EU agriculture ministers in order to make them acquainted with the high standard of British produce and we had a lot of very complimentary remarks indeed from my agriculture colleagues.

David Lepper: The Committee looks forward to receiving the same.

Chairman: Does anybody else want to make an offer while we are at it!

Q79 David Lepper: Could I focus on what you have just said about the standards of food from this country. I know that your department has recently added two million pounds to the funding for food for Britain, and you have also been undertaking a review of regional food strategy. Whilst I accept you may not have reached firm conclusions following that review yet, have you any thoughts about what Defra could be doing to give even more support to local food initiatives?

Margaret Beckett: I think there are a couple of things. As you quite rightly say, we have given more money to food for Britain and we are continuing to step up our work and to encourage and assist farmers to add value to their produce. We are also encouraging people to raise awareness of the possibility of registering particular quality foods. There are a fair number of British foods that are specifically registered, but not nearly as many as in some other Member States. It cannot be guaranteed, of course, this is something that has to be looked at, but I do think that there is merit in encouraging, from the consumer side, people to think about local sourcing of food - and when I say "people" I do not mean families and individuals, I also mean local schools and hospitals and so on - and also there is merit in encouraging people to not only aim for quality but to make that a feature of what is their competitive niche in the market place; and I am encouraged to see more and more of that taking place, and I think quite successfully.

Q80 David Lepper: Can I come back to my original point about supermarkets? Do you think a revised regional food strategy will take into account the increasing pressures on local suppliers in their relationships with the multiple retailers?

Margaret Beckett: I think we never ignore those pressures, but you will appreciate that, although we understand the concerns that are sometimes expressed, these are commercial negotiations in the contracts to which we are not a party.

Q81 Sir Peter Soulsby: I would like to return to another issue of public education and understanding this time on the question of beef. I understand it is next week that the "over 30 months rule" ends and the public are going to be reliant on comprehensive testing of cattle over that age. There are two parts to this: (1) is it the case that you are 100 per cent convinced that testing will ensure the safety of British beef and (2) what steps are you going to take to make sure that the public have confidence in it in the way that I understand the producers have?

Margaret Beckett: First of all, can I say that it is quite specific and deliberately not the role of my department to satisfy ourselves about the safety of British beef. That role was taken out of the hands of our predecessor department. It is the Foods Standards Agency who will be the monitors, the overseers of the safety regime, and they, of course, report to the Department of Heath. Indeed, it was a condition, a part, of the agreement to begin to close down the "over 30 months scheme" that the FSA was satisfied about the testing regime, about how it would be implemented so that it could be to a higher standards and so on, otherwise we would not have got agreement to bring the "over 30 months scheme" to a close. All of those considerations were very much in our minds and in the mind of the Food Standards Agency when that decision was taken. As for the issue of confidence, I think I am right in saying that beef sales are very much recovered in this country, and, for my own part, I would freely confess to the Committee I would rather and have more confidence - I hope I am not going to get into trouble for saying this - in eating British beef than any other, because we have been through the mill. We have had to eradicate and to deal with what was a very dangerous situation and I have confidence that that has been done here with absolute thoroughness. I know that there are other Member States where people who are potential purchasers of high quality beef have long rather lamented the disappearance of British beef from some of their markets and would be keen to reinstate it.

Q82 Mr Williams: Very quickly can I congratulate you on the last sentiments you have expressed and also you and your department on working to bring out a system where we can bring over 30-month old beef into the food chain, but we have gone through a period of very low prices for beef. This will bring a lot more beef on to the British market. In order that the market stabilises we need to export our beef. Can you give us any confidence that the present system for export, which is very restrictive, can be relaxed, with the agreement of EU partners, because that is absolutely essential to the beef market if it is it is going to be stabilised and kept at a reasonably profitable level.

Margaret Beckett: I understand the concern that is being expressed and obviously we are working with the Commission and with fellow Member States to address these issues. We very much hope that common ground will be found.

Q83 Chairman: Secretary of State, thank you very much indeed for extending your stay to answer our wide range of questions. We look forward to the additional information that you very kindly offered us. I think we realise you have got a busy time ahead, so we wish you well in terms of achieving results in the presidency, both in the collective sense and in the United Kingdom sense. The Committee is minded to do some further work in the field of climate change, so I hope you will accept, if we decide to do that, an invitation to come back and talk to us in more detail about some of the events which are what I might call the forthcoming attraction in this. May we thank you and, indeed, your officials for the help and co-operation that you give the work of the committee as we now prepare in this Parliament to lay out our own work schedules. So thank you very much for coming before us.

Margaret Beckett: Thank you, Chairman. I am very mindful of the events a year ago at Buenos Aries when, as ever, the climate change talks had dragged on past their deadline and the negotiations had been left in the hands of the troika, and, as we trooped out of the room, leaving our Dutch colleagues to spend a happy night negotiating, my colleague said to me, "This will be you this time next year"!