Speeches by Reed.

“Again, I should not anticipate what will be in the EIP review because it is not yet drafted, but you will get much greater clarity around that. Obviously, we are not bound by what the EU is doing but, of course, we will look at what decisions it is taking to see whether there is anything there that we wish to learn fro…”

“We have a piece of work looking at regulation as well. I cannot make the announcement on that because we are still assessing that, but in a matter of weeks we will have more to say on that. As I say, we are reviewing the EIP targets. That will give you a lot more data. To clarify, it is the EIP targets, not the EA targ…”

“How is air quality being achieved now with enforcement?”

“Again, when we publish the refreshed EIP, this is going to be a significant part of it. I share the criticisms of the fact that not enough was done under the previous Government on air quality, which is what the OEP was referring to. In the work that we are doing to refresh it, you will have a much clearer sense of wha…”

“There are a lot of ways that we are giving advice to farmers. We are maintaining that, but we have the environmental land management schemes as well. We are working with the sector. I made some announcements earlier this year about a farming road map to support the entire sector to transition to models of food producti…”

“Absolutely. It will identify land that will be most appropriate for solar where it does not, for instance, damage food production in our most productive agricultural land. With that better information available, better decisions can be taken. Yes, I envisage it doing that.”

“There will be some level of material weight, but there is a consultation under way, and I should not anticipate with my own views what the outcome of that will be. We want to hear from the people who we have invited to participate, and we will get that within weeks. However, the intention is that by making this additio…”

“That is right, yes.”

“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…”

“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…”

“Yes.”

“Later this year.”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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,…”

“No, they are stretch targets, but I want them to be reachable. What we inherited was an EIP that was full of targets that had nobody responsible for delivering them, no resources allocated to them and no delivery plan. I know from my business background as well that if you have targets like that, they are not targets a…”

“You mean on the EIP?”

“Of course you have. If anyone were going to have them, it would be you, Barry. Q26            Alison Griffiths: Thank you, Secretary of State. I was interested in the notion that you want to set targets that are achievable. I come from a business background where w…”

“We have heard the concerns raised by the OEP. I share many of those concerns. The work is not finalised yet, but hopefully by the time I next appear before your Committee, you will have a copy of it in your hand, so you will know the answer to that question. You will be able to hold me and my colleagues to account on d…”