Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2007
RT HON
HILARY BENN
MP
Q1 Chairman: The hour of five o'clock
has come and the Committee welcome, for his first appearance before
the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, Hilary
Benn, the new Secretary of State. Thank you very much for making
time in what has turned out to be quite a busy period for you,
having come in just before the summer, having had your summer
holidays disrupted by the outbreak of Foot and Mouth, then you
ran straight into Bluetongue, plus the implications of a Comprehensive
Spending Review. You have certainly had an active and interesting
start. We are delighted you are here before us. We would like
to talk to you about some of the issues and some of the priorities
for your Department. I must say, you are giving us all kinds of
interesting surprises. Yesterday we had a new output of a report
on the question of Bovine TB and culling, we will come on to that
a little bit later. Each day brings a new challenge and a new
opportunity so we are looking forward to talking to you. Can I
start off with something which appeared in the press this morning
because the environment is a key issue as far as your Department
is concerned. The headline in the Guardian said, "Labour's
plan to abandon renewable energy targets". The Guardian
may be well off the mark. Would you care to deny that there is
any idea that you are going to deal in the way this article suggests
with renewable targets?
Hilary Benn: First of all, can
I say, Chairman, that it is a pleasure to be appearing before
the Committee today. You very accurately described the summer
that I have had. It is a very interesting and a very challenging
job. Secondly, to say I would not, as none of us do ever, believe
everything we read in the newspapers. Thirdly, to say that the
Government is very committed to the target for renewables, which
was agreed earlier this year by the European Union. We are going
to need to do a lot more on renewables if we are going to beat
climate change. I think people will be able to see the proof of
that in the steps we are going to take. Do not believe everything
you read in the newspapers is the short answer.
Q2 Chairman: Can we expect to see
a story tomorrow that is not going to be denied by your Department
today, "Minister rebuts u-turn on renewable targets"?
Hilary Benn: I am not responsible,
Chairman, for what people choose to write in newspapers. All I
can do is honestly answer the question which you put to me, which
is what I am trying to do.
Q3 Chairman: The honest question
is we assume that you are not going to change your approach to
renewables targets, if I have understood what you have said?
Hilary Benn: No, that is correct,
because we signed up, along with the other EU Member States, to
what was agreed earlier. The Commission is going to have to come
back to tell us about how they propose to divvy up responsibility
for meeting that target and we intend to meet whatever is given
to us, as I am sure every other Member State that signed up intends
to meet its commitment.
Q4 Chairman: Let us move to the nitty
gritty, and one of the key things as far as your Department is
concerned, your budget. You got a 1.4% increase in real terms,
slightly above the level cash position which I believe you were
planning towards. However, if you take out of that the additional
monies which are for flood defences, what is your opinion to the
Committee about how you are going to meet all the other calls
on your budget with what still seems to be a very tight settlement?
Is it all going to be financed effectively from efficiency savings
within your Department in terms of meeting your other outgoing
priorities?
Hilary Benn: It is a very tight
settlement because, as you rightly say, Chairman, notwithstanding
the real terms increase of 1.4%, there is good news on flooding,
which we may come to, on waste PFIs, on the environmental transformation
fund but it is tough on everything else and, therefore, we are
going to need to prioritise. We are obviously working, now we
have the Comprehensive Spending Review, on what the spending plans
for 2008-09 are going to be. We will be making provision for a
departmental unallocated provision, which we have not had in the
past, but I am not going to hide from the Committee that we are
going to face some pretty tough choices about how we prioritise
the expenditure, given a lot of pressures on the budget.
Q5 Chairman: You have been there
for long enough to think about prioritising, can you enlighten
us a bit more about what is going to be at the top of the list
and what is going to be at the bottom?
Hilary Benn: If I may take the
opportunity of this question just to talk very briefly about what
I see as the priorities in the job. I think the first thing I
would say to the Committee is to get the basics right so that
includes things like the RPA, dealing with events that come along—flooding,
animal health and diseases—sorting out our finances, because
I do regard that as getting the basics right. Secondly, climate
change, because what we do domestically, and the Climate Change
Bill remains a groundbreaking piece of legislation, whatever we
contribute as the UK, and we must absolutely play our part, it
is an international deal that will determine whether we make progress
in the fight against climate change. The third priority for me
is the natural environment and biodiversity because I would not
want anyone to think that because we are so focused as a Department,
and have been understandably on climate change, that we do not
care about those things, because we do, and anyone who digs below
the surface to look at the range of work that we undertake, both
through Natural England and the Environment Agency would see that
is the case. The Marine Bill which we are drafting will be very
important. I think the fourth priority is working with others
because what strikes me, Chairman, most forcefully about this
job is how much of the things that maybe together we want to see
happen depend on other people playing their part across the rest
of Government and elsewhere. I suppose I am saying to you that
I will want to take a view, and I have not finished the process,
on whether the priorities for expenditure out of a very tight
settlement are going to be judged against those priorities that
I have just set out myself.
Q6 Chairman: One of the ways in which
it is said you are going to release cash in your Department to
the tune of £121 million is on a burden sharing environment
with reference to animal health and welfare with the industry.
How is this going to be achieved by 2010-11?
Hilary Benn: It is pretty ambitious
but I have to say my experience over the summer in dealing with
both Foot and Mouth and Bluetongue has really brought home to
me, and I did allude to this in the House the other day, that
the debate about responsibility sharing and sharing of cost has
turned for me from something which, when I arrived, people said,
"Well this is something we have to work on as a Department"
to a really live issue because I have no doubt in my mind, in
the light of the experience that I have just been through, that
sharing responsibility for taking a lot of the decisions about
how we deal with animal diseases is something that we should do.
I am not entirely clear why if you were designing from scratch
you would have the person doing this job taking those decisions.
Indeed, the extent to which we worked in partnership with the
industry in talking about how some of those decisions might be
taken, I think has been a feature and a very positive feature
of what we have done in the summer. Secondly, therefore, how are
we going to share the cost of the consequence of those decisions?
The answer is by shifting some of the cost from what we currently
bear to the livestock industry picking up some of the cost.
Q7 Chairman: When are we going to
see this fleshed out into something concrete? In other words,
when are you going to consult on a cost-sharing policy?
Hilary Benn: We intend to start
on consultation in the not too distant future but I have to tell
the Committee that the timetable we were previously working to
on that consultation has, not surprisingly, been thrown out of
kilter a bit by the events of the summer, and in particular Foot
and Mouth and Bluetongue, for reasons I think everybody will understand.
Q8 Chairman: If you are not going
to save £121 million by 2010-11 you are going to have to
find some savings from somewhere else so what is featuring in
the cut zone in Defra?
Hilary Benn: We are going to have
to look at the whole of the budget over the three year period
but I am keen that we make progress on the cost and responsibility,
including in relation to the saving that we have to make on animal
health. There are those who might argue, "Well now is not
the time to have the conversation with farmers" because it
is a difficult time and I recognise that, which is why we have
put off the start of the consultation, but I have to say that
I will come to this with even more vigour than I might have had
previously because I am very clear in my mind that it is a change
that we ought to make. I hope the farming industry will see the
benefit of that change because, yes it will involve picking up
more of the cost but what will come with it is taking much more
of the responsibility for putting in place controls and restrictions
and deciding when they should be eased in relation to handling
animal diseases. I think it is a better way of doing things.
Chairman: No doubt we will be looking
at the detail. Mr Taylor has a question on the Marine Bill and
then back to our original subject.
Q9 David Taylor: The legislative
programme, included reference to a draft Marine Bill. Why do we
need it in a draft? We have had a White Paper. We have had consultation
which closed in June. Are we not in a position to draft the primary
legislation and get that moving through this place? We seem to
be doing a little bit of subtle, or unsubtle, foot dragging on
this.
Hilary Benn: I do not see it as
any foot dragging at all. I think there is every merit in producing
a Bill in draft. It gives people a chance to have a look at it
and see what they think to make sure that ultimately we get it
in the right shape. We are very committed to putting a Marine
Act on the Statute Book.
Q10 David Taylor: We had an extensive
consultation on the White Paper, did we not?
Hilary Benn: Yes.
Q11 David Taylor: I assumed that was
why the great bulk of our refining suggestions were in?
Hilary Benn: As a matter of general
principle, if you have the opportunity to produce legislation
in draft, I think that is a good thing. I would not want the Committee
to think in any way that is a sign of the Government wanting to
drag its feet, we do not. There is a great head of steam behind
a Marine Bill and we are keen to make progress on it.
Q12 David Taylor: We gave a manifesto
commitment to have a Marine Bill—
Hilary Benn: Indeed, we did.
Q13 David Taylor: --- on the stocks
during this Parliament. Do you believe we will still have it?
Hilary Benn: We are absolutely
committed to that, yes. Parliament is not over yet, as we know.
Q14 Mr Williams: Is the position
of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly a hindrance
to developing the Marine Bill?
Hilary Benn: There are undoubtedly
issues that we are discussing and will need to discuss with both
of the devolved administrations. I hope very much that we will
be able to reach an agreement so that we can have a UK wide Bill.
That depends on the outcome of the discussions but I think we
all have an interest in putting in place, for our seas and what
is underneath them, a system which provides the features that
we have for trying to decide what happens on land for a very long
period of time. I am keen that we make progress.
Q15 Mr Drew: This Committee has identified
on many occasions that Defra has a large number of targets, but
does not have the commensurate number of levers to meet those
targets. Now, take two areas that we have been looking at recently:
British Waterways, you have got there entirely the funding coming
from Defra and yet DCMS, DfT, DBERR, all stand to gain by some
of the things going on with our waterway network; rural policy,
Defra has within its title "rural affairs" and yet much
of the money is with DCLG in terms of community empowerment. One
of the problems with this Department is it has not been very good
at getting support from other departments, despite the fact that
there is this partnership which could work very well. In what
ways do you think you could be more effective in so doing?
Hilary Benn: A number of things
there. One is, I think if you look at the new PSA targets, and
I know this is an issue which the Committee has considered before,
and you have been at the forefront in arguing for change in the
system, less focus on inputs and more focus on measuring outcomes,
we have now got the two Defra-led PSAs, securing a healthy natural
environment and avoiding dangerous climate change, which other
departments also signed up to. We are party, also, to a number
of other PSAs that other Government departments lead on. I think
what the Government has been trying to do in restructuring the
PSA system in that way is to try and get greater buy-in from a
range of Government departments in response to precisely the point
that you make, Mr Drew; that is the first thing. Secondly, British
Waterways, we do need to work in close partnership. To be perfectly
honest, I have not in my three and a bit months yet had a chance
to turn my attention to British Waterways.
Q16 Mr Drew: They are excellent reports.
Hilary Benn: I am aware of your
excellent report.
Q17 Chairman: You have upset him!
Hilary Benn: I have already upset
him. I hope the Committee will be merciful but I am conscious
of the fact that British Waterways gets sources of funding from
other activities and I am certainly up for a conversation about
what the right way to go forward is in relation to British Waterways.
On other Government departments, I suppose it comes back to my
fourth priority which is working with others because in the end
what we do want to achieve, I think round the table, is that the
things that Defra exists to do, to promote, to argue for, the
things that we care about, we want other people to promote and
argue for and care about too. You can run a system where you are
trying to buy a whole system of levers to enforce different ways
of doing things, different ways of thinking on other people, or
you can try very hard to persuade them that actually this is something
they ought to be doing themselves. Mainstreaming is a horrible
term, and I loathe it, it describes the process. I think with
the PSA structure we have got, we have a better set up. In the
end it is about the force of our arguments and it is also about
the force of public opinion because that shifts things too. That
is the other part of working with others because where the public
is and where the public wants to go on a lot of these issues will
have a profound influence on what governments around the world
do, including this one.
Q18 Mr Gray: Secretary of State,
I would like to take you back to something you said a moment ago
which I think large parts of the livestock industry around the
nation might have heard with some alarm. Forgive me if I summarise
what I think you are saying—and if I have got it wrong then
you will correct me—namely, that under the new scheme that
you are currently tinkering with decision-making on some of these
very important disease control matters, for example, would be
shared more with the livestock industry than it is at the moment?
Hilary Benn: Yes.
Q19 Mr Gray: In turn they would land
up paying quite a lot of money, basically. That sounds to me a
little worrying. I would like to think that Her Majesty's Government
was already consulting very widely with the livestock industry.
I wonder if you can think of any examples of any decision that
the Government has taken which they would not have taken with
regard to animal health had that new scheme been in place?
Hilary Benn: It is the case—I
cannot tell you how it was before because I arrived on 27 June—in
taking decisions both in relation to Foot and Mouth and Bluetongue,
we have done that in very close partnership. We have had a stakeholder
group that we have consulted about always having regard to the
assessment of veterinary risk. We consulted them about what the
right way forward was. Let us take a very current issue which
is the decision about where we should draw the protection and
control zone boundaries for handling Bluetongue. This was brought
home very forcefully to me when I went to Newmarket a couple of
weeks ago and talked to a lot of farmers who were at that time
really caught by the controls, unable/unwilling to buy animals
in because they were not sure whether they would get them out.
We have made movement on access to abattoirs since then. Question,
who in the end should take a decision about where the control
and protection zone boundaries should go? There is a minimum that
Europe prescribes. Question, should it be the whole of England
or not? You are trading on the one hand, if you make it the whole
of England—
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