............................................................................... ON THE RECORD AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN GUMMER MP RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 13.11.94 ............................................................................... JOHN HUMPHRYS: Mr Gummer, you've let those people down. They've been led to believe - the environmentalists that is - that they would get a stronger agency, and instead they're going to get a weaker one. JOHN GUMMER MP: Well that's of course entirely untrue, but let's just see the context. I published the draft bill, at least that part of it which related to the Environment Agency, purposely, because I'm a believer that people should discuss legislation well in advance if it's at all possible. It's what they do in the rest of Europe and I think that's one thing, like many other things, that we can learn from the European Union. So I believe in that, that's why we published it. I've had a look at what they are concerned about. Legally we can't find that they are right. But I'm perfectly happy to look and see that we get the sort of wording that doesn't make people unhappy. What we've got to do though, and that's why most of this wording will stand, is this; we've got to do what we've promised to do internationally, which is to support sustainable development. Now sustainable development means not only that you have the sustainability, the doing in this generation and paying the cost in this generation and not landing it on our children, but also that you have the opportunity for growth. Now to do that you must have a cost effective approach, you must make sure that if you can do the right job, the proper job for fifty pounds, you don't charge the taxpayer or the water consumer or anybody else a hundred pounds. Now surely nobody's suggesting that conservation ought to be non-cost effective. HUMPHRYS: No, I don't think they are, I don't think anybody's suggesting that for a moment. GUMMER: Well if they're not, if they're not, there isn't anything in the bill as it stands which they ought to be concerned about. HUMPHRYS: What they are most concerned about, I think it's fair to say, one of the things they're most concerned about at any rate, is that the old agency, the old National Rivers Authority, had a duty to further conservation interests. The new agency will not have that duty. GUMMER: Well we understand, and I say we because I'm not a lawyer, but I'm told that there is no distinction in the position and power of the NRA part of the new agency, but if this is a concern, if this is really a concern, I'm busy looking at ways in which we can overcome that concern, because there's no intention of having a less powerful agency. We want a stronger agency. I have made that very clear. Its strength comes from the fact that whereas the NRA had a very limited remit in terms of matters relating to water, this new agency will cover all the matters of pollution -
now the concern of the Inspectorate on Pollution - and also all the matters concerned with waste which has been spread around local authorities. HUMPHRYS: Right, so you're happy to put those words in: "a duty to further conservation interests" because that is key? GUMMER: What I have said is key and what they think is key is that the new agency shall not have its powers weakened. And that I am not prepared to have. I don't want a weaker agency and I will ensure that it is not a weaker agency. HUMPHRYS: Right, and to a man and woman they say if those words aren't in that bill it will weaken it. GUMMER: Well I think that the judgement of that has got to be a rather wider one, and one of the parts of that judgement is the legal judgement. But as I've said, and there's no good trying to push me into a corner as if I'm being curmudgeoningly about it, I'm not at all. HUMPHRYS: Well they think you are, you see. GUMMER: Well with great respect, I'm not, I'm saying I want a stronger agency, not a weaker agency. I'm not trying to take away from its strength, and therefore if there is a necessity to change the wording in order that it doesn't take away from its strength, I've said I will. Now the other matter is that it needs to be an agency which spreads much more widely. And I'd be very sad if the importance of this major step were undermined because some people, contrary to the legal advice that we've had, think that the wording is wrong. But the whole purpose of actually having this draft bill beforehand is to iron these things out, so I'm going to iron them out. HUMPHRYS: Yes but there really shouldn't be a problem should there, because afterall that wording worked for the National Rivers Authority, so the lawyers were happy with it as far as the National Rivers Authority is concerned, there's no reason why they shouldn't be happy with it...with this new agency, is there? GUMMER: Well the difficult is that we're bringing together three different agencies. And when you do that you have to look at a whole range of different effects and different ways of saying things. This is the way the lawyers have come up with and I am happy, as I've said, to go on these discussions because it is a draft bill, to see whether there are ways that people's fears may be allayed because we have exactly the same purpose. And therefore there is no reason why we should fall out over the wording. HUMPHRYS: Well they believe it's more than just the wording, you see, they believe that the whole emphasis is now changing, because when you talk - as you've quite properly talked - about cost benefit analysis, of course everybody understands that the cost has to be taken into account. What they're concerned with is that it's the first time that this has been written into environmental legislation. And so the whole emphasis has changed, whereas in the past the environmental agencies were regarded as players in the game, they're now regarded as referees without the requirement upon them to push forward the interests of conservation. GUMMER: Well that is not what the reason for this is. The reason for raising the question of cost benefit is because in the meantime, with the enormous support of the green agencies, we have signed up to sustainable development. That we signed up to because of the great meeting at Rio in which John Major, the Prime Minister, was the first major world leader not only to say he was going, but to spend a great deal of time at the centre of those discussions. So we at that conference, we feel very very responsible for continuing what we've signed up to and we've signed up to sustainable development. That means in everything we do we have to state these two things; one is sustainability, not cheating on our children, paying the bill now, making sure that our inheritance that we hand on to them is better than the one we've received from before, that's the sustainability. But also, the development, the commitment to the concept that we need growth at the same time. So in everything we do we have to put these two things together. And I'm insisting upon that when we talk about road building, I'm insisting upon that when we talk about any of the activities of business as well. So it's a two-way system and it would be very surprising if we produced an environment bill in which we didn't contain those two thoughts side by side in the way which they have to be done now that we've signed up to it internationally. HUMPHRYS: But what this Bill suggests is that environmental damage will soon be regarded as an acceptable price to pay for economic development. GUMMER: Well, that is not so, in the sense that you are trying to present it. HUMPHRYS: Well, it's RSPB saying that - not me. GUMMER: Well with respect, it is always true that any development can be presented as giving environmental damage. If you build any kind of road, for example - even a road which is supported by the CPRE. Let's take a bypass in my Constituency. Backed by the CPRE's President, it's a road which is going to give great environmental benefit to five of my villages. Yet, it's perfectly true that it does some environmental damage, in the sense that if you lay down concrete of any kind it does that. So, there is nothing new in saying that if mankind is to change anything, he can be said to be doing environmental damage. It is only truthful to say, therefore, that any decision you make of any kind needs to be a balance between the needs of development and the determination to sustainability. That's why we've all signed up to sustainable development. And, I am determined that we should be absolutely insistent that both of those demands upon us - as the United Nations has told us. That both of those demands upon us must be held together and we must seek to make them mutually inconclusive and not exclusive. HUMPHRYS: When you published a discussion document originally. When you first raised and the Prime Minister first raised the notion of an environmental protection agency, the suggestion was that it was going to be the champion of the environment. This is not going to achieve that. It's not going to champion anything. That's their concern. GUMMER: It is the champion of the environment. Its whole purpose is that but you do not champion the environment without having some concept that you want to pay the most sensible cost of achieving your end. For example, if you think it's a championship of the environment to spend large sums of money unnecessarily, all you're doing, then, is not to have that money to improve the environment in some other direction. So, it would be ludicrous to say that any champion of the environment shouldn't have the costs involved in their minds. No organisation of any kind of standing in the Green Movement believes that you can talk about the environment without some consideration of the costs. That is all that is being said and there is no question that you cannot be a champion if you've got your head so far in the air that you don't notice how much the charge is going to be and whether there's a connection between the amount that you have to spand and the good that you do by spending it. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to bring into the equation. It's what the United Nations, the Rio Conference has demanded. It's what we're asking everybody in the southern, as well as the Northern States to do. It would be pretty balmy if we didn't do it for ourselves. HUMPHRYS: Well in that case, all of these mainstream organisations within the Green Movement and I'm not talking about some of the more extreme organisations - I'm talking about those which are absolutely fundamental in the countryside. The kind of people who often advised you and who considered themselves as in a sense the backbone of Conservatism, the backbone of Middle England - the RSPB and the CPRE and so on. They are saying: this is the wrong Bill. And, what's more they say: you know that and you tried to get a tougher Bill but you were overridden in the Cabinet. GUMMER: Well, I mean, you can say all those things... HUMPHRYS: Well, they say those things, you see. GUMMER: Well, all right. Let me say, you can say all those things but I am telling you what the legal advice is and the truth. This is the Bill that I wanted. HUMPHRYS: You didn't want a tougher Bill? GUMMER: Well-This is the Bill that I wanted. I have not had an argument about this matter. If there is a need so to alter the language that it meets the legitimate complaints, the legal effects of what people say, I have already said that I am happy to look at finding ways of doing that. I've not got any disagreement with them at all but they are right of course to press their case for a simple reason. It is the job of the Green Movement to make sure that there is no doubt about these matters. The fact that they feel that there is a doubt leaves me first to be pleased that this is a draft Bill and that that doubt has come forward already. And, secondly, it gives me the opportunity to try to allay their doubts. I don't believe that they've got any reason for them. But, if they fear these things, I have enough respect for them to do my best, to see that those doubts are allayed. So, there's no worry. HUMPHRYS: So, in a nutshell, the Bill that we see today - the draft Bill that we see today - is not the Bill that is going to become the new Law of the land. GUMMER: The draft Bill that we see today fully protects the environment in the way that the NRA has protected it in the past. HUMPHRYS: They would dispute that. The NRA itself disputes that. GUMMER: Everytime I try to say this you come back with a dispute and because of that I have said: because they dispute it
I am, therefore, perfectly happy to look at the ways in which we can allay their fears. So, the answer is simple: the Bill that will come before Parliament and will go through Parliament will be a Bill designed to achieve the same ends as those which have been said by the Green groups, which is to have a stronger agency - able to protect the environment. That's what I'm trying to do and I have no doubt that I shall succeed in it. HUMPHRYS: John Gummer, thank you very much. ...oooOoo...