Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
RT HON
HILARY BENN
MP AND PROFESSOR
BOB WATSON
22 APRIL 2008
Q40 Dr Gibson: Just to make clear
in my mind a conversation I had which was very similar with Arnold
Weinstock of GEC many, many years ago, when there was rationalisation
taking place, which was not a word they used then. I guess any
new strategy could involve rationalisation of some sort, restructuring,
job losses, job creation even. Would all that be part of the equation
too? We cannot rule out the fact that it is very much an important
part of consideration during consultation stages.
Professor Watson: I cannot give
you a direct answer to that, I have not been part of the planning
committee at the moment, John Lock has been chairing it on behalf
of Defra, but what I normally find in all research programmes
is that they evolve over time. In other words, with or without
a new marine strategy, the type of research that we would do within
the marine sciences, or the atmospheric sciences, or the biological
sciences would naturally evolve over time as individual questions
are answered, so you would actually want to have a smooth transition
from the research being done today to the research that would
be needed under a new Marine Bill. You would not want dysfunctionality
in the academic community or in the private sector, you would
want to finish of the pieces of research being done now, and,
as we all know, it is always an interesting combination of Blue
Sky academic research and very policy-targeted, because you are
never sure when you are going to make those scientific breakthroughs,
and that is going to be the interesting balance, trying to balance
some thing that may look academically interesting but may not
be so policy-relevant—which is why we have research councils—and
at the other end of the spectrum some very policy-relevant research
we already know we want. It is actually betting that balance that
is always a challenge.
Q41 Dr Gibson: Would you say that
British science now is moving away from the fragmentation stage
into the centralisation of scientific endeavours, taking away
all the small units and putting them into one? Is that a pathway
you see happening?
Professor Watson: What I see with
LWEC is clearly that the research councils and the departments
are trying to come up with a more holistic strategy where we can
appropriately leverage each other. What I would hope is, as those
strategies are developed, they will have an appropriate balance
between fundamental and academic science and policy-relevant science.
One is seeing a movement in some cases towards what I call large
and multi-disciplinary teams. The Tyndall Centre would be a perfect
example, and it is a consortium of seven universities. I see it
is that type of consortia, whether it be for climate change or
for some of these other issues, that is the way to bring together
excellence across the United Kingdom, so bring those skills together
as needed to address specific problems.
Q42 Dr Gibson: But before you have
all the confrontation, if that did kind of happen, a centralisation,
it is essential that you have the people in the policy-making
arena right from the beginning rather than being dragged in screaming,
carrying placards late on.
Professor Watson: Sure; absolutely.
Chairman: We are not carrying any placards
here.
Q43 Ian Stewart: Good afternoon.
I am absolutely fascinated by the implications of this subject
and the wider environmental issues. I did not realise before coming
to this just how important this is. Having said that, Bob, before
you answered Ian's last question you were talking about what the
big questions are. In the introduction to the draft Bill it refers
to the need for research, as you highlighted, to underpin Defra's
ability to make good policy and good management decisions. I want
to press you a bit more on that, if you do not mind, but the first
thing I would like to ask you is when will the Marine Bill be
enacted?
Hilary Benn: We have got the Bill
in draft now for pre-legislative scrutiny and it is subject to
the normal processes, the Queen's Speech and, since the innovation
of last year, the draft Queen's Speech, and just watch this space,
I think is the answer to the question.
Q44 Ian Stewart: A year, a year and
a half?
Hilary Benn: We have a very clear
commitment to enact the bill in this Parliament, and we intend
to do so.
Dr Gibson: Has the Prime Minister agreed
to that? Do not answer!
Chairman: It will be done before 2010.
Q45 Ian Stewart: I think also, Bob,
you, by inference, accepted that there were gaps in the data that
is needed to make the proposals in the draft Bill work. Is that
right?
Professor Watson: Let us be quite
candid and let me pick climate change as a particular issue. There
is a huge amount we know and, as we all know, it is a clearly
serious environmental development and actual security issue, and
we clearly know enough that we must, indeed, mitigate greenhouse
gas emissions to try and limit the projected changes in climate.
Having said that, there are still some fairly significant uncertainties,
whether it be in our understanding of the oceans, ie one good
example would be what are the implications of the acidification
of the ocean? There is more carbon dioxide being taken up by the
ocean. What are the implications on marine life in the oceans
and biodiversity? The fact that ocean temperatures will change
and ocean circulation patterns will change will mean there will
be different patterns of nutrient flows. What will happen to fisheries
there? It could be that simply the fisheries move; it could be
there is a decrease in total catch. So, no, there are some significant
questions, especially what are the implications of climate change
on fisheries, agricultural production, human health, natural ecosystems,
and how can we adapt to them? So, there are uncertainties in the
marine science, the atmospheric science, our land science, and
it is trying to get the priorities right across the earth's sciences
of what are the most important policy questions and how do we
get the answers to those important policy questions. One of the
key issues is the exchange of energy and chemicals between the
atmosphere and the ocean? To what degree will there be changes
in storm surges in the oceans? There is a number of questions.
Q46 Ian Stewart: Those are very interesting
questions, even to lay people like me, but are you confident that
Defra's own research programme would be sufficient to fill those
gaps?
Professor Watson: No, not a hope,
and nor will the UK's programme, nor will the EU's. This is why
I do stress, especially for an issue like climate change, we have
to take a truly global perspective to see what research is needed.
Again, I hate to hark back to a previous job I had, but even 11
years ago within the seven billion dollar budget of which I had
macro-oversight, not day to day oversight, the climate change
programme was fairly close to one and a half to two billion dollars
a year then. It is probably comparable now. So we have to place
not only Defra's research but the UK research within this wider
context, and that is why we need collaboration and partnerships.
Defra alone could not ever hope to understand the earth's system,
even major parts of it.
Q47 Chairman: To clarify, you have
identified within the draft Bill that there are gaps in the research
which we must plug in order for that bill to become an effective
piece of legislation. The question we want answering is: are you
confident that Defra has the resources to be able to plug those
gaps?
Professor Watson: Defra has to
place its research programme in the broader context of the UK
at least. NERC funds far more ocean research than Defra. In other
words, we should not say what will Defra's role be.
Q48 Chairman: I am sorry. There is
no point in having a bill, is there, if in fact you know from
the start that you cannot in fact deliver its objectives, because
you cannot plug the gaps in terms of research?
Professor Watson: Okay. I have
often testified in US certainly and the US House of Commons and
they always used to ask me: "If I give you so much money,
how many years will it take you to plug those research gaps?"
I always refused to answer. You can put funding into research;
you never know when the answers are going to come out. All we
can do is make sure that we identify the key gaps, identify the
best researches and hope that science will follow a reasonable
evolutionary course to produce answers. You can never guarantee
answers, in my opinion.
Hilary Benn: I would not say that
was an argument for not coming forward with a marine bill.
Ian Stewart: If you could come forward
with the Marine Bill, you must have some idea of how much additional
investment you are going to make to plug these gaps, surely, even
at the level that the UK can do on its own?
Q49 Chairman: The bill does not mention
research; it virtually ignores it.
Hilary Benn: Clearly the decisions
that we as ministers will take---. For example, let us talk about
marine conservation zones. The decisions that we will take, on
advice—
Q50 Ian Stewart: I am sorry, are
those the same as the marine protected areas?
Hilary Benn: Yes, they are called
marine conservation zones in the bill. The decisions that we will
take, on the advice of the JNCC and Natural England, based on
the knowledge that we have currently and the knowledge as it evolves
in the way that Bob has described, will allow us to designate
more areas as marine conservation zones. As you will know, it
is currently 2.2%, I think, from memory. Studies have been done
which have suggested it should be about 20%. The MCZ is a flexible
means of doing that. You can have what other people have called
highly protected marine reserves, but the MCZ is an instrument
which can give you as much protection as anyone can possibly imagine
over here, a different type of protection here and a bit of protection
here, depending on what the nature of the seas are and what it
is that you are trying to protect. If the argument was, until
you have guaranteed enough funding to answer all of the questions—and
I am not saying you are advancing it—there is no point in
bringing forward a marine bill, I would not agree with that because
I think we need what the Marine Bill is going to provide, but
it is going to have to be informed by the science and the purpose
of all of this discussion, and the purpose of the science is to
find out the answers but to inform policy.
Q51 Ian Stewart: Why I am pressing
these questions about funding in that sense is I think, Bob, earlier,
as an aside in relation to another issue, you talked about the
ability to get research on the cheap and, therefore, it is difficult
for us as a committee to scrutinise just what your plans are within
this bill if we do not have any idea of the sort of investment
that you intend to make, at least at the UK level, to address
those gaps?
Hilary Benn: I am not sure that
I agree/understand. The bill will do what the bill sets out to
do, in the way which the draft Bill describes. We have a certain
amount of knowledge currently. That will be drawn upon by those
who will advise ministers. Since we are talking about marine conservation
zones, part of what we need to do is to provide resources to look,
to understand better what is down there currently—that is
what we are talking about, because we have some knowledge but
not all the knowledge that we do need—but that is going
to be a process over time. I would not see it that you hold up
either scrutiny of the draft Bill or the enactment of the bill
whilst saying, until you can say here is X amount of money which
is going to deliver Y results in terms of knowledge, until we
know that, we do not think you should get on with it, because
actually people have been pressing us to get on with it and we
waited a long time for the bill.
Q52 Ian Stewart: The problem you
are posing for me personally is that, in terms of filling the
gaps in research, Bob accepted that Defra's own research base
could not possibly cope with it. There is a need to work with
others externally.
Hilary Benn: Fine.
Q53 Ian Stewart: But he then took
it to a global level, saying that even the US could not fill those
research gaps. I then brought it back to UK level that relates
to this bill, and if you accept that there are gaps that need
to be filled, there must be an understanding of what those gaps
are and how, within this bill, you can fund the research to cover
those gaps. That is what I am seeking, to get an idea of what
will happen in practice on the ground.
Hilary Benn: Defra can certainly
set out—and Bob says he is going to have overall responsibility
for it—what Defra's research budget is going to be spent
on. The MMO, as I said earlier, is going to be represented on
the new Marine Science Co-ordination Committee. One of the things
that the Marine Science Co-ordination Committee is going to look
at is where are the gaps, seeing what everybody is up to currently,
and if the MMO says, "Here are some things that have been
really useful for us to know, and the JNCC and Natural England,
in advising ministers on where there should be marine conservation
zones and of what type and what it is that we are trying to protect",
then that is part of the process. I am trying to provide an answer
to the question that you have quite properly asked. It seems to
me we are in a better position to do it now, and will be in the
future, because of your recommendation that there should be a
co-ordinating committee that is more effective, with ministerial
leadership, and the fact that the lead minister, the champion,
for the Marine Science Co-ordination Committee and for the strategy
is also the minister in Defra who has been leading on the Marine
Bill, I hope, will also give some comfort and the two bits can
live together, but Bob may want to add something.
Professor Watson: I think we always
manage the environment, whether it is the marine environment,
whether it is the terrestrial environment, or whether it is the
atmosphere, with current knowledge, which is why we call it adaptive
management. You use the best knowledge you have today, so it is
always decision-making under uncertainty, and you continue to
do research to try and reduce that uncertainty. We have a Climate
Change Bill that talks about mitigating climate change, we have
uncertainties, but it does not stop us coming up with a well thought
through, cost-effective plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It talks about adapting to climate change in the UK. Again, there
are some uncertainties, but again that does not stop us coming
up with a well-defined strategy that would continuously be informed
by further research. Our job is to think through where are the
most important research gaps that we should emphasise to reduce
those largest uncertainties, which are, on the one hand, the most
policy-relevant uncertainties, and so it really is adaptive management
where research continuously informs.
Hilary Benn: One of the things
we are doing through our research spend is to look at it and ask
precisely the question that you have asked of me: what is it we
need for the purposes of the implementation of the Marine Bill
so that it has an impact on where we prioritise the expenditure
that we have got? Perhaps I should have said that at the beginning.
Q54 Ian Stewart: So we agree there
is a question, but there is no answer to it at this point in terms
of finance. Then perhaps, Bob, you would say what work has been
done so far to establish the mechanisms to facilitate the release
of data, the interaction between producers, suppliers and users
of marine data?
Professor Watson: Clearly, the
Marine Bill will be implemented on the knowledge we have today,
whether it is knowledge that has come from Defra research or other
research entities or the private sector. I think we need to make
sure we have all the relevant information up-to-date, peer reviewed,
validated, as much as you can validate research findings, as we
start to manage the system. This would be the normal way of business
actually.
Q55 Dr Iddon: When I visited Plymouth
I got the distinct impression that we did not know too much about
the areas we need to protect, except in the case of some well-known
examples; yet we are putting off-shore wind farms out; we are
putting wave and tidal machines out. Perhaps I direct the question
to Bob. Do you think we know enough about even the Continental
Shelf, never mind the deep sea beyond it, in order to have marine
protected areas at the moment, or is this a fairly unknown research
area?
Professor Watson: I think the
question is: what are we protecting and why are we protecting
it? There are many things you can protect. There is a complete
dearth of marine protected areas anywhere in the world. If you
compare the marine protected areas compared to terrestrial protected
areas, there is a couple of percent across the world. I think
one of the questions we have, and I have got the same question
actually, a major question on terrestrial protected areas, first,
do we know what we are protecting and why and do we know how to
protect it? Let me say why I think it is a challenge, and I think
it is a challenge both in the marine environment and the terrestrial
environment. If we are correct about climate change, the climatic
zones for a species in an ecosystem could well shift 300 to 500
kms poleward, towards the North Pole in the northern hemisphere
and the South Pole in the southern, and could move up an altitude
in grading a mountain by 300 to 500 metres. In other words, if
you have tried to protect a particular species where it may sit
very happily today, it may no longer potentially even reside in
the UK, or, if you are in Brazil, it may not even reside in the
protected area you have got. So one of the challenges we face
is not only to decide what do we want to protect and why but,
if, indeed, we are seeing a major change in the environment, and
climate change is the classical one that I would put, we have
got to think what the implications of climatic change are, to
think through the whole concept of protected areas, and so there
is a real challenge whether it is in the terrestrial biosphere
or in the aquatic biosphere.
Q56 Ian Stewart: Some of the climate
change things are going to happen, so why do we try to protect
the north Norfolk coast? Why do we protect the Broads, Bob? Why
not just flood them? Nature Heritage has said that, has it not?
Professor Watson: I think the
question we have to decide is what we want to protect and why,
and, clearly, for those living in the Norfolk Broads and in Norfolk,
they would want to protect it. I think the question is, and it
is a classical question, what parts of the coast do you protect,
what parts do you let retreat, and then you have to look at it
from an economic, social, environmental perspective. There will
be parts, I believe, of the north Norfolk coast that you actually
purposefully will protect and parts that you may actually allow
to retreat because it is actually the most cost-effective and
socially defensible.
Q57 Ian Stewart: So you would protect
the Labour seats, I hope, and allow the Liberal Democrats to sink!
Professor Watson: I would hate
to make a political statement.
Q58 Chairman: There were a number
of rotten boroughs which are in the sea and perhaps others will
follow them!
Hilary Benn: Can I just add to
the question. When we launched the Marine Bill I went out, for
the first time in my life, to see an off-shore wind farm off Whitstable,
and one of the things that is immediately obvious when you go
and have a look is that the putting in of the piles would have
disrupted things down below, but once you have got one of those
things there you are not going to go and fish there. One very
interesting question for me also as a lay person is: what is the
long-term impact of that and do you find that things recover quicker
than people thought and do you find that species of fish will
actually tend to congregate there because, by definition, people
cannot come and fish? The interrelationship between the human
activity and biodiversity is something that we need better to
understand, because one thing I think we do learn from nature
is that in the right circumstances it is pretty vigorous and pretty
good at redeeming itself and recovering sometimes in ways that
would astonish us. The other thing is that in the publication—I
see that Bob has got it here—as someone who was new to this
when we produced this very nice brochure publicising the work
we are doing on the Marine Bill, some of the photographs there,
if you showed them to people and said, "Where in the world
do you think these pictures were taken?"—this goes
back to your question about public awareness and understanding—people
would have said, "That is the Bahamas. That is the Great
Barrier Reef", when actually they are taken in the seas around
our coast. Understanding what is there and how marvellous and
wonderful some of it is, it seems to me, the reason why there
is so much support for the Marine Bill and why we are going to
go on and get it on the statute book.
Q59 Chairman: Before the election
in 2010! Can I finally turn to an issue which you have both raised
on a number of occasions this afternoon, and that is this issue
of monitoring and the importance of monitoring? In fact those
of us that took part in this investigation I think were struck
by just how crucially important maintaining long-term datasets
is, maintaining our support for the ARGO floats programme and,
more so, for deep-ocean piling, and so on, and I just wonder what
additional money is in the CSR, to start with, to actually support
marine science as a whole, but particularly the preservation of
long-term datasets? Is there any additional money at all?
Professor Watson: As you know,
we have kept the Defra budget constant from last year to this
year for research at around £132 million per year and in
the monitoring and surveillance issues we are trying to get a
handle around it. NERC, of course, had just over a 5% increase
in their research budget, but a significant amount of that got
eaten up by overheads, et cetera. To be honest, I would imagine
the total budget for the long-term monitoring is fairly flat,
but this is why we need to look at the research strategy and monitoring
strategy to ask are we putting enough emphasis on monitoring versus
some other elements of research, how does the UK monitoring fit
within the global perspective? You are absolutely right, long-term
monitoring is absolutely critical—there is no question—for
trying to understand things such as changes in the earth's climate
and changes in biodiversity. There are short-term fluctuations
that can be seasonal, inter-annual, even decadal, so unless you
look at the processes over a long period of time you cannot tell
what is a natural fluctuation versus what is a long-term trend,
which may be induced by human activity. Equally, if you then put
a policy in place, say, to try and reverse damage, you also need
the long term to see whether or not that policy is having the
effect it is. I can only agree with you on long-term monitoring,
but to me it is one of the biggest challenges we in the UK face.
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