Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
RT HON
HILARY BENN
MP AND PROFESSOR
BOB WATSON
22 APRIL 2008
Q1 Chairman: Could I welcome the Secretary
of State for the Environment, the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, and Professor
Bob Watson, the Chief Scientific Adviser for Defra to this one-off
evidence session of the Innovation, Universities, Science and
Skills Sub-Committee which is looking at the response from the
Government into our Investigations of the Oceans report
which was done by the previous Science and Technology Select Committee.
Could I make a special point of thanking you very much indeed,
Secretary of State, for giving us your time, we are particularly
grateful to you, and also, it is a pleasure, Professor Watson,
to meet you before the Committee for the first time. We hope that
you are enjoying your time in the department and that you are
as controversial in the department as you were in the States.
I wonder if I could start, Secretary of State, to just ask you
that basic question. This was a report which actually tried to
emphasise the importance of marine science, not only to the UK
but as part and parcel of our contribution to world marine science.
I just wonder how important it is to the work of Defra? How important
is it to you as Secretary of State?
Hilary Benn: It
is very important, and I agree, I think the subject needed consideration.
I think, if I may say so, it was a powerful report that set out
the case for change, and I have got one or two things I would
like to say, having reflected further on your report, to assist
the committee in the evidence session this afternoon, but, fundamentally,
science and our understanding of our oceans and our seas is really
important to inform the right policy decisions and, with oceans
and seas being about 70% of the earth's surface, we know a certain
amount, but, as I think your report demonstrated, there is quite
a lot that we do not know, but our understanding of the importance
of the oceans when it comes, in particular, to the impact of climate
change and the contribution that they can make to understanding
what is happening and to dealing with it makes that research even
more important than was the case in the past. As you will know,
because you looked into it in great depth, Defra funds quite a
range of work, but the system, I would say, has not been working
awfully well. It seemed to me, if I may say so, you were saying
that not everything was getting the attention that it deserved,
that we had not got the structure right, that we needed a marine
science strategy and there had to be clear ministerial leadership,
and I would be happy to say a word about that now or come on to
that.
Q2 Chairman: I think it is fair to
say, we were hugely disappointed in the Government's response—I
say that in a spirit of friendship—and there seems to be
a failure by Defra, in particular, to make the connection between
marine science and its importance within climate change. I just
wonder why you feel that there was such a lukewarm response by
the department to the importance of marine science, there did
not seem to be that connection between marine science and environmental
change, when we know that you are particularly committed to this
agenda?
Hilary Benn: I am not sure, Chairman,
that I quite agree with what you have just said. The reason I
have been looking forward to this evidence session and, indeed,
discussion, if we can handle it that way, because it certainly
helps me to do my job, is to understand exactly where the disappointment
was. It seems to me, if you look at the key recommendations that
you made, one that we needed a marine science strategy, we have
accepted it and we are going to get on and we are going to produce
one, a recommendation that there needed to be a clear leadership.
One of the things I wanted to say to you today on that point,
I want to make it clear to the Committee that Jonathan Shaw, as
the Minister for marine science, is going to be the champion of
marine science, that he is going to chair a new ministerial committee
that we are going to establish to oversee the new Marine Science
Co-ordination Committee, which is what, as you will know, we proposed.
Q3 Chairman: Will that report directly
to the Minister then?
Hilary Benn: It will report to
a group of ministers that will be chaired by Jonathan, and, as
he said to you when he came to give evidence I think two weeks
into the job, just so there is absolute clarity about this, because
there appeared to be some uncertainty, he is the Minister for
Marine Science, he will chair, subject to the devolved administrations
being happy with the proposal, this ministerial group. As I read
your report, it seemed to me one of the things that you were saying,
and I have had my ear bent by one or two other folk in the field
of marine science who said, we need a champion, we want clarity
about who is leading, and actually when Jonathan and the late
and much missed Howard Dalton and Dave King came to give evidence
there was a bit of to and fro about the previous IACMST, or whatever
it is called, who it reported to, and so I wanted to come to the
committee today to say I want there to be absolute clarity. I
am saying to you that Jonathan will take that lead, that there
will be a ministerial committee, and I think that that responds
very directly to recommendation 17 and 58 in your report. The
real test of the new committee, given that you said very powerfully
that the existing arrangements did not work, is: "Does it
address the things that were not working?", and I think it
is going to be different from what it will replace in a number
of very important respects: one because it will report to ministers,
chaired by the new ministerial champion, which is what you said
you wanted; it will have a bigger secretariat; all of the members
will contribute to its funding; it will draw up and oversee the
marine science strategy, which was a central recommendation in
your report, and I think that is a very important development.
We needed one and we are going to get one thanks to what you have
done. It will monitor spend on marine science, because clearly
one of the other issues that came out from your work was a lack
of clarity about what was being spent, and there has been some
to an fro between us, but also there has not, as I understand
it, been a kind of regular system for checking how it is going.
That is one of the things which this new body will do. I think
it will provide us with a better way of dealing with the issues
that cut across all of the various bodies that are doing things,
because I do not think that you need a central body to take on
all of the functions of all the existing bodies, not trying to
replicate or duplicate but to fix the bits that are not working,
and I hope it will also give a higher profile to marine science,
which was another really important message in your report. I have
got today, which I could leave with you, if that would be helpful,
a note on how we are getting on with setting up the MSCC, because
we have not just done a response to you and then gone back to
what we were doing before. Colleagues in the department and John
Lock, who is also here today, have been working really hard on
getting on with working out what this structure is going to look
like, what the membership is going to be, how it is going to operate,
what its role is, and we have got a note which updates you on
the 1 April briefing note that we provided you with previously.
Q4 Chairman: We will come back to
that, because I know that Brian Iddon wants to raise an issue
on that. That is very helpful, Secretary of State. In terms of
resources to actually support the new organisation, there was
a real sense when we were doing this particular inquiry that marine
science was very much left out in the cold as far as resources
were concerned. Is there any new money which is being applied
at all to this area?
Hilary Benn: The MSCC will have
a bigger budget than IACMST had previously. Straight up, we have
got to negotiate with the other bodies that are going to be represented,
including other departments, and what they are going to put into
the to the pot, but it will need more resources to do its work,
firstly.
Q5 Chairman: But nobody is going
to agree to that, are they?
Hilary Benn: Why do you say that?
Q6 Chairman: We had a session here
yesterday with one of your ministers talking about another area
in terms of bio-security, and there was a great reluctance to
commit even a penny extra anywhere. So I am sort of fighting for
this marine community, that there will, in fact, be the resources
to deliver what, clearly, you as Secretary of State anticipate
is going to happen?
Hilary Benn: I think the answer
to your question would be we will know when we see how we go in
talking to the other people about what they are prepared to contribute,
and I hope that the decision that I have taken makes it absolutely
clear there is a ministerial champion, there is leadership, that
we are taking on the role that you asked us to undertake in your
report. We will give this some oomph and a boost and a higher
profile, and your report has certainly done that. Secondly, must
say, I was quite struck reading your report. On the one hand,
in the evidence sessions, many people saying the UK has a huge
role in marine science, the contribution that UK scientists make,
recognised around the world, and on the other hand, as in most
areas of life, if you say to people, "Is enough money being
spent on your particular area?", in general you get the answer,
"No, it is not." Clearly, it cannot all be doom and
gloom.
Q7 Chairman: No, but you would have
also read in that report that some of our best scientists were
haemorrhaging out of the UK, for instance, to Germany, which is
rapidly expanding in marine science; they were going off to Japan;
they were going off to Woods Hole in States. So it was not that
we have not got brilliant scientists, we recognised that in the
report, but the matter was trying to keep that community together
to enhance it so it could play a much more significant role in
climate change, which was an absolutely top priority for government.
I think we are trying to balance that rather than say that we
are weak in this area, because we certainly are not.
Hilary Benn: I agree with that.
Bob might want to say something about the science budget that
he has got because, having arrived at the department, one conversation
that we have had is in deciding where Defra's research budget
is going to be spent. We tended to operate a system in the past
where it was fairly devolved, and one thing that we have agreed
between us is that Bob in his role will look at the overall priorities
in relation to what Defra spends, and I think the role of the
new MSCC will give us, with greater clout and profile, ministerial
leadership. The object is to do the same looking at the investment
in marine science right across the piece. If you take NERC, which
is a big funder, they will still take decisions, and a lot of
your recommendations as a committee were directed at NERC. I am
not envisaging that the MSCC is going to take on that role, but
it will have things to say and it will be able to pick up items
that, as your report demonstrated, have fallen through some of
the cracks in the system.
Professor Watson: There are two
things to say. The first is we are trying to get our hands round
the whole research budget within Defra, and so, rather than having
it disaggregated between the climate change programme, natural
environment, food and farming, we are standing back to ask: what
are the big policy questions within Defra and how can we have
a much more joined-up integrated programme within Defra? Secondly,
there is the issue of how do we view Defra in relationship, not
only for marine sciences but all sciences, with the other departments
and, effectively, the other research councils? Living with
Environmental Change, which is the multi-department, multi-research
council, I think really gives us an opportunity here. As you know,
there are six objectives: climate change, biodiversity, development,
human health and animal health infrastructure and an element of
behaviour. The oceans, effectively, need to be integrated very
much in at least climate change, biodiversity, health and even
in the infrastructure, obviously for coastal infrastructure. So,
clearly the Living with Environmental Change will be critical
so we can leverage each other's resources, and Defra is actually
going to take the lead with NERC in putting the original programme
plans together on both climate change and on biodiversity. We
will work with the other agencies and research councils on the
other four objectives. We have also got to place this, though,
in a European and a global context, especially for monitoring.
One of the things that the Environmental Research Funders Forum
found was that when they looked to see how we were spending research
money, they had a pretty good idea; when it came to monitoring
they had no idea at all, and so I have offered to chair, on behalf
of the Environmental Research Funders Forum, a study on how we
are spending the monitoring money. We really are quite clueless,
whether it is the marine environment or the atmosphere or the
land, and there is a number of mechanisms which this new Marine
Co-ordinating Committee will fit very nicely into as we establish
priorities on research and monitoring and see how we can leverage
each other.
Q8 Chairman: While you have got the
floor, Professor Watson, in your Fleagle Lecture in Washington
I think last year you made a fairly strong comment that scientists
need to learn to communicate better with civil servants (and you
will remember it caused a little bit of a stir at the time), decision-makers
and the media. Do you think the perceived lack of urgency up until
now, if I can put that way, of Defra's attitude to marine science
was as a result of the science community not conveying their message
strongly enough, or was it Defra that was not listening?
Professor Watson: I cannot say,
because I only joined six months ago. To be honest, just as Hilary
said, I have been lobbied by every part of the community, whether
it is the atmospheric sciences community wanting more money, whether
it is the animal health community wanting more money, the oceanographers
wanting more money, especially with my position at the University
of East Anglia some of those oceanographers at the University
of East Anglia are lobbying very heavily, and so, as Hilary said,
I think most of the academic community will always argue for more
money. Where we need the dialogue with the academic community
is effectively, from a Defra perspective, what are the big policy
issues facing not only Defra but the UK Government? Obviously,
some include climate change, but not limited to it, i.e. sustainable
fisheries, and so we need a dialogue so they understand the policy
constraints and we understand them so that we can put together
an academically rich programme with the research councils that
meets the needs of the academic research, on the one hand, that
the councils do and the more policy-relevant research that we,
Defra, need to help formulate policy and implement policy. I think
there is two-way dialogue that is needed. Probably there was a
weakness on both sides.
Chairman: You will make a politician
yet!
Q9 Dr Iddon: Hilary, we talked to
a lot of people, of course, during this investigation, including
people particularly in America. America does have an operation
which oversees all aspects of the sea, whether it be tourism,
energy, fishing, shipping, pollution, gaining oil and gas from
the sea, climate control and deep sea as well as Continental Shelf
work. Absolutely every aspect of the sea is looked at by this
organisation in America. When we undertook this investigation,
we felt that the whole apparatus that we have set up to monitor
all those things was distant from one another, fishing seemed
to be way out on a limb compared with everything else connected
to the sea, and we made a radical solution in suggesting the Marine
Science Agency. I just wonder why we have gone for a much smaller
and, we believe, less effective organisation than the Marine Science
Agency that we recommended, which would shadow what America has
now?
Hilary Benn: First of all, reading
your report I was not absolutely clear. You said in your recommendation
we need more effective co-ordination and then you said in the
recommendation, "Our preference would be for", what
you have just described, but it was not absolutely clear to me
whether you were talking about a marine science agency or a marine
science and maritime agency. I will give you an example of that.
I think in the very last recommendation in your report you talked
about the EU Maritime Green Paper and said the Department for
Transport was not really the right body to look at this, and yet
the Maritime Green Paper is going to deal with a wide range of
things but among the things it is looking at are maritime security,
shipping law, careers and employment, tourism and other matters.
Question: would it be sensible to have one body that was dealing
with all of those things? To be honest, I was not persuaded that
that was the sensible course of action to take, bearing in mind
the point I made earlier: do not fiddle with the bits that work
but deal with the bits that do not work. You also talked about
an executive body requiring the co-operation of government departments,
which is quite an interesting concept because I thought it was,
generally speaking, the other way round, the government departments
requiring the co-operation of executive bodies. Lastly, there
are all of the complexities to do with devolution that, I think,
made it difficult to see how that could work in practice. Having
said that, you have got the co-ordinating committee, which was
the first bit of your recommendation, with the functions that
I have described and which we have set out and which we are getting
on and developing, but that is not to say that having a look at
wider maritime needs and issues is unimportant, it is incredibly
important, and at the same time as this, of course, since you
produced your report the draft Marine Bill has been published
and you are going to have the Marine Management Organisation and
this completely new departure, and a very welcome one, seeking
to do in the UK for our seas and, as I have described it, the
wonders that lie beneath them what we have evolved over the years
for the land in the form of one way of looking at the competing
demands on our seas and working out what it is that we are going
to do, and the marine management organisation is going to play
a really important part in that and it will be represented, when
it is established, on the new Marine Science Co-ordinating Committee.
I think it is a different way of achieving the objective that
you set. In the end we formed the view that it was a better way
of doing it than creating a marine science (question mark) maritime
agency.
Q10 Dr Iddon: We called it a marine
agency, with a view to looking at the wider aspect, the second
alternative that you gave when you opened your remarks a moment
ago, and that was our intention, not just to take the science
into account but everything that affects the behaviour of the
sea, what we gain from the sea and how we use the sea. That is
what we felt and that is what, I think, Chairman, we picked up
by talking to the large number of people we talked to, mainly
scientists, of course, but they have a wider outlook than just
the science they are doing, including the long-term observations
that Bob Watson has mentioned.
Professor Watson: Let me make
a comment. The one thing I actually understand rather well is
the US system. I used to be the Associate Director for the Environment
in the White House, so at that particular stage—this was
11 years ago, I have to be honest—I had oversight for a
seven billion dollar a year programme. Actually, most of the research
is not done in NOAA; the really good oceans research is actually
done in NASA and the National Science Foundation. NOAA only do
the operational part, which is very, very important—do not
misunderstand that comment. NOAA do some incredibly important
things on the observations in a routine monitoring sense of both
the atmosphere and the ocean and fisheries, but some of the most
vibrant research is actually done in NASA, the National Science
Foundation and the others, and so, again, the way the research
works—because I actually helped to put an inter-agency committee
together—is very similar to this maritime committee actually,
and so the strength of the ocean research embedded within the
atmosphere and the land research, which is what you have to look
at as the couplet for climate change and even for biodiversity,
was actually bringing all the agencies together. So I could argue
from a research perspective, not necessarily some of the other
fisheries issues, that what we are trying to do here in the Marine
Science Co-ordination Committee is not dissimilar to the committee
that I helped to put together 11 years ago in the White House
to co-ordinate science right across the agencies.
Q11 Chairman: Fisheries are not even
part of this.
Professor Watson: No; agreed.
That is why I kept my remarks to the research to understand the
oceans, including biodiversity, the role in climate, the role
in fisheries basically. The pure science behind the marine system
in the US is highly fragmented, well, relatively fragmented and
so even there you need an inter-agency committee, very much like
one is suggesting here.
Q12 Dr Iddon: We picked up strong
criticisms of the existing IACMST organisation, which the people
we talked to felt was not co-ordinating all the work that needed
co-ordinating and, indeed, had very little powers, for example,
of compulsion and very little effect on the behaviour of the Government.
They felt that IACMST was an extremely weak organisation, but
it did have a wider membership than what the Government is now
proposing to set up with the new MSCC. For example, there will
be no industrial membership, as far as we have been told, on the
new MSCC and the research councils do not appear to be playing
a role. Why have we chosen a much narrower body? It may have stronger
powers, as you indicated, Hilary, at the beginning, but it is
a narrower focus than the existing organisation of which we have
received, let me repeat, strong criticisms, not of the people
who operate it, by the way, but just of the structures and the
way it operates.
Hilary Benn: I agree with the
criticisms that the committee made. That is why I accepted your
recommendation that we should have a new co-ordinating body. What
is different about is it what I described in answering, Chairman,
your original question. It might be helpful. In this paper, which
has got a bit more detail, which I will leave or circulate now,
whatever is most helpful to the committee, the proposed structure,
"Members of the MSCC will be at director level, representing
the following departments and agencies: Defra, BERR, MoD, DfT,
DIUS, NERC, devolved administrations, Environment Agency, DFID.
It will be supported by a support group with representatives of
departments and agencies who have got direct science budget responsibility.
In addition to the departments and agencies represented on MSCC,
the support group will include representatives from the Met Office,
CFAS, UKHO, JNCC, FRS." On the very specific point that you
raised about other membership, we are planning, if you like, three
independent reps, because I know that has been an issue that has
been raised, one coming from the academic world, one from fisheries
and industry, which I think picks up the point that you made,
and, say, one NGO. We have not quite finalised the decision there.
The purpose of giving you the note of the planning group that
has now had two meetings is for you as the committee to have a
chance to look, and can I make this offer now? If you have got
views, which I am sure you will have, about what you think of
the membership, could you give us a shout, because we have not
set it in stone yet, we are evolving the process, the organisation
itself, and I want it to work effectively, to hang on to the good
things there were about the previous organisation, not to lose
that, but to deal with the bits that were not working, which is
why we accepted your recommendation to establish a new co-ordinating
body.
Dr Iddon: I think we could say right
now, Chairman, could we not, that the balance is so much in the
public sector favour that the private sector was very disappointed
to learn about the new MSCC. You just mention one industrial/something
else amendment. I think if you put that to the private sector,
they will be even more disappointed, bearing in mind that the
sea is going to be used much more in future, if we exclude shipping
and fishing, by the energy sector—for example, off shore
wind farms, wave and tidal machines—that part of the use
of the sea feel that they need to be represented on this body.
Q13 Chairman: It is also the university
community as well which are ignored. So the whole of those three
communities. The private sector, if you like, the BPs of this
world, who are huge players in marine technology, marine science,
the technologies which Brian has just mentioned and the universities
are three communities which we felt strongly should be part of
the agency or, now, the new committee which has been established.
Hilary Benn: I agree with that,
and that is why the three reps that we are currently thinking
of in the working draft that we have produced responds to that.
The other point I should have made is, of course, do not forget
the marine management organisation: because as you came on to
the last points that you made in responding to my answer, that
is what the Marine Management Organisation is going to be dealing
with and it will only be able to do its job if it is supported
by and involves and talks to all of the interest groups that you
have just drawn attention to. One of the striking things about
the Marine Bill and the concept of the MMO is, I have to say,
the very wide level of support there is for it and the welcome
there has been for the bill, not because people think, "Hey,
we are being left out of this", but actually because I think
they recognise it is long overdue, it is groundbreaking, it will
do something for the seas that we have never done before, and,
in effect, it is a means of trying to mediate between all of the
competing demands on our seas, which are growing for the reasons
that you have set out, so that we have a way of taking decisions
about how the seas are going to be used and at one end saying,
"Right, this is so is special and precious, nothing can go
on here"—that is what marine conservation is about—but
it is a flexible instrument because you can go from no activity
to not some activities, so you have got a flexible means of protecting
what you need to protect, but there will also be the mechanism
for determining where you are going to give the go-ahead for wind
farms, and so on and so forth. If I may say so, I think you need
to look at the two things operating together, because we have
accepted, I hope you will feel in the spirit of what you are asking
for, a different structure for doing it, the MSCC here dealing
with the marine science, which is what your report was principally
about but not exclusively, and then the Marine Bill and the Marine
Management Organisation over here, remembering, of course, that
one of the things that will govern the work of the Marine Management
Organisation is the Marine Policy Statement which the White Paper
and the bill commits us to draw up, which will give us the place
to put---. In a sense, it will do what you have asked for the
Marine Science Strategy to do for marine science. The Marine Policy
Statement will do the same for what is the policy framework for
deciding what is going to happen in our seas and underneath them?
Q14 Dr Iddon: Will we have a bridge
between those bodies or a valley separating them?
Hilary Benn: I said a little moment
ago that the MMO will be represented on the MSCC, because it has
obviously got to have the connection, and, to be honest, the other
way round, that is something I will go away and think about.
Q15 Dr Iddon: I have one last question,
which is quite simple. When will the new organisation, the MSCC,
be up and running, Hilary?
Hilary Benn: If I can refer to
the note here, the next meeting of the planning group will be
on 15 May, and then Defra will invite MSCC members to a first
meeting in June or July to examine the planning group paper in
detail, confirm the structure, develop a forward plan of action,
consider the shape and content of the strategy. So we are getting
on with it, and that is one of the points I wanted to get across
to you today.
Q16 Chairman: Do you have a deadline
for when you want to see this completed?
Hilary Benn: To be honest, as
soon as possible. The fact that we are making the progress that
we are, I hope, will encourage the committee that we have taken
the recommendation, we are getting on and we are going to make
it happen, but I cannot say I have got a tenth of whatever.
Q17 Chairman: But if by the end of
the year it is not firmly in place, which this piece of paper
says—
Hilary Benn: I certainly envisage
that the MSCC---. No, that is not what that bit of paper says,
but I certainly envisage that the MSCC will be operational by
the end of the year, and you can come and tell me off if it is
not. That I will make as an offer to the committee.
Professor Watson: And that timing
would actually be good, especially if we can make it earlier.
There have already been two planning meetings so far of the planning
committee. The third one, as you hear, is going to be actually
in a few weeks time, because we hope to have some draft initial
strategies for LWEC (Living with Environmental Change)
by about the middle of June, so I think all these things are moving
together. As I said earlier, I think we have to place marine science,
important in its own right, in the context of all these other
issues on the land and in the atmosphere as well.
Q18 Dr Gibson: How will I know when
we have got a marine strategy? Where would I first see it and
how would I first find out, and what is it anyway? John F Kennedy
had a strategy: it was to get a man on the moon at the time, and
I guess he did that, but that was a strategy. How precise does
a strategy have to be before it convinces cynics like me that
you have got one?
Hilary Benn: I never had you marked
down as a cynic, Dr Gibson. The answer to the question is that
we aim to draw it up so it is available in the second half of
next year.
Chairman: The second half of next year?
Q19 Dr Gibson: Two thousand and nine?
Hilary Benn: Yes, 2009.
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