HC Deb 13 December 2001 vol 376 cc988-90
5. Mrs. Patsy Calton (Cheadle)

If she will make a statement on the role of her Department in implementing the Government's sustainable development strategy. [20558]

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Margaret Beckett)

My Department has lead responsibility for the Government's strategy. DEFRA intends to put in place a departmental sustainable development strategy by spring 2002. The new Department's aims and objectives have sustainable development at their heart, and my Ministers and I have been actively working with others to take forward sustainable development—for instance, at the climate change talks in Marrakech and the World Trade Organisation talks in Doha. We have called a waste summit, published a fuel poverty strategy and set up the policy commission on food and farming.

Mrs. Calton

I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. Now will she say categorically who holds responsibility for sustainable development? The Chancellor stated in his pre-Budget report: The Government is using tax and other economic instruments to put sustainable development at the heart of policy-making". The Green Ministers Committee has now become a sub-committee of the Cabinet Office and DEFRA has sustainable development as its No. 1 priority. Does the accountability for delivery of sustainable development lie with the Treasury, the Cabinet Office or the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs? Is this joined-up or disjointed government?

Margaret Beckett

If I may say so, that is a thoroughly silly question. If the hon. Lady had been listening, she would have heard that I answered her question by saying at the beginning that my Department has responsibility for sustainable development strategy. She seems to assume that it is in some way a failure of my Department, and a criticism, that we have the Treasury completely on board with regard to sustainable development. The hon. Lady herself said that the Chancellor made a great feature in his remarks of the importance of economic measures to policy development. The Treasury has agreed that sustainable development should be an underlying theme of the whole of the next spending review. That is a substantial policy achievement, and I should have thought that if the hon. Lady understood anything about how this place worked, she would have congratulated us on it.

Mr. Peter Ainsworth (East Surrey)

I hate to say it, but the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton) asked an extremely sensible question. The Government's record on implementing the strategy for sustainable development is one of talking big and doing little. How sustainable is a Department for the environment that has no control over planning? What is sustainable about building millions of houses on greenfield sites? How sustainable is a Department for the environment that has no say over major transport developments? Whatever happened to joined-up government? How sustainable are Ministers who, having lost the confidence of farmers, are rapidly losing the confidence of environmentalists? They have even lost the confidence of their civil servants: in the short life of DEFRA, 14,230 working days have been lost through strike action. Is it not clear that this Christmas the first prize for the best and most stuffed turkey goes to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs?

Margaret Beckett

We can hear the midnight oil running through that—the hon. Gentleman needs to work a little harder at his jokes in future.

It is a legitimate argument that planning and transport are important for sustainable development, but when arrangements were different and the responsibilities currently held by DEFRA lay with the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, there were those who expressed great concern at the implications of that—not least in rural areas, although urban environmental issues are important, too. Certainly, great concern was often expressed at the contribution of Agriculture—not least to diffuse pollution. There will always be argument about precisely where the boundaries are drawn.

We have set up a planning co-ordination unit with the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in order to bring our information to bear at the appropriate times. A senior civil servant from my Department sits on the transport board. It is certainly arguable that relationships are just as good and just as close, and that just as much information flows as when those sections were all in the same Department.

As for the notion that a loss of confidence is indicated by the fact—I am sorry to acknowledge it—that we have indeed lost a substantial number of days through strike action, that is a direct consequence of the policy initiated by the Conservatives when they were in government, which allowed and encouraged a great diversity of pay policy across Whitehall. Civil servants in our new Department have very, very disparate pay structures, which is what lies behind the industrial action.

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