Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR JAMES
MARSDEN, MR
DAVID BROOKE,
DR TONY
GRAYLING AND
MR RICHARD
HOWELL
13 MAY 2008
Q1 Chairman: Good morning and welcome.
We know who you are so I will not ask for long introductions but
get on with the substantial discussions, if that is okay. We have
got about 40-45 minutes to try and deal with some quite important
and interesting issues. I would like to kick off by asking you
whether you would have views about how much extra housing is actually
needed and whether either of your two bodies has an opinion about
whether we simply have to accept the target of three million new
homes over the next period to 2020, or whether you think that
itself as a target should be reviewed in the light of the potential
environmental impact?
Mr Marsden: We are not in a position
to judge the numbers or the need. We are very interested, however,
in location; and we are also very interested in quality. By that
I mean quality of the homes—and I am sure we will talk some
more about that—but also quality of the environment in which
they sit.
Dr Grayling: Similarly, we have
not taken a view on the number of homes that should be built,
but we do think that there is a huge opportunity if we are going
to build a large number of homes to get it right in terms of energy
efficiency, water efficiency, adaptation to climate change, transport
infrastructure and other environmental infrastructure to deal
with wastewater treatment and waste and so forth.
Q2 Chairman: In the light of that,
if we have got the target have you yet been able to make any assessment
of the impact, particularly in relation to the UK's carbon target?
Have you made any assessment of the impact which the construction
of two million new homes in eight years is going to have?
Dr Grayling: We, of the Environment
Agency, have not carried out an emissions impact assessment of
the house-building targets. I think it would be a good idea, with
us moving into a world of carbon budgets as a result of the Climate
Change Bill, that such an exercise is done; I think that would
be an important thing to do.
Q3 Chairman: Who should do it?
Dr Grayling: I would guess that
fundamentally the Government itself should have a first go at
this. Of course, the household sector is not part of a capped
emissions trading scheme at the moment, therefore we do have to
be careful what its overall emissions impact will be. It will
be the case that housing and population growth and other demographic
change is incorporated into the Government's projections for carbon
emissions; but, nevertheless, I think it would be good practice
to specifically do an emissions impact assessment of house-building
targets.
Q4 Chairman: Would you share the
view of the Sustainable Development Commission who have said they
think that the two million new homes by 2016 will make it more
difficult for the UK to meet its carbon emission reduction targets?
Dr Grayling: Building new homes
will inevitably increase the amount of emissions from the UK and,
therefore, it will make it more difficult. You would have to get
larger emission reductions elsewhere in order to compensate for
that.
Q5 Chairman: Perhaps this is one
more for Natural England. The SDC also said, "Much housing
growth is also planned in seriously water-stressed areas".
Is that a concern of yours?
Mr Marsden: It is a concern for
us and also for our colleagues in the Environment Agency. If housing
is planned in areas where water is scarce it increases the demand
in places where the natural environment is already stretched.
We would wish to ensure, and there are various mechanisms that
can ensure that, that there is sufficient compensatory provision
made such that the natural environment is not put under undue
stress.
Q6 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Can I move
on and follow on from the Chairman about sustainable homes and
the benefit of the mandatory Code being extended—sustainable
homes offered for sale, not just new homes. The Environment Agency
memo states fairly categorically, "The arrangements for monitoring
uptake of the Code are currently unclear and need to be urgently
addressed if lessons are to be learned". What do you mean
by that?
Mr Howell: It is early days to
see how the Code will operate—the requirements only came
in at the start of this month. Firstly, the Code is applied at
the plan stage and then a final rating is given when the homes
are actually constructed. Obviously there is scope for differences
between the initial aspirations perhaps of a house-builder and
then what actually gets constructed. The way the rating is finally
awarded is on a sub-sample of those built. In an industry which
has problems in even meeting the statutory minima of building
regulations, as the BRE has shown, there has got to be close monitoring
of what actually gets built to make sure it does comply with the
Code. The figures that are used in the Code are based on modelling—particularly
the higher levels of the Code. There are relatively few of those
houses built yet, and we need to see the experience of people
actually living in them to see whether they do deliver the levels
of carbon and water efficiency that the models suggest.
Q7 Mr Liddell-Grainger: A Code is
just that and I worry about any Agency that says it does things
on modelling. You model in the levels of Somerset and the bloody
thing is under water half the year, so that worries me. A Code
is not statutory; it is a Code. Who is going to administer it:
is it going to be the planning regulators; is it going to be the
planning department, the district or unitary authority? Who is
actually going to administer it?
Mr Howell: At the moment the Code
does not apply to existing build, but we think there is scope
for extending something akin to the Code—it could not be
just transferred en bloc to existing homes—and allied to
the inspections that go on to inform the information that goes
into the HIPs and the Energy Performance Certificate.
Q8 Mr Liddell-Grainger: So it is
a sort of aspiration more than an actual sensible proposal, is
it?
Mr Howell: No, we think it would
provide house buyers with the information about many aspects of
a home that they will be interested in. Particularly on water
efficiency they have got no real means of knowing what the water
use of their home is and what the implications of that would be.
Q9 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Natural England,
the inclusion of the word "ecology" as one of the categories
against which new homes will be rated. What practical difference
will that make?
Mr Brooke: We were very pleased
to see "ecology" as an aspect of the Code because it
starts to give a wider context to the home, because there are
lots of categories about the internal workings of the home and
water consumption, energy rating and so forth. Having an ecological
or ecology aspect to it starts setting the home itself in its
context and how it affects its local ecology, local ecosystems,
local character of the countryside and so forth. That is not answering
the question, I suspect.
Q10 Mr Liddell-Grainger: No, it is
not at all. It is really inclusion of the word "ecology"
in it and it is against new homes and the way they will be rated.
What practical difference will that make?
Mr Brooke: The way to tackle it
is through the local development framework and the policies that
set out the standards for development, location and so forth.
The subsequent planning permission would need to include ecological
considerations when planning authorities came to a decision. Drawing
on my colleague's evidence, the Code itself simply is a way of
categorising for the homeowners that the homes they are buying
have been through this particular testing of ecological robustness.
Q11 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Right. You
are not doing very well here. Practical terms: is it going to
be insulation; is it going to be Radon gas; let us look at the
practical things?
Mr Brooke: No, it is a bit wider
than that. It is the effect of the development of the houses,
and the housing estate maybe, on the local ecology. The various
criteria in the Code specify that the houses should be located
in areas of low habitat value and, conversely, avoid areas of
high habitat value. So it is a starting point and our broad contention
is that planning is essentially about getting the right developments
in the right places.
Q12 Mr Liddell-Grainger: So you have
just completely overturned the Government's aspirations for two
million houses?
Mr Brooke: No, it is a question
of getting the houses in the right place; and the right place
is not necessarily an area with high ecological value.
Q13 Mr Liddell-Grainger: The question
still stands, because wherever you are going to build two million
houses you are going to upset something—it maybe a house
martin or could be a vole, but you are going to upset something.
What you are basically saying is, "Don't build"?
Mr Brooke: No, we are saying there
is a spectrum of possibilities in the allocation of land for housing.
At one extreme one would be very reluctant to allow planning permission,
simply because the ecology value of the habitat or the value of
the scenery is so high that one would not want to do that. Society
has made that sort of judgment in other ways. At the other end
of the extreme there probably would not be any particular contention.
Obviously there are various grey areas in the middle between those
two ends of the spectrum.
Q14 Mr Liddell-Grainger: As an organisation
do you want to police that?
Mr Brooke: We are not really geared
up to policing that.
Q15 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Would you
like to police it?
Mr Marsden: The short answer is,
no, because we as a statutory adviser, a statutory consultee in
the planning system, will work with and rely upon the planning
system to do its job. The planning system needs to allocate land
in the right places for the reasons David has outlined. We would
wish to see houses built in the right place in the right way,
with the right infrastructure—by which we talk about "green
infrastructure" in our evidence and we are very happy to
explain more about that here today—so the setting of new
homes, once they have been built, is sympathetic to environmental
enhancement; but critical also is an appropriate and pleasant
place for people to live in, taking account of wellbeing and human
health, and various other services that a healthy natural environment
provides.
Q16 Dr Turner: We pay a lot of attention
to the energy efficiency of new homes but perhaps rather less
to their water efficiency. It is quite clear that if vast numbers
of new homes are going to be built it is going to stretch water
supplies. What do you think are the key ways of achieving water
neutrality to avoid this? Otherwise new developments are going
to cause problems on water supply, are they not?
Mr Howell: As you are aware, we
have done some work looking specifically in the Thames Gateway
at how you could achieve water neutrality in the Thames Gateway.
What we have found there is that it is technically feasible to
achieve that so the total amount of water entering into supply
after an extra 165,000-odd houses have been built is the same
as before they were built. We looked at various mixes of basically
making the new homes more water efficient, plus a degree of retrofitting
measures into the existing stock to make that more water efficient.
Depending upon what measures you employ in the new homes, obviously
the more savings you can make in the new homes the less retrofitting
you have to do, or the other way round. A lot of it is very simple
measures like fitting lower flush toilets, low-use taps and showers
and that sort of thing. When you have got such a large number
of existing homes—the baseline number in the Gateway is
about 600,000—you can offset relatively small savings in
that large number to offset the increased demand for the new homes.
Q17 Dr Turner: Without some mandatory
enforcement this is going to be difficult to make stick, is it
not?
Mr Howell: That is the next stage
of the work. We are working with the government departments to
look at what policy mechanisms would be needed to actually bring
that about. There is scope for voluntary measures and adoption
of the Code in some places. Already you have got commitments that
social housing will be built to the higher Code Levels—Code
Level 3/4. Yes, on the retrofitting, bearing in mind the Thames
Gateway is an area of water stress, then that is an area where
we would want to see a push for universal water metering, rather
than just in the new-build.
Q18 Dr Turner: This is somewhat urgent,
is it not? If a number of new homes are going to be constructed
over the next few years you need some mandatory code in place
asap. What measures are you taking to promote this, because we
need something by 2010 at the latest, do we not?
Mr Howell: We think that the Government's
aspirations for reducing average per capita water use down to
150 litres per day by 2030[14]
is not ambitious enough, and we would like to see that brought
forward, and measures like getting universal water metering, or
very substantial penetration of water metering in the water stressed
areas. All the evidence shows that just by having a water meter
people become aware of their water use and their consumption drops
by about 10 or 15%. We also think there is scope for adopting
variable rising tariffs, so a smarter form of metering, as well
as the physical installations I have talked about. There is an
undertaking to increase the water efficiency through the building
regs and the water fitting regulations. I think those will come
in in 2009, the undertaking was in the Defra water strategy.
Q19 Dr Turner: Are you actively pressurising
the Government to put all these in place?
Mr Howell: To increase the penetration
of water metering, yes.
14 Note by Witness: The Government's aspirations
are to reduce the average per capita water use down to 130 litres
per day by 2030, not 150 litres per day, as indicated during the
evidence session. Back
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