5. Following a resolution of the House made on 14 May 2002, the Liaison Committee established a set of common objectives or 'core tasks' for select committees. Committees are invited to review how they have met these objectives in their annual reports. Committees are also invited to report on ministers' appearances before them, and on how they have assisted the House in debate and decision. Accordingly we set out to show how our work in 2006-07 relates to these tasks.

6. Table 3 summarises our work in relation to the 'core tasks'. This is followed by a more detailed commentary. In a number of cases pieces of work by the Committee will fulfil more than one of the core tasks. In most of these cases we discuss the work in the section to which it is most directly relevant.

x= the work of the Committee on this inquiry fulfils the criterion

(x) = the work of the Committee on this inquiry is relevant to the criterion

Subjects in the shaded area relate to inquiries on which the Committee has not yet reported.

Government and EU policy proposals

7. A large part of Defra's work is EU-related, none more so than its duties under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We concluded a substantial inquiry into the UK Government's "Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy" in 2007, during which we had heard formal evidence from the European Agriculture Commissioner among others. Our Report criticised the Vision document as a disappointing lost opportunity to put forward something truly revolutionary. We called for the CAP to be scrapped and replaced with a rural policy for the EU, based on the only justification for taxpayer support that we believe is justifiable in the long term: the provision of public benefits. We subsequently published our comments on the Government response we received, adding that we believed that we and Defra should both do further work on the issue of food security.

Examination of emerging policies and deficiencies

RURAL PAYMENTS AGENCY AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SINGLE PAYMENT SCHEME

8. The most glaring deficiency in Defra's performance in recent years has been the failed implementation of the Single Payment Scheme by the Department and its Rural Payments Agency (RPA). Payments to which farmers were entitled were months or years late and hundreds of millions of pounds of public money were lost. We took much of the evidence in 2006, but this year we produced our Report. We concluded that Defra had required its Agency to bring in a highly complicated system in too short a time and that the Agency did not understand its own processes properly.

9. But our Report was as much about a lack of proper accountability as about the failure of policy implementation. The collapse of the single payment system led to the removal of the RPA's Chief Executive. We were however extremely critical that the Secretary of State and senior Defra officials involved had stayed in post or moved on unscathed. We believed that a culture where ministers and officials could preside over failure of this magnitude and not be held personally accountable risked further failures in public service delivery. The policy failure in this case was so serious that it should have resulted in those responsible being removed from their posts.

10. In order to reach conclusions on this inquiry, we needed to hear from the former Chief Executive of the RPA, Johnston McNeill. We agreed to do so in a private session in January in order to address the witness's concerns about appearing before at a meeting held in public, but published the whole transcript the next day so that the transparency of our inquiry was not compromised.

CLIMATE CHANGE

11. Climate change is a continuing theme of the Committee's work and we are conducting a series of inquiries on the subject. In 2006 we studied the role of bioenergy. It is becoming clear that our conclusions in that Report about the weaknesses of Government policy in this area, and in particular the disadvantages of its emphasis on the contribution of first generation biofuels, were well-founded. In 2007 we examined what the Government was and should be doing to help individuals and communities reduce their climate change impact: what we have called the "citizen's agenda". We concluded that the Government was not doing all it could to make it easy for people to 'do their bit'. Again, we decided to publish a further Report commenting on the Government Response, which was not only negative in parts, but disappointingly failed to take account of important Government announcements that were made only days after it was sent to us. We believe that our work on this subject provides much useful material to inform parliamentary scrutiny of the Climate Change Bill. We refer in more detail in paragraph 14 below to our pre-legislative scrutiny of the Draft Climate Change Bill.

BADGERS AND CATTLE TB

12. When the 10-year work of the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on Cattle TB was published, we took evidence from the ISG and other interested parties. This long-running and very serious problem of cattle TB has been examined by us before, and we had expected to hold only a short inquiry this time. However the ISG's conclusions, subsequently challenged by the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King, led us to decide to hear from a number of witnesses and the responsible minister. We will report in early 2008.

FLOODING

13. The serious floods that affected parts of the country in the summer has led us to examine the complex arrangements that govern flood management. We have had constructive contact with the official review of lessons learned, led by Sir Michael Pitt, in order to avoid unnecessary duplication. We believe that our transparent method of proceeding will be of benefit to Sir Michael and others who are also addressing this issue. We will take evidence from Sir Michael before we report our findings.

Draft Bills

14. The Secretary of State published the Climate Change Draft Bill on 13 March. In view of the Government's desire for the widest possible discussion, we decided to examine the draft Bill. We took oral evidence over a fortnight in May and published our Report on 4 July. A Joint Committee of both Houses was also set up to examine the Bill. We exchanged memoranda with that Committee and were pleased to see that the Report which it published in August echoed many of our own conclusions. The Government replied to both reports in a Command Paper in October, adopting a number of our recommendations.

15. The Government has announced that a draft Marine Bill will be published in Spring 2008. We will wish to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of that document.

Decisions and documents from Defra

16. A number of serious animal diseases have broken out in 2007: foot and mouth disease (from premises licensed by Defra); bluetongue; and avian influenza (twice). We heard about Defra's response to these from the Secretary of State when he gave evidence in October. Members of the Committee have also met the then Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer of Defra for a briefing on avian influenza. The Committee intends to meet the Acting Chief Veterinary Officer in 2008 to discuss disease preparedness.

Expenditure of Defra and associated public bodies

17. In financial year 2006-07 Defra responded to a budget deficit of £200m by imposing in-year budget cuts which affected the work of a number of its delivery bodies. We decided to examine the reasons for this as an adjunct to our regular inquiry into Defra's Departmental Annual Report. We concluded that this was a serious failure of financial management. Defra had failed to take action early enough to deal with the pressures, and the budget shortfall was itself partly caused by a lack of clarity on the part of Defra about the Treasury rules on end year flexibility—something which the Permanent Secretary noted in her Statement in Internal Control in Defra's 2006-07 Resource Accounts.[1] The National Audit Office has responded by conducting its own study of financial management across Defra and its delivery bodies. Its report is likely to appear in early 2008.

18. It became apparent in November 2007 that Defra was requiring cuts in its programmes and delivery bodies from financial year 2008-09 even though it had received a real terms budget increase for the next three financial years under the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007. We took evidence from the Permanent Secretary at short notice and she confirmed the pressures that her budgets were under and that she was seeking savings of £270m from existing budgets in order to meet the new priorities set by ministers. In addition, the Department needed to make a further £50m of savings on administration in the remaining four months of the 2007-08 financial year in order to keep within its administration budget of £269m and meet its existing efficiency target. We intend to take further evidence on Defra's budget and how it is allocating money to its priorities early in 2008.

Public Service Agreements

19. We examined both the Permanent Secretary and the Secretary of State on their existing and new PSA targets in oral evidence, and also took written evidence from the Department. Our forthcoming inquiry into the potential of England's rural economy will indicate how well Defra has met its existing PSA target on enhancing opportunity in rural England.

Work of Defra's associated public bodies

20. British Waterways (BW), a public corporation, was one of Defra's delivery bodies affected by the in-year budget cuts in 2006-07. We subsequently inquired (through a Sub-committee chaired by David Drew MP) into how BW was working towards its ambition of an expanding and largely self-sufficient inland waterways network. We concluded that lower grant levels in the coming years would put at risk BW's ability to keep the network to an acceptable standard and we called on Defra to ensure funding to BW to fulfil its responsibility for this vital public asset. We also recommended that BW be allowed to be given more commercial freedom and to be able to gain financially from planning developments at its waterside. Other departments should also contribute to BW to reflect the work it did to further their agendas.

21. Our most unexpected finding was that relations between BW and Defra had recently been tense. The responsible minister had criticised BW in public on a number of grounds, and it appeared that BW and the Department were not communicating clearly enough. We called for a fresh start under the new minister.

22. Our current inquiry into flooding has involved us examining the role of, and taking evidence from, the Environment Agency.

Major appointments

23. We heard evidence on 23 October from the new Secretary of State, Rt Hon Hilary Benn, on his priorities for Defra.

Implementation of legislation and major policy initiatives

24. We inquired into the implementation in England of a piece of European Union legislation, the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD). This has the purpose of making the polluter responsible for serious environmental damage in certain circumstances. Not only did compromises at the EU level make the Directive complex, but member states were given wide discretion as to how to implement it. We concluded that Defra's consultation on this matter had been undermined by the Government's statement in advance that it would not go beyond the minimum requirements other than in exceptional circumstances. We argued that the Government needed to provide a proper justification for its policy choices, and not just rely on its 'minimum implementation' mantra. This was particularly important in cases where its own cost-benefit analysis showed that there would be benefit from going beyond the minimum requirements of the Directive (for example bringing nationally-protected biodiversity within its ambit, not just EU-protected biodiversity). The Government is still to announce its final policy choices on implementing the ELD following its consultation and our Report.

Informing debates in the House

25. Two substantial Reports from us—The Rural Payments Agency and the implementation of the Single Payments Scheme and The UK Government's 'Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy'—were debated on an Estimates day debate in the House on 9 July. This allowed the House as a whole to discuss two related subjects of great financial and policy importance, and to debate the issues of accountability that we raised in the former Report. It was also the first debate on agriculture in the House for several years.

26. There was a 90 minute debate in Westminster Hall on British Waterways on 25 April. With the permission of the Member in charge of the debate, oral evidence we had heard from British Waterways on 12 March, and from the responsible minister only two days before, was listed as relevant to the debate and was referred to by Members.

Evidence from Ministers

27. In addition to hearing evidence from the new Secretary of State on his priorities (see above), we heard evidence from ministers in connection with our inquiries into the Climate Change Bill (Rt Hon David Miliband, then Secretary of State), on Climate Change: the "citizen's agenda" and the Environmental Liability Directive (Ian Pearson), on British Waterways (Barry Gardiner) and on Badgers and Cattle TB: the final report of the ISG (Lord Rooker).