Speeches by Reed.

“Do you have a view, Sally?”

“Doing more with less is not a prediction of the spending review, just to be clear about that. It is what any organisation should always seek to do with its resources. If you just rest on your laurels, you go backwards. We should always be looking for better value for every single penny that we ask taxpayers to hand us,…”

“I do not think it is helpful for me to just add my voice to criticisms. We are not the Opposition now; we are the Government. I want to point to what we are doing and by the time we are in a position to write—as I say I want to do it earlier than we are required to—I want there to be more substantive information about …”

“I share its diagnosis of the failings of the previous Government to be honest. I will have made many of those same points myself at various times.”

“There is quite a lot that came out of the report that we had from the OEP, and we will be giving a full response to that. Part of it would be about better co-ordinating across Government and with stakeholders. Part of what they were reporting on was the period before we were elected. I share many of the criticisms. Man…”

“I certainly do think we are pulling our weight. We have done an awful lot to move this agenda forward and to reverse the pretty parlous state that Government policy on nature was in—and that the delivery attached to nature was certainly in—following the general election. I take your point, there are going to be differe…”

“We have more statements than UQs, but we have done them on water, on farming, and on flooding. All of those have impacts on nature. Of course we have orals regularly. We are often part of debates in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall as well. So I do not feel we are hiding nature’s light under a bushel.”

“I would respectfully disagree with you on that. We have had quite a lot of statements and UQs covering my Department. We have had a few recently on water.”

“First of all, it was not a requirement on us to do that. We did a written statement, but I think we can provide more information when we have the full response to the OEP, which will not happen until the matters I mentioned earlier on have been completed. I hope neither you nor the Committee will take that as any lack …”

“Yes, I remember we spoke about that at the time.”

“The OEP is a very important organisation. It holds the Government to account on our delivery of the Environment Act targets, which includes the EIP. It is a very useful source of advice as well. The criticism is constructive. I have a very good relationship with Dame Glenys and the team that she leads at the OEP, and I…”

“Compared with being the Opposition, it is fantastic. It is not easy, and it is not meant to be easy; it is a tough job being part of the Government of the country. It is a tough job being an MP as well at the best of times, and times are challenging as you say. I think we have made a decent start if I am honest. We hav…”

“Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here before the massed ranks of the EAC. When I appeared before the EFRA Committee, I failed to bring in my colleagues so I am going to make a bit more effort to bring them in; their knowledge of the detail inevitably will be better than mine. I am Secretary of State for DEFR…”

“There is a board that pulls together all the Departments and focuses them on delivery. That will remain. That becomes a much more purposeful group when there are resources, delivery plans and responsibilities attached to the targets. We are very aware of the importance of this across Government. It is not for one Depar…”

“We have the environmental principles policy statement as well—EPPS—which places a duty on all Ministers to take decisions in line with those principles. My colleague Mary Creagh, the Minister for Nature, is leading work on engaging with other Government Departments as we want to make sure that everybody is aligned towa…”

“First, I am pleased that you welcome the land use framework. That was a very significant announcement and will be a key set of tools to help landowners and the Government take the right decisions for how we use our land. We have a limited amount of land for the size of our population and we make many demands of that la…”

“Later this year.”

“Yes.”

“There is the national planning policy framework and the clean energy infrastructure as well, which are all part of making use of the land. It would be crazy to have three spatial strategies that did not interrelate, so they will all interrelate. The Departments are talking to each other to make sure that they effective…”

“The ones that you have just referred to are probably some of the biggest there. Local plans will be taking this information, and it will inform decisions that they place into their local frameworks. When we are looking at where we need to put housing and the new data centres or gigafactories, what is the water supply t…”