Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 108)
WEDNESDAY 18 JULY 2007
MS HELEN
GHOSH AND
MR STEPHEN
PARK
Q100 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: The
Warm Front programme, is that ring-fenced within your budget?
Ms Ghosh: It is currently ring-fenced
within our budget, yes, and the Chancellor has announced year
on year increases.
Q101 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: There
was £300 million over however many years, and that was based
on profits from extra money coming in from taxation of North Sea
oil profits?
Ms Ghosh: Yes, and it continues
to be ring-fenced. In the SR 04 period it is ring-fenced.
Q102 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: So you
are not looking for cuts in that budget, but the current, in historical
terms, high budget may not be maintained?
Ms Ghosh: It is one of the issues
that we need to discuss in the CSR settlement period. What we
need to do is to look at the relative contribution which could
be made by Warm Front, by thinking about fuel prices, by thinking
about incomes and decide which is the best way to achieve the
targets.
Q103 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: But
all those Departments that you mentioned you are working with,
they are all going to have constrained settlements in terms that
they are not priorities?
Ms Ghosh: Yes.
Q104 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: So you
have got now until 2010 to achieve this target of eliminating
fuel poverty and you have now got 2 million people, so is it achievable?
Have you got the policy instruments to achieve it, or is it just
that you are scrapping these targets and it will be subsumed into
the climate change?
Ms Ghosh: We are certainly not
scrapping these targets. We cannot ignore this target, as you
know, because we have a statutory obligation under the Act, whose
name temporarily escapes me. We cannot avoid this, so we are extremely
focused on it. It will still be one of our set of targets for
the CSR 07 period. Until we have a CSR 07 settlement and we have
had these discussions with other departments, we cannot say, "This
is the amount that we want to spend through Warm Front. This is
what we will do on energy," whether it is through working
with Ofgem and the companies, whether it is thinking about more
metering and other things, or whether we also need to bring in
the question of income, because obviously incomes and so on is
a crucial determinant. So we need to see what all those three
things can contribute.
Q105 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: But
surely in terms of your input into the Comprehensive Spending
Review you have a strategy saying, "Look, because it's a
statutory target we've got to be able to meet this. Here is our
strategy, and that requires X expenditure"?
Ms Ghosh: That is what we are
doing, but we need to do it with other government departments.
One issue, of course, is that over a period of time you will actually
have carried out your efficiency works in the houses of vulnerable
households, so you would not expect, for example, spending on
Warm Front to increase for ever in order to achieve this and what
we are working on at the moment is a strategy which means that
you know what your projection will be and what the value for money
contribution from other -
Q106 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: There
is always more you can do in terms of the energy efficiency of
homes because the programmes under Warm Front are not really achieving
very high standards of energy efficiency.
Ms Ghosh: And that is what we
need to take into account, with what sum of money, targeted how,
and what kinds of outcomes, could you achieve the fuel poverty
targets? That is what we are doing.
Q107 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: So you
are determined to achieve that target?
Ms Ghosh: It is a statutory commitment.
Q108 (18.07.07) Lynne Jones: And
will you be producing some kind of strategy as to how you are
actually going to achieve that?
Ms Ghosh: We will indeed be doing
that once we have a CSR settlement and, as I say, Hilary Benn
is devoting a lot of personal attention to this.
Chairman: We promised to let you go.
We do have some more questions. Just to give you notice of what
you will get a letter about, we will want to touch on IT, payments
to the Rural Payments Agency. Where has the extra money come from
to fund further IT developments within your budget? Why are you
spending £260 million on consultants and only £300 million
on the entire rural development programme? There is an interesting
juxtaposition there. We will want to talk about the enhancing
opportunity of rural England PSA Target 4. We have touched on
fuel poverty. There will also be some further PSA target questions
and some smaller ones which affect animal health and welfare,
and indeed disease preparedness by the Department. So thank you
very much for coming. I am sorry that we cannot have any more
time, but I am afraid the divisions have got in the way. We did
promise we would let you go at five o'clock, and may we thank
you and Mr Park for your answers to date and we look forward to
your further contributions in correspondence. Thank you very much.
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