Annex 4: Letter from Joan Walley, Chair of the
Environmental Audit Committee
"Thank you for your letter of 17 December about
the European Commission's 2015 Work Programme.
"In the next couple of months our Committee
intends to produce a legacy report for the new Committee in the
next Parliament, and indeed for the next Government, highlighting
environmental and sustainable development agendas which will continue
beyond the General Election. In the light of our Committee's recent
inquiries, there are aspects of the Commission's new Programme
which we are likely to highlight in that report, including the
'Strategy Framework for the Energy Union' and the prospective
'Communication on the Road to Paris', picking up our reports on
Carbon Budgets, Green Finance and Energy Subsidies.[8]
The 'Communication on the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals'
has been addressed in our recent report on the SDGs,[9]
and we expect soon to take evidence on the environmental impacts
of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership —
relevant for the Work Programme's intended 'Trade and Investment
Strategy for Jobs and Growth'.
"However, our Committee has been as much concerned
about what is missing from the Work Programme. In our recent reports
on Air Quality and the Circular Economy we emphasised the importance
of the Commission's then proposed 'Zero Waste Programme for Europe'
(part of the Circular Economy agenda) and 'Clean Air Policy Package'.[10]
On 15 December, we wrote to the Jean-Claude Juncker, president
of the Commission, urging that the air quality and circular economy
measures not be dropped from the 2015 programme (we also highlighted
our concern about those important areas when we wrote to the Prime
Minister about the Sustainable Development Goals).[11]
While the Commission reports that the withdrawn air quality measure
is "to be modified as part of the legislative follow-up to
the 2030 Energy and Climate Package", and that the withdrawn
circular economy measure will be "replaced by a new, more
ambitious proposal by end 2015", we and our successor Committee
will have to see the details before any assurance could be taken
from the reworked proposals. And in the meantime, any delay in
putting into operation the measures and targets contained in the
now withdrawn legislation will only serve to undermine the essential
improvements that we endorsed in our reports.
"Our Committee would particularly welcome an
opportunity to debate the Commission's Work Programme if that
addressed the elements that have lately been withdrawn."
8 Environmental Audit Committee, Progress on Carbon
Budgets, Fifth Report of Session 2013-14, HC 60, 11 September
2013; Environmental Audit Committee, Green finance, Twelfth
Report of Session 2013-14, HC 191, 26 February 2014; Environmental
Audit Committee, Energy Subsidies, Ninth Report of Session
2013-14, HC 61, 27 November 2013. Back
9
Environmental Audit Committee, Connected World: Agreeing ambitious
Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, HC 452, Seventh Report
of Session 2014-15, 15 December 2014. Back
10
Environmental Audit Committee, Action on Air Quality, Sixth
Report of Session 2014-15, HC 212, 26 November 2014; Environmental
Audit Committee, Growing a circular economy: Ending the throwaway
society, Third Report of Session 2014-15, HC 214, 17 July
2014. Back
11
Letter from Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee to President
Juncker, 15 December 2014; Letter from Chair of the Environmental
Audit Committee to the Prime Minister, 15 December 2014 Back
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