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Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee

Sustainability in the Ministry of Justice inquiry

Closed Opened 7 Mar 2017 Closed 3 May 2017

Environmental Audit Committee Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗

Inquiry scope (the committee's words)
The Environmental Audit Committee is calling for written evidence about the role that sustainability plays in the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) departmental policy-making, governance, procurement and operations. This will compliment work carried out by the National Audit Office and underpin a one-off hearing with the Department.

Where it stands

The inquiry is closed, opened 7 March 2017.

The committee has published 1 report, most recently 3rd Report - The Ministry of Justice: Environmental Sustainability on 2 February 2018.

The government's response

Published 18 May 2018.

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The Ministry of Justice accepts some of the Committee's recommendations, including publishing sustainability strategies and the costs and benefits of new policies, but does not accept the call for an annual analysis of environmental cost cases.

  • On environmental justice costs, the MoJ says it "does not accept the Committee's recommendation to publish an annual analysis". It will formally review the regime "when it has sufficient data to do so (which is likely to be within two years, that is by April 2020)".
  • On greenhouse gases, the MoJ proposes a new target of a 38% reduction by 2020 against the 2009/10 baseline, compared with the earlier 22% target, which it says it has already met.
  • It accepts the recommendation to publish its sustainability strategies, stating it has done so on GOV.UK, and "plans to publish a Water Strategy by December 2018".
  • It accepts the recommendation to publish energy benchmarking results "by spring 2019" and commits to setting carbon reduction targets for each prison during 2018. It will review options for waste and water targets during 2018/19.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error

Reports

All reports

Recent activity

Reports

1 report