Speeches by Reed.

“Growth is essential, isn’t it, because the economy has flatlined for well over a decade now. If we do not grow the economy, we do not get the revenues to reinvest in our broken public services, and the British people will not get the pay rises that they so desperately need after 10 years of having their incomes flatlin…”

“Streamline does not mean weaken. If you look at what has been going on up until now, we have had a flatlining economy and nature in retreat. The old system has not worked for economic growth, and it has not worked for nature. It was failing everywhere. Our intention is to streamline regulation but maintain the environm…”

“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…”

“It makes more sense to publish the refreshed EIP with resources, delivery plans and responsibilities and then have that as the plan for the next five years taking us to 2030, just so that the whole sector has certainty about what we are working towards and how we intend to get there rather than at some point along the …”

“I am very sympathetic to what you have said there. You may have pressed my colleagues on the same point; I know you have had Minister Creagh here as well. We will be making an announcement in due course. It is difficult for me to go further than that, Barry, but I am very sympathetic to the points you have made. I know…”

“I am happy to get you a written response to that one as well. As Sally just said, we are looking at our regulators across the piece. We will have more to say when we have been able to complete that piece of work but, on the specifics you have raised there, we will write back to you.”

“We have restated our commitment to 30 by 30 as well. We recognise the importance of MPAs in achieving those targets.”

“That is right. We have been doing work on that with other Departments, particularly DESNZ. I am going to defer to my colleague.”

“Resourcing will be a key element of our ability to deliver on those targets, but I am not going to speculate about what will be in the spending review, not least because the decisions have not been taken yet. I will make my case, as will colleagues in other parts of Government. It is not just me as a Secretary of State…”

“Absolutely. That is why we have been co-producing it with the ENGOs and other stakeholders. If you are looking at the people who have the best experience of what is going on with nature and the environment, they are right up there with them and they have very important views. I wanted to make sure that they were fully …”

“We also want to rationalise the targets to make sure that they are all deliverable and should be in there. So we have not been working on our own; we have been taking an approach based on co-production with the ENGOs in particular, but other stakeholders as well, in looking at the review of the EIP. All of that will fe…”

“I am not going to make the same mistake I made at the EFRA Committee and not bring my colleagues in, so I will just give them some notice that after I have answered your question if they have anything to add to it, they would be most welcome. You will appreciate, I am sure, that I cannot anticipate what we are going to…”

“She is a good chief of her organisation.”

“I cannot anticipate what will come out of the spending review. It is no secret to anybody the very difficult financial circumstances this Government inherited and the difficulty to find resources to increase funding until we have secured growth in the economy. As things stand, in our current business planning we are lo…”

“It will have an enormous impact. I had a conversation with the guy from the US State Department who was responsible for the new US embassy being built in the Nine Elms area. He had been there for decades, and he had built new US embassies in countries all over the world. He said the level of red tape and delay in the U…”

“My colleagues may have other things to add, but I am working very closely with the Department of Health and Social Care on food strategy. We are putting together a ministerial group that will be setting up a taskforce involving all appropriate stakeholders so that we can develop a food strategy. That obviously is of hu…”

“Absolutely.”