House of Commons - Defra Performance in 2013-14 - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

Defra Performance in 2013-14 - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Contents

3 Policy and delivery

Future CAP implementation

26. The RPA is the Department's highest spending agency, responsible for £3 billion of spend in 2013-14. Most of the RPA's funding came from EU CAP funds, but £336 million was directly funded by Defra. Political agreement on the CAP regulations, including funding and core scheme requirements for 2014-20, was reached between the European Council of Ministers, European Parliament and European Commission on 24 September 2013. Since then the EU has been finalising detailed scheme rules, with some details only emerging recently. Defra has published regular updates as it develops guidelines for the new English schemes.[23] We have reported in detail on the new CAP scheme in our Report on Implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy in England 2014-20,[24] and our Report on Greening the Common Agricultural Policy.[25] We pursued some of our concerns with the Secretary of State about the need for effective implementation of a complex new system. She told us that an early action in her new post had been to visit the new EU Commissioner for agriculture and rural development, Phil Hogan, to raise the need for simplification of the new CAP and for problem areas such as the three-crop rule to be addressed as a matter of urgency.[26] A number of Member States have similar concerns about the new scheme.[27]

27. We commend Defra's diligence in updating farmers on the new CAP rules, particularly given the challenge of responding to EU developments at short notice. We also welcome the Secretary of State's engagement at an early stage with the new EU Commissioner for agriculture and rural development, demonstrating her commitment to tackling the complexity of the new scheme.

28. We urge Defra to continue to press the EU through all available channels to simplify the CAP and to amend or remove perverse rules such as the three-crop rule. The Secretary of State must develop effective alliances with the other Member States which share the UK's concerns on these issues in order to achieve reform.

Forestry

29. We welcome the confirmation from the Secretary of State that approximately nine million trees will have been planted during this Parliament and that this will create the "highest level of woodland cover that we have had for 700 years".[28] We are reassured by Secretary of State's commitment to the public forest estate and welcome the amendment in the House of Lords to Clause 21 of the Infrastructure Bill[29] to make it completely clear that the public forest estate will remain in Government ownership and will not be sold.[30] The Forestry Commission received £51.4 million funding from Defra in 2013-14, which included £3.5 million to replace the revenue the Forestry Commission would have generated under the now-abandoned woodland sales programme.[31]

Flood and coastal erosion risk

30. During winter 2013-14, England and Wales experienced the wettest winter since at least 1766: the Environment Agency issued 155 severe flood warnings and over 7,000 properties were flooded. Over the same period, more than 1.3 million homes and businesses were successfully protected by existing flood defences.[32] The latest analysis from the Environment Agency shows that 2.4 million properties in England are at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea; about 3 million properties in England are at risk from surface water flooding; and about 600,000 properties are threatened by both.[33]

31. In 2013, the Government committed £2.3 billion of future capital funding for a six-year investment programme up to 2021. Defra subsequently published a detailed investment plan in December 2014 setting out in detail where this money will be invested.[34] The Secretary of State has announced that this funding will protect a further 300,000 properties, reduce flood risk by 5 per cent and save the economy £2.7 billion by 2021.[35] However, in order to deliver the investment programme, Defra will need to make efficiency savings of at least 10 per cent and attract external contributions (e.g. through partnership funding) of £600 million or more.

32. For the 2011-12 to 2014-15 period, Defra confirmed that £148 million in external co-funding had been provided under the partnership funding model, allowing 20,000 further homes to be protected.[36] Only £40 million of the £148 million was contributed from the private sector.[37] We have repeatedly expressed concern about the relatively small amounts of private sector funding that have been secured to date under the Partnership Funding approach. It remains unclear how the £600 million target of external funding for the next six-year investment programme will be met, even with the Autumn Statement announcement that business contributions on flood defence projects will become a deductible cost for tax purposes.

33. We support the principle that the private sector should help to fund flood defence schemes but we are concerned that the £600 million target for external contributions to capital funding over the next six years will be difficult to meet given the relatively small amounts of private sector funding that have been secured to date.

34. We invite Defra to demonstrate how the Partnership Funding model for flood defences will deliver much greater private sector funding in the future and to explain the impact on the six-year capital investment programme if the £600 million external contributions and 10 per cent efficiency savings targets are not achieved.

35. The Government's six-year investment programme relates to capital spending only. Revenue funding has been allocated for only one year. We have received evidence that funding for maintenance is at a bare minimum and we have repeatedly called for maintenance funding to increase in line with funding for new capital schemes. We have urged Defra to draw up fully-funded plans to address the backlog of appropriate and necessary maintenance work and to accommodate the increased requirement that will be caused by the growth in numbers of capital assets. Alongside the capital investment programme, revenue funding would benefit from a six-year funding commitment to secure the certainty needed for long-term investment strategies. A recent NAO Report on Strategic flood risk management echoes our concerns on maintenance funding stating that:

As of August 2014, some 1,356 asset systems with a lower benefit:cost ratio (50% of the total) are being maintained to a minimal level. Assets in the affected systems are likely to deteriorate faster as a result, potentially resulting in a lower standard of protection, as well as increasing capital replacement costs in the long term. This change also suggests that the benefits from the original capital investment in those assets will not be maximised.[38]

36. The Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change warned that only a quarter of flood defence systems would be maintained in 2014 according to identified needs.[39] As a consequence, the Sub-Committee expects flood defences to degrade more quickly and need replacing earlier.

37. In line with our previous recommendation in our Report on Winter Floods 2013-14, we strongly recommend that the Government assess the possibility of a transition to a total expenditure classification for flood and coastal risk management funding to allow funding to be targeted according to identified needs and to ensure the optimal standard of protection is provided by flood defence assets.

Biodiversity offsetting

38. In September 2013, Defra published a Green Paper on biodiversity offsetting in England. Defra defined biodiversity offsetting as a process whereby damage to habitats associated with a development at one site is compensated for by providing equivalent replacement habitats elsewhere. Six biodiversity offsetting projects were established in April 2012 for a period of two years to test the biodiversity metric developed by Defra.[40] However, few projects have been completed owing to the voluntary nature of the scheme and the relatively slow planning process. The lack of evidence has delayed progress on Defra's biodiversity offsetting proposals. The Secretary of State confirmed that she was still waiting for the report on the outcome of the biodiversity pilots and said that she would be in touch with the Committee once she had received it.[41]

39. We are aware, as the Secretary of State noted in her evidence, that there are existing biodiversity safeguards in the planning system. However, the Government's Green Paper claims that biodiversity offsetting could offer a simpler, faster way through the planning system and make it simpler to agree a development's impacts to ensure losses are properly compensated for.[42] In September 2013, the Government stated that it:

40. We commend the Department for ensuring that the biodiversity offsetting pilots are fully evaluated, but we are concerned that implementation of the Department's biodiversity offsetting proposals has been significantly delayed past the end of 2013. This suggests that implementation of the proposals may no longer be a priority for Defra before the General Election in May.

41. We ask Defra to set out a renewed timetable for its proposals on biodiversity offsetting to provide certainty for local communities, landowners, planning authorities and developers. We recommend that the Secretary of State announce when a clear, evidence-based policy decision on biodiversity offsetting will be made.

Marine Conservation Zones

42. Defra is responsible for English inshore and offshore waters, including the designation of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) (a type of marine protected area) in those areas. The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 requires MCZs to be designated in order to form a network of marine protected areas that contribute to the conservation or improvement of the UK marine environment.[44] A total of 127 sites for MCZs were recommended to the Government in 2011, which would cover about 15 per cent of the waters under Defra's jurisdiction.[45]

43. In July 2013, Defra said it would not take forward all of the 127 recommended MCZs at that stage because of insufficient evidence supporting their designation, but that if new data became available that improved the evidence, they might be included in the final designation.[46] The first tranche of 27 MCZs was designated in November 2013, and Defra plans to designate two more tranches of MCZs over the next two years. In February 2014, Defra issued an update on progress, which listed 37 further sites which might be suitable candidates for the second tranche. These are only candidate sites, which will go to public consultation in 2015. The Secretary of State reassured us that MCZs "are extremely important, and we are currently working on potential new marine conservation zones".[47]

44. Despite the Secretary of State recognising that Marine Conservation Zones are extremely important, we note that progress towards fulfilling the requirements of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and forming a network of such marine protected areas has been slow since the 127 sites were first recommended to the Government in 2011.

45. We are also concerned that in relation to the wider marine outcomes in the Department's Biodiversity 2020 strategy, Defra's written evidence noted an improvement of less than 2 percentage points in over 10 years: "just under 25% of English waters are now covered by Marine Protected Areas (up from just over 23% in 2003)".[48] When we expressed our concern to the Secretary of State she replied that:

this really goes back to your point about marine conservation zones and making sure we are making progress on that consultation.[49]

46. We recommend that the Department demonstrates its commitment to protecting marine areas by implementing a more ambitious programme of designating Marine Conservation Zones. Defra must take responsibility for achieving the goals of the Marine and Coastal Access Act and take a more strategic approach to evidence gathering to ensure progress can be made within a reasonable timeframe.

Bovine tuberculosis and badger culling

47. Microbacterium bovis causes bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle and can also jump species and infect other mammals, including badgers, deer, goats, pigs, dogs and cats. It is a disease with public health and international trade implications and the scale of the infection makes it one of the biggest challenges that the cattle farming industry faces. Defra's aim is to achieve official bTB-free status for England by 2038.[50] In December 2011, the Government announced that it would run two pilot badger culls as a means of combating bTB in cattle. These began in autumn 2013 in designated areas of Somerset and Gloucestershire. The purpose of the pilot culls was to assess the humaneness, effectiveness and safety of controlled shooting as a method of badger control. The first round of pilots were completed in November 2013 and the second round of pilots were completed in late 2014. An Independent Expert Panel was appointed by the Government to monitor the first pilot and confirmed that the protocols used to assess the pilot culls were scientifically and statistically sound, as were the data collection and analyses carried out by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency. However, the Panel also concluded that, from the data provided, controlled shooting alone (or in combination with cage trapping) did not deliver the level of culling set by Government, or meet the humaneness threshold.[51]

48. The Independent Expert Panel was not used for the second round of culls. A recent Defra report confirmed that the licence conditions for the minimum number of culled badgers in the second pilot were met in Somerset, but not in Gloucestershire.[52] The Chief Veterinary Officer's advice on the outcome of the second year of the badger culls concluded that industry-led culling could, in the right circumstances, deliver the level of effectiveness required to be confident of achieving disease control benefits.[53] He recommended that culling should continue in Somerset in 2015, and for at least one further year. Given the lower level of culling achieved in Gloucestershire over the last two years, he concluded that the benefits of reducing disease in cattle over the planned four-year cull might not be realised there, but that culling should continue in 2015 "provided there are reasonable grounds for confidence that it can be carried out more effectively", for example through "contractor training and assessment, improved operational planning, monitoring and delivery".[54]

49. We invite Defra to set out why the second year of the badger culling pilots in Gloucestershire failed to meet the licence conditions for the minimum number of badgers removed. We recommend that Defra clarifies whether it intends to continue the culling in Gloucestershire from 2015 onwards and, if so, what changes will be made to ensure its effectiveness in line with the recommendations of the Chief Veterinary Officer. We also urge the Government to continue to monitor and report on the effectiveness of the badger culling pilots.

50. Vaccination for cattle against bTB is currently prohibited under EU law. Before a cattle vaccine could be used as part of a bTB eradication programme, the EU need to be satisfied that the proposed vaccine was safe and effective and that its use did not compromise the current testing regime. This would involve large-scale field trials. In 2013, an indicative timeline set out by the former Commissioner for Health and Consumers put 2023 as a tentative date for a vaccine to be available for general use. The Permanent Secretary confirmed that Defra has most recently been looking to design field trials to:

51. A recent written statement from Defra confirmed that an independent report on the design of field trials of the cattle vaccine and a test to detect infected cattle among vaccinated cattle (DIVA) shows that before cattle vaccination field trials can be contemplated, a better DIVA test must be developed. Defra expects this research to take a further two years.[56]

52. Defra should do all it can to condense the indicative timeline set out by the Commission without compromising the collection of robust field data necessary to satisfy the relevant requirements. We urge Defra to publish its own timetable for the development and use of a cattle vaccine to reassure the public that action is being taken to combat bovine TB in this way.

23 See CAP Reform webpages Back

24 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Seventh Report of Session 2013-14, CAP Implementation 2014-2020, HC 745 Back

25 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First Report of Session 2012-13, Greening the CAP, HC 170 Back

26 The three-crop rule requires those wishing to qualify for full CAP payments under the basic payment scheme to grow three crops on farms over a certain size, with specific requirements about percentage cover. See Europa webpages for full details. Back

27 Q49 Back

28 Q82 Back

29 Clause 28 of Bill 154 2014-15 [as amended in Public Bill Committee] 16.01.15 Back

30 Q81 Back

31 Defra (DEP0002) paras 2 and 3 Back

32 Environment Agency (XFL0025) para 1.1 Back

33 Environment Agency, Flood and coastal erosion risk: Long-term investment scenarios (2014), December 2014, p4 Back

34 Defra, Reducing the risks of flooding and coastal erosion: An investment plan, December 2014 Back