§ 22. Mr. David Howellasked the Minister for the Civil Service what steps have been taken to apply the organisational principles set out in the Fulton Report to the Government's functions and responsibilities in connection with pollution.
§ Mr. ShoreThe organisation and management of work in the Departments concerned with the control of pollution will progressively reflect the reform of the Civil Service generally following the Fulton Report.
§ Mr. HowellDoes the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Government's whole handling of the question of pollution is rapidly becoming a muddle? Does he not accept that it would have been far better from the beginning to have followed the Fulton principle of allocating specific responsibility to specific agencies to protect citizens' rights, particularly on questions such as aircraft noise, rather than rely on nebulous advisory commissions which leave Government Departments with fragmented responsibilities and which, in the end, satisfy no one and achieve little?
§ Mr. ShoreThe hon. Gentleman may be right, but I think he will recognise that the truth is that the agencies concerned with the control of pollution, in all its different aspects, are very diversified indeed, and are not all within central Government Departments. As the House will recall, we set up a central unit in the first instance to give overall and concentrated attention to the control of pollution.
§ Mr. DalyellIs my right hon. Friend aware that, far from its becoming a muddle, Britain is the first State in the whole of the Western world to set about tackling pollution in any sort of coordinated way?
§ Mr. ShoreMy hon. Friend makes a very fair point. We have not been laggard in our approach to this important and growing problem of pollution.