................................................................................
ON THE RECORD
MICHAEL MEACHER INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 7.6.98
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well, Michael Meacher, still your
intention is it to be the greenest government of all time?
MICAHEL MEACHER MP: I certainly believe that we are the
greenest that we've had in the UK. I'm not satisfied with the progress that
we've so far made and I certainly want to take it further. But the commitment
is clear in the manifesto from the Prime Minister downwards.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look at that commitment and why
people are worried that it isn't being realised, not yet, admittedly early days
but it's the way that things are going that worries an awful lot of people.
The government itself, the greening of the government, if I can put it that
way. The last budget was supposed to see an improvement in green measures, we
didn't see it. What happened? We didn't for instance, take one example, the
Green Book that was supposed to be published that was meant to do a kind of
green audit of all those measures in the budget, was never produced. There was,
I looked up this morning in the Red Book and there was, what three quarters of
a page of rather half hearted comments of what was in the budget. Not exactly
the audit that we'd been promised.
MEACHER: Well I'm glad that you did look it up
John, because there is a section there on environmental appraisal.
HUMPHRYS: A tiny one.
MEACHER: I agree it's small and I agree that we
need to do better and I believe in future budgets we will. I would like to see
a full environmental appraisal of important measures like the budget. But it is
untrue to say that we missed out environmentally in the budget.
HUMPHRYS: Let's just deal with that if I may, come
to what you did in the budget in a second, just deal with that for a second.
Why, didn't we have the full report this time, it doesn't take long to set that
into motion does it. Any more than a year.
MEACHER: Well, I think it does. I mean I do think
one should not under-estimate the difficulties of environmental appraisals. I
mean one of my key roles as chair of the Green Ministers is to ensure that a
policy framework for environmental appraisal is distributed, it was actually
disseminated in Whitehall a month or two ago. That it is understood and that it
is acted upon. Now that is a major, a major project and getting people fully
to understand its implications and to demonstrate those in the preparation of
policy is something that we can continually widen and deepen and that really is
my role over the next year or two.
HUMPHRYS: So, we'll definitely have that audit,
the full monty as they say, next time around.
MEACHER: Well I would certainly hope so. It's
certainly-we discuss this with other departments. The Treasury have been very
helpful on this-
HUMPHRYS: -done that.
MEACHER: -well I believe the Treasury will do
this. I certainly believe that you are going to see some environmental
appraisals over transport, when we get our integrated transport strategy. You
are going to see it in..over the roads review which we are about to publish. We
are going to see it, I hope, with regard to Agenda Two Thousand, this is the
Ministry of Agriculture, the implications that have moved towards an
agri-environment kind of farming. And of course the post-Kyoto Climate Agenda.
There are major environmental implications and we intend to set those out in
detail, in full, for consultation and public comment.
HUMPHRYS: But still not quite the same as
actually auditing the budget is it. Looking at the budget and saying, now these
are all the green implications or non-green implications of what's in that
budget, that's not quite the same thing is it.
MEACHER: Well, you've made your point.
HUMPHRYS: Alright.
MEACHER: There is three quarters of a page, that
is certainly more than has been there before. And you are not right in saying
that there is not quite a lot which is environmentally helpful in a budget,
particularly on transport, but also on, for example, energy saving materials,
where the Chancellor brought down the cost to five per cent, which is the
lowest he could, which we'd been asked to do. There is-he's already made clear
he's looking at water pollution charges, looking at aggregates tax, and of
course we set up the Sir Colin Marshall taskforce on industrial energy tax.
Those are major charges, let's be absolutely clear, on environmental policy.
HUMPHRYS: All the more surprising, perhaps then
that there wasn't the audit, if you had so much to be pleased with.
MEACHER: Well all of those are about future
policy. The environmental appraisal is with regard to the actual text of the
budget. Let's look to the future.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, well let's stay with the past
just for a moment, because you mentioned that Ministerial committee, the Green
Ministers Committee. Eighteen ministers, they are supposed to meet regularly,
keep an eye on What's going on in their own departments and all the rest of it.
They've met twice since the election. Once was for a photo call, and even then
they didn't all turn up.
MEACHER: Well first of all it wasn't just for a
photo call. There was a photo call proceeding the meeting, where there was of
course a full meeting and there was thirteen ministers, to my recollection on
that-
HUMPHRYS: At least five who didn't show.
MEACHER: -well, yes, alright. But I mean thirteen
ministers from around Whitehall, given extremely busy timetables, this is two
months on into government, is certainly, I think, pretty good.
HUMPHRYS: And no meeting since then.
MEACHER: I'd like to-there's been another meeting
since then and there's going to be a meeting next week. But the key point-wait
a moment John - the key point is not the number of times that we meet, we are
not a policy making body, that is the environmental Cabinet sub-committee,
which is a policy making body. The job of Green Ministers, is to implement
environmental appraisal and greening operations, or household operations, the
way their own departments work in terms of transport plans, waste management,
energy etc. Those are their roles and it's implementing that in their own
departments which matters. You don't need to have meetings.
HUMPHRYS: Okay, fine. So in that case why didn't
the Defence Minister, because there's a Green Minister in the Defence
Department. Why didn't he say, look, we are going to buy up half the Brazilian
rain forests and put mahogany in all our ships.
MEACHER: Well I don't understand that because the
fact is that Brazilian mahogany is listed under appendix two of CITES, it is
therefore, a matter which is certainly subject to review and I would question
what was said about that.
HUMPHRYS: So you are going to be asking questions
about that.
MEACHER: I am. I mean I don't believe the
implication that somehow a large amount of Brazilian mahogany has been used
improperly is correct, I dispute that.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, but if it was, you would have a
go at them.
MEACHER: I absolutely would.
HUMPHRYS: Right, okay, well perhaps you'll report
back to us on that then.
Right, now, you were going to set up an
ombudsman and a sort of high-environmental court. A high court, apparently, to
look into these matters. It hasn't happened.
MEACHER: No, it hasn't. That is not what I would
regard as one of the key requirements within the implementation of
environmental policy. I mean I think the key drivers are the environment
Cabinet sub-committee which is more powerful than it's ever been before, the
Green Ministers which we've revamped and extended, the Environmental Audit
Committee of the House of Commons which John Prescott memorably described as a
terrier to bite our own ankles.
HUMPHRYS: Doesn't have a lot of resources to do
that with, so we are told.
MEACHER: Oh I think it's been remarkably
effective and I want to see it being even more effective. It is the only Select
Committee, apart from the Public Accounts Committee, which has the power to
call officials, as well as ministers, to subpoena the presentation of papers,
it is a powerful committee.
HUMPHRYS: But the PAC has a lot of support, this
committee doesn't. I mean they've got a man and a dog and that's it-perhaps a
woman and a dog and that's it.
MEACHER: Well, of course, that is a matter for
them. That is not a matter-and I would be very pleased to see the House of
Commons, which is a sovereign body, deciding that there are increased
resources, increased capability for that committee, it's very important.
HUMPHRYS: We are going to have this environmental
ombudsman and high court are we?
MEACHER: I would certainly like to see an
examination of the way in which environmental disputes can be settled-
HUMPHRYS: No commitment again, though.
MEACHER: Well, it was an issue that was raised in
the manifesto and it is certainly something which I intend to explore. But the
idea that the best way of getting advances in environmental policy is to have
an issue in the high court, is nonsense.
HUMPHRYS: You raised it.
MEACHER: Yeah I know, but what I am saying is we
are putting the groundwork, the infrastructure in place and we will return to
this, I assure you.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, but beginning to get an idea
why a lot of people are very worried. Let me turn to the green belt. This
worries a very large number of people indeed, even those who aren't concerned
with the arcade doings of Westminster. We have a green belt, you keep telling
us, John Prescott keeps telling us, it's getting bigger under Labour. But
what's the point of a green belt, if you then go and build houses on it?
MEACHER: Well, first of all we don't just go and
build houses on it.
HUMPHRYS: Stevenage - ten thousand homes - we saw
it in that report.
MEACHER: Hold on, hold on. There have been a
number of cases which we believe can be justified, and on balance are
justified, where there is some use of Green Belt. For example there is the
Wessex case which is actually sub judice, so I can't say more about that, but
there was a proposal to reduce the number of houses there by twelve thousand
eight hundred, or twenty-five per cent. Now that is sub judice. If you look
at Reading - not Reading - if you look at Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead which
you paid particular attention to in Herfordshire, our view was that the most
sustainable option was the one chosen in terms of access which it gave to
retail and employment areas and to the transport infrastructure. I might also
say, that if you look at Hertfordshire in general there's an increase in the
Green Belt, an increase of four thousand-six hundred hectares.
HUMPHRYS: Fine, but again, my point. No point in
having the Green Belt if you're - I mean in the case of Herfordshire - the
County Council themselves - they heard what John Prescott said about the Green
Belt - they looked at it again, they looked at their own plan again, and they
said,: well, we don't want to do it now. But John Prescott said: You've got to
do it. We can overrule you. What an extraordinary thing to do!
MEACHER: Well, I don't think it is, because we do
have a commitment. Our commitment basically of course, is to provide the
number of houses that people need. That has been settled at four-point-four
million - those are the best estimates over a twenty-five year period. It
works out at about a hundred and seventy-five thousand houses a year, which is
actually a rather low level of building, compared to every other decade since
the war, but they have got to go somewhere. What we are saying is at least
sixty per cent should be in urban areas, but we have, of course, to get
agreement through regional planning and guidance in each area about exactly
what'll be the balance between urban areas and green field, and it's not just
Green Belt, it's green field.
HUMPHRYS:l No, I understand that. Precisely, and
I'm reminded again of what you said. We saw some clips of previous speeches of
yours, ninety six - nineteen ninety-six: "We will not allow our precious green
space to fall easy prey to developers and speculators". Well,.....developers?
MEACHER: Absolutely, absolutely, and that's why
we have - well, let me make absolutely clear to you, we have a much tougher
planning policy through what's called the sequential planning approach. If a
developer comes to us and says: Look, I'd like to build an estate, and I'd like
to build in the Green Belt because it's more profitable, we'd say no, no, no.
Let's look at the urban area. Only if you can persuade us it's impossible to
achieve your objective in an inner urban area, will you be allowed to look at
the outer urban area, the fringe area, and only if you can then prsuade us
which will be very difficult that you cannot reach your requirements within
that area would you be allowed even to consider Green Belt. We are looking at
the regeneration of inner urban areas. That's why Department of Environment,
Transport and Regeneration. The way to prevent our Green Belt being used is to
regenerate our cities. We've just set up a new system with regard to
decontamination of contaminated land in urban areas. I set out last December
the principles by which that contaminated land regime will operate. If we can
get developers moving into decontaminate, to improve, remediate that
contaminated land, we have many more sites available,
HUMPHRYS: But there are other things...
MEACHER: All those are being done, which you
ignored.
HUMPHRYS: Well, well, because the things you had
said you were going to do, and the things everybody expected you to do, and the
things that the experts, the lobby group, the pressure - the people who know
about these things, say should be done and would make an immediate impact
you're not doing. Where were the green field taxes in that budget - where were
the measures to make it more expensive to develop a green field site and less
expensive by removing VAT for instance on developing old buildings on brown
field sites, where were those measures in the budget?
MEACHER: I understand that. But let's be
perfectly clear that those are only soem of the instruments. Economic
instruments are important ones and I quite agree, we have made it clear, it's
been in the media, we are looking at economic instruments and the role that
they can play.
HUMPHRYS: Why weren't they there in that last
budget?
MEACHER: Well, with great respect John, this is a
very major innovation, initiative in tax policy. The important thing is if
you're going to it, and I do understand the grounds on which we should consider
it, it has to be done absolutely right. (INTERRUPTION) No, no, I'm saying we're
looking at it, looking at the level - still, looking at the level at which it
is pitched, to what it would apply, what derogations there may be. I mean
let's get it right, but I absolutely agree with you, that it is one of the
instruments.
HUMPHRYS: Right. Let's look at emissions,
something else that worries people. We heard your own advisor, former advisor
in that film expressing his worries. You were committed to cutting by twenty
per cent CO2 emissions, based on the nineteen-ninety figure by the year
two-thousand and ten. That was a commitment - doesn't seem to be any longer.
MEACHER: Well it is is.
HUMPHRYS: Is it.
MEACHER: It is, I assure you.
HUMPHRYS: Why does Angela Eagle, one of your
ministers then, talk about moving towards our aim. And aim isn't a commitment,
a target is it?
MEACHER: Well, you're becoming a criminologist
John, you're...
HUMPHRYS: Well, I think you have to be in this
business. It's the only way to make sense......
MEACHER: Your analysis of semantics, I mean, I
don't know what that particular answer said. If it said aim, that is our aim,
and that is our target......
HUMPHRYS: ... to move towards our aim.
MEACHER: Okay, moving towards our aim, but I
mean, I do absolutely assure you that there is no significant etymological
distinction between aim, target, principle, objective. We are committed, it
was in the manifesto, it's been repeated by the Prime Minister, I think more
than once, certainly at least once in parliament that it is a clear objective
and commitment on our part, and it remains so, and we of course have been
looking in detail about how we're going to achieve it.
HUMPHRYS: Some people are worried about the
measures that might be necessary to achieve that, and one of them is this
business, rather peculiar business to many people of kind of trading the right
to pollute - buying pollution, whatever you call them, target - I don't know -
permits, that's the word, permits is the word I've looking for. Buying a
pollution permit from somebody else, so you can pollute a bit more, and they
don't pollute as much. Is that something you're looking at?
MEACHER; It's certainly something we're looking
at, but I do assure you that we intend to reach our legally binding target
which will be, I believe achieved in about ten days' time at a meeting of the
environment ministers' council which I will be chairing in Luxembourg. That is
the legally binding target and I can't tell you the exact level becuase it's
not....
HUMPHRYS: That's obviously not the twenty per
cent....
MEACHER: It's not twenty per cent. It'll be I
presume, lower than twenty per cent, but as I say, we remain committed, there's
a second stage, once we've got that under our belt to achieving the twenty per
cent, and that is absolutely clear.
HUMPHRYS: The task-force that you've set up, you
mentioned earlier that Colin Marshall, Sir Colin Marshall is going to be
running. He said voluntary measures alone are not going to be enough to deliver
results on the required scale, in other words-
MEACHER I think that's right.
HUMPHRYS: There has to be tax-
MEACHER: I think that's right. I might say that
voluntary measures do have a contribution to make. For example, the chemical
industry actually came to us and said we would like to have a voluntary
agreement with you to achieve a twenty per cent cut in chemical emissions by
2010. We looked at that and we have reached a voluntary agreement with them.
It is true and I am well aware that already there has been a reduction of
fourteen per cent. I want them to go further than twenty per cent but we can I
think by a mix of voluntary measures, regulation and tax, it's that combination
rather than tradeable permits which are the means that we are looking at.
HUMPHRYS: How do you fit into that equation
though, the desire to keep the last of the deep coal mines open because the
more coal we burn - however much you try and clean up the emissions - we will
still get more CO2 emissions.
MEACHER: Well the Review of Energy Sources for
Power Generation is still underway, I think there will be a statement in
Parliament shortly. My view is quite clear on that, that all participants in
the Cabinet Committee are agreed that our environmental targets must be
maintained.
HUMPHRYS: Whatever the price?
MEACHER: No, no, let me finish, that it is
perfectly possible to do that, and I'd like to say a great deal more than I am
able to at this moment. It's perfectly possible to do that in a manner which is
compatible with maintaining a continuing role for coal. I mean, let me make it
clear to you, nobody is saying that we should maintain our environmental
targets at the expense of closing down the coal industry, that would be absurd.
HUMPHRYS: So you could continue burning the amount
of coal, you can continue to burn the amount of coal we're burning at the
moment and still meet those targets?
MEACHER: We have to look at what we believe to be
the right level of coal burn for the future. There are many other
considerations, the cost of sinking any further pits in future, the need for a
diverse and balanced energy supply, the balance between imports and exports,
the relationship between open cast and deep mining - all of these have to be
taken into account. It's not just or indeed primarily environmental targets,
but the environmental targets are not going to interfer with policy on the
wider scale.
HUMPHRYS: If we are going to continue to burn that
amount of coal, that means having to be tougher in other areas doesn't it.
MEACHER: Well as I say. You said if we continue
to burn that amount of coal. What we have been looking at on a future basis,
looking forward. And of course I'm not primarily the minister responsible, it
is the President of the Board of Trade. We've been looking at what is the
appropriate levels of future burn. But I am saying environmental goals are not
going to damage them.
HUMPHRYS: Let's move from land to sea and the
question of oil rigs, something else that worries an awful lot of people. Now
you said, we say you saying it on that film there: 'I announce an end to
dumping redundant rigs at sea, there will be no more Brent Spars under Labour'.
Well now, last month, May 11th, you conceded that up to sixty more might be
dumped is that right?
MEACHER: It isn't right. There is absolutely no
foundation for that figure of sixty, it's never a figure that I've used, it's
never a figure that the government has used and I would-you were good enough,
if I may say, in the video tape that we've just seen, you quoted my full words,
which were not just: 'there will be no more Brent Spars under Labour' and there
won't be - except in agreed cases. And there is a minority -oh yes and I said
it quite clearly. There is a minority, and I can't tell you how large it will
be. I think it will be very significantly lower than the kind of figure that's
been bandied about.
HUMPHRYS: Well that might mean fifty.
MEACHER: If you are going to go down and then
say, forty, thirty, twenty. But look-
HUMPHRYS: But how else to do this. You said there
will be no more Brent Spars. Now you might have meant there will be no more
rigs called Brent Spar, on that basis.
MEACHER: That's not an unreasonable point. Brent
Spar is actually a very unusual case. It is an off-shore storage and loading
buoy and it is not typical of oil rigs in the North Sea. But let me tell you
what I really meant. There are the concrete structures which are the heaviest,
I think the heaviest structure, eight hundred thousand-
HUMPHRYS: There are going to stay, well everybody
knows you can't tow those away.
MEACHER: Absolutely.
HUMPHRYS: Of course, absolutely. But is that all
you were referring to.
MEACHER: No.
HUMPHRYS: That's the point.
MEACHER: No, we have agreed as a generic case,
that concrete platforms have to remain at sea. Now, the next category are the
heavy steel structures in deep water, by which one normally means more than
seventy-five metres.
HUMPHRYS: And there are dozens of those.
MEACHER: There are probably about fifty in the UK
sector and probably about the same number in the Norwegian sector. We will, of
course, be having a meeting of ministers in Lisbon next month, to try and get
unanimous agreement, is what I hope we will get, on an international regulatory
regime about disposal of off-shore installations. But the government's policy
is clear. Our presumption is that there should be disposal to land-
HUMPHRYS: Ah, well now.
MEACHER: -and recycling on land.
HUMPHRYS: Resumption is one word. But what those
other countries want, except for us and Norway, but what is a ban on dumping
any more of those at sea, will we sign up to that ban, that's the crucial
question?
MEACHER: Yes, and let me make clear my view.
There is a presumption, as you've said, you pooh-poohed that but let me make
clear if we can make the number, which I say is about fifty at the moment, if
we could get that down to virtually zero, no-one would be more pleased than me.
HUMPHRYS: But you're not prepared to sign up to
that ban.
MEACHER: Because it is not - it would be
irresponsible to do so.
HUMPHRYS: But you are the man who said there would
be no more Brent Spars.
MEACHER: And there won't be anymore Brent Spars,
if Brent Spar occurred today it would unquestionably be taken to land. There
would be no question about it. If I am looking at the very big steel
structures, I have to take account first of all, is the technology available to
take them safely to shore, is it feasible, is it practicable or is it safe. If
the answer to all of those is yes when we come to 2010, 2020, 2030, fine, all
of them will be brought from land.
HUMPHRYS: But the engineers say we can, from what
I understand. We just heard Greenpeace saying there as well, lots of people say
the engineers are quite happy towing them back-
MEACHER: They were referring to one which has
been safely brought to land, called the Odin. It weighs about six and a half
thousand tons. It is in the low end of the spectrum of the large structures
which go up to forty thousand tons or more. I'm very interested in that. I'm
delighted that they've brought Odin ashore, if they could bring all the others
to shore, splendid, that's exactly what we'll do.
HUMPHRYS: Right. At the end of the Labour
Government, whenever that may be, let's-
MEACHER: We're talking an awful long time ahead.
HUMPHRYS: Possibly, possibly. You wouldn't expect
me to comment on that. How many of those will be left? - dumped in the sea?
MEACHER: That depends on the technoloy, the
feasibility and the safety with which we can approach each one on a case by
case basis.
HUMPHRYS: Could be those fifty, in theory.
MEACHER: It won't be anywhere near fifty. But I
cannot tell, in all honesty, there isn't anyone on earth, who can tell you
exactly what the figure will be. It will be substantially less than fifty.
HUMPHRYS: If it fair to describe you as the
Environment Minister who is a little frustrated at some of the things that are
happening that make you not entirely happy with the way you are doing your job,
because there are things you'd like to do and can't do. Is that fair?
MEACHER: I don't think it is. I have felt very
comfortable in my environmental brief. I think it's an absolutely brilliant
portfolio where there is tremendous public support and I have to say, an
excellent manifesto and support from my fellow ministers. Not enough is being
done. I'm not satisfied with what's been done, I am not satisfied with
everything that I've been able to do. But I hope I have the chance to take it
further.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Meacher, thank you very much
indeed.
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