From Stuart Agnew (UKIP)
18 April 2005
Coastal Erosion is classed as an environmental issue and we gave up the power over our environmental decisions when Mrs Thatcher signed the Single European Act. The Minister for the Environment in the subsequent years,John Gummer, had a policy of Managed Retreat not unlike the present Governments Shoreline Management Plan. These policies do not attract adverse attention from the EU as long as they adhere in general principle to the EU's thinking on the subject.
The EU has adopted a policy called Marine Integrated Coastal Zone Management. They have also set up a body called Eurosion who have produced a booklet called Living with coastal erosion in Europe. The very title of this brochure is not at all encouraging and gives a clue to our present Governments policy.
The EU have recommended that their own guidance is sought by member States on the coastal erosion issue which will feature in something they call their Sixth Community Environment Action Plan
It can be seen from this that candidates for Westminster and their Parties cannot put firm alternative manifesto pledges in front of voters because they do not have the authority to do so. It might be argued that it is possible for our Environment Minister to go to the Council of Ministers in Brussels and try to get a 66% majority vote to change the policy. [5 of the 25 countries have no coastline, and for several others erosion is not a threat]However that is trying to make the EU system work in reverse and is as far as I know [on an official level at least] cannot be done. This is because the only people in the entire EU who can initiate new laws are the 25 unelected Commissioners. It is they who put proposals to the Council of Ministers and not the other way round. Representations to MEPs are likely to be a waste of time as their job is merely to rubber stamp new laws that are put in front of them as a done deal.
Assuming that somehow all these political obstacles are overcome and the EU allows us to do what our voters want about erosion, we come up against another EU problem. This is one of finance.
When John Major signed the Mastricht Treaty he agreed that we would not spend more than 3% of our GDP on capital spending for public works [hospitals, prisons etc]. It soon became apparent that this was never going to be enough and we found a way around it by inventing PFI's [Private funding initiatives]. It is more than likely that because sea defences are only of benefit to a small percentage of people that the capital cost would have to be raised from a PFI. The private firm taking on the work would supply the capital to build the works and lease the sea defences back to the local residents [nobody else would be willing to subscribe]. Such a huge cost having to be bourne by such a small section of the population would probably be unaffordable, and the project would struggle to get off the ground.
The other source of finance would be an EU grant. They would never foot the bill for a comprehensive sea defence from Scarbourgh to London, which means that they would do a short stretch somewhere, displacing the problem elsewhere, creating a lottery of winners and losers.
UKIP believes that the UK should be defended from all-comers including the sea and the EU. There is no restriction on a UKIP govt running an indepedent Britain on how much it can spend or borrow for public works. The technology itself ,as demonstrated at Sea Palling, appears to work so the British taxpayers money would not see their money being thrown down a black hole, in pursuit the ambitious challenge to tackle the whole East Coast.
As North Norfolks MPin Westminster I would constantly goad the Environment Minister with the facts about the politics and the money hoping to bring more people round to the idea that we must regain our ability to run our own country by saying NO to political union with the EU.