Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
JOAN RUDDOCK
MP AND MR
MARTIN BRASHER
15 JULY 2008
Q160 Mark Lazarowicz: What about
this inter-ministerial group on biodiversity?
Joan Ruddock: On that you find
a weak point because I have asked for a meeting. We have had a
meeting set up on two occasions but unfortunately—and this
happens around government—one or other of the other ministers
has had to pull out. I am much exercised about this. I do want
the committee to meet and we will meet and we will find another
date. It is just very unfortunate that this has happened.
Mr Brasher: The inter-departmental
group on overseas issues is made up of the FCO, the Department
for International Development and the JNCC. A lot of the stuff
we have been talking about so far would not be relevant to that
meeting anyway.
Joan Ruddock: The lack of a meeting
with the FCO and DfID ministers has impacted in no way whatsoever
on everything we have spoken about this morning. It is not relevant
to what we have been speaking about.
Q161 Mark Lazarowicz: I want to raise
a significant point in relation to the PSAs which you have, rightly,
laid great store by. Is it not the case that there is no individual
PSA on biodiversity loss and that biodiversity is only accounted
for in one PSA, and only then as one of five indicators? Should
we not expect to see a greater presence of biodiversity in PSAs
and perhaps a stronger individual PSA on biodiversity loss?
Joan Ruddock: The PSA that we
have on a healthy natural environment for today and tomorrow could
not be delivered without biodiversity considerations. It is absolutely
at the heart of that PSA. No, we do not think it is necessary
to have a separate one on that.
Q162 Mark Lazarowicz: Should we not
expect it to be more strongly reflected in other PSAs or focussed
on other departments?
Joan Ruddock: I do not think so,
no.
Q163 Chairman: Let us go back to
the Biodiversity Action Plan for a moment. The RSPB sent us a
memo[21]
saying that after the review of the plan was completed in 2007
additional priorities were identified but that defining action
and taking the work forward had been painfully slow. Would you
just like to comment on that?
Joan Ruddock: All I can say is
that that is the view of the RSPB. As I have stressed all morning,
this is complex work. One of the worst things we can do is rush
at things and actually get it wrong. I do not think it is painfully
slow in the sense that we have failed to put our backs behind
it or give it enough attention. We have a very significant team
of people who work on these issues. We have the major development
agencies in terms of Natural England and the Environment Agency
and we have very good relations with NGOs, including the RSPB.
We are all aiming to get to the right place. If they regard it
as painfully slow, well, that is their opinion.
Mr Brasher: It has taken a while,
but that is not due to a lack of looking to take things forward
at all. We have regular contact with the RSPB through the England
Biodiversity Strategy and through the UK Standing Committee as
well. It is a question of getting the right structures in place
to deal with the problem. Yesterday I received a paper from Natural
England with final proposals for taking this work forward in the
new structure. They are going to be new structures and it does
take a while to set them up. We are very grateful for the input
of all sorts of people through the England Biodiversity Strategy,
particularly the NGOs.
Q164 Mr Caton: Let us continue on
the theme of government co-ordination. You have laid great emphasis
this morning on the use of the ecosystem approach in getting government
departments to take their impact on the environment into account.
How is this going to work in practice?
Joan Ruddock: I do not think I
can predict how anything is going to work in practice. We are
dealing here with concepts, guidance, advice and frameworks. I
cannot think of a particular example off the top of my head and
say, "That's how that would work." I will look to Martin
to see if he has any idea, but I think that is a hypothetical
question which I do not think it is easy to answer. Does he agree?
Mr Brasher: I agree, yes. It may
seem as though we are placing a lot of store on the PSA mechanisms
but we think we should be because the PSA mechanisms are new.
A little while ago you were saying about biodiversity not featuring
more prominently in those. One could look at that the other way
and say that we are very pleased indeed that they feature at all.
There are only 30 PSAs across government and PSA28 is on a healthy
natural environment for now and for the future. Biodiversity is
an indicator within that and so too are challenging targets to
do with indicators and certainly to do with clean air, water and
so on and this is all part of getting the ecosystems right, which
will help biodiversity to flourish. The PSA mechanisms are across
government. I cannot say to you for sure that I guarantee that
the ecosystem approach will feed into the discussions of the PSA,
I am not on that delivery board, but that is the sort of mechanism
that we have now which we did not have a year ago.
Q165 Mr Caton: The reason I asked
my question is because Natural England told us that some important
departments, such as BERR and DCLG, do not appear to be doing
the work needed to take the ecosystem approach forward. Is that
your perception?
Joan Ruddock: I am not in a position
to answer for what goes on in other departments. I have been at
pains to illustrate what we have put in place, the fact that other
departments sit on the board with us and people are in constant
dialogue. I cannot make a judgment about what has been said and
I cannot answer for another department.
Q166 Mr Caton: Do you not see the
risk that this ecosystem approach will not be effective in ensuring
that departments adequately value the environment as the relative
values given to ecosystem services might not be large enough to
prevent damaging decisions from being taken?
Joan Ruddock: We would hope to
prevent damaging decisions being taken through the appraisals
that I have already indicated, have to be taken into account through
PPS9. Those are the ways in which you would try to prevent damaging
decisions being taken. That is where we expect to be able to do
that. Whether people have got it into their heads how they ought
to approach this in order that they should never put up something
that might have a damaging effect is a different matter. We work
constantly to try to ensure that that is the case. There should
be, we hope, safeguards in place to ensure that if proposals that
could create damage come up they will be stopped because of the
potential damage they will do. I really think we are dealing here
with a lot of hypothetical questions. You have to have a particular
case to say, "That is how that would happen and that is what
we would do." Let me just give the example of eco-towns,
which I know have been quite controversial, where we are having
very close contact with DCLG to ensure that these considerations
are built into the eco-town planning so that we can ensure that
there will be standards which will avoid significant adverse impacts
on any of our internationally and nationally important sites for
wildlife, for example, and which will lead to no net loss of UK
BAP priority habitats and species in the locality. That is work
that is underway.
Mr Brasher: The ecosystems approach
material is quite difficult. Even though it is very close to our
hearts in this Department, it has taken a number of us quite a
while to understand it fully. We have had training and been present
when there have been launches and that kind of thing. It will
take a while for it to feed through into other departments as
well. There is an action plan taking forward the ecosystems approach
work and some of the actions in that are shared with other departments.
We do need to keep working on engaging with them and explaining
what is actually quite a difficult concept. We have tried to embed
the ecosystem notion. We can do that at my sort of level and we
can do it through the PSA Delivery Board, but that is newly established.
I do not mean to say this is a negative thing at all. I am just
saying that in a number of these areas we are moving on to some
quite interesting concepts and we have to work out how best to
take them forward, and the valuation of biodiversity is one of
them and the ecosystems approach is another one.
Q167 Mr Caton: I can understand the
logic of the ecosystems approach in trying to encourage people
whose background is in economics to put a valuation on our environment,
but is it realistic? Is there any way of making an objective valuation
of a species, for instance?
Joan Ruddock: I missed a point
that you were making in that argument, which was that if we were
to put a value then perhaps, when compared to other values, it
might be too small. This would not be the only consideration.
What we are endeavoring to do is to try to get people to understand
the value that there is in ecosystems, but it is not in order
that we can then say, "Well, just add up that column of figures
and then add up that column of figures and come to a judgment,"
but it is an attempt to get people to understand that the natural
environment, albeit that it has an intrinsic value in itself and
it has a spiritual value and a cultural value --- It is much more
than that and that is what we need economists to understand because
you will know, as I know very well, that if we do not understand
this and we squander our natural environment there will be huge
monetary implications, apart from all the other disastrous and
awful things, but financially there are huge issues that arise
and huge amounts of money has to be applied to try to then mitigate
some of the effects that have occurred because of destroying the
environment.
Q168 Martin Horwood: You are starting
to talk about some of the "softer" values to ecosystems
and you mentioned spirituality. There are things like beauty and
the work that has been done on the importance of the countryside
and green space because of mental health. In the end these are
going to be almost impossible things to quantify in economic terms.
Is there not a risk that by trying to quantify things through
the ecosystem services approach with an economic objective in
mind you are almost conceding the ground to the economists and
playing their game? Is it not more important to try and set indicators
which are not economic in form and are just trying to recognise
the value of some of these things in their own right?
Joan Ruddock: I do not think that
you are choosing one over the other. I think that for all of time
people have said, "Don't destroy my view. Don't destroy the
place that I walk with my children. Just go somewhere else. Look
the other way." This has not meant in any sense that in many
cases society as a whole has been willing to put any kind of total
value on the spiritual aspects of the natural environment. There
are some cultures, few remaining in the world now, where the whole
of the society values nature beyond everything else and respects
society beyond everything else, but that has not been true of
industrialised countries for hundreds of years. Just valuing the
spiritual nature or otherwise of the landscape and of nature has
not been sufficient to hold back the tide of development and we
have all benefited from the development that has occurred in our
country and our standard of living is based on that. All we are
trying to do is to say, taking none of that away because that
is all there but it is not often sufficiently valued, let us also
look at what it is going to cost us if we destroy our environment.
I think that is a really sensible thing to do. There is some spectacular
work going on which I have not got time to discuss here, but other
people in other companies are also doing amazing work on the value
of ecosystems.
Q169 Mr Chaytor: Minister, you referred
earlier to the international pressures on biodiversity which were
beyond our capacity to influence, but does that apply to the UK
Overseas Territories?
Joan Ruddock: We clearly have
some responsibility for the Overseas Territories. There are some
things which we do and, if I may, I will just take a minute to
say what they are. There is an Overseas Territories Environment
Programme which was established to help the Overseas Territories
implement their environment charters and environmental management
more generally and that is funded by the FCO and DfID, not by
Defra. In the first phase of that work, which was 2004-07, a total
of £3 million was spent on biodiversity conservation. Funding
in the current phase is £0.5 million per annum from each
department over the next three years. We are obviously concerned
and we do work with DfID and the FCO and that is why I said I
was very concerned that we had not had our meeting because I wanted
to meet with their ministers.
Q170 Mr Chaytor: This inter-ministerial
group has never met, has it?
Joan Ruddock: Yes. It met last
year but it has not met this year.
Q171 Mr Chaytor: How many times has
it met since it was formed?
Mr Brasher: I think it has met
four times.
Q172 Mr Chaytor: Over how many years?
Mr Brasher: Over about four years.
The intention was that it would meet something like every six
to nine months. That was the original thought when it was first
set up. It clearly has not met even as often as that. It is not
the case that it was supposed to meet every fortnight.
Joan Ruddock: Have officials met?
Mr Brasher: Officials are in touch.
We still have an officials group. Yes they have and yes they do.
Q173 Mr Chaytor: How frequently has
the officials group met?
Mr Brasher: I do not think we
meet regularly in that way. We had a meeting in December, for
example. We have ad hoc contact apart from that. We exchange
emails.
Q174 Mr Chaytor: You will see the
Committee's concern that if the inter-ministerial group is there
to co-ordinate the activities of three departments then even meeting
once every nine months is not really going to secure very much
co-ordination, is it?
Joan Ruddock: First of all, let
us just put on the record again that there is an FCO portion of
the OTP Fund and that is a ring-fenced element within the larger
Overseas Territories Programme Fund and that is a £6.5 million
programme. Money is being transferred. Is there expertise? Is
there support? The answer to that is yes. The JNCC works with
the Overseas Territories and gives them advice and support. There
are examples about what Defra is doing and what funding has gone
through other sources, but I just need to make it very clear that
it is the Overseas Territories Environment Programme that is funded
by the FCO and DfID.
Q175 Mr Chaytor: So the responsibility
for local environmental policy remains with the government of
the Overseas Territories?
Joan Ruddock: Of course.
Q176 Mr Chaytor: Is that a realistic
division of labour given the fragility of their economies and
the lack of capacity and very limited resources that the governments
have access to?
Joan Ruddock: We must not say
they have all got fragile economies. Some of them are richer than
we are per head of population. They are not totally dependent
on funding from ourselves. The JNCC Annual Report, which is coming
out shortly, has a whole section dealing with the Overseas Territories
and Crown Dependencies. What we have tried to do is to give support
through what is called the Darwin Initiative. I do not know if
the Committee is aware of the Darwin Initiative. This is a grants
programme. We have contributed £1.5 million in Darwin Initiative
grants to overseas territories in recent times and £79,000
in the past year for two projects. I have just launched the next
round of Darwin funding which is at least £3 million a year
for the next three years and at that I stressed that we would
particularly welcome applications from the overseas territories.
I understand the Committee has got a lot of criticism to make
on that. All I can do is say this is really for FCO and DfID.
We have a small part to play in it. We are playing our part and
we have actually tried to say, "Let us see if we can do more
and use the Darwin Initiative." We have also set up the Conservation
of Albatrosses Group which we are behind, we are the driving force
there and we have provided voluntary funding. We are doing various
things, but you may have a point to make about wider co-ordination.
Q177 Mr Chaytor: I think the sense
is that there is a series of ad hoc responses but there
is not an overall programme of action. Would that be a fair criticism?
Joan Ruddock: There is an overall
programme of action which is in the Overseas Territories Environment
Programme. In terms of what we have been able to do, when we have
our meeting I think we should be asking ourselves the questions
that you have posed: "Do we think this is sufficiently well
coordinated across government? Do we think that the overseas territories
are getting the maximum result from whatever funding government
is able to give them? What more do we need to know?"
Q178 Mr Chaytor: Do you think the
respective roles of the three departments are clearly understood
or is there an issue over the definition of roles that needs to
be considered as well?
Joan Ruddock: At the moment government
departments that have a responsibility are the ones that fund.
Those two things are inevitably linked. I have explained where
the direct funding comes from. If there were to be any transfer
of functions in terms of any other department to do more—you
might have Defra in mind—then clearly it would require a
transfer of funding. That is not a discussion that I am aware
is on the table. What we need to do is to get a meeting as soon
as possible and I can assure you that that is my intention.
Q179 Chairman: Does the apparently
more relaxed attitude towards Genetically Modified crops, which
the Government now favours, have any implications for biodiversity?
Joan Ruddock: I think you will
be more than aware that when we undertook our field studies what
we found is that there were some biodiversity effects from some
of the crops, not all of the crops. We have always said that any
decision that we take has to be based on sound science. We have
not rushed to have Genetically Modified crops grown in this country.
However, there is renewed interest. The renewed interest is more
towards seeing if it is possible to produce crops that might be
possible in the future to grow in areas that have been affected
by climate change. It was said right at the beginning of the production
of Genetically Modified crops that it would be really important
to find crops that could survive droughts. Well, as far as I am
aware we still do not have those particular crops, but I think
that is where there is great interest. We all accept that our
climate is now changing and that we cannot stop that change for
the next 30 years of temperature rise at least and 100 years of
sea level rise at least, so looking to see if you could grow crops
in heavily salinated areas or in drought areas could be of some
significance. I think it is considered that that is where perhaps
genetic modification might go. In terms of whether it has an effect,
sometimes it appears it does and sometimes it appears it does
not.
21 See Ev 32. Back
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