Examination of Witnesses (Questions 294-299)
MR JON
PRICHARD, MR
SEAMUS HEFFERNAN,
MR LOUIS
ARMSTRONG AND
MR MARK
GRIFFITHS
22 NOVEMBER 2006
Q294 Chairman: Can I first of all apologise
to our next two sets of witnesses, the Institution of Civil Engineers
and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, for the delay
in coming on but, as you can see, we were getting carried away
with Ofgem with all kinds of interesting things and I am sure
we will carried forward by the many interesting contributions
you are going to make. Can I formally welcome, on behalf of the
Institution of Civil Engineers, Mr Jon Prichard, the Director
of Engineering, Policy and Innovation, supported by Seamus Heffernan,
the Senior Policy Executive, and from the Royal Institution of
Chartered Surveyors Mr Louis Armstrong, Chief Executive, and Mr
Mark Griffiths, Chartered Surveyor and a Member of the RICS's
Countryside Policy Panel. Obviously with two organisations, one
of you draws the short straw in answering the first question,
but just indicate to me if you want to come in on it, and we will
sort of jump about. There are some which may naturally appeal
to one and the other, but feel free, both, to comment on that.
Perhaps we could start by asking a question about your perception
of central government and its role as coordinator of work in the
field of energy efficiency and of energy savings. Do you feel
that it really is fully engaged and that it really has the will
to make the kind of major infrastructural changes which are going
to get to grips with the size of the problem we have in reducing
our energy emissions? Perhaps that might be a good place to start
with the engineers.
Mr Prichard: I think as it stands
currently, you are seeing a lot of changes in government departments.
There has clearly been a lot of research done and a lot of work
is being done across different departments. Looking at your question
from one particular angle, should there be perhaps one central
coordination role in taking that forward, I think that is a distinct
possibility. Whether that is a particular department or a subset
within the department I think is open to debate, but I think we
would welcome there being a central focus which has an overview
across all the departments taking that forward. I think in terms
of within each individual department we have seen progress in
the recent years in the way a lot of the issues are being handled
and we are interacting with those departments.
Q295 Chairman: Do the surveyors have
a view on that?
Mr Armstrong: If I may comment,
Chairman, yes. RICS's views are—and I think you have touched
on this with Ofgem—is this a war on climate change which
requires cross-party consensus, a proper climate change czar,
the Treasury actually on-side, or can we allow the normal democratic
processes of planning inquiries, voluntary activities, a range
of encouragement to make the difference? I think the challenge
is to set targets, both by city, by region, by parish, by street
or by estate even, to have those targets clearly set out, if we
are going to meet the 20% reductions over the 1990 levels by 2010
and 60% over 2000 levels by 2050. I think the RICS's view—and
I think it is worth saying at this point, if I may, with 125,000
members operating around the world right across the built environment,
everything you can think of, 170 specialisms in all—seeing
this from both the public and private sector point of view and
best practice internationally, there is no doubt in the mind of
the RICS that voluntary activities, worthy though they are, and
encouragement and existing Government policy, worthy though it
is and improving with the Climate Change Bill in the Queen's Speech
and with the acceptance of the Stern Report's broad thrust, there
is no doubt that we as a country are going to be woefully short
and the gap between the current solutions and where we have to
get to is not going to be bridged without a lot of political courage,
without a much greater reliance upon regulation and naming and
shaming on the carrot and stick approach to it being properly
done, and without it being spread across not only Defra but also
probably five or six other ministries. I think having Alistair
Darling as a Minister in the Cabinet is a good start, but he will
not have the levers available to him to produce the holistic plans
which are going to be required. I think this is an absolutely
fundamental issue for cross-party consensus, rather on a war footing,
if the Stern Report is going to be genuinely taken seriously in
the run-up to the next election. I think this is a critical cross-party
issue.
Q296 Chairman: This particular inquiry
is about the citizen, in other words how can the ordinary individual
play a greater part, and in your key recommendations of your evidence
you make an interesting point, which says, "The Government
should set an example through its own activities," and I
presume that by that you are implicitly saying that Government
leads by example?
Mr Armstrong: Yes.
Q297 Chairman: You have touched upon,
if you like, the organisational structure within government, arguing
that there should be somebody with greater clout to wage the war
on this subject, but what else do you think Government should
do to create the sort of example base which underpins that line
in your evidence?
Mr Armstrong: I think there is
a range of issues around government buildings, government land,
government estate, owned by different departments, the way in
which they are already making an effort to be more sustainable,
but I think there is a lot more that can be done. It is all the
simple things, everything from energy efficient light bulbs to
new buildings like the new Home Office, which is a good example,
I think, of what should be done, and just trying to make sure
that as part of the education programme all employees of government
and all those working with government are genuinely committed
to doing what they can. It is trying to break this down into individual
responsibility as well as local authority responsibility, as well
as national government responsibility, we think is going to make
as much difference as anything, people accepting ownership of
the problem, a degree of personal responsibility. That includes,
of course, all government employees, starting from the top, which
I think would be a good start. Mark may have some thoughts here.
Mr Griffiths: Chairman, you raised
earlier on this question of information, and people cannot act
without information, at a citizen level and also at business and
governmental level. If the billing really is as bad as you say—and
I have exactly the same experience as you, that you cannot actually
determine from the information coming from the energy companies
what your trends are. The trends are incredibly important for
knowing whether you are making progress or going backwards. Probably
the most certain aspect of the bill is the amount of the standing
order per month. Everything else is extremely difficult to understand.
If you take, for example, some of the telecom companies, they
will provide you with pie charts, with graphs, et cetera, showing
what types of calls you are making and how they have fluctuated
over time. These are the sorts of things which are generated from
something as basic as an Excel spreadsheet. I was astonished to
hear, although of course it was an over-simplification, £450
million to try and get some sensible billing is an extraordinary
situation. I think if people got with their bills comparative
information about how they are doing in time, how they are comparing
with norms in society and how they are comparing with where we
need to be in the future, then people can start to make decisions.
But without very basic information, you have absolutely no chance.
The same would apply to government departments. It would be absolutely
no different, you have to have some benchmarking, but whether
we are citizens, professionals or businessmen, that information
very often just simply is not there. I would imagine that in terms
of cost-effectiveness it is much easier to get that sort of information
than to invest in smart metering, for example. We have to make
the biggest gains as quickly as possible. Where are we going to
get the biggest bang for our buck? That is what I think we need
as information.
Q298 Chairman: Okay. Engineers, what
do you have to say about it?
Mr Prichard: First of all, clearly
there is a lot of new build going on and despite the fact that
the Building Regulations have changed and there have been improvements
with the Part L regulations and the like, not all buildings "as
built" end up with the desired performance levels. So actually
looking at building performance as a client, Government being
40% of the construction client, we actually need to look at how
that building certification happens. That is where there could
be a potential leadership role for the Government. In other areas,
in terms of the strategy as to how gradually over the last thirty
years you have seen a dis-aggregation of central government departments
moving out into the regions, one needs to look at whether that
has or has not increased the overall travel required as a result
in order to facilitate the meetings in the centre, so perhaps
greater encouragement for the virtual meetings, using the internet
and the like for the conduct of meetings, seminars, and the like,
so that we can reduce the overall travel burden.
Q299 Chairman: We are talking about
equipment which can be made available to the citizen to help in
this task. Engineers, does Britain have the ability to be a world
leader in the technologies which are involved in energy saving
or in making better use of the resources which we have for the
development of energy?
Mr Prichard: The current philosophy
is that we certainly have a knowledge economy which would suggest
that traditionally Britain has established itself as an innovator
in the market. I think we have got to look at the broader picture
and say, "What happens to the exploitation?", because
traditionally, as I am sure you are aware, exploitation is tending
to happen elsewhere of that technology. So the ideas are happening
here, but the exploitation tends to be happening elsewhere.
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