Speeches by Reed.

“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…”

“We are going to respond to that by May of this year, so you will not have to wait long. My colleagues will not be grateful if I spike their announcements by preannouncing it here.”

“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…”

“Again, I could be concerned about what they are doing, and we can use our relationships to try to encourage them to do better as we would see it, but it is not within my gift to make them. What I am responsible for as part of this Government is making sure that our Government meet their commitments. We remain committed…”

“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,…”

“No.”

“I guess it is the same with any international gathering of that kind. You always hope it will deliver the max. The reality is that in tough negotiations, compromises inevitably must be made. I thought what was positive was the leading role that the UK played at COP16. I lost count of the number of times that representa…”

“Generally. The economy has flatlined for over a decade and nature has still been in retreat, so clearly the approaches that were being taken were not working.”

“This will have to work for rural communities as well. We have set up a rural taskforce bringing together a whole range of stakeholders from the sector and across Government to make sure that happens. What is needed is investment in appropriate infrastructure, and I am sure there will be more announcements made over the…”

“We are consulting very widely on this. I do not remember who is speaking in the debate, but my colleague Matt Pennycook I am sure will have an awful lot to say on this. You will have a chance to grill him in the Chamber as well. What we have had so far has failed everyone. It has failed developers, it has failed people…”

“We have already started doing it, yes.”

“Absolutely.”

“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…”

“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…”