................................................................................ ON THE RECORD JOHN GUMMER INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 16.2.97
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: And Mr Gummer joins us just now from the very green garden of his home in Suffolk. Not too chilly, I trust? JOHN GUMMER MP: No, it's alright - very good. HUMPHRYS: Now, the case against you - summarised there in those last few sentences. Everybody seems to say you heart's in the right place at the right 'green' place but your hands are tied. You can't do the things that you want to do because you're outmuscled? GUMMER: Well, I think that really is nonsense and I'm very pleased you're going to go through these items one by one. So, let's start where you want to start. HUMPHRYS: Okay. Well, let's start with the carbon dioxide emissions. GUMMER: Of course. HUMPHRYS: Now, first of all, which obviously - There has been a reduction, there has been a big reduction. But, it's come about not because of your specific policies but because we've seen a recession, because we've seen this dash for gas. What has not happened is that we are fundamentally changing our energy usage. GUMMER: Well, look, just face that. First of all, we've done better than any other nation who've had the same problems. We've done better than anyone, except possibly Germany, and we shall meet our targets and beat them by between four per cent and eight per cent. And we would have beaten them by two per cent, even if it had not been by the dash for gas. So, we've done that and many of those results have been by Government policy. For example, we have stopped subsidising fossil fuel. Now, that was a tremendously tough thing to do. We very nearly lost the Government because of that. Yet, Germany is still subsidising fossil fuels. The United States and Canada still subsidising fossil fuels. We have made that huge change at enormous political damage to ourselves, because we believed it was right. So, it just isn't true that these results are merely the matter of recession. Well, I - All the other countries have had a recession but they haven't achieved what we've achieved. So, it is Government action. HUMPHRYS: But, you didn't deal with what I've raised in the question there, did you - which is - GUMMER: Which is the question that you didn't want me to deal with. HUMPHRYS: I freely acknowledge that we more than met our target - no question about that. But, what I asked you about was changing our energy usage. Now, you set up the Energy Saving Trust. We heard from the Director .... GUMMER: Well, you asked the question - Now, just a moment. You asked me the question about changing the energy usage. I pointed out- HUMPHRYS: Yes, ..... GUMMER: I pointed out that every country has had the same problems of recession. We have done better than they have. One of the major reasons is that we have stopped the subsidy of fossil fuels. So, we have changed energy usage. We've also, improved very considerably the energy efficiency in this country. So, that although, we are producing now signficantly more than we were, we are doing so with lower- HUMPHRYS: Yah, yah. GUMMER: -energy input. HUMPHRYS: Alright, but I mean two points on
that. 1) Germany went into the recession later than we did, 2) Germany did not have a dash for gas. So, of course, we did rather better than they did. GUMMER: But, just - we didn't have a dash for gas because the Government did not stop its wicked - in my view - subsidy to the coal industry but moved to a situation in which energy - cleaner energy - was used. That was Government action. And, Germany is the only country that has got anywhere near us. The rest - countries like Denmark and Norway - always enthusiastic about telling us what we ought to do - won't meet their Rio commitment. We will in the same economic climate and we will do so because we took Government action. HUMPHRYS: Yeah. GUMMER: And, you cannot get away from that. You were one of the people who were very critical of our action on the coalfields, on our action in changing these things. You were one of the people who were very critical about the fact that we put VAT on home energy use. You were one of the people who have not always said so cheerfully about five per cent increase on tax on motorcar fuel every year without an end date. HUMPHRYS: I'm neither recritical, nor uncritical. I merely ask questions. GUMMER: I remember you on energy saving. I remember you saying it didn't matter if people used as much water as they liked when they boiled their coffee. But, anyway. HUMPHRYS: May I say, may I say, in defence of myself - I have to say - you have that one hundred and eighty degrees wrong. You asked me what I did about boiling the kettle of water and I said: If I want one mug I boil one mug, and that was that. GUMMER: Well, come off it! HUMPHRYS: So, an apology is demanded here and now. However, we'll - we'll pass on. You still - and, you see- I'm not trying to judge the - the actions of the Good Samaritan by the sinner, as it were. What I'm suggesting to you is that by your own standards - the standards that you, yourself, set - for the Government, you're failing. And, let me return to the question of the Energy Saving Trust - a hugely important organisation. Supposed to get - according to its own Director - three hundred million pounds getting twenty-five million pounds instead. So, it's limited in what it can do. GUMMER: No, what you're trying to do is to avoid your fundamental question. You're trying to ask about that - No, you are trying to avoid it because you won't accept.. you have said all this happened because - not because of Government action but because of other things. I pointed to you first of all Government action; the only country in Europe that's done this; five per cent increase on the tax on petrol every year on top of the cost of living without an end, which has changed significantly the quality of our motorcars and the energy efficiency of our motorcars. A Government which has gone in for changing the taxation system, so that 'green' fuels are now much more competitive than they were. A Government which has stopped the subsidy of fossil fuels. A Government which has taken all those measures - including putting a tax on the home fuel, opposed by the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. We did that for the reason which would have led to even more impact on the question of carbon emissions. HUMPHRYS: Alright. But you've- GUMMER: We've done all those things and that seems to be frightfully good. HUMPHRYS: I haven't - I haven't disputed any of that! What I'm asking - what I'm asking- GUMMER: Well, I'm glad. Well, then, alright, this has happened to a very large extent because of Government action and, therefore, when it said in your film that this all happened by accident, by the recession and by the dash for gas that is not true. A lot of it has happened by specific, direct, tough - HUMPHRYS: Right. GUMMER: -and politically difficult action- HUMPHRYS: And, when- GUMMER: - by my colleagues - HUMPHRYS: And, what we are - GUMMER: - the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Department of Trade and Industry - not by me. HUMPHRYS: And, what we are suggesting is that in the future, in order for that to continue, for those savings to continue and indeed to be increased - as Tim Yeo wants them to be increased; the emissions that is; you're gonna have to do more. GUMMER: Well, I agree. HUMPHRYS: Well, what is - well, fine. Well, in that case- GUMMER: We are on one - we are at one with that. HUMPHRYS: Good, excellent. Well, then, let's try and progress that - as the Americans say; hateful expression, but there we are. Let's try and move on from that and ask - I'll ask you again: why are you starving the Energy Saving Trust of money. Why will you not give it the money that it says it needs? GUMMER: Well, the system that the Energy Saving Trust was going to operate on was the situation in which we weren't going to give them the money but, in fact, the various utilities were going to give them money. HUMPHRYS: Yes, exactly. GUMMER: Yes, through a system which the regulators have not found possible to support. I'm sorry about that. That's what they have decided and we've got to find alternative ways of doing that. Already, the Energy Savings Trust is beginning to create a programme which I, actually, think ought to end up with a better system because I want to change peoples' attitudes. You showed a picture of a man putting in the cavity wall insulation and you were saying we really ought to subsidise people to do that. I'm rather concerned about that. It seems to me what we've gotta do is to get people to realise that they save the money, that there's enormous advantages in saving money by energy efficiency. So, what I'm putting the emphasis on now is convincing people to do that themselves and helping those who can't. So, we're concentrating the additional resources that we have put in to the home energy efficiency drive on those people who cannot afford to do it themselves and trying to use advertising and the like to encourage more and more people to make those efficiency savings themselves and, then, to raise the standards of building in this country, so that when you buy a new house in the future you will be affected by building regulations, which will mean that your house will be more energy-efficient, in the first place. HUMPHRYS: Right. So, you're conceding, then, that the Energy Savings Trust has a much more limited role that was originally envisaged? GUMMER: I'm not conceding...It's a wonderful word you use "concede". I'm not conceding anything - I am just telling you the situation. The emphasis now is very much more on convincing people, first of all to build houses which are themselves energy efficient, making sure that the Housing Associations, for example do that in a particular way and also ensuring that more and more people recognise by very large campaigns and through the organisation "Going for Green" that people realise what an advantage they can get from it themselves. And I really don't see why the taxpayer should pay the money when it's actually people who are going to save it themselves. HUMPHRYS: But you've already said that your original motion was that the utility should have a levy imposed upon them. Regulator didn't like that... INTERRUPTIONS HUMPHRYS: You could have legislated for that couldn't you. In the United States, what happens? You cannot ... a utility in the United States, cannot built another power station for instance, unless it proves that it is saving energy. And what they do is they give people, they actually give away energy saving light bulbs now. Why can't we have that kind of thing here if we're serious about it? GUMMER: Well if you really think the United States is in any way a guide to how to operate, they haven't even set their targets to meet any of these obligations. Come off it, they have the work of a hundred and twenty people to provide the energy of each individual American, the Europeans have the work of sixty people to do that. What we have to do is to teach the United States. Don't come telling me how the United States do it. HUMPHRYS: I was giving you a good example of what they do. GUMMER: Well, all I'm saying to you, our system in the round is a much more effective one. But I've accepted, and if you want me to use the word 'concede', I've conceded that what we have to do now is to do more and that's why I have set targets which are targets which are realistic for the whole of Europe and my problem and here I really have a problem and I'll share it propely with you. Tim Yeo perfectly rightly said "Well, we want to have higher targets". We do need higher targets, but we've also got to get everybody on board, and my problem at the moment is that it's only us who have set targets that we are prepared to meet. HUMPHRYS: Right. GUMMER: The whole of the rest of Europe and we in Europe are better than the rest of the world, have still not been prepared either to say whether they'll reach the target in the year Two Thousand or to set targets for themselves for the year Two Thousand and Ten. HUMPHRYS: And what I'm suggesting to you is that amongst those people you have to get on board are members of your own Government. Now, you had this policy where you were committed to analysing the effects on the environment of every single Government action. GUMMER: Yah. HUMPHRYS: These so-called audits, or environmental audits - whatever they happen to be. Now, that was meant to happen in a (and I quote), a formal and systematic way. It hasn't been happening. GUMMER: Well, let me tell you what we've done. Not only has it been happening, but we've asked KPMG, the independent outsider auditors to audit how it happens, whether it happens effectively and whether we can improve it. So if it is true that it is not doing as well as we had hoped, then the KPMG report - which I shall publish, so everyone can see - will show not only what has happened, but what needs to be done to make it better. HUMPHRYS: We've already been told that that is precisely what the KPMG report does say. GUMMER: Well, all I can say to you is that is-All that what the KPMG report brings forward will be acted upon and then I ought to take up that point about the DOE statement on the four point four million houses, 'cos I ought to say to you this: the whole of that document is based upon a single environmental comment. It is this: we cannot build four point four million houses in our countryside. We have to find a way of accommodating the needs of growing numbers of small families somewhere else, and what I have been saying very simply is not something that is sensible to give an environmental measurement to, because it's an environmental statement and it's an absolute. I have said the one thing that will not happen is that we shall use the open countryside, the green belt, or areas which have not been used before to accommodate that land-that housing. HUMPHRYS: How do you stop it? How do you stop it?
How are you going to force them to use the 'brown' (phon) field sites, the Inner City sites or whatever it happens to be that they don't want to use and to abandon the green seed (phon)-fields sites? GUMMER: Well, the first thing is, I'm going to ask counties like Berkshire not to say what they've said on your programme, that I had asked them to build those houses in the countryside. HUMPHRYS: What? GUMMER: They were told that they were to build them in places which were not going to despoil the countryside, they sought not to do that, they tried a usual Liberal Democrat trick, which was to try to pretend I had asked them to do that and to do that they pretended-they set out to build them in the very places which would be least environmentally friendly. HUMPHRYS: Well, alright. Let's- GUMMER: We accept that from the Liberal Democrats, that is their normal stance. HUMPHRYS: Well, alright. GUMMER: But when it comes to what I'm going to do, first of all I've changed the whole of the planning system. I will complete that in the next fortnight with the announcement of the changes in PPG One and PPG Seven. That will mean in future that people will just not be able to build in these places in the green areas- HUMPHRYS: Ah. GUMMER: -because they won't get planning permission for it. We will insist the building takes places in the centres of our cities and to prepare for that I also changed the arrangements right at the time I came in, to make sure that, in future, shopping developments take place in the centres of our cities. HUMPHRYS: Well- GUMMER: So, we can rebuild those and that will mean that we can have the commonality, the sort of mixed development where people can live and shop and take their leisure and worship and work, all in the same places. That is a revolutionary change, supported by each one of my colleagues, by the Department of Transport, by the Department of Trade and Industry, by the Deputy Prime Minister. That has been a Government policy and no other country in Europe, or the rest of the world, has taken so radical a stance. HUMPHRYS: Well, that's interesting, that's interesting. Can I ask you how you're going to enforce it, because you heard what Tim Yeo the former minister said on that film, one of the things you've got to do is make the developers prove, absolutely prove that they have exhausted every brown field site. Now, is that part of what you're talking about? GUMMER: What I'm talking about is that green field sites will not be available unless there is no alternative, and that is precisely the route that we've gone down already. Tim Yeo is merely repeating what we've already done as far as development of town centre and out of town shopping is concerned. HUMPHRYS: But he doesn't think that's enough does he? Tim Yeo clearly from that film doesn't think it is enough. GUMMMER: I mean he's been out of the department for a little bit, and I don't think he's seen the new planning guides which - the last two have not yet been announced, and the one that deals specifically with the countryside I'm hoping to be able to produce within the next fortnight, so you'll see the changes we've taken and made, and I think he'll agree that we really have made a revolutionary series of changes, and we've had the support of the whole Government for that, and if I may say one thing - I'm surprised that your report should have taken up what was the Labour Party's view. When the leader of the Labour Party made his only environment speech of any kind he tried to get away with it by saying that I was green, but the rest of the Government wasn't, and that's the only excuse that the Labour Party has. HUMPHRYS: Alright, we've.,.. GUMMER: I think it's a great pity because the Government has given me enormous support, and I shall be demanding after the next election even more support, because you're quite right, we have to do a great deal more. HUMPHRYS: As you know we represent all views on this programme, even those of the Labour leader. Now, let's go back to this question of where houses are to be built. You're saying I think, that you are are going to apply as tight restrictions on houses as you have on your out of town shopping developments, so can we look at this other proposal that Tim Yeo had, which was that you actually impose a levy on developers who build on greenfield sites, and then that is used, that money on some hypothecated tax in a sense to help develop the more expensive brownfield sites. Does that appeal to you - is that part of your proposals. GUMMER: Well, I'm not keen on that system, because I'm not keen on it - it never has worked in the past. I want to use a more radical system than that. The first of it is, to make it extremely difficult to build outside land which has already been used. The second part of it is this, that what we really need to do is to re-create the nature of our towns, and we're doing that by the Single Regeneration Budget, and by the money that we're putting in to reclaim land and make that available for rebuilding, and the third thing that we have to do is to make mixed development much easier. All sorts of things stand in the way of mixed development, that is building houses and flats and shops together. All sorts of mechanisms stop that at the moment, and so I have already moved a number of them in the building regulations, and I hope we'll be able to move a great deal more to make it easier to do that, but to do all of it I've actually got to convince people of the seriousness of the lifestyle that we are now creating. Because peoples' marriages break up so much more often and so much more quickly, it does mean that the pressure for single person homes is increasing, and if we are going to go on with that lifestyle, and it is not for me to judge that, if we are, then we're going to have this very big problem, and so together we've got to solve it. I've said the minimum I would accept would be sixty per cent rebuilding in the centre of our cities. I hope we can push that further and further towards seventy-five per cent. HUMPHRYS: Well, let's look at something else that's built out of town that causes problems, are these out of town business developments, business parks and all this sort of - now we've seen this week a report from a committee that comes under your own aegis being highly critical of this kind of back-door development that is going on, and you, that's the allegation anyway, aren't doing anything to stop it. GUMMER: Well, that's entirely wrong. I called those in, and I have turned them down continuously. HUMPHRYS: Not the one Northampton .... GUMMER: If I may say, they were looking at the results of the Northampton District Council's decisions - decisions made before we changed the whole of the planning system in order to force them to make more sensible decisions. You've got to recognise that planning in this country is largely in the hands of the local authorities. I have taken the planning guidance, I have changed that fundamentally, I have done that with the support of all my Cabinet colleagues because it was done by a Cabinet committee, and we have now made sure that councils like Northampton run by the Labour Party will not go on doing this, spreading out onto the greenfield areas. HUMPHRYS: Right, so in future because a lot of councils say: we turn things down, they go to appeal and the Ministry says "Okay go ahead". Now what you're saying, and we don't have very long for this, in future you will say: if those sorts of applications come before us for out of town developments, business developments, whatever they may be, we will kick 'em out. GUMMER Not in future. I've been doing it month in, month out since I have been the Secretary of State for the Environment, and with the support the Prime Minister and the whole of this green Conservative Government, we're determined to go on doing it after the next election, and we're back to do it. HUMPHRYS: We can expect a green manifesto can we? GUMMER: I think you will find everything of the kind that you would like to see, and you'll find it with the Tories, and you won't find it with either of our political opponents, neither of whom have even pressed for a debate on the environment since I've been Secretary of State, for nearly four years. It shows where the greenness really is. HUMPHRYS: Mr Gummer, I envy you your green garden. Many thanks. GUMMER: Thank you very much. ...oooOooo...