SMOKE POLLUTION

HC Deb 27 February 1951 vol 484 cc2047-58

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Sparks.]

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood (Rossendale)

Although it is only six months since this question of smoke pollution was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Small Heath (Mr. F. Longden), I make no apology for raising it again tonight. It is now 645 years since Parliament first concerned itself with the nuisance caused by smoke and it seems that the rate of progress depends on the impatience and persistence with which we urge the need for action.

What the public often fail to appreciate is that when coal is burned in such a way as to foul the air it is being used uneconomically. As the Minister of Fuel and Power has pointed out, it is no longer true to say, Where there's muck there's money. The truth is that where there is muck there is waste; indeed, it has been estimated that so uneconomically do we use our resources that we waste as much as 80 million tons of coal a year. I do not want to put the case as strongly as that tonight, although I do not want to minimise the importance of fuel conservation from the national point of view.

An inefficient fireman who allows his chimney to belch out black smoke can waste as much coal in one day as a skilled miner can produce. Dr. Parker, the Director of Fuel Research for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, has estimated that of the 190 million tons of coal we burned in 1948, 7,250,000 tons went straight into the air in the form of 2 million tons of tarry smoke, over 500,000 tons of grit and 4,750,000 tons in the form of sulphur. In other words, we blew the work of 25,000 miners straight up the chimney and the air is fouled as far afield as the South-West Coast of Ireland and the Isle of Man where it has been said that they could tell when the wind was blowing from Lancashire because the white sheep turned grey. That waste alone is bad enough, but it is not the whole picture.

Those of us concerned with this problem of dirty air have a number of charges to add to the indictment. We believe dirt and smoke are bad for health. They ruin our buildings. They damage our agriculture. They make for drabness and depression in the industrial areas. It is not possible to calculate the total cost, but it seems improbable that it is less than £200 million a year. Let me take first the charge on grounds of health. The deposit of solid matter from the air varies from as little as 10 tons per square mile per year in the rural areas to as much as 2,000 tons per square mile per year in the worst industrial areas. I think it is probably true that between 400 and 500 tons per square mile per year is a fairly typical figure for our industrial areas, and it is there we have to look for the chief damage to health.

Sir Sylvanus Vivian, a former Registrar-General, has said that one of the reasons why the urban mortality rate is higher than that in the countryside is that the smoke from factories and houses reduces the effective sunshine. He has also pointed out that the mortality rate of children under five suffering from bronchitis and pneumonia is heaviest in Lancashire and in the West Riding of Yorkshire because of the smoke and the attendant fog and deprivation of sunshine.

Sir Alexander Macgregor, a former medical officer of health for Glasgow, has said that smoke may reduce the ultra violet radiation by anything from 50 per cent. to 80 per cent. and in the worst cases even more. It has been established that after periods of smoky fog, or "smog" as the Americans aptly call it, the death rate from respiratory diseases, for example, pneumonia and bronchitis, soars in the industrial areas. It seems that there is no direct connection between polluted air and the development of tuberculosis, but it seems fairly clear that a dirty atmosphere exacerbates the disease and may in the long run hasten death. There seems, on the other hand, a good deal of evidence for saying that there is a direct connection between smoke pollution and cancer of the lung. The smoke in the atmosphere contains various carcinogenic substances—I think that is the term—which include arsenic.—Doctor Stocks, also of the Registrar-General's Department, has summed up the position in these words: Either smokiness of the atmosphere is an important factor in producing cancer of the lung, or sunshine is an important factor in preventing its incidence. I think it is only fair to add that at present research is being carried out into this problem by the Medical Research Council under the direction of Sir Ernest Kennaway.

My second charge is on grounds of damage to agriculture and natural life. In East Lancashire the pollution of the atmosphere is such that land in the Rossendale Valley needs an extra five hundredweight of lime per acre per year to put it into good heart. Around the Burnley district the figure is nearer half a ton. In the same area the dirt in the atmosphere kills the clover and makes the grass poor and coarse. There are a number of reasons for that. In the first place, smoke blocks out the sunlight. Second, the deposit of dirt on the leaves blocks out the sunlight and suffocates plants because it prevents them from breathing. Third, acids in the air lower the vitality of the plants; and last, acids in the soil make it sour and reduce its fertility.

I think the most interesting research into this aspect of the problem has been carried on in Leeds where it has been shown that lettuces sown on the outskirts grow to three times the size of those sown at the same time in the industrial area. Evergreens in the suburbs are five times as big as ones of like age in areas like Hunslet. In the centre of the city privet loses its leaves by November whereas in the suburbs it is green throughout the year. That is a terrible indictment of the smoke in cities like Leeds. To come nearer to Westminster, hon. Members will know that almost the only tree which flourishes in London is the London plane. The reason is that the plane sheds its bark every year and so avoids being suffocated by a coat of dirt. Even at Kew, a comparatively clean part of London, the dirt is so great that the National Collection of Conifers has had to be transferred to Kent.

Other effects of pollution are difficult to assess. All one knows is, to give one example, that the laundry bills in Manchester are much higher than in Harrogate. Chain stores find that their bills for decoration in industrial areas are twice those in the country. The joint stock banks spend far more on cleaning in the smoke ridden cities than in the rural areas. And, perhaps most important of all, the work of the housewife is made infinitely more difficult and infinitely more discouraging, and her curtains and furnishing fabrics rot much more quickly.

In this very Palace of Westminster we have had a painful and expensive lesson in the dangers of smoke pollution which has caused nearly as much damage to the fabric as did Hitler's bombers during the war. Even before the war the damage was estimated by Sir Frank Baines, Director of Works in the then Office of Works, to be about £1 million. Hon. Members have only to walk across Parliament Square to see the disfiguring effects of smoke on Westminster Abbey and St. Margarets Church. In the Chapter House of the Abbey, where Parliament used to meet 600 years ago, the 13th and 14th century paintings have been marred by the poison in the air. Another of our great London monuments, Greenwich Observatory, has been moved away, because the man-made filth made it impossible to observe the stars in their courses.

This is a terrible indictment of the effects of man-made pollution of the atmosphere. It is a terrible story, and one which I do not believe we can allow to continue. I would put to my hon. Friend a number of questions which I hope he will be able to answer. I ask him to tell us what progress is being made towards getting rid of atmospheric pollution. Is he satisfied with what is being done to create smokeless zones, in which Manchester and Salford have pioneered the way?

Mr. L. M. Lever (Manchester, Ardwick)

Manchester was the first to introduce them.

Mr. Greenwood

I am very happy to hear that Manchester was the first. Obviously, it was one of the cities where it was most necessary. It is as well, perhaps, that they have such public spirited civic leaders as my hon. Friend.

I also want to ask whether the Parliamentary Secretary is satisfied with the production of dust extractors and other cleaning machinery for industry. Are we producing enough of the new coal fires recommended by the Fuel Research Station, and are local authorities installing them? Is the National Coal Board pushing ahead with the establishment of low temperature carbonisation plant for the production of smokeless fuel? Are the burning spoil banks of collieries being extinguished? Is my hon. Friend satisfied that we are doing enough to educate industry and the public in the importance of clean air so that the nuisance of dirty air may cease?

Drab and dreary towns are psychologically bad. Smoke and dirt are wasteful and unhealthy, and our people need something better. I hope that this debate will do something to stir the public conscience so that when our young people go walking on what Blake called our clouded hills, they will find them clouded as God intended them to be and not foully befogged by Mammon.

10.12 p.m.

Commander Noble (Chelsea)

I am glad that the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) has had an opportunity to raise this matter. I should like to support him in what he has said. I am afraid that I cannot give the House figures similar to the most interesting statistics that he has given relating to this problem as it affects the whole country, but as a London member I should like to emphasise what he has said about the bad effect of smoke pollution on health and, of course, the very great inconvenience that it causes from many points of view. The root of the problem is that we have to make the makers of smoke as smoke conscious as are the people at the receiving end.

There is absolutely no doubt that people in London, especially those in certain areas, suffer considerably from the dust and grit contained in smoke. Those who had anything to do with convoys during the last war will remember that a ship which made smoke was a great danger not only to itself but to the other ships in a convoy. After a few ships had been sunk because of this, most ships in convoy, and those at sea in general, became smoke conscious, and the position changed. That is the outlook which we must instil into the makers of smoke.

Some of the large organisations in London have taken a lot of trouble on this question. The London Transport Executive which has a large power station at Lots Road in my constituency, has fitted a most extensive plant, over a period of months, which is now 100 per cent. complete. I have seen this plant and the amount of grit that it extracts in a week. It is remarkable to see it and to realise that, if that equipment had not been fitted, those tons of grit would be in the air of London. The British Electricity Authority at Battersea are taking similar action.

There is no doubt that a great deal remains to be done. I wonder whether the gas works in London, for example those at Fulham and Battersea, have taken similar steps to those taken by the national organisations. I would make a plea to the Minister to make certain that all new undertakings, whether national or private, should fit some grit or dust extracting plant. There is one other point which I should like to make in this connection. I understand that in the case of electricity undertakings, it is not the undertaking that Hs to make the decision. It is the Ministry of Fuel and Power which decides whether a new electricity undertaking should fit what is called flue-gas washing equipment. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will discuss this question with his right hon. Friend to make certain that there is never a case where that equipment is not fitted, especially in London.

I was not quite certain who was going to reply to the debate tonight, as I was not sure, in consequence of the recent change-over, whether this subject still remained with the Ministry of Health, but I am glad to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning here in his new capacity, and I hope he will give us a most encouraging reply, and especially to the questions asked by the hon. Gentleman opposite, to show that he is fully conscious of the importance of this problem.

10.16 p.m.

Mr. William Paling (Dewsbury)

I think that we all feel that we owe a debt of gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) for raising this question tonight, for many of us feel that it is a most important question both to the industrial towns and the villages of this country.

It is rather significant that, in my own constituency last week, a very well-known and important individual, who used to live in the town and has a great love for it, had occasion to visit Dewsbury for a semi-civic function. In his opening remarks, he referred to the town in terms something like this: "Dear old, dirty, grimy Dewsbury." He had a genuine love for the town, but apparently, no love at all for its dirt and grime. In towns like Dewsbury, and similar towns in the West Riding, which are situated in a basin, the smoke menace is something quite appalling, and is having a very detrimental effect on health, property and everything else. No matter how hard the local authorities may work to improve their services and amenities, the smoke menace very often undoes most of the work they attempt to do.

There is one point which I would like to bring to the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary. It concerns burning slag heaps. In addition to the smoke of industrial towns, where we also have colliery slag heaps burning away, we get not only the menace of the smoke but that of the sulphur fumes which penetrate into the homes of the people in the vicinity of the slag heaps. I should like the Minister to pay special attention to this problem. During the war, some attention had to be paid to the burning slag heaps, because the fires attracted enemy aeroplanes, and so the fires had to be extinguished. We went a long way towards solving the difficulty at that time, but now we have got back to the old order of things in which the slag heaps are again burning away and it is almost impossible to live in reasonable comfort in their vicinity, according to the direction from which the wind is blowing.

In addition to all that, we get the difficulties with which the housewife has to contend in keeping her home clean and her family healthy. If the Minister can give us any hope that this problem is being dealt with vigorously, in an effort to subdue the menace of smoke and sulphur fumes from chimneys and slag heaps, we shall go away feeling happy.

10.19 p.m.

Mr. Keeling (Twickenham)

I support everything that has been said by the three hon. Members who have spoken, except that on one point I would join issue with the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). He blamed smoke for the fact that the fabric of the Palace of Westminster has had to be refaced recently at a cost of many hundreds of thousands of pounds. That is not due to smoke, but to the fact that the wrong stone was chosen by Barry 100 years ago. Westminster Hall, which is 850 years old, has stood up very much better, and has not had to be refaced to any large extent, which simply shows that William II and Richard II knew a thing or two about the right sort of stone to use in London's climate, which Barry had either forgotten or never learned.

Mr. George Thomas (Cardiff, West)

I wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and to suggest to the Minister that if a man leaves his wireless on and is a public nuisance, something can be done about it, whereas this smoke nuisance, which can be far more evil, can apparently go unrestricted. The approaches to Swansea and South Wales are a dread to motorists and public alike owing to the dreadful smoke problem there. I live in the Rhondda Valley and we used to be smoked out in the days when mining was, its chief industry. In our village, we now have modern factories in place of the mines, and it is a clean, happy little town- ship. I hope that the Minister in reply to the most felicitous speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale will hold out some hope of abating this nuisance wherever it occurs.

10.21 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning (Mr. Lindgren)

I was almost beginning to think that hon. Gentlemen were so delighted with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) that I was not going to get a chance to reply. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale has been devoting a large amount of his time and energy and skill to dealing With river pollution, and I am delighted that he has now turned his attention, and his great gifts also, to the question of the pollution of the atmosphere. As he said, it requires quite a robust constitution and a very strong pair of lungs to flourish in a polluted atmosphere. It is fairly obvious to everyone, I should think, that smoke, dirt and soot inhaled into the lungs must have a deleterious effect on the vigour of the body.

The next point on which I wish to agree most heartily with my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale is the fact that smoke abatement is good business economy. Approaching the smoke problem from two different points of view, it is obvious that smoke abatement and fuel economy go hand in hand. I can assure my hon. Friend that our Ministry work in very close conjunction with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power and his Department, in all aspects of this work. I wish to do the Ministry of Fuel and Power full credit. I have here a whole series of pamphlets and booklets to which I would like to refer if only I had the time—one, for example, on the very point raised by my hon. Friend, that even where all the equipment is efficient, a stoker who is doing his job badly can cause a great deal of damage. The Ministry of Fuel and Power have issued a stoker's manual and run courses for the general education and the better equipment of stokers for carrying out their job.

I cannot quite agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) when he suggests that there is not even a legal code to deal with smoke nuisance.

Mr. G. Thomas

It is not very effective.

Mr. Lindgren

There is the Public Health Act, 1936, which embodies the provisions of previous Acts from the time of the introduction of railways in the 1840's.

I must say that, so far as the evidence I have been able to obtain is concerned, local authorities take their job very seriously. But, of course, their problems vary in degree, as do their opportunities of dealing with them. Last week-end I was in the City of Stoke. The problem there is widely different from that in the town where I live, Welwyn Garden City, and the resultant condition of the atmosphere has no direct relationship to the desire or energy of the local authority. Both authorities have, in fact, done their job as well as circumstances permit.

One of the problems is that under the Public Health Act, 1936, unless it is black smoke that is emitted it is a defence to prove that the best practicable means have been used to eliminate the nuisance. That lets out quite a large number of instances where there could be improvement. My own Ministry is always available to local authorities when they are in difficulty with any special problem. We are freely at their disposal although, of course, we wait until we are asked before we come to their help. That help is frequently asked for where there are special difficulties with special industries, and we have often been able to assist.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale referred to the question of smokeless zones. My hon. Friend the Member for Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever) has left the Chamber, but I cannot let Manchester get away with it. If they thought of a smokeless zone first they were not the first to put it into practice. There is only one local authority which has a smokeless zone in operation. It is the City of Coventry. The Manchester zone does not come into effect until 1952. To do Manchester credit, however, they had to have a period of delay so that industrialists within the designated area should have the opportunity to make the necessary changes in the supply of power for their factories.

There are other local authorities who have taken special powers. It is possible for local authorities to take power by a local Act. There is a model Clause available for Private Bills and my right hon. Friend hopes to see local authorities taking greater advantage of local Acts to bring this about. The model Clause is there and we are watching the Coventry experiment with great interest. We shall watch all the other experiments to see whether we can bring this into general legislation later.

Smokeless zones, of course, depend very largely upon the planning of the area. If, as one finds in Sheffield, there are domestic properties and factories mixed up higgledy-piggledy, we know, being realistic and appreciating that we have to live, it is impossible to bring those areas into smokeless zones. Where factories are sparsely spread in the area and where the industries are of a type where a change of power is a practicable proposition negotiations are undertaken with the people concerned. The question is whether or not they can change over to smokeless solid fuel, gas or electricity.

That brings me to the question of whether industry generally is being as co-operative as it might be. The evidence I have is that it is, if not from the point of view of smoke abatement then because it has been shown to industrialists that it is a paying proposition to abate the nuisance. However, with the best will in the world, industrialists cannot get all the machinery they want for the change over. The production of that machinery is being facilitated and industrialists are taking advantage of it whenever and wherever they can. As for London, as a good Cockney I can only say that even in my short life there has been considerable improvement in conditions and that the real smut "pea-soupers" we used to have no longer come our way.

Other measures are being taken. Reference has been made to domestic supplies. I see it is claimed by some people, particularly some industrialists, that pollution by domestic users of fuel is greater than that by industry. That seems rather to be drawing a long bow—

Mr. Keeling

It is true in London.

Mr. Lindgren

As far as new housing estates are concerned, there has been co-operation between my Ministry and the Ministry of Fuel and Power and a group of solid fuel appliances has been approved.

The Question having been proposed at Ten o'Clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half-past Ten o'Clock.