Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280
- 299)
WEDNESDAY 30 APRIL 2008
MS HELEN
GHOSH, MR
BILL STOW
AND MR
STEPHEN PARK
Q280 Lynne Jones: But it does sound
as if you are shutting the stable door—
Ms Ghosh: No. There is no evidence
that horse has bolted. What we are doing is—
Q281 Lynne Jones: You are waiting
until bee-keepers say there is a problem before you are going
to look at it.
Ms Ghosh: What we are trying to
do is have an evidence-based policy, which is what we are here
to do.
Q282 Chairman: I think it might be
quite helpful to have a comprehensive note on what you are doing,
because clearly there is a lot of concern in the world of bee-keepers
about the challenges of disease and the limited response in terms
of the treatments that are available for verroa, and there are
other diseases which bee-keepers face which you are also supposed
to be addressing. So when the Minister signs off all these PQs
and you have total clarity on the policy, perhaps you could write
to us and let us know what is going on, because I think the committee
would be very interested.
Ms Ghosh: Yes. One comment I will
make on verroa, and it is in the briefing, it says, "Verroa
has been deregulated and is not under statutory control."
Q283 Chairman: That is because it
is endemic. You just cannot stop it.
Ms Ghosh: It is not one of the
diseases on which the bee inspectorate is focused.
Chairman: The former minister is described
by The Independent newspaper as being in charge of bees,
but there we are. The world has moved on and I shall move on to
David Lepper.
Q284 David Lepper: I want to ask
about Natural England in a moment, but can I come back to what
Paddy Tipping asked about? You have said now that there are more
resources being dedicated to the regulations relating to animal
welfare?
Ms Ghosh: Yes, indeed. We have
agreed that they can expand the team in order to do those regulations
and then, when they have done the project, those people will move
to something else.
Q285 David Lepper: Is it possible
to give us any indication, for instance, of when the regulations
in relation to pet fairs might be available?
Ms Ghosh: I am afraid I do not
have that information. I will come back to you.
Q286 David Lepper: All right; thank
you. Natural England: you have said already, in answer to an earlier
question, that bringing those three organisations together as
one in Natural England has lead to efficiency savings, and the
cut in Natural England's budget reflects that.
Ms Ghosh: Yes.
Q287 David Lepper: So it is clear,
is it, that Natural England will not have to cut back on any of
the work that it should be doing in order to accommodate those
cuts? They will all be met by efficiencies.
Ms Ghosh: They will be met in
various ways by efficiencies. There is always the debate that
we have when thinking about budgets going forward, as it were,
things that organisations would like to do and things that they
will be able to do. We have had no feedback from Natural England
that there is anything significant they will not be able to do
as a result of the reduction in what is effectively an admin part
of their budget.
Q288 David Lepper: The responsibilities
they took over on their formulation from other agencies will continue.
Ms Ghosh: We are confident they
can deliver.
Q289 David Lepper: You also mentioned
the huge legislative programme coming up including the Marine
Bill and a particular aspect this Committee will be focusing on
will be access to coastal areas. Natural England has estimated
it will cost something like £50 million over ten years for
Natural England to do the work necessary on the proposals for
public access. There is going to be some debate about how extensive
those proposals are and that possibly is a controversial matter.
Let us assume that Natural England has made a reasonable estimate,
£50 million over ten years. Will they get the resources to
do that work?
Ms Ghosh: This is something the
Committee will want to discuss with Natural England officials
in more detail. My understanding is that the proposition is that
any additional costs of coastal access will be met from within
what we can predict as existing budgets. We will not be giving
explicit additional funding but for example through RDPE, which
is significantly increasing over the next seven years. We are
not giving them an additional pot of money which is for coastal
access and that is the arrangement on which we are going forward.
You will be able to explore that in more detail with them.
Q290 David Lepper: I am sure we will
do but you would not anticipate a situation, for instance where
legislation, a Marine Bill, having been passed with coastal access
agreed on whatever terms it is in that Bill, and those organisations
which have been lobbying so long for that right find themselves
frustrated because the work is delayed and delayed before they
have that access.
Ms Ghosh: The pilot studies that
Natural England carried out before they advised us on what form
the right should be, suggested that on the basis of negotiation,
on the basis of existing access, on the basis of the tools they
could use, for example through Pillar 2, it was possible to, as
it were, join up the coastal path without significant additional
spend and that is the advice they gave to ministers and on which
we have gone forward. They will understand much more the patchwork
of mechanisms they think they will use.
Q291 Chairman: You mentioned that
the department have, for the first time, an unallocated provision
of £50 million. How did you decide that £50 million
was the right number?
Ms Ghosh: The Treasury proposed
that £50 million was the right number. Experience this year,
which was of floods and then foot and mouth and then some bird
flu, which amounted in the end to about £50 million suggests
that is probably about right.
Q292 Chairman: Is that built in at
£50 million for each of the three years in the CSR?
Ms Ghosh: We will have to have
£50 million in each of the three years. Having set the budget
for this year we would need to equally make provision for £50
million in the next year. Depending on the outcome of events in
the course of the year it may be that part of the £50 million,
if we do not spend it all, is available to carry forward but that
would be a debate very much for seeing what had happened by the
end of the year.
Q293 Chairman: I was going to ask
do the same rules on end-year flexibility apply to that.
Ms Ghosh: I do not know. That
would be a debate to have with Treasury at an appropriate time
in the year.
Q294 Chairman: Do you always just
accept what the Treasury say in situations like this?
Ms Ghosh: They have the power
to give or withhold money. I do not think we could argue with
them about it.
Q295 Chairman: It makes a sensible
budgetary approach, based on the experience of what certain unplanned
for contingencies cost you in the previous period, but I was interested
to know whether you had yourselves carried out some kind of internal
exercise to determine what a proper contingency reserve, because
that is what this is, should be. Now, for example, and we will
come to talk about it in a little more detail later, you have,
as a department, to accept the financial responsibility for disallowance.
Ms Ghosh: We do.
Q296 Chairman: I am intrigued that
the £50 million you reeled off for foot and mouth, blue tongue,
avian influenza but there was not a contingency for errors which
might result in disallowance.
Ms Ghosh: We have a contingency
provision effectively for the impact of disallowance in the ring-fenced
funding we have within our budget in each of the three years which
is able to be carried forward of a total of £270 million
over the CSR period so we have that in a separate pot. We have
effectively two contingencies.
Q297 Chairman: One labelled disallowance
and one labelled the rest.
Ms Ghosh: That was given to us
as a ring-fenced amount so it has not impacted in any way on our
other budget decisions. We have not had to take money out of anything
else to pay for it; we were given it. If at the end of the process
we do not need it and we successfully argue the European Commission
into a position where they do not disallow as much as we have
made prudent provision for, then the Treasury would take it back
so it is not something that impacts on our budget.
Q298 Chairman: If there were to be,
and we hope there is not, something that came along which was
a contingency that caused for a call on government in excess of
the £50 million you have, is it a question of you going back
to the Treasury with a call on the general reserve, should that
be necessary or has the Treasury said you can have £50 million
as a contingency fund but anything else you meet out of cuts elsewhere
in your budget?
Ms Ghosh: To be clear, it is £50
million within our flat cash budget. We started off saying we
will take £50 million out.
Q299 Chairman: You have shown your
budget to the Treasury, tick in the box. £50 million is our
reserve, our contingency fund. The question I am asking is as
you are being so very careful with your money if contingencies
occur that exceed £50 million would you have to meet those
out of your total envelope, in other words so other programmes
would have to be reduced, or do you still have power to go back
to Treasury. If some brand new never heard of before animal disease
descends upon us and you find yourself having spent £100
million dealing with it, whatever it might be, do you have to
meet the £100 million or do you go back to the Treasury and
say we never thought of this one?
Ms Ghosh: As you will be aware
from your Treasury experience, that would depend on the scale
of the emergency we had to deal with, the unexpectedness of it
and what state government finances were in at the time. The experience
of this year suggests, and indeed I think a prudent Treasury will
always say this to departments, their first expectation is you
will meet costs from within your existing programmes. If you can
demonstrate that is absolutely impossible, then you may make a
call on the contingency reserve. As you know, that occasionally
happens. It did not happen this year and we were able to contain
these costs, I am happy to say, within our existing programmes.
There might always be a circumstance in which you would go to
the Treasury but the Treasury might or might not be in a position
to help.
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