On the day that the winds blew, storms surged and we experienced the highest tides in nearly sixty years, the Chancellor delivered his 2013 Autumn Statement on the “fairest economic wind” that has blown since the devastating financial crash of 2007-08.
However, despite the green shoots of growth that have emerged since the Budget earlier this year, the public finances are far from fixed, and the deficit remains amongst the highest in Europe. Therefore, the Chancellor was keen to stress the need for a “responsible” recovery, one that is secure for the long-term. This meant, amongst other measures, further departmental budget cuts. Across Whitehall, the Chancellor has sought out cuts of 1.1% over each of the next two financial years. This means that the Defra budget has been cut by an additional £37 million over the next two years. These cuts come on top of the deep cuts already announced in the comprehensive spending review earlier this year, meaning that the Defra budget will be nearly half its 2010 level by 2015-16 in real terms (I have written previously about this here).
In light of these announcements, it is right to contemplate what a “responsible” recovery might look for the natural environment. We know that nature is in trouble and that there is a growing gap between stated political ambition and available resources (see my blog here). In such a fiscally constrained world, we need some big and bold decisions.
The first thing we need is for Ministers to make the right decisions about the scarce resources they do have at their disposal. That means they must find the funds to support wildlife friendly farming through agri-environment schemes. It's not difficult - they have the opportunity through their approach to implementing the Common Agriculture Policy. As they finalise decisions, they must be acutely conscious of the need to demonstrate good value of taxpayers money and be true to their commitments to recover threatened wildlife.
In the toughest economic conditions faced for a generation, it would be scandalous if the CAP money (£2 billion per annum) was not made to work hard to help farmers recover threatened wildlife improve the environment.
And then, we need to start thinking about new and innovative ways to tackle the funding gap for nature conservation (actually, we have explored some of these ideas before).
Environmental protection and economic prosperity go hand-in-hand; as the Chancellor commented today in his statement, “...going green doesn’t have to cost the earth”. The business-led Ecosystem Markets Task Force report published earlier this year showed that there is considerable potential for the private sector to benefit from some of the new market opportunities that valuing nature correctly could provide. However, the Government has a key role to play. Despite the best efforts of some businesses to take advantage of such opportunities, markets continue to consistently undervalue the environment, meaning that that those businesses who try to “do the right thing” face strong competitive pressures to do only the minimum required to comply with existing regulatory standards. One of the key findings to emerge from the EMTF review was that, in order to develop and grow greener markets in ecosystem goods and services or even to establish new mechanisms such as biodiversity offsets, the Government needs to help create the right legal and regulatory conditions for these markets to flourish. I’ll explore some of these ideas in more detail in the New Year.
The point is, this or any future government cannot afford to be passive. They have to find ways to make it easier for people to do the right thing.
That's enough economic chat for now though. My thoughts now are with those people and places that are still being battered by the wind and waves...
That finished earlier than I anticipated - I meant to say by far and away the most frequent commentators on this blog. Thank you for all your words of wisdom and advice.
Redkite and Nightjar - well said both of you. Oh and thanks for your loyal support throughout the year. You are by for nadand www
Cuts and efficiency are two different countries, despite the tendency of politicians to use them as if they were the same. This Government is big on cuts and Defra in particular disastrous on efficiency. Nowhere is this clearer than in forestry policy. Wood for energy is one of those rare win-win opportunities: managing more woods can build new business (current estimates go as high as a cool £600m per annum, probably more than Government would have got for the one off sale of the nations public forests), de-carbonise the economy (the Government's Woodfuel Strategy suggests by as much as heating 250,000 homes) and tackle the single biggest cause of the decline in woodland birds - lack of woodland management. BUT that needs to the right sort of management and to achieve that owners with no management experience need the right advice and the right grant aid 'pointers'. Instead, the advisory arm of the Forestry Commission is as up in the air as much as the FC forests following the aborted plans to merge it with Natural England - and it continues to be cut. This years FC Corporate Plan sets ambitious targets for bringing woodland into management - in fact, targets that would easily achieve the Woodfuel Strategy target of 250,000 hectares back in management by 2020 - but its hard to see how that is going to be achieved. It really would be great if both Defra and FC, with partners like RSPB, could stop all the organisational shilly shallying and just get behind the good, clear deliverable of making more and more woodland management really happen - great for the economy, great for greening and great for the birds.
There are really two aspects in respect of tackling biodiversity loss. There is, as you rightly point out Martin, the current acute problems of funding and smaller budgets and, as you say, the need to use imagination to explore and identify alternative sources of finance.
The second aspect is the implementation and better enforcement of laws and regulations.For example the designating many more Marine Conservation Zones and much better protection for our birds of prey generally especially hen harriers on grouse moors and golden eagles. Efforts in these directions by the Government would cost very little and could be very effective in this time of very limited budgets. There is therefore much the Government can do that does not involve spending large sums of money. The Government should not hide behind the excuse that lack of funds means they cannot effectively tackle biodiversity loss. The nub of the question is do they have the will for the task? Unfortunately not really, at least it has not been demonstrated so far.