Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 199)
TUESDAY 3 JULY 2007
MR JONATHAN
BREARLEY, MR
WILLY RICKETT
AND MR
MIKE ANDERSON
Q180 Mr Caton: In your 32.2 members
of staff you did not identify anybody with environmental expertise.
Have you any?
Mr Brearley: We do have staff
with environmental expertise but I think you will have to specify
exactly what you mean by that. For example, we have a secondee
who has strong experience in the NGOs.
Q181 Mr Caton: If you are going to
be able to co-ordinate with the SDU then you need someone who
can pick up on any specific environmental issues they want you
to be aware of.
Mr Brearley: Absolutely, but the
point is the way our staffing works is most of our staff are based
around time-limited policy-focused projects, about two-thirds
of our staff essentially, and as part of that people come and
go as issues change. If it so happens that within that team we
think we need that expertise then we will bring that expertise
in.
Mr Anderson: Are you talking about
the Sustainable Development Commission or the Unit?
Mr Caton: The Unit.
Q182 Dr Turner: Mr Rickett, I was
pleased to hear you say that Britain now has an international
reputation for developing policies in the area of energy and climate
change, so clearly one thing we are doing well is leading on the
talk, it is just a pity that we are not leading on the delivery.
If you look at this country's record, which is quite lamentable,
in transition to a low carbon economy and, in particular, in the
deployment of renewable energy, it compares very badly with our
European neighbours. It has been suggested to us, and many people
have suggested this, including other select committee reports,
that one of the contributory factors is the way in which work
in the energy sector in this country is divided into all sorts
of bodies, the Energy Savings Trust, the Carbon Trust, some of
the energy function, the producer function is in the DTI, or DBERR,
and energy efficiency is in Defra, so there has to be an awful
lot of administrative replication, great opportunities for joining
up and focusing. It has been suggested that it would be much better
to set up a new agency called the Low Carbon Energy Agency, Energy
Agency, call it what you will, that will subsume the functions
of all these bodies and take the energy functions out of DTI and
Defra. I would like you to comment. I know you are in a difficult
position to comment on it because it is your turf, but I would
like your views. Do you think this would be effective? Would we
do better?
Mr Rickett: It is quite easy to
look at a list of all the bodies involved in delivering energy
and climate change and conclude that it is all a mess. No doubt
you could look at a list of government departments or select committees
and conclude there are rather a lot of them too. I think where
you have to start is with the policy that has got to be delivered
and have a delivery mechanism that is tailored for delivering
those policies. Just to give you a list of some of the key ingredients
of our policy: competitive energy markets, a planning system that
works, an effective carbon price, public support for research,
development, demonstration and deployment of low carbon technologies,
such as carbon capture and storage, measures to promote energy
efficiency that are likely to include things like information,
advice, incentive, subsidies and regulation. Is it realistic to
suppose that all of those elements of a successful policy should
be delivered by a single agency? Or does it make more sense to
have economic regulators in the UK and the EU Member States to
promote competition, a planning commission to take planning decisions,
institutions that are tailored to delivering an effective emissions
trading scheme, bodies to promote energy efficiency that understand
the very different barriers that there are in the domestic, business
and transport sectors, not to mention bodies that understand the
R, D, D & D chain that is crucial in getting the innovation
we need? I can perfectly understand why people like Dieter Helm
say that there is an untidiness and a mess in the way we go about
doing things but I think we have to have a delivery mechanism
that is tailored to the policies. Trying to simply say that one
agency would solve everything is beguiling but I am not sure it
is the right answer, although obviously we will listen to your
conclusions on that one. The only other point I would make is
that a lot of the big issues we are dealing with at the moment
are issues of policy rather than delivery and those are not really
suitable for agencies. Negotiating the international framework
where you called for leadership, negotiating the EU legislation
that has got to deliver the Strategic Energy Review—and
you have got at least three directives to be negotiated, probably
more—setting the UK targets under the Climate Change Bill
and reforming the planning regime for infrastructure, I could
go on and on, those are big policy issues. These are not issues
on which agencies could take decisions because they have to be
taken by politically, democratically accountable representatives
because they are policy issues. I think Dieter would recognise
that, I am sure he would say to you that setting carbon targets
is not a matter for anybody other than elected representatives.
I am not saying that everything is perfect, nothing should change,
we will be genuinely interested in your recommendations on this.
I am just saying leaping to the conclusion that a single agency
is the solution to delivery, or leaping to the conclusion that
a single government department responsible for everything is the
solution to the fragmentation of government or whatever, it is
not quite as simple as that. There are some important thoughts
in what Dieter has said, he has been an extremely useful adviser
to us, but it is not quite as simple, I think, sometimes.
Q183 Dr Turner: No, but we do seem
to have a way in this country of making things as complicated
and as ineffective as possible. I would personally say the way
in which we run the ROC mechanism is a good example because it
has been much less effective both in quantity of delivery and
probably in cost-effectiveness than the energy price mechanism
which continental countries use, for instance. It has resulted
in a much, lamentably, slower rate of deployment of renewable
energy than in other countries which, you are quite right, has
cost us a great deal. Likewise, the DTI function in supporting
R, D, D & D in renewable energy, this—I know for a fact—has
not been anything like as effective as it could because there
is simply not enough money, not enough focus and not enough push,
and I could go on. I do not care one way or the other on the question
of an energy agency, but we have to sharpen the delivery. Policies
are fine, we talk fine policies, but we are not getting delivery.
Mr Rickett: I could dispute some
of the things that you have said about the ineffectiveness of
our policy, but I am not sure that will help the Committee particularly,
I will leave that to my ministers. Certainly we sign up to the
proposition that delivery is crucial, writing a White Paper is
not going to help unless we deliver on it, and we are in no doubt
about the scale of the task in turning that into effective delivery
and working with the energy industry to deliver on it. To pick
up one example you gave, which is renewables, and how the Renewables
Obligation has been less effective than feed-in tariffs in Germany,
for instance, I think there are at least three ingredients in
delivering renewables. One is the very large subsidies that we
are giving them under the Renewables Obligation, two is an effective
planning regime to get planning permission for these developments
and three is adequate connection to the transmission system. It
might be tempting to say, "Well, we should set up a renewables
agency that is responsible for not only promoting and subsidising
renewables projects but also for giving them all planning permission",
whatever anybody might think about that, and also telling the
National Grid where it should direct its investment on the transmission
system, irrespective of the other demands on the transmission
system, for example in ensuring security of supply and so on.
That might be a tempting solution, but planning decisions have
to be rooted in the planning system and getting democratic support
for these things. The transmission system is not just about renewables,
so there are always going to be dividing lines and saying, "Well,
let's bring it all together into some mega-organisation",
or, "Let's bring it into a renewables organisation, an energy
efficiency organisation", I am not sure that gets to the
root of the problem. I am raising the considerations you need
to take into account in coming to conclusions.
Dr Turner: We could continue this for
a long time, but I think we have not got time. I hope you will
not hide behind the planning system for all our failings.
Q184 Joan Walley: In a way I am sorry
that you were not here for the oral session we had earlier with
Professor Tom Burke. He sat there and said he found it quite difficult
to fathom out who was responsible for what and how aspects of
policy were developing at the moment and linking the objective
to the delivery. What I am trying to do is see, given the mechanism
that we need, how that mechanism then needs to have an acquired
skill released into this, how you are going to go about ensuring
that those skills are there. One of the things we heard this morning
was you have a lack of expertise inside the Civil Service on environmental
issues. I wonder, Mr Brearley, given that most of your work is
going to be done through the rest of the Civil Service, not only
those 32 posts that you have under you, what is your assessment
of the expertise that there is inside the Civil Service in all
those different departments which you seem to co-ordinate?
Mr Brearley: Could I ask a question
about the evidence you received. Have they been specific about
the kind of expertise that they have questioned at all or is it
simply expertise on climate change?
Q185 Joan Walley: No, I think it
was just general concerns that have been flagged up in the course
of this inquiry as to how much expertise there is. For example—and
this is not related to the inquiry—in my constituency we
had a new construction college that was built, but it is only
now that we are starting to look at the climate change imperatives
which we need to assimilate into the way in which we teach construction
skills. That means, for example, the Qualification Agency has
not necessarily as yet agreed what goes into the curriculum. It
is about, in a way, the ripple-out effect of the policy imperative
in terms of how that then gets taken up and how the Civil Service
goes about addressing all these concerns which come about as a
result of this policy that you are seeking to get going because
what we do will be how we deliver it on the ground.
Mr Brearley: I think there are
two parts to that. The first part is thinking about us within
the Civil Service, within Whitehall, do we have the right sort
of expertise? I will comment on that. Then there is a separate
question there about what happens in our delivery bodies, how
we configure organisations like local authorities, et cetera,
on the ground to make sure they have the right expertise to deliver
there.
Q186 Joan Walley: And government
departments.
Mr Brearley: Absolutely. Coming
back to that first question about the departments, I have quite
a lot of experience of working in a lot of different departments
across Government prior to this. Prior to this I worked in the
Cabinet Office and worked with a number of different government
departments. I have to say, a very personal view is that the level
of expertise, both in terms of the science and economics across
Government in climate change is extremely impressive. If you look
at the process that Government went through in terms of developing
and generating the analysis that underpinned the White Paper,
it is very rigorously peer-reviewed both within Government and
outside of Government. We also have a process for consulting on
the assumptions that we make before we get to our conclusions
in terms of our analysis, so my personal view is that we do have
a good suite of skills.
Q187 Joan Walley: Have you audited
what is there? Do you know what expertise is there on these issues?
Mr Brearley: In terms of the skills
we have across Government, certainly the OCC has not done that.
Have we looked in detail at the process for both understanding
our existing emissions and looking at our emissions going forward?
Yes, we have. Our conclusion was that across the board we think
we have a high standard of analytical support. Of course, we can
always improve on that and climate change is a huge priority,
I will never argue against Government continually trying to build
its capacity but, certainly, my experience and the experience
of my team which looked at this very question was that Government
was performing very well in this area.
Mr Rickett: Looking across the
delivery landscape, referring back to the previous questions,
we have asked the Sector Skills Councils to report on skills gaps
within the energy and, inevitably, climate change sector so that
we have a better view about what they are and what can be done
about it.
Q188 Joan Walley: One last question.
Earlier on I think you said in passing that question should have
been left to the minister and there was a sort of implication
that ministers take on board responsibility for policies. Do you
go along with the idea that it should be made explicit that the
role of civil servants is to create effective and coherent policy?
Mr Rickett: I certainly see it
as my job to create coherent and effective policy. I would not
expect to remain in the Civil Service if ministers felt I was
not doing that and I would expect select committees to give me
a hard time if we were not doing that. You can have theological
debates about respective accountability of ministers and civil
servants, and there are differences, but the idea that civil servants
hide behind ministers and say, "Well, you know, we don't
have to bother because he'll take all the flak", seems to
me to be completely misplaced. What I was saying was I did not
think it would help your deliberations this morning if I got into
a long argument about whether our climate change policies were
as ineffective as Dr Turner was suggesting. I thought maybe you
could debate that with my ministers.
Q189 Joan Walley: You do not think
civil servants should be making policy independent of political
considerations?
Mr Rickett: Clearly ministers
are responsible for taking the final decisions in leading the
policy development and taking decisions about important trade-offs.
There are some very important trade-offs between our energy objectives
and our climate change objectives, and there are some very important
intersections where they are absolutely at one. You will be aware
that part of the public debate about whether energy should be
put together with the environment or it should remain separate.
The question is does it help ministers to make those trade-offs
to have separate advice that highlights the differences and the
trade-offs they have to make? Or does it help them to put these
things together so they get a single set of advice from civil
servants? I think we just need to work across the boundaries and
give them the best advice we can.
Q190 Joan Walley: On something as
important as climate change, should we really be having these
trade-offs? Should the imperative of climate change not just be
the one over-riding factor?
Mr Rickett: To give you one example,
it is absolutely essential that we deliver on our climate change
objectives at least cost, so that people then try to frame policies
that do that so we do not place unnecessary costs on people.
Q191 Joan Walley: Could I interrupt
you there and say if we do not deliver on our 20 per cent target,
even though we might not have had these costs, is that important?
Surely, we have to meet our targets in terms of what the cost?
Mr Anderson: There will always
be trade-offs. If you take a specific example, a very controversial
one of the Severn Barrage, that some people say might be a five
per cent contribution to renewable energy if you put it in. The
NGOs, the environment agencies and other bodies will come up to
us and say that you will be killing off the biodiversity in the
Severn Estuary, so there will be a trade-off. We may say, "Actually
it is more important to tackle climate change at this point",
but let us not pretend that it is simply able to say that climate
change decides everything because there will be some very difficult
decisions as we try and balance those policies. If we are not
totally honest about the difficulties of nuclear energy, we really
would not be doing our job.
Q192 Chairman: In the Government's
response to our report on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme there
was a reference to something called the "Climate Change Simplification
Project". We have had difficulty finding out much about this.
Can you tell us what it is?
Mr Brearley: It is my understanding
that is a piece of work which has been carried out by the economics
part of Defra, but I think I would need to come back to you on
that.
Joan Walley: It does not join up?
Q193 Chairman: We have someone from
Defra here, could you tell us about it?
Mr Anderson: I do not know the
exact details of the framework.
Q194 Chairman: You do not know anything
about it at all?
Mr Anderson: I would have to come
back to you on that. It is in the Emissions Trading Scheme response,
is it?
Q195 Chairman: It is something which
the Government told us about. Can any of you tell us anything
about the Climate Change Simplification Project at all?
Mr Anderson: I will come back
to you on that.
Q196 Chairman: The answer is none
of you knows anything about it at all?
Mr Anderson: Not enough to tell
you.
Q197 Chairman: Can you tell us anything?
Mr Anderson: I think it is run
by our economist team in order to work out some of the—I
do not know anything about it.
Q198 Chairman: You think it is run
by some of your economists to work out what?
Mr Anderson: I do not know.
Q199 Chairman: Let us be clear, none
of you knows anything about this, although it was in the answer
that the Government gave to one of our previous reports.
Mr Anderson: No.
Chairman: Fine. Thank you very much for
coming along.
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