Lisa Tennant, Chair of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, was named the Government’s preferred Environment Agency Chair on Friday, with MPs to question her on 11 November.
Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle selected Tennant to succeed Alan Lovell, Defra said. Lovell’s term as Chair ends on 31 December 2026.
If the appointment goes ahead, Tennant will take up the post on 1 January 2027 for a four-year term. That is subject to a report from Parliament and a final decision by the Environment Secretary.
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee will hold a joint pre-appointment hearing on 11 November and report on her suitability. Defra said the selection followed a process under the Ministerial Governance Code on Public Appointments.
Pre-appointment hearings are held in public and let a committee take evidence from a minister’s preferred candidate before appointment.
The committees will publish their views, and the Environment Secretary will consider them before deciding whether to continue.
Defra described Tennant as an experienced Chair and board member of environmental and other organisations.
Besides the Scottish regulator, she chairs the NHS Pension Board for England and Wales and is the Regional Energy Strategic Plan Chair for Scotland at the National Energy System Operator.
She is a non-executive director of Smart Energy GB and was appointed by the Health Minister to lead the independent review of the NHS Pensions McCloud Remedy.
Her earlier roles include non-executive director of the Consumer Council for Water and non-executive adviser to Forestry and Land Scotland.
The same two committees held a joint hearing in 2022 with Lovell, whom Defra had named as preferred candidate on 28 June that year. The hearing took place on 5 July, and the committees published their report on 8 July 2022.
They said they were satisfied that Lovell had the professional competence and personal independence required of the Chair. They also said the recruitment and his selection followed the Governance Code.
The committees nonetheless said they were “surprised” that he had not come to more fully researched and formed views on some of the key environmental issues facing the agency. They noted that he had been open about areas, such as air quality, where he would need to develop his expertise.
The report said a committee’s view is not binding on the Government but should inform the ministerial decision on whether to proceed.
A notice for the 2022 hearing described such sessions as more of an introduction to scrutiny than a final job interview for candidates, and a hurdle to deter unsuitable appointments for ministers.
The 2022 report described the Environment Agency as Defra’s largest non-departmental public body, with around 10,600 employees and an annual budget of around £1.4 billion.
Its remit covers industrial emissions, waste, water quality and resources, fisheries, and flood and coastal erosion risk in England.
The 2022 recruitment attracted 21 applicants, of whom seven were interviewed and four were considered appointable. The post then carried pay of £100,000 for a time commitment of three and a half days a week.