HC Deb 19 July 1973 vol 860 cc875-87

11.50 p.m.

Mr, Neil McBride (Swansea, East)

Crises come and go in this Chamber, but it is held to be inescapably true that one of the best things in life and some thing of supreme importance is, to steal a phrase from the last debate, that we should have security of knowledge that we in this country are being aided by the Government in preserving in all its purity the air we breathe.

As one of the fundamentals which make life possible, the purity of the atmosphere should be constantly watched by the Government. Our people are concerned about the discharge into the atmosphere of gases, noxious and toxic. Our people, and the peoples of the world, are also appalled by the discharge of tons of pollutants of a non-gaseous nature in a combination of obnoxious qualities damaging to health and harmful to the environment.

Many people in England and Wales, particularly in Swansea, East, are concerned about the emission of pollutants, whether gaseous or non-gaseous, individually or in combination, because of the harm to health, the surrounding environment, household goods, plant life and vegetation. It has been apparent for a long time that a fresh appraisal of the situation was greatly overdue, but the Government are singularly loth to take action. This debate takes place against the background of world interest in measures to combat air pollution. The Government have announced the introduction of legislation to deal with the problem of pollution in all its forms, possibly in the next Session, but in my submission it could have been done this Session.

Two other factors have forced the Government to take steps. The first is the report "Publication of Information about Industrial Emission into the Atmosphere" by the Clean Air Working Party which considered the problem, and the other is my Alkali Inspectorate Bill which, despite the Government's declared opposition, was given a Second Reading and passed through Committee stage, during which the Government were defeated on a vote. The free will of the House thus demonstrated shows that the Bill should have been accorded adequate time for Report stage and Third Reading. But the Government have refused to grant time for it. It is an appalling decision.

Another aspect of establishing purity of the atmosphere is the attitude and operational activities of Her Majesty's Clean Air and Alkali Inspectorate. These organisational civil servants work by choice off-stage. But a section of public opinion wants this anonymous department to step out of the Whitehall shades and adopt a tough and modern attitude, keeping the public informed about its role by using modern methods of communication, realising that our people are intelligent adults and not precocious children who should be kept in ignorance.

The Clear Air Working Party included in its membership the Chief Inspector of Her Majesty's Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate, who has not always been regarded as a man anxious to take the public into his confidence in matters concerning purity of the atmosphere and the work of the department under his control. I draw attention to the non-inclusion in the working party's report of a minority report from this gentleman. That omission and the sections dealing with the desirability of the publication of information in non-technical language, especially in localities such as that which I represent, suggest that the gentleman concerned is travelling to an administrative Damascus. It is a great conversion for him.

Hon. Members of this House, however, are not privy to any information about emissions into the atmosphere in their constituencies. Despite the fact that the report regards hon. Members as "responsible persons"—and I submit that back benchers in this House are responsible—the Government and the inspectorate appear to take a different view. This situation must change.

These matters are regarded as important in other countries, particularly in the United States, for two reasons: first, because of the passing of the clean air legislation of 1970; and secondly, because the second annual report of the United States Council on Environmental Quality emphasised the importance of "the citizen's right to know".

In legislative matters and in terms of information provided, the Government are failing to recognise that Members of this House are responsible people. The Government must be made aware of the importance of emissions of certain substances into the air in our constituencies. The public have every reason to be informed of the nature and extent of gaseous and non-gaseous pollutants discharged into the atmosphere of the areas in which they live.

Air pollution is due to fixed sources and emanates from industrial plant, including steelworks, chemical plants, petrochemical and other processes such as thermal power stations, central heating and waste incineration plants and from moving sources such as vehicles and aircraft. It is estimated that 60 per cent. of air pollution in the United States emanates from moving sources. I should like to know from the Under-Secretary of State what percentage of air pollution in the United Kingdom is due to emissions from these sources.

We are now members of the Common Market, though personally I abhor our membership. Having been in Brussels during the last few weeks, I should like to quote to the House an extract from a resolution passed during the twenty-third ordinary session of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, Resolution 510/1972 on the reduction of air pollution from motor vehicles and exhaust gases. Paragraph 9 invites member countries as a first step to put forward in their respective national Parliaments draft legislation used as a guide to federal standards of legislative provisions laid down by the United States for 1973–74. This includes the mechanical dinosaurs which are coming to this country in increasing numbers from the Continent.

If the seas of the world are to be treated as dustbins for our planet, the United Kingdom must pass far-reaching legislation to ensure that air pollution in the localities of our country will not result in creeping clouds with poisonous content detrimental to health.

Figures are easy to play with, but this subject is too serious for frivolity. Let me again refer to the situation in the United States—and let us remember the limited confines of our own nation compared with the vast areas of America. In the United States 390,000 tons of smoke carrying more or less harmful particles is released into the skies each day. In Los Angeles, the former dream capital of the world, 4 million vehicles consume 36 million litres of petrol per day and discharge into the sky above the city 1,800 tons of hydrocarbon, 500 tons of nitrogen oxide, which causes inflammation of the eyes, and 11 tons of carbon monoxide which causes serious anaemia. The coal- and oil-burning industries of the United States emit 24 million tons of sulphur into the atmosphere. It must be realised that this emission will be doubled in the 1980s. That is the reason for the strict legal control of air pollution in America.

I now come nearer to home—namely, the Common Market. Pollution levels in Cologne and Frankfurt are already as high as the levels in Chicago and Los Angeles. What is the total tonnage of air pollutants emitted annually in Britain? What study of the deposition of pollutants is being made in Britain relating to all areas of England and Wales? I hope that the Under-Secretary will forgive me if I say "especially Wales."

Air pollution is robbing people of the assurance of the continuity of pure air. It is having adverse effects on the health of the public in addition to plant and animal life. Sulphur dioxide, chlorine and nitrogen oxides are often fatal to coniferous trees. What study is being made or contemplated into the loss of hours of sunshine per annum in the major cities of the world compared with the hours of sunshine in outlying suburbs because of the presence of pollutant dust which is inevitable in the industrialised areas of major cities? I am sure that the answer will be interesting.

What consideration has been given by the Department of the Environment to the concept of total energy? I admit that that is a new term covering an old idea. The basic principle is self-containment of the production of energy in industrial plants. That can result in the use of 85 per cent. of the energy created and a much smaller emission of pollutants.

The problems entailed in the United Kingdom and the industrialised Western world, particularly England and Wales, make these matters increasingly interesting to the people. There is no section of the people more interested in these matters than my constituents. The Minister is aware, no doubt, of the problems which exist in my constituency.

We must consider whether the existing legislation in England and Wales is sufficiently strong to maintain the purity of the atmosphere. Is the organisation set up as a result of that legislation and the department which operates it—namely, Her Majesty's Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate—capable of maintaining cleanliness of the air? Is sufficient information given to the British people? I suggest that insufficient information is being given to the people.

The basic principle of existing law is that industry must use the best practical means to control and eliminate emissions. That has been the position since 1863 when the first Alkali Act was enacted. I believe that modern conditions demand that there should be a statutory definition of emission levels. A long time has elapsed since 1863. The Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate, which is financed by the taxpayers, does not take the British people fully into its confidence. Victorian reticence has no place in the present industrial world.

Insufficient information comes from the inspectorate. That is in direct contradiction to the report of the Clean Air Council, which at page 12 of its report said: Witnesses on behalf of the Newspaper Society told us that at present local journalists felt that they not infrequently had difficulty in obtaining information about emissions from manufacturers. At page 13 it said: The combination of British industry's representatives emphasised that in their view a system of local reports could be more valuable than a central report because more detail would be available about what was of interest to people locally. Clearly, the inspectorate does not feel that to be very important.

The liaison committees, of which the inspectorate proudly boasts there are 20, including one in my home city, are not an appropriate medium for the dissemination of information. In Swansea the committee is not highly regarded by my Port Tennant constituents. The alkali inspector said at page 13 of his 1971 report: I have said frequently that pressures from an informed public help to get speedy improvement, raise standards and introduce beneficial legislation, but the problem of communication is important and is one that is being tackled. Unfortunately, there are extremists in the environmental movement who believe in the use of scare tactics based on unbalanced information in order to sway public opinion. That is a foolish statement. If one does not furnish information to the public, one is more liable to get unbalanced views.

My Bill aims to improve legislation and safeguard the position in the light of modern circumstances. It had its Second Reading on a free vote of the House. There has been an appalling failure by the Department of the Environment to table amendments in sufficient time. The Committee stage finished on 27th June, the Committee having first met on 20th June, and it took this administrative colossus, with its batteries of legal experts, 20 days to table amendments. They were tabled on 16th and 17th July, which is an assault on, and erosion of, the rights of back benchers.

The Minister knows the identity of the legal experts whose advice is freely available to me.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) indicated dissent.

Mr. McBride

The hon. Gentleman was in the Committee, and his attention was drawn to the two Queen's Counsel and the solicitor who were there. He must be deaf and somehow he did not see them. Do I have to spell out the names?

Mr. Griffiths rose—

Mr. McBride

I hold the Floor, and as long as I obey the rules of the House Mr. Deputy Speaker will protect me.

There was an inept failure by the Department to table the amendments in proper time. [Interruption.] I wish that the sycophantic chorus would keep quiet.

The Government's proposals to maintain and preserve clean air for our people were not heard of before the framing of my Bill. Suddenly, they were announced. The Government were a little annoyed that a humble back bencher had stepped in where they feared to step.

I ask the Government to adopt what is proposed in the report: a closer relationship between industry, local authorities and Her Majesty's inspectorate. In all major cities we see the effects of air pollution. In this country we possess the wisdom and wealth to eradicate it. The question is whether the Government have the will to engage the problem on a more intensive scale.

I have been to the Council of Europe. I remember the Under-Secretary talking of this. Knowing how difficult it is for Ministers to obtain information, I went and got it myself. I have read the report on Environment Policy in Europe, 1972. I commend it to the Under-Secretary for rereading. I commend also the two other reports. I have mentioned one of them. The other is Recommendation 659 of 1972, which states: To establish in laws and decrees precise dates for the introduction of acceptable limits which would place tighter and tighter restrictions on the major pollutants and polluters. The Under-Secretary is bound by that. He cannot free himself from the bond of adhering firmly to that because of the Treaty of Accession.

While it may be held that pollution in all its forms represents unity—I do not deny that—it is indisputable that the continuity of life is dependent upon clean air. In a world where Britain and other European nations are forced to purchase crude oil with a high sulphur content—the United States is clamping down on this oil of high sulphur content—one result, as the OECD estimates, is that 21 million pounds of sulphuric acid will be falling on the back yards of Europe in 1980. How much is falling on the back yards of Britain? No doubt the hon. Gentleman will tell us.

The day has passed when this country will tolerate secrecy in this matter. There has been far too much secrecy. The day has passed when we can be fobbed off. Local newspaper reporters should be told everything. The evidence of the Newspaper Society backs me up. All the reporters can be trusted thoroughly. This matter should be speedily examined by the Government.

With the skill and expertise collectively possessed in the constituent elements of our society, two results can flow there from. First, there must be new and tighter legislation to protect public health. Secondly, arising out of this we may be able to say that in Britain the public are better informed and that air pollution is steadily diminishing and we are proceeding towards its complete eradication.

The Government now have a great opportunity in this non-political matter, which is of supreme importance to the people, to give true meaning to the words "fresh air".

12.14 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)

The hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. McBride) has covered a good deal of ground. I hope he will forgive me if I do not follow him as far as Los Angeles or, indeed, almost all the places in the European Community. I agree with him, however, on one thing. It is a truism that man does not live by bread alone. He most certainly needs clean air and clean water. I am therefore grateful to the hon. Member for raising the question of clean air.

I want at the outset to state three main propositions. The first is the problem. More people, more motor vehicles and more industry mean that the potential for air pollution in this country is rising all the time. The second proposition is the record. In spite of the growth in the number of vehicles and of industry, air in Britain is steadily becoming cleaner. I shall document that presently, but I say right away that our air is the cleanest of any urbanised industrial nation and our progress in making it cleaner is the envy of the world.

The third proposition concerns rising expectations, because, however much progress we may make, a new generation with higher standards will rightly demand that we go much further and faster. Sometimes these new demands can lead to excessive zeal, but my Department welcomes the public's impatience for cleaner air and cleaner water. We welcome it as a positive ally in our campaign for what we need most. We need more resources and we need more parliamentary time to tackle the remaining, and in some cases still very vexatious, problems that air pollution presents.

We are in no way complacent. There are many intractable problems that still darken our air, and in each and every case I undertake on behalf of my Department to do my utmost to get to the bottom of those problems and, wherever possible, resolve them quickly. But it is important to get these problems into perspective, and that perspective, I can tell the hon. Gentlemen, is a success story.

It is fair to say that we, the British, invented industrial pollution. Because we industrialised first using our native raw material, coal, we almost certainly did more than any other country to pollute our air, to foul our rivers and to scar our countryside. By the same token, however, we in Britain were the first to tackle pollution on a massive scale, and we have done more, and we are continuing to do more, than any comparable country to keep our air fit to breathe.

There are two measures of that. One is statistics and the other, perhaps more meaningful, is the day-to-day experience of ordinary people. I start with the statistics, and in particular those of smoke. In 1950, 2.4 million tons of smoke was emitted to the air over Britain, most of it from domestic chimneys but some from factories and railways. By 1970 that figure had fallen by two-thirds to 770,000 tons, and I predict with confidence that by 1975 smoke emissions will be down to less than 600,000 tons. That means that over the last 25 years three tons of smoke have been removed from the air for every one ton that still remains.

That has been achieved in part by the smoke control programme launched by the Clean Air Act 1956. Five million homes are now covered by smoke control. Birmingham has 58 per cent. of all its houses under that control, Manchester has 45 per cent. and London has more than 90 per cent. The champion is Sheffield, with 100 per cent. covered. Sheffield now almost certainly has less domestic smoke in its air than any other industrial city in North-West Europe.

Not surprisingly, progress has been slower in the coalfield regions. The Northern Region in particular has lagged far behind, with only 32 per cent. of its premises under smoke control orders as late as 1972. I therefore set up a northern panel of the Clean Air Council to promote smoke control in the North-East, and the results have been quite dramatic.

Between November of last year and January of this year the local authorities concerned submitted a record number of smoke control orders. All the so-called "black" area authorities in the Northern Region are now either committed to or are actively considering smoke control programmes, and without exception they expect to complete 100 per cent. smoke control by the end of the decade. Within a year of the Northern Panel's report, 42 per cent. of the premises in the "black" areas of the Northern Region were covered by orders. I am happy to say that half of all the orders received by my Department for smoke control were from authorities in the Northern Region, as were two further orders which were confirmed only yesterday.

Against this background of steady progress on domestic smoke control. I ought perhaps to remind the hon. Gentleman that there was one awful moment, just over three years ago, when it looked as if the entire clean air programme in this country might come grinding to a halt. The snag was that in the last years of the previous Government the production of solid smokeless fuel fell to a point where there was literally no choice but to suspend smoke control in wide areas of the country, and the air in many places literally became dirtier for lack of smokeless solid fuel.

I am bound to tell the hon. Gentleman that it took a great deal of time and trouble to undo the damage. With the co-operation, however, of the local authorities and other Government Departments and though this is ironic—by a decision which I had to take myself to allow a private Coalite plant to be built at Rossington in Yorkshire, with some polluting effects on the neighbourhood, we overcame that shortage of solid smokeless fuel, and we were therefore able in 1971 to advise all local authorities to go full speed ahead with clean air.

I turn now to industrial air pollution and British industry's contribution. Here again I must tell the hon. Gentleman that there is a success story. Thanks very largely to the sterling work of the Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate, this is what has happened. Let us take the example of cement. In 1958 cement plants emitted more than 200,000 tons of solid matter to the air. Last year that figure had fallen to 30,000 tons, a reduction of just over five-sixths, in spite of a massive increase in our production of cement.

In the case of the electricity industry, in 1958 the emissions were no less than I million tons of particulate matter. Since then the supply of electricity has shot up by more than half, yet emissions to the air have fallen by 80 per cent. In the case of iron ore, in 1960 the solid emissions from blast furnaces totalled 85,000 tons. Last year they fell below 4,000 tons, a reduction of well over 90 per cent., in spite of a fourfold increase in iron ore production.

This has been achieved by skill, hard work and good organisation and by a voluntary working partnership between British industry and the Government. Over the last 10 years British firms have invested close to £400 million on air pollution control, and these large sums have not been spent by Government diktat. Rather they represent industry's willing response to the inspectorate's application of the statute's wise requirement that, in the interests of clean air, industry must install the best practicable means of suppressing polluting emissions.

The hon. Gentleman and I have on previous occasions debated the pros and cons of the "best practicable means "approach. I say only that the Government are quite confident that that is by far the best approach to controlling industrial emissions.

Mr. McBride

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that this will continue in future legislation?

Mr. Griffiths

Yes.

I want now to measure some of the progress in much more human terms. I have given some of the statistics. What counts even more is the experience of ordinary people. Between December and February, the darkest months of the year, the visibility from the top of the Department of the Environment building in Marsham Street now averages 4½ miles. It was 1½ miles on average in the late 1950s. Midwinter sunshine in central London is now 50 per cent. greater than it was 10 years ago, and the weather has not got better. All that has happened is that more sunshine is getting through because the air is cleaner.

The wild life certainly appreciates this. There are today many species of birds—for example, swifts and others—and many more types of butterflies in the London parks than there were 10 years ago. Trees grow more healthily and flowers which a generation ago had apparently become extinct in most parts of central London are now returning in large numbers to the city's gardens. People have fewer chest colds and there has not been a major smog in London since the early 1950s, when, on one sad occasion, about 4,000 people died from the effects of air pollution.

So it is that, all over the country, we are now able to clean historic and cultural buildings—St. Nicholas' Hall in Newcastle, the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, the Corn Exchange and the Minister in York and, of course, Whitehall, which is once again white. The reason why we can clean the buildings is that they will stay clean in the cleaner air.

None of this means that we are in any sense complacent. There is of course the problem of air pollution from vehicles. The hon. Member asked me for figures and I will gladly let him have them. Nor are we complacent about some of those trace elements that are emitted into the air by more complicated industry. But the overall picture of air pollution in Britain is one of massive and continuing improvement. I believe that that will go on, that we shall be aided by the Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate, strengthened by its new dust-testing schemes. I believe above all else that, given a vigilant public and a responsible interest in this House, we shall continue with what is and will continue to be a success story in clean air.