Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-168)
MR PHIL
WOOLAS MP, MR
JAMES HUGHES,
MR IAIN
WRIGHT MP AND
MR ANDREW
CAMPBELL
2 APRIL 2008
Q160 Mr Chaytor: It does not mention
climate change and environment, but my question is, what is the
capacity in Hartlepool Council, for example, Minister, to deliver
on the new requirements you are placing on them? Is there the
capacity in terms of the technical officers with the right level
of skills? Will Hartlepool be able to deliver an enhanced energy
efficiency scheme? Will they be able to document their own greenhouse
gas emissions, let alone that of other agencies and businesses
within Hartlepool?
Mr Wright: I think, Chairman,
Hartlepool is a very interesting case study, not only because
it is the centre of the universe and has a real renaissance in
terms of food, as you can see from my expanding waistline!
Mr Woolas: Guacamole!
Mr Wright: I think you will find
it is guacamole! Hartlepool is the second smallest unitary authority
in the country and cannot deliver on its own. I would suggest—and
this happened whilst I was a member of the local authority—I
am not suggesting I was the driving force or anything, but I was
the Cabinet Member responsible for performance management, which
included the estates of the local authority, and we had in 2003/2004,
targets with regard to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions
on the estates of the local authority. There is very much a commitment
both from officers and members who have been following through
for the last five years with regard to this, but there is also
a recognition that Hartlepool cannot perform on its own. So I
would bring in a further important point, if I may, Chairman,
about multi-area agreements. Hartlepool is part of the Tees Valley
and Tees Valley unlimited, which includes Middlesbrough, Stockton
and others, particularly Middlesbrough are very focused upon how
we can work together to try and mitigate and adapt to climate
change. So I would say that Hartlepool is a very good case study
about the commitment, the level. The cultural key points are there
at both member and officer level, but also a recognition that
we need to work in a sub-regional and regional way. I think actually
in terms of sub-regional government arrangements Hartlepool stands
firm and stands alone after Cleveland and after going unitary
in 1996. But it also recognises, to be fair, that there are some
things which need to be done in partnership and I think that is
where Tees Valley works incredibly well.
Q161 Mr Chaytor: We have got a mismatch
really, and this is the point I want to tease out, because you
are giving the responsibility to individual local authorities
to deliver on the performance indicators 185, 186 and 188, but
you are acknowledging that some of the local authorities are actually
too small or will not have the professional capacity to deliver.
I just want to see if you recognise that as a problem.
Mr Woolas: Can I have a stab at
this as well, please, Chairman? If you break down where the emissions
come from and then try to correlate that with the capacity of
local authorities—and we now have, of course, regional figures
and local figures—two things are very pertinent. The first
is that an area's emissions are correlated to an industrial set-up.
I mentioned before that the North East is the region in this country
which has the highest per capita emissions and that is because
of the industrial processes which go on in that part of the world.
Mr Wright: And I would assume
that Tees Valley is part of that team.
Mr Woolas: The Tees Valley is
very much part of that. I would point out for the benefit of my
colleague Iain that the domestic per capita emissions of his area
are the best in the country. They are the cleanest people. The
opposite is the case in the non-London South East.
Mr Wright: We are a clean people!
Mr Woolas: The less industrial
the area is, the less the emissions, but in the non-London South
East, in the government office South East area per capita emissions
for domestic use are the highest in the country because the better
off you are, the higher your footprint is. So the strategies and
capacities of local authorities have to recognise that difference,
so non-car transport and road, increased powers through local
transport plans, devolution to regional transport plans, passenger
transport authorities, being part of multi-area agreements, getting
more power. Forty-two per cent of emissions are domestic and cars.
What powers have local authorities got, what capacity have they
got outside of the social housing—and there is an open question
there as well—there is a mismatch there that we are conscious
of. On energy, the shift in policy to decentralisation, combined
heat and power, greater renewables and micro, again there is,
we believe, within the local government and public sector family
to help individual local authorities to deliver, but of course
the major energy questions relate to national policies, national
planning policies and national energy policies. Industrial symbiosis
changes into industrial processes that will impact upon areas
such as Tees Valley. Capacity within local authorities is not
significant enough, frankly, to affect those areas, so partnership
approaches at a regional and sub-regional level with the private
sector become all-important. So the way in which I would answer
the very important question you have asked is to determine it
by sector relating to emissions and see what the capacity is to
address that. The answer, I think, is therefore patchy.
Q162 Mr Chaytor: Just one little
supplementary. You describe it as "patchy". In terms
of the capacity to deliver, I want to put to you whether you think
it is too fragmented because local authorities have a role, individual
companies have a role, central government applies the framework
and the rhetoric, the Carbon Trust as the role with regard to
large businesses, the Energy Saving Trust in regard to smaller
businesses, other public sector agencies and households. We have
got an organisation which provides finance on a match basis with
local authorities. Is there not a powerful argument for a single,
central government agency to coordinate all this and drive it
through, and is not the heart of the problem that within Government
itself responsibility is fragmented between the DCLG, Defra and
the Treasury? Therefore, the final part of the question is, should
we not really be having a department of energy and climate change
to pull all this together and drive it through?
Mr Woolas: And the Department
for Transport, again in terms of emissions. The Government's policy
is that it is better to mainstream it than to restructure to try
and solve the problem.
Mr Wright: I can understand the
attractiveness of the argument, but I would say that sustainability
and the ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change should
be at the heart of what we do. It is following on from what Phil
said there about mainstreaming, so transport, do we not have a
Department for Transport, do we not have a Department for Communities
and Local Government, because emissions arising from transport
is important and emissions arising from both domestic and non-domestic
dwellings account for something like half of all carbon emissions?
Do we not have a CLG in that respect? I have just taken through
the Housing and Regeneration Bill, something that I am very proud
of, but that is the creation of the Homes and Communities Agency,
which will be a national agency charged with helping facilitate
the building of homes and regenerating infrastructure and communities
in England. It will have the Academy for Sustainable Communities
as part of that, which will help address the skills shortage which
I think is in Mr Chaytor's question, Chairman. But I still maintain
that it should be about mainstreaming. Sustainable development
and thinking about climate change should be at the heart of what
we do, regardless of how the machinery of government is worked.
Q163 Chairman: Would it be fair to
say that the priority the Government attaches to economic development
makes really putting enough priority on climate change almost
impossible for local and regional and devolved government?
Mr Woolas: No, I do not believe
that is the case. I think the response to the Sub-National Review
and the regional priorities built into the PSA for regional economic
achievement does include climate change. Chairman, I think the
Committee's views on this will be very helpful. Part of the culture
change is the penny dropping of Nick Stern's report. Nick Stern's
report changes the way in which people look at it, and my fear
is that the public sector leadership and management intellectually
gets it but does not translate that into decision-making, and
I think when that penny drops from the Stern report that is the
answer to the question. HMT get the economic point on adaptation
and mitigation more, in my view, than chancellors and treasuries
in other countries. So I am optimistic on that point, but I think
it does need a push.
Mr Wright: I see this as a huge
opportunity, Chairman, for British industry. I think we can lead
the world and take over from the likes of Germany in having firms,
particularly in terms of building firms and the construction industry
making sure that we adapt innovative products which can help to
mitigate and adapt to climate change which we can then subsequently
export to the rest of the world. I think this is a massive opportunity
for British industry, in which we can lead the world.
Q164 Chairman: Are you afraid that
having three specific climate change targets may divert attention
away from the need to get climate change considered in the delivery
against all targets for local government?
Mr Woolas: Yes. I think we have
to try and reach agreement at a UN level on a long-term goal.
We have to build in interim targets within that because the nature
of climate change is that parts per million in the atmosphere
of carbon are cumulative with a 30 to 40 year lag for diminishing,
so you have to have a trajectory for scientific reasons. You have
to have a trajectory with mid-term targets for political and economic
reasons to make it right, and one of the concerns over the targets
(which we support) is, however, the knowledge that those become
maximums not minimums and divert you from other areas, which of
course is the criticism of any target. But you have to have for
industry and for sectors such as housing, which Iain has mentioned,
and others a framework in terms of trajectories which you work
towards. I think the other point, Chairman, is the relationship
between those targets and the carbon market. I think that is absolutely
crucial, because those targets will inform the carbon market and
affect the price of carbon, and that in itself will help, I think,
to meet the point you make, which I think is a crucial point and
is being debated.
Q165 Chairman: Yes. What I was really
trying to get to were the indicators for local government. You
have got specific indicators, these three indicators. Are you
nervous that that may mean that the focus is explicitly on those
rather than looking at how the whole of local government activity
affects climate change?
Mr Woolas: No, I am not. I am
optimistic because of 185 and 186 together. I believe 186, the
geographical area one, is one of the most empowering articles
for local government that there has been for many decades within
the context of the international recognition of climate change
and the domestic policy statutory and financial changes which
are going on. That will allow, say, a council in the North East
to work with ConocoPhillips, who have the largest combined heat
and power plant in Europe, to have a strategy to do more, to the
benefit of that area and the UK economy, so I am very, very excited.
I hope we get 150 local authorities signed up to PI186 and we
will be watching DCLG's statements very closely.
Q166 Chairman: We discussed this
with you last week really, that the science on climate change
is showing that the problem is getting more urgent and bigger
than we had previously understood and that by itself may call
into question, I think, what would otherwise be very sympathetic
within your earlier answers about not being too dictatorial to
local government and trying to reduce centralisation rather than
increase it. This is particularly urgent, and may become an overriding
urgent issue, so that slightly more laidback approach, which instinctively
I would be sympathetic to, may become less appropriate in the
case of climate change because of the urgency of it. Looking at
the need for a step change in performance, do you think there
is still a risk that councils may focus on other issues in their
Local Area Agreement and do not particularly look at the three
climate change indicators?
Mr Woolas: There is a risk, but
I think the reassurance I can give in response to that flow of
thought is the budget, the carbon budgets, the carbon reduction
commitments. I have said before that it has come out of the in-tray
of the environment office and into the chief executive's. The
budgets will put it right at the heart of the Treasury's in-tray,
so financial decisions will follow, and I think that will change
things. Money talks!
Q167 Chairman: Given, as I say, the
urgency of the issue, is there, however, a case for making climate
change a national priority? I know there are certain other areas
of local government where there are signals and incentives created.
Do you think we are getting to the point where a similar approach
is needed for climate change?
Mr Woolas: No, I do not, on balance,
because I think in the nature of things if you are devolving you
have to have an element of trust. You have to ensure that the
accountability for the public is as strong as it is possible to
be, and I think the argument could always be put that there are
other equally important priorities, children's services being
the obvious one. I think more importantly than that—and
we debated this at some length inside the Department, and it is
a subjective view, of course, but you get the best when you change
the culture, do you not, when you get management, officers and
leaders focused on the bigger picture? What is the best way of
doing that, on balance, is the more flexible approach, but it
is within the framework of the Climate Change Act and the carbon
budgets and carbon reduction commitments, and what I believe will
be in the next few words, touch wood, the international agreement
to back that up. I think that will achieve what you, Chairman,
are concerned about, but of course I have not got a crystal ball.
Mr Wright: I still reiterate the
point I tried to make earlier, Chairman, which is that with this
locally devolved agenda where Government is trying to persuade
as opposed to dictate I think it has greater levels of ownership
and commitment, and I think that, backed up with the science—the
floods in the summer, when I travelled around speaking to local
authorities, I think it is very clear that people are seeing the
same things as us in terms of central government and local government
in respect of the science and it is affecting them on the ground.
That is helping to turn around the cultural things, because this
is not an academic exercise for them. They are having to deal
with the consequences of climate change on the ground. As Phil
has said, that backed up with this locally devolved agenda, backed
up with money and budgets, really will help change the culture
in local authorities.
Q168 Martin Horwood: Can I just ask
you about homelessness, where you have got what is a very important
moral duty, a very important specific duty for some of the population
locally, but it does not actually threaten the future of human
civilisation? In terms of climate change, could we not have statutory
duties laid upon local authorities in the same way that statutory
duties are laid upon them in terms of homelessness, which I think
has actually helped to change the culture in the way you describe,
at a local level, where the statutory duties have been part of
that process of change? It is a balance, is it not?
Mr Wright: It is a balance, but
in terms of homelessness the way we have pushed the policy reiterates
and reinforces in my own mind that it is being done by having
that locally devolved agenda. Local authorities in conjunction
with the voluntary sector have pushed the real changes in homelessness,
backed up, I would have to say, by the biggest ever cash injection
into homelessness services, but I do not want to make the narrow
partisan point. Maybe that combination or giving local authorities
the confidence to deal with things on the ground in their own
areas, backed up with partnership and voluntary sector organisations,
and helped with central government funding, has been the way forward
in which we have been able to reduce homelessness by 73% over
the last decade.
Chairman: Thank you for your time. I
think we are just about to run out of a quorum here. I think the
two divisions slightly depleted our stamina. Anyhow, we are grateful
to you for coming in and I hope we can produce some helpful recommendations
for you when we write the report.
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