Speeches by Tufnell.

“Finally, are you sympathetic to that argument in respect of the doom loop that water companies get themselves into?”

“You mentioned the government-proposed changes in respect of automatic fines and lowering the standard of proof. Do you think there is a danger of overreach when more inspections of monitoring may actually be more of a deterrent?”

“From a performance point of view in terms of investment in that infrastructure, if a water company is saying, “Look, you’re fining us, we get caught in the cycle,” what is your view as an agency on that argument?”

“Yes, let us start with water.”

“I will try to rattle through these. In April last year, you were quite candid in talking about your appetite for risk in terms of enforcement. You said the EA had an issue with legal risk. Philip, I wanted to ask about enforcement undertakings and particularly whether you think that these are sufficient for improving l…”

“You have mounted a robust defence of the Environment Agency this morning. I have looked at your CV in terms of you being at the Home Office, Border Force, then there is Treasury, now the Environment Agency. You have seen politicians come and go. We have been talking a lot about the growth agenda and the priorities of t…”

“Have you used your new power to impose unlimited fines?”

“So the rate of return is not there and, on top of that, there is no facility or mechanism by which those propositions can be passed through to private sector investors—or if there is, it is not working as well as it should.”

“You referred to social capital as one of the restrictions on former industrial communities. Do you view planning as one of the key barriers, with the level of complexity that is often required to get these projects off the ground?”

“I want to continue on the theme of community ownership, but not in respect of the valleys, as I represent Mid and South Pembrokeshire. I have seen great examples of community-owned renewable energy in onshore wind and wind turbines, often requiring huge input from fantastic capable volunteers. What do you think the mos…”

“We have talked a lot about the physical infrastructure and the need for public money, whether that is the UK shared prosperity fund or the former funds in respect of the European Union. I wonder what role you think there is for local authorities to be more proactive in providing investable propositions to mobilise on t…”

“That is helpful. Are you able to give a bit of detail in terms of the types of products and the country of origin?”

“We talked a lot about the SPS agreement, about dynamic alignment and potential exemptions to that, precision breeding being potentially one of them. Do you expect to make amendments to your draft guidance in the event of that? How are you preparing?”

“I am curious as to when you think the first precision-bred products will appear on our supermarket shelves.”

“Do you think mandatory labelling plays a part in that consumer trust? Do you think that is an important point?”

“Yes.”

“There is an impact, from a regulatory standpoint, on things such as traceability if you are looking at foreign third markets, or, if we as a country are looking to gain first-mover advantage, looking at the time it takes in respect of getting on a national list, for example. How do you view those two? There have been c…”

“Do you think that there is a reputational risk for the UK in terms of there being a lack of oversight of products entering into the market first?”

“You brought up the John Innes Centre, and the Committee visited that. There were concerns raised at the roundtable in respect to the tier 2 point that you have alluded to already, about whether that was too burdensome.”

“Can I go back to the traceability and labelling point that we talked about earlier? In respect to the organic sector and devolved Administrations, concerns have been raised. I think the Soil Association has raised concerns. What is your view on that? How are you addressing those concerns?”