§ 4.0 p.m.
§ Mr. John Page (Harrow, West)I am fortunate that this subject has been selected for debate this afternoon. Since my speech will be reduced to a length of 10 or 12 minutes, the House will understand if certain points are compressed.
This is the first opportunity which has occurred for a debate on environmental pollution since the statement by the Prime Minister on 11th December. He then made two new announcements. The first was that the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning was setting up a central unit to study environmental pollution, which he is to keep under his own hand at the Ministry. It is to consist mainly of scientists and coordinators.
The Prime Minister also announced a new standing Royal Commission to advise on national and international matters concerned with pollution. Through them the best possible advice will be made available to Government Departments.
Co-ordination of research and filtering and initiation of advice is all very fine, but what seems to be missing is the opportunity for action. I hope, therefore, that the Parliamentary Secretary in his reply will address himself to the following question: how can the Secretary of State translate the research and advice into action?
In this country in my opinion we concentrate far too much on research and development in the matter of industrial endeavour and devote far too little to their application. We seem to be falling 1843 into the same trap in the Government Department concerned.
The Secretary of State is an extremely busy man, but has no Parliamentary Secretary or Under-Secretary of State to assist him. How much time can he alone devote to passing on the advice given him? How much priority will be given to his recommendations for action by other Departments? I hope that the Prime Minister will give every assistance to the Secretary of State to see that he gets full backing.
I will give the Parliamentary Secretary some good red meat about vehicles to get his teeth into, or perhaps a better analogy would be a gas chamber for him to get out of. This matter involves the effect of motor vehicles on the environment and the incidence of noise, fumes and rubbish. Who was it who said that one's own car is one's own priceless possession and everybody else's is an invention of the devil? Until the advent of television, the motor car undoubtedly caused the greatest social changes of the century. We must find a way of living with the motor vehicle rather than being dominated by it.
I wish to take three features of pollution by vehicles which impinge on environment. First, noise; secondly, air pollution by exhausts; and thirdly the intentional or unintentional disposal of rubbish around the roadside and countryside by vehicles on the move.
I appreciate that a good deal of research into noise and the effect of vehicles is being undertaken by Government research departments and by the motoring industry itself. This is admirable and I come to a very important point. Concerning the standards of noise and fumes required of manufacturers, it is extremely important that there should be international agreement. If we in this country are more alert to the dangers of pollution than certain other countries, with the possible exception of the United States, we could damage this industry, in which I have an indirect interest, if we enforced higher standards than are needed, particularly in the international markets, for our heavy and light motor vehicles.
I was pleased that there was an international aspect to the Royal Commission 1844 and I hope that the Secretary of State and the Royal Commission will concentrate on trying to achieve international standards to deal with vehicle pollution. That is the high-level side of the matter. But it does not need a high-level committee to tell hon. Members—or any of my constituents in Harrow—about the effect of noise from heavy vehicles.
There must be many towns and villages which, because they are now on a by-pass between trunk routes, are subject in the early hours of the morning to the passing of a large number of heavy vehicles going, for example, from the South of England up the M1.
Many of those heavy vehicles go through my constituency. For example, there is a charming residential road called Headstone Lane at the bottom of which are some traffic lights, and then a slope. From 4 a.m. onwards the sound of heavily, accelerating motor vehicles disturbs the sleep and the happiness of the residents. The vibration can also damage houses. A new bridge has recently been opened, and this might take away some of the heavy through traffic.
What are the main causes of noise? One is insufficient silencing, and in this connection the Government must continue to press manufacturers to improve their standards. Another is the overloading of vehicles so that, for example, a heavy goods vehicle works at higher revs and makes a greater noise than it need do. Bad maintenance also causes noise.
Another noise factor is the use of private property for testing motor bicycles and sports cars. In Alexandra Avenue, in my constituency, peaceful rest in the garden or inside the house is almost impossible on a Sunday afternoon because of the din caused by motor bicycles being tuned. The effects of noise were explained in a report by the Hounslow Medical Officer of Health. Noise also causes damage to property. There was an interesting article in the Sunday Times recently on the dangers to Beverley Minster cause by vehicles driving near the Minster.
The Home Secretary has told me that in 1968 there were 13,300 prosecutions for vehicle noise annoyance, other than through the sounding of a horn. This 1845 figure seems substantial. I shall ask the Home Secretary to see if that figure can be split up. It will be interesting to see if it can.
Then there is the problem of fumes from diesel and petrol engines caused by imperfect combustion. The conventional engine has not changed in basic design from that invented by Otto Benz 99 years ago. The diesel engine produces disgusting black fumes which dirty people's cloths and disintegrate nylon stockings. These black fumes are caused mainly by the overtaxing of the engine or bad maintenance.
The petrol engine, however, which produces carbon monoxide fumes, is a greater danger mainly because it is an invisible danger. I do not know if you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are addicted to the "Rowan and Martin Laugh In" on television on Sunday nights, but on that programme there are constant reference to conditions in Los Angeles due to fumes from vehicles. Leaving the Palace of Westminster in the rush hour on a summer's evening one is faced with the heavy smell of carbon monoxide coming from vehicles. This causes a considerable health hazard.
I have been informed by the Home Secretary that in 1966, 1967 and 1968 there were between 2,000 and 3,000 convictions in connection with the excessive emission of fumes from vehicles. That is a surprisingly small number and I reckon that one day spent on the M4 could produce 2,000.
Grit and other substances fall from lorries and the Minister will be aware of the trials that the users of the M4 had to undergo when about a hundred windscreens were disintegrated in two days partly because of the road surface —a subject which is no part of this debate—and partly because gravel had dropped from a gravel lorry. We also see paper, wood and board blowing about over the road.
Then there is the problem of the dumping by the roadside of old cars, mattresses and other rubbish. The Home Secretary informed me that since 1959 there had never been more than 2,800 convictions under the Litter Act, which is not a large enough number.
My conclusions are that certain residential roads should be closed to lorries 1846 at night. Commercial vehicles should always, when on the move, have a cover over their loads to prevent whatever they are carrying from being blown off. There should be an experimental environmental police patrol for an experimental period with the job—for, say, a period of two weeks in an area—of checking on the effects of pollution, noise and the discarding of rubbish. If convictions are made, both companies and drivers should be hurt by the fines or other penalties that are imposed.
I hope that the Secretary of State will have power to co-ordinate the activities of the Home Office, Board of Trade, Ministry of Technology, Ministry of Housing and Local Government and any other Departments that are concerned with these matters and that next year we will be able to enjoy a happier Christmas because it will be a quieter, more sweet smelling and cleaner one.
§ 4.14 p.m.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown)The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) has raised a large subject of great importance, and the House should be indebted to him for having raised it. It is a pity that we reach it at this late hour. Everyone agrees that the motor vehicle, with all its advantages to modern society, has had a major impact for the worse on our physical environment.
At present most of our urban areas consist of complex networks of streets, flanked with residential and commercial buildings, and carrying progressively larger volumes of mixed traffic. This is an inevitable consequence of the way our cities have grown, the way in which they work, and the speed with which they can be rebuilt. Within this relatively static urban framework, improvement of the environment must mean improvement of vehicles the elimination of excessively noisy vehicles, smoky vehicles and derelict vehicles. The hon. Member has given vivid examples based on his own and his constituents' experience of vehicles causing offence in these ways. I shall try to identify precisely who the culprits are and to say what the Government are doing to bring them to book.
First, noise. Noise deserves to be dealt with first because it is the most inescapable of the offensive by-products 1847 of motor transport. Traffic noise is the all-pervasive background to life in a modern city. But we must not think of traffic noise as a sudden new problem. The need to control noise from vehicles was recognised in the early days of the motor vehicle and a number of regulations were made in the first decade of this century. These regulations are still on the Statute Book. They require that vehicles should be fitted with an efficient exhaust silencer. The require road users to refrain from making an excessive noise. In particular, motorists must maintain the silencers on their vehicles in good order and they must not sound their horns in built-up areas at night or when the vehicle is stationary.
These early regulations recognise what is an important distinction. Most noise from road vehicles results from the inherent design of the vehicle, but over and above this there is the extra noise that results when a vehicle is badly maintained or irresponsibly used. The first type of noise can only be reduced at the manufacturing stage—the early regulations simply require an exhaust silencer to be fitted. The second type of noise is the responsibility of the road user. A goods vehicle may clatter because it is badly loaded; a "banger" may live up to its name because the exhaust system is full of holes; the driver of a high performance car or motor cycle can make a quite unnecessary noise by revving through the gears; there are those who sound horns and slam their car doors unnecessarily in the small hours; and there are other examples of socially irresponsible types with which it is difficult to deal. Thus two types of measure are needed—measures to improve the design of new vehicles so that they are less noisy when manufactured, and here the problem is one of economics and engineering feasibility. Beyond this we need measures to improve standards of maintenance and driver behaviour—here the main problem is one of enforcement. I shall say a few words about each of these problems.
First, the design of new vehicles. Right up till 1968 there was no control on the design of new vehicles from the point of view of noise reduction except for the requirement to fit an efficient exhaust silencer. This lack of control had its worst effects on the development of heavy 1848 vehicles. During the 1960's larger diesel engines were developed and the noise output of individual heavy vehicles increased. This coupled with the general growth in the numbers of vehicles of all kinds is largely responsible for the worsening of the noise environment over this period.
The effect of the regulations brought in last year by the then Minister the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) has been to halt this trend and start manufacturers on the path of designing quieter vehicles. The regulations achieved this objective not by specifying particular methods of construction but by laying down noise limits for various classes of road vehicle, the limits being set in decibels and measured by an internationally agreed test procedure. In respect of the heaviest vehicles we have decided on a lower limit than is for example permitted in Belgium, Holland and Germany, Furthermore, we are now proposing to the motor industry a programme of substantial reductions of these limits over the next 5 years.
The 1968 regulations and the prospect of lower limits in future years has stimulated a major research and development effort to quieten especially the heavy diesel engines.
I turn now to the problem of enforcement and the road user. I must say straight away that the 1968 regulations are not, and were never intended to be, the main means of control. The older regulations to which I have already referred are, and always have been, the main regulatory means of setting a standard of reasonable behaviour for road users. Police enforcement of these older regulations results in about 1,000 prosecutions a month. In the 1968 regulations we provided an additional method of enforcement which we hoped the police would find useful as a supplement to the existing methods.
This new method, which involves the use of a noise meter at a roadside check point, has proved difficult to use and a lot of publicity has been given to the fact that it has so far yielded only a handful of convictions. But when newspapers and others draw the conclusion that the 1968 regulations have not worked they forget that the main purpose of the regulations was to influence the design of vehicles, and in this they have most certainly 1849 worked. They have been entirely successful.
I turn now to the other main effect on the environment about which the hon. Member has spoken, namely, pollution from motor vehicles. As with noise, this is not a new problem. Smoke and grit were a major nuisance from the steamengined vehicles which were common on our roads at the beginning of this century. The regulations prohibiting smoke which is avoidable or likely to be a danger to other road users are still on the statute book, and it is under these regulations that in recent years the police and the Ministry's vehicle examiners have acted against badly maintained diesel-engined lorries giving off obnoxious black smoke. In recent years police prosecutions alone have numbered about 2,700 per year for offences of this kind. I think that the hon. Member will agree that this is a good record of enforcement, but I am sure my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will note his further suggestions in this respect.
Although some smoke from the diesel engine is inevitable, things are improving. There are two main reasons for this. First, there is now in existence a British Standard for diesel engines which includes a maximum permitted intensity of smoke from the fully loaded diesel engine.
Secondly, the standard of maintenance of heavy goods vehicles is improving as the result of the introduction of the plating and testing scheme. The annual inspection of heavy goods vehicles includes a smoke check, and plating will enable easier enforcement of loading restrictions on goods vehicles, and reduce the cases of overloaded engines producing the excessive smoke, that is fairly evident on the stretch of road, the traffic lights and the slope to which the hon. Member has referred.
Improvements in design and maintenance will together diminish the nuisance of the visible pollutants from larger vehicles, but the invisible gases given off by motor vehicles are quite another matter. Methods of reducing some of them are known, but very large reductions are technically most difficult and expensive, and complete elimination is impossible. This is such a technically complicated subject that I cannot hope here and now to do more than make a few simple points on some of the issues 1850 publicised recently and to which the hon. Member has drawn attention.
The most notorious of the invisible gases given off by motor vehicles is carbon monoxide. This gas is well known as a poison in the concentrations that accumulate, for example, if a car engine is left running in a closed garage. We know the unfortunate results of this.
There is, however, absolutely no need for any alarm about adverse medical effects from carbon monoxide in city streets. The amounts of carbon monoxide in the street atmosphere have been thoroughly investigated, as have the effects of various concentrations of carbon monoxide on people. The research conducted here by the Medical Research Council and by the Warren Springs Laboratory shows conclusively that concentrations in streets saturated with traffic are well below the levels that result in dangerous accumulations of carbon monoxide in the blood. In fact one absorbs much less carbon monoxide from breathing street air than one does from smoking a cigarette and inhaling the smoke.
Why then are the invisible gases from motor vehicle exhausts a cause for concern? Why are the Americans requiring reductions in exhaust emissions on vehicles used in their country?
The Americans and some other countries having areas with a sunny climate are troubled with a form of smog caused by the effect of strong sunlight in still air on exhaust gases. This is why the Americans, for example, have established an anti-pollution standard for 1970. But even if this standard could be achieved at small cost we would have no reason to imitate them, and indeed British manufacturers are having to add equipment to their export vehicles which will add £30 to £40 to a price of a car in the American market.
But although this type of smog is unknown in this country, there are other possible sources of concern about hydrocarbons and other exhaust products. Unburnt or partly burnt fuel has a characteristic smell which is generally unpleasant in certain conditions, such as a traffic jam on a still day. But we must put this nuisance in perspective. It is mainly associated with the older and therefore more worn engines; compared with other forms of pollution—smoke and factory wastes which obscure the 1851 sunlight and foul our rivers—the smell of this traffic is surely a minor nuisance. We must not ignore it, and we must take reasonable steps to reduce it where the cause can be clearly identified, for example, leaks in the fuel system. But we must not be frightened into precipitate and ill-considered action. The fact is nobody knows how to control exhaust emissions so as to reduce unpleasantness such as smell. This is a subject which requires, and is receiving, considerable research.
The hon. Member referred to the problem of vibration caused by traffic. Both the Ministry of Public Building and Works and my Ministry are looking into this aspect of the effect of traffic on the environment. Broadly, we have found that if a building is liable to be damaged by vibration from rubber-tyred vehicles on adjoining roads, then it is much more liable to be damaged by other stresses such as movement of large pieces of furniture, large gatherings of people, gusts of wind or even slamming doors. Nevertheless, I would assure the hon. Member that we are very aware that in certain circumstances heavy traffic may have ill-effects both on buildings and on the people occupying them, and this is a factor taken into account with the many others when we come to plan highway and traffic schemes.
I have tried to briefly indicate to the hon. Member the efforts which the Ministry of Transport is making to combat the particular dangers he has brought to the attention of the House today. Other Departments are also using their special knowledge and powers to wage the fight against other forms of pollution. With regard to the overall problem, the hon. Member has referred to the statement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 11th December with regard to the setting up of the Standing Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. There is also to be an Advisory Council to deal with the problem of noise, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning is also to have the assistance 1852 of a co-ordinating unit within his own staff and consisting mainly of scientists. I think these measures demonstrate very clearly that the Government are dealing most actively and urgently with the problem of environmental pollution.
I know that Mr. Speaker will have referred in the House today to Christmas, but since I think that I shall be the last person to speak from this Box this year, may I take this opportunity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to express my thanks to the officers and servants of the House, the police, the cleaners, the catering staff, the Press Lobby and Gallery, the HANSARD staff and all who serve us so well, and not least Mr. Speaker, yourself, Sir, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Sydney Irving), the Chairman, for the help and guidance they have given during the year. May I wish each and every one a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
§ Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)May I, in the half minute left, join with the Minister in giving good wishes to all those whom he mentioned?
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) has done a great service in reminding the House that while we have rightly been concerned with the accident aspect of the motor traffic, the motor vehicle menace to health and amenity has been creeping up on us and has become a terrible Frankenstein monster. Now we want action. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary has indicated that he knows that there has not been sufficient enforcement in the past, and we hope that this debate will produce some really coordinated action from the Ministries.
§ The Question having been proposed at Four 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, till Monday, 19th January, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 11th December.
§ Adjourned at half-past Four o'clock.