The work of the Committee in 2007-08 - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Contents

1  Overview of the Committee's work in 2007-08

Introduction

1.  The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is charged with the responsibility of examining the expenditure, administration and policy of Defra and its associated public bodies. In carrying out our remit we seek to strike a balance between undertaking detailed inquiries into major policy issues, systematic examination of the Department's discharge of its duties across the range of its activities, and responding rapidly to important developments, including the publication of key consultation documents and draft legislation. The Committee tries to ensure that as many aspects of the Defra's work and portfolio of interests are kept under scrutiny.

2.  We review below the Committee's performance in relation to the "core tasks" the Liaison Committee sets for all departmental select committees. In the final section we discuss the working methods we have used.

3.  The annual Committee Return, setting out some of the key measures of our activity during the Session, is annexed to this Report.

4.  On 3 October the Prime Minister created a new Department of Energy and Climate Change. As a result Defra no longer has responsibility for international and domestic climate change, fuel poverty, or radioactive waste. We therefore decided to discontinue our inquiries into energy efficiency and fuel poverty and into international climate policy post-2012. In the former case, we published our evidence in a Special Report. However, on 28 October the House decided that the new Energy and Climate Change Committee, which will focus on the work of the new Department, would not be set up until after 1 January 2009. In the light of this we decided to re-open the inquiry into energy and efficiency and fuel poverty as the recent rapid rise in fuel prices, along with the Prime Minister's announcement in September of a package of measures designed to enable households to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, made the need for scrutiny of these issues a pressing one that could not wait for the new Committee to pick it up.

Committee activity

5.  The Committee examined the following subjects in 2007-08:
Table 1: Subjects covered by the Committee in 2007-08

Subject	Evidence sessions in 2007-08	Outcome
Avian influenza and Notifiable Animal Diseases	N/A [an informal "Observatory" has monitored developments in these areas]	Briefings from Defra and from Sir Ian Anderson, author of the review of the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2007
Defra priorities	2	Evidence, November 2007 and April 2008
The UK Government's "Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy": Government response to the Committee's Fourth Report, Session 2006-07	0	Comments on Government response
Climate change: the "citizen's agenda": Government response to the Committee's Eighth Report, Session 2006-07	0	Comments on Government response
Badgers and Cattle TB: Final Report of the Independent Scientific Group	3	Report, February 2008; Comments on eventual Government response contained in Tenth Report Further evidence session, November 2008, and Government response to Tenth Report awaiting publication.
Flooding	10	Report, May 2008 Government response, July 2008
Climate change: the "citizen's agenda" and the Bali Summit	1	Evidence, February 2008
Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966	2	Report, May 2008 Government response, July 2008
Committee on Climate Change	1	Evidence, March 2008
Implementation of the Nitrates Directive in England	1	Report, June 2008 Government Response, October 2008
British Waterways: follow-up	2	Report, July 2008; Government response, October 2008
The potential of England's rural economy	4	Report, October 2008
Draft Marine Bill: Coastal Access Provisions	4	Report, July 2008; Government response, September 2008
Energy efficiency and fuel poverty	0	Inquiry discontinued Special Report, October 2008 Inquiry reopened, November 2008
Defra science	0	Committee developing inquiry
Food security	0[1]	Committee developing inquiry
Waste Strategy for England 2007	4	Report in preparation
English pig industry	2	Report in preparation
Defra Annual Report 2008	1
Biodiversity	0	Informal briefing from Natural England

Visits

6.  It is useful for us to travel from Westminster to hear people's views and to see for ourselves places of interest and examples of best practice, and to see the existing or potential impact of policies on the ground. Usually these are domestic visits. The Committee's visits in 2007-08 are listed in the Annual Return annexed to this Report.

7.  On occasion we travel to other countries. For example, our visit to Lyon, France provided us with a clear picture of how that region manages flood risk. Our visit to Brussels kept the Committee up to date with important European Union developments in agriculture and environment policy. In addition, in January Lynne Jones attended the EUFORES meeting in Brussels on Renewable Energy and Efficiency, in June the Chairman, Mr Michael Jack, attended the High-Level Conference on World Food Security at the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome on behalf of the Committee, in November 2008 the Chairman and Mr Roger Williams represented the Committee at a conference of EU agriculture parliamentary scrutiny committees in Brussels to discuss Common Agricultural Policy reform and food security, and Lynne Jones represented the Committee at the International Conference in São Paulo on Biofuels.

8.  Once again, on some of our UK visits we have taken formal evidence, and we describe this in more detail in Section 3.

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1   The Committee held several informal briefings during the development of this inquiry. See Annex F. Back

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Prepared 15 January 2009