HC Deb 06 April 1978 vol 947 cc809-29

11.3 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Kenneth Marks)

I beg to move, That this House takes note of Commission Documents Nos. R/2005/76 and R/2641/76 on Freshwater Fish and Shellfish Growth. Both these proposals are derived from the 1st EEC Environment Action Programme which was approved by the Council of Ministers in November 1973. This programme stated as one of the main aims of Community environmental policy that quality objectives should be defined for the various environmental media—land, air and water—and for parts of those media, according to the use to which they would be put.

The Government of the day supported this approach to environmental control at the time when the first programme was approved, and we support it now. We have consistently advocated flexibility of control whereby the quality required of a particular environment is determined by considering both the self-purifying capacity of that environment and the use that will be made of it.

In so far as the two proposals under discussion tonight seek to translate this principle into practice, we welcome their preparation by the Commission. We are, however, less enthusiastic about certain of the detailed requirements which have been written in during this process of preparation and which, in our eyes, fail to take proper account of environmental realities.

Before I deal in detail with each of these proposals, I think I should explain that the bulk of my remarks will be concerned with freshwater fish. As my Department's recent supplementary memorandum indicated, discussions at official level in Brussels of the freshwater fish proposal have made good progress, particularly in recent months under the Danish Presidency, and it now seems likely that the draft directive will be discussed at a Council of Ministers meeting scheduled for 30th May.

On the other hand, the shellfish draft has made virtually no progress since it was put forward by the Commission in November 1976. Further developments seem unlikely for some time. In these circumstances, I think that the House might prefer me to concentrate on recent developments on freshwater fish, and the Government's attitude to them.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)

Before he leaves the point about shellfish may I ask the Minister whether he has seen the report in last Saturday's "SS Times", concerning the possible withholding of cockles and mussels from the European market? It says that the cost of these is … for technical reasons, linked to the Green Kroner, and so consolidated with that for the winkles, based on a formula which estimates the differential ratio between the weight of the winkle and the gross weight of the shell … and although whitebait do not have shells the same criteria are held by the Commission to apply. Do these proposals from Brussels have anything to do with those which he is now describing?

Mr. Marks

My hon. Friend gave the game away by referring to the "SS Times". I suppose that it is relevant now that San Serif has arrived in European waters. I am not sure whether I read in one of those "newspapers" that they are considering an application to join the EEC, but the question will have to wait for that day to be dealt with. I admire my hon. Friend's new technique for raising matters connected with the Common Market.

To return to reality, the freshwater fish proposal was originally submitted to the Council in August 1976. There was some initial discussion in the Council's Environment Working Group in the first half of 1977, which has been renewed in the first three months of this year. We have been greatly helped in these discussions by the Government's links with the water industry which have ensured that our negotiators in Brussels have been armed with facts and figures based on the practical experience of water authorities.

I should therefore like to put on record the Government's thanks to the industry for its support and advice during negotions on this proposal. Certain amendments have now been agreed to the requirements of the original proposal which are summarised in my Department's recent supplementary memorandum which is available to hon. Members. These amendments have generally moved the proposal in the direction of greater realism and possible further changes are being discussed. I shall review briefly our original doubts about this proposal and describe the ways in which it has since been amended, removing some of these doubts in the process.

In the early stages of discussion, we were concerned that the relatively unclear wording of the draft might be taken to mean that all rivers in which fish life occurred or could occur would have to be designated, and hence improved to the prescribed level. The Commission has now made it clear in discussions at official level, however, that discretion over the designation of rivers is intended to rest with the member States. We may expect to see this intention brought out in a future revision of the text.

In the view of the United Kingdom, the adoption of this draft directive should mean that the quality of rivers already supporting fish life would be protected and maintained while rivers with no fish life could be improved. This effect is likely to be achieved only if the technical standards set out in the directive are both relevant and realistic. The Commission's original proposals did not qualify for this description.

The Commission's own explanatory memorandum made it clear that the proposal was concerned with fish life. This did not explain the inclusion among the proposed quality requirements of certain standards which relate to eutrophication—a process linked to levels of plant and bacterial nutrients in water and possibly bearing on fish life only indirectly. There were others which concerned only the flavour and palatability of fish flesh. Recent discussions in Brussels have covered this question, and the Commission has indicated that these standards will either be dropped from the directive or be presented as guideline figures. In other words, although member States would be obliged to establish levels for such parameters for designated waters, they would not be obliged to adopt the guideline values contained in the directive.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Down, South)

Did the Minister say earlier—this is fortified by his speech as it has continued—that, in addition to the memorandum of his Department dated 25th November 1976, there is a subsequent explanatory memorandum? I can assure him that, on request at the Vote Office for the papers relevant to these two documents, I found that it is only the explanatory memorandum of 25th November 1976 which was issued to hon. Members. Can he clarify this?

Mr. Marks

I understood that a subsequent memorandum dated March had been published to the House of Commons and was available in the Vote Office today.

Mr. Powell

I know that the Government have shown themselves to be sensitive to the difficulties of hon. Members. It is an impossible position if, in endeavouring to prepare oneself for these debates, one obtains the relevant papers from the Vote Office 24 or 48 hours in advance, only to be told, when the debate takes place, that there is an additional paper which has been placed in the Vote Office that day which could by no means, except by accident, come to the notice of hon. Members participating. I am not suggesting that this is the Minister's fault—of course it is not—but he must recognise that it makes it extremely difficult for hon. Members both to follow his argument and to participate in the debate.

Mr. Marks

I knew from experience that this was always the concern of the House, and specifically asked that the document should be available in the Vote Office. I was given to understand that it was available in the Vote Office and that some hon. Members have obtained the paper from the Vote Office.

Mr. Powell

I did not know that it was there.

Mr. Marks

Hon. Members have just been handed a document dated 29th March from the Vote Office.

Mr. Powell

The Minister is very patient, but the point is material to the business of the House. If a paper is placed in the Vote Office within a matter of hours of a debate taking place, there is no way in which hon. Members can be aware that there is this additional paper and so obtain it and familiarise themselves with it. I see that one of the hon. Members who takes an interest in these debates has made a foray in the course of this intervention. I do not know whether we are to obtain further news from him. But I am sure that the Minister will realise that it is intolerable that there is no formal means whereby hon. Members intending to take part in a debate can be aware of the relevant papers.

Mr. Marks

I have taken part in a number of debates on EEC documents, and the Government have always been asked by hon. Members to ensure that papers were available for those debates. The papers in this matter were available in the Vote Office from, I understand, 30th March. However, I will check up on that. Copies are available here now.

Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East)

I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State would not want to mislead the House. Although earlier he was correct in saying that the additional memorandum had become available, it is certainly true to say, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) inferred, that the additional document, the explanatory memorandum, has only just now become available. I think that the right hon. Member has a valid point in saying that any hon. Member who had originally obtained the documents for the debate would in all logic assume that there were no other documents to emanate from the Vote Office, unless a specific attempt had been made by the Government to notify hon. Members that an additional document had become available. The Minister is certainly correct in saying that the additional document has been available today for hon. Members.

Mr. Marks

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall ask my colleagues to check up on this in future and try to ensure that hon. Members receive the relevant documents. I am not quite sure how we shall notify hon. Members that additional documents are available, apart from making sure that they are available well before the day of the debate. I apologise if the right hon. Gentleman has only today been able to obtain the additional document.

The main cause for our concern in the original proposal was that some of the values it specified were more stringent than would be required to protect fish life. This excessive stringency is demonstrated by a consideration of the state of the rivers of this country, many of which contain thriving fish populations and yet would fail to meet the proposed standards.

Evidence given by the National Water Council to a Committee of the other place stated that 89 per cent. of the rivers in England and Wales were capable of supporting salmonid and/or cyprinid fish, but only 13 per cent. of these rivers would comply with all the values originally proposed. This demonstration of the unrealistic nature of the standards is reinforced by the knowledge that they are also more stringent than those recommended by a group of scientific experts whose advice was sought by the Commission.

We have pressed for an explanation by the Commission of its reasons for departing from these recommendations. In recent discussions—and partly in response to this pressure—the Commission has suggested changes to some of the more important standards, such as temperature and dissolved oxygen, which would bring them nearer to scientific recommendations previously ignored. We are still concerned at certain discrepancies between the two sets of values, however, for which the Commission has so far failed to give a satisfactory explanation.

The monitoring which the original proposal required of member States has also been a matter of concern to us. Many United Kingdom rivers, particularly in Scotland, can be considered free of any foreseeable threat of pollution such as would endanger fish life. The original monitoring requirements could have placed the heavy and unjustifiable burden of sampling such rivers on the appropriate authorities. Some reduction in these requirements has been agreed, but it now seems possible from the most recent discussions in Brussels that further amendments may be made to avoid the imposition of this burden.

We were also unhappy with the original provision that member States would have only five years from adoption of the directive in which to improve designated rivers to the prescribed standards. However, at the Environment Working Group meeting in Brussels last week there was considerable support for the idea that member States should be allowed five years from designation to improve water quality. This would mean that, in practice, there would be up to seven years from adoption of the directive to make any improvements to the initial batch of designated waters. I say "initial" because it has also been agreed that the directive should be modified to ensure that designation is not a once-and-for-all process. Member States will be allowed to designate waters under the directive from time to time as resources permit, and in each case five years would be allowed to ensure that EEC standards were met.

Further discussions at official level in Brussels are scheduled for this month. While there are still several difficult issues to be settled—it would be rash of me to predict what will happen—I think that a draft directive which was broadly acceptable to all member States could emerge at the end of the day. By "the end of the day" I mean next month.

I turn briefly to the other document under discussion tonight—the proposal for a directive on the quality requirements for waters favourable to shellfish growth. This was formally submitted to the Council in November 1976, but since that time it has been discussed by officials in the Environment Working Group only twice—in February of last year and in February of this year.

As I indicated earlier, there is far less likelihood of immediate progress on this than on the freshwater fish proposal. Nevertheless the Government, of course, attach importance to hearing the views of the House on both the papers. The Shellfish proposal has been so severely criticised on all sides in Brussels that if any new proposal does emerge it will have to be radically different from the original if it is to be acceptable either to United Kingdom or to other member States.

The least satisfactory aspect of this draft directive is that, like the freshwater fish proposal, it fails to make its purpose clear and unambiguous. According to the Commission's explanatory memorandum, it is aimed at encouraging shellfish growth and not at protecting human health. Yet the proposed parameters are not consistent with this objective.

The question of the intended scope and application of the draft directive also requires a clearer resolution than is provided by the rather vaguely worded articles of the proposal, which could be taken to imply that member States would have to apply the provisions of the directive to all naturally occurring shellfish beds of whatever size.

The uncertainty about the extent of the waters to be covered is similar to that which at first attached to the freshwater fish proposal and, as with that proposal, the Commission has now stated that member States are intended to have discretion in the designation of areas. Again, we shall look for a reflection of this intention in any finally agreed revision of the text.

I think that there is no need for me to describe in detail the Government's reservations about other aspects of this proposal, such as the monitoring requirements and the five-year deadline set for the improvement of shellfish waters up to the prescribed standards. Our attitude towards these accords with the line we have taken on the freshwater fish proposal, and we would seek to inject the same impluse towards greater realism into any future discussion of the draft shellfish directive.

As I indicated earlier, there are grounds for cautious optimism on the freshwater fish proposal, while the shellfish draft has gone back into its shell, so to speak. These are matters of great concern to hon. Members, and I shall be interested to hear their views.

11.25 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East)

I am sure that the House is very grateful to the Minister for coming to give us a explanation of the Government's attitude to the two draft documents—especially as it is at a later hour than usual. I do not want to take up too much time at this late hour, but a number of important points must be made in connection with these documents.

I have the image of some official in the Lord President's Office, faced with far too many EEC documents, trying to decide in a panic how to process them through a difficult House of Commons. I have a vision of that official looking very quickly at the titles, ignoring the references and the numbers, seeing the word "fish" in both cases, and saying "Let the House have a debate on fish". It is a pity that the documents cannot go upstairs to the Committee, which might be a better place for them, despite the recommendation of the Scrutiny Committee. Instead we are lumbered, at a late hour on a Thursday night, with two documents that are radically different, and dealing with wholly different subjects, even though both are connected with water.

We sympathise with the Minister's dilemma in presenting the freshwater fish document. I gather that the other document is the responsibility of his colleague at the Ministry of Agriculture. I agree with him that the freshwater fish document is much more important and relevant, not only because it is going ahead in the Council of Ministers but because there are far more problems and question marks with the shellfish document.

Perhaps a point should be made about the provision of documents. I know that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and I do not agree on the fundamentals of the EEC. Nevertheless, I share his concern that yet another strange twist in the sequence of events on the provision of documents for scrutiny has manifested itself tonight. I was extremely nonplussed to receive an updated memorandum which poses a whole new series of questions and issues, in the context of the negotiations for the Council of Ministers, which are extremely complicated and very technical. We all know the difficulties facing hon. Members in grasping these technical points without being able to have the time to get outside advice from the experts. We know the difficulties in grappling with a document which is quite in contrast to the original very bland document which implied that all these things were fairly routine, there were further discussions to come along, no new domestic legislation was required, that everything was in the general context of the Community's environmental programme, and that by and large everything was fine subject to some of the smaller details.

Here now is an explanatory memorandum, dated 29th March and issued this morning, or maybe even this afternoon, which is worse, which goes into the very important headings of the negotiations, the Government's doubts and hesitations on this matter and the central areas where the Government would ask for further clarification from Brussels, and further information from the Commission on monitoring requirements, changes in the standards, and a whole host of complex matters, which the Government seemed not to be very concerned with earlier on.

I may be wrong but I do not recall such substantial changes in the nature, contents, characteristics and implications of an explanatory memorandum, which is inevitably interim in its nature, on any previous occasion.

We are always ready to praise the Scrutiny Committee in making recommendations. I think it was right for it to take the steps it took because of the attitudes and hesitations about both these documents at that stage.

There are a number of questions on the document dealing with freshwater growth. The National Water Council expressed a number of serious doubts about its contents and the anglers' organisations expressed reservations, as did others. The Committee recommended that the matter should be considered on the Floor of the House. Some hon. Members may have felt that it would have been more logical to take the matter in Committee upstairs if that were to be the regular form for consideration of these documents. But mostly that procedure is in suspense, except in the case of Statutory Instruments, which is a pity.

One problem with both documents—and the one on freshwater growth in particular, which is the more urgent—is that they are so technical in their nature that we so have to rely on expert opinion that very few of us are able to argue cogently the parameters, technical data, threshold requirements and so on or deal with the chemical arguments relating to the anti-pollution controls envisaged in these directives. Perhaps the Government should have thought of a different way of dealing with the documents.

We know that neither directive will require domestic legislation. Directives usually require legislation, but the main provisions are so sufficiently discretionary and broad in character as to allow us to use existing legislation in the United Kingdom and Scotland. But there will be problems later, which will depend on the ultimate negotiations.

My personal view is that it would have been more sensible and sagacious if the Commission had produced a short, broadly-couched draft directive with three or four provisions allowing States to do what they are now doing. My impression is that the United Kingdom has adequate controls, although slightly different in direction. Therefore, we shall be able to fit in with the draft directive and take the matter no further than that. I hope that that will be the general atmosphere and tenor of the negotiations in Brussels, particularly if the Danish are ambitious enough to hope for a final decision on the freshwater fish matter by the end of May, which would be a good thing and give much relief to all member States.

The Minister need not comment in detail on all the other member States, but there are a number of variations in what States now do in regard to control for fish, and there is a strong argument for harmonisation which flows logically from the environmental action programme.

I wish to ask a number of questions about the document on shellfish growth. Doubts were expressed in the House of Lords Scrutiny Committee about the evidence taken in the other place from expert opinion, and from a number of others who were not quite so expert. There are also doubts on the part of hon. Members in this House now that they have had a brief opportunity to examine the documents.

The Minister is correct in thinking that it will take longer to make progress on the shellfish provisions. They relate to a wholly different area, and there is still conflict and confusion in the draft directive between health objectives and consumer protection for those who will consume shellfish and related products from the seas. I know that the Minister will have to speculate on this point, but, as the document proceeds, is there likely to be any adverse effect on employment and companies engaged in coastal enterprises in this country, because of the stiffer controls that we expect?

The Government will also have to watch carefully as the second directive proceeds on its rather sluggish way because we may need to have a separate debate. I cannot prove it, but I am convinced that the Lord President's Office has arbitrarily mixed up these two separate subjects. When does the Minister expect the shellfish document to reemerge? Next time around, the House should be forewarned and forearmed so that it can garner expert opinion.

I recognise that the directives were constructed, like, I hope, all EEC directives, by conscientious Commission officials who took advantage of expert opinion and consulted people who know about these matters—scientists, chemical engineers, maritime specialists and marine engineers and scientists. Some of the proposals reflect that expert opinion, but the key issue is the extent to which, once an action programme is promulgated, ardent, zealous and, as we have heard, highly paid Commission officials should seek, perhaps sometimes too slavishly, to try to encapsulate details of an action programme in over-elaborate documents that can unnecessarily protract negotiations between member States as they try to sort out the technical confusion and scientific conflict.

Also, can we tell from our experience of strong domestic legislation whether it is easier for modern societies to control the discharge of pollutants or to try to set quality standards? The Community's proclivity towards quality standards is much easier in respect of physical products—packaging, the shelf life of goods in shops and so on—but cannot be applied so readily to less easily controllable elemental matters such as water.

I appreciate that, within the context of the action programme, we have had two directives relating to drinking water and bathing water. What other directives does the Minister envisage and how do the Government see the action programme developing? To what extent do they feel that they can get useful advice from other member States, perhaps particularly Germany and Holland?

11.34 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Down, South)

I should like first to make no fewer than three procedural observations. I feel that we can agree that procedural observations are often a not unimportant part of our debates upon these EEC documents since the House is, confessedly, feeling its way and improving its technique in handling this form of legislation.

My first observation arises directly from earlier exchanges with the Minister in which—and I think that this was the general feeling—he agreed that it would be desirable that, on the day when a debate on such documents is taking place, there should be no doubt in the minds of hon. Members which explanatory memoranda were relevant and available. I suggest—and perhaps this will be noted by the managers of Government business—that there is a very simple way of doing this which is already widely in use, namely, to use italics on the Order Paper.

We have become accustomed, and I think to our advantage, to having italicised notes to Orders of the Day, and there would surely be no difficulty, beneath the Order of the Day specifying the EEC documents to be taken and the motion to be moved upon them, to draw attention to the explanatory memoranda which were held to bear on the debate. That would be covered by precedent, and I suggest that it would be convenient. I hope that consideration will be given generally through the Lord President's office to this possibility.

My second point has been partly made already by the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), namely, that in any case the second of the explanatory memoranda—the meaty one, in fact—upon the live document before us, that on freshwater fish, was dated 29th March and became available only this week. With documents of this kind, it is the duty of hon. Members who wish to take them seriously, especially if the documents are technical in character, as far as possible to consult interests in their constituencies and elsewhere and to obtain advice. My hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross), who unfortunately cannot take part in this debate, has been to a good deal of trouble in the last week to consult interests in his constituency on the basis of the text of the EEC document and of the outdated explanatory memorandum.

It is therefore plain that we cannot do justice to these documents, quite apart from the first point. I made, unless there is an adequate interval between the publication of the relevant explanatory memorandum which brings matters up to date and the debate taking place in the House. It would have been physically impossible for any hon. Member who wished to consult the interests concerned to do so on the basis of the information, which was the essence of the Minister's speech, in the explanatory memorandum of 29th March. Therefore, I hope that, even if we cannot have a rule, we can have an understanding that there will be an adequate interval between publication of revised background information to an EEC document and the date on which the debate on it takes place.

My third and final procedural observation is of a more general character and one which we have often had occasion to make in these debates. We are fortunate in a way in that the Minister has virtually put the extinguisher over one of the two documents we are considering. Certainly he has made it clear to the House, and to the surprise and novel information of many of us, that the stage of gestation reached by the two respective documents is a very different one. That puts the House in a great difficulty.

We are accustomed to circumstances in which Ministers, on the basis of a document, inform the House that they have nearly got what they consider is desirable by way of modification before they agree to it. However, on one of the documents we are discussing the Ministers consider they have made substantial progress and appear to be within sight of their goal. On the other they virtually say that the document will have to be rewritten if it is to have their approval.

The difficulty that is created is that it is most unlikely, with all the good will in the world on the part of the Lord President and the Government, that we shall have another debate in the House on these documents. Consequently, although we may have a fair idea of what is eventually to be the law in the document on freshwater fish we have no idea of what will happen over the coming months before finality is reached on the shellfish order. I hope that the Minister will be able to state that in view of what he said about that order the House will have, in due course, an opportunity of reconsidering the order before it is regarded as having discharged its duty of consideration. I think that I detect certain signs of affirmation from the Minister, of which I am glad.

I come to the substance of the order that is live for our present purposes. I regard it as an example of the totally superfluous use of European Economic Community legislation so as to build up a corpus of EEC law on matters that are purely domestic, so that eventually by dint of sheer iteration the House and the British people will come to regard the European Economic Commission as the normal forum of legislation not merely upon matters of common interest to the Community, and not merely on subjects for the purposes of which the Community exists, but for the whole range of legislation such as is passed by the House. So I enter my protest against the instrusion of the European Economic Community into an area in which its activities can be of no practical benefit to the country.

We have been reminded that there have already been two orders in this series. I well recall the debate on the drinking water order, in which proper scorn was poured upon the notion that European countries should presume to set standards for this country for the supply of drinking water. That order came out of the mists and disappeared into the mists. It may be that it is already the law of this country. It may be that it is not. However, we continue to build the pyramid of EEC domestic legislation.

Despite our ideological disagreements, I thought that the hon. Member for Harrow, East was quite near to my anxieties when he referred to the danger of zealots getting at these action programmes and using them as a means of building legislative empires of great complexity and detail. As regards the freshwater fish order, the fact is that our legislation—and this includes Northern Ireland, although I believe that the Control of Pollution Act 1974 has not yet been applied to Northern Ireland—is perfectly adequate to secure all that is necessary for the provision of the necessary environment for the growth and flourishing of freshwater fish. We have the powers that we need. The policies should be our policies, and we have pursued them with a considerable degree of success.

I am informed that there is little problem about controlling the pollution of the waters in Northern Ireland in which the valuable freshwater fish of the Province are found. It may be said that in the European Economic Community there are catchment areas and inland waters that are common or limitrophic to more than one of the States of the Community. However, that is not a reason for Community legislation on the subject. We get on perfectly well in the United Kingdom with the Irish Republic, although the Republic's system of control of pollution is different from our own and although it is administered by local authorities. They are happy in the Republic to be allowed to have local government, unlike Ulster. It is administered there by local government, not by the central authority. Nevertheless, the results are closely similar and co-operation between the two countries is complete and undisturbed.

Long ago these matters were settled between countries which shared water courses and catchment areas. There is not the slightest reason to superimpose a European code in the greatest detail to continue to do what is already being done successfully and in perfect harmony between the partners concerned.

I shall continue by drawing the Minister's attention to three respects at least in which there appears to be unnecessary complication in this draft directive.

The first is the specification of two standards, one overlapping the other, for two classes of freshwater fish. It is difficult to see what justification there can be for drawing up two completely different sets of parameters for these two classes of fish. The existing law and powers of control are naturally used with a view to the kind of fish life that is found in the respective waters. But there is no need whatever to divide the fish into these two categories for the purpose of having two different codes of specification. It is superfluous complication: it is detail for the sake of detail.

I should like to draw the Minister's attention to Article 10, the article under which the directive may be waived. One of the cases where it may be waived is when water "undergoes natural enrichment"—a gratifying phrase which one rolls lovingly around the tongue, but perhaps it conceals something rather less nourishing than it might suggest.

According to the definition Natural enrichment means the process whereby, without human intervention, a given body of water receives from the soil certain substances contained therein. There is such a process as the leaching of fertilisers, particularly phosphates, into water. Admittedly, the phosphates have been put there by human agency perhaps miles away, but the process by which the water has received those substances from the soil could fairly be regarded as devoid of human intervention. The same argument might be applied to the problem of farm slurry which eventually is liable to find its way and to cause pollution in waters where freshwater fish are found.

What is the exact meaning of Article 10? Does it include or exclude that kind of widely prevalent and seriously important pollution? That is an example of the combination which we often get in these orders of excessively generality with excessive detail.

Finally, I support what was said about these standards seeming to have more than one purpose. They seem to be related partly to human consumption rather than to the welfare of the fish life in the waters. These are two entirely different considerations. There is no reason why the standards which are prescribed for the wellbeing of the freshwater life should necessarily be adequate and satisfactory for the purposes of human health and safety since, for example, the fish—this applies also to shellfish—may be deliberately treated for health purposes before human consumption.

Quite apart from the more general criticisms that I have made, I think that a good deal of work still has to be done on this directive, superfluous though it is, before it is fit to be accepted and become a governing consideration that has to be taken into account in applying the law of this country.

11.50 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)

I wish to ask only two brief questions. First, what is the object of these directives? The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) reminded us of the former directive concerning the quality of drinking water or water used for the processing of food. Quite clearly, the objective there was to ensure that intra-Community trade in foodstuffs subject to such water treatment would be of comparable quality.

Nothing has been said, and I have not read anything in the documents or in the explanatory memorandum, about whether these documents are seen as a preliminary to saying that trade in freshwater or shellfish between countries within the Community shall be permitted only where the waters in which those fish are reared comply with the standards laid down. Unless that is the second stage in the process I see no object at all in the directives.

There is an alternative method, as has been said by the right hon. Member for Down, South, and that is for each member State to recognise, or not recognise as the case may be—and the right hon. Gentleman mentioned Eire as a case in point—the standards of other nation States, which would seem to me to be a simpler and more practical method. With the increase in air transport, I guess that many crustaceans and other shellfish arrive in the EEC from outside the EEC altogether, from third countries. That brings in yet another complication, in which the second method of control, if we are to have it, would be much more sensible. I hope that the Minister will tell the House something about the whole purpose of these directives.

My second question is about the degree to which the Minister, through his Department, has consulted the interests to which reference has been made. The Department probably does not have natural and normal connections with commercial fishing interests, which would be more appropriately dealt with by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I refer in particular to the interests in the Thames Estuary. Whitebait, alas, have not yet come back to the Thames—at least not in commercial quantities. But there are many shellfish and shellfisheries in the Thames Estuary supplying East London in particular, the traditional market, and perhaps the Minister will say whether those interests, many of them small individual firms, have had an opportunity of seeing these documents, and whether he has received any representations or reactions from them or any other persons concerned with industrial fishing.

11.53 p.m.

Mr. Marks

Let me deal first with the points raised by the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes). A late memorandum of this kind is probably due to my insistence that the House be given as much information as we can give it as soon as possible. As the meeting of the environment working group took place only last week in Brussels we got out an explanation, so far as we could give it, at as early a date as possible. Had we left it to the old memorandum and not tried to do something like this we should have been due for rather heavier criticism than we have received here.

The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and other hon. Members have said that there should be a separate debate on shellfish. This is a matter largely for the Scrutiny Committee and for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. If we reached a stage in the consultations and negotiations where we felt that another explanatory memorandum ought to be produced we could send that to the Scrutiny Committee, and the Committee would put to the Lord President of the Council the proposal that there should be a further debate on that document.

The hon. Member for Harrow, East asked what further water directives are envisaged. A draft directive on the protection of underground water has just been sent to the Council by the Commission, and it is due to be discussed for the first time by my officials next Friday. There is a directive on pollution from paper pulp mills. Having a constituency whose boundary is a river, the entire length of which in my constituency is what is called class 4 in the pollution ratings—it is painted brown on the maps that are issued—I should welcome European consideration of the need to improve such waters.

If we can add our views to those of the other European countries, I am sure that that will be useful. Directives on the quality of agricultural and industrial water are other possibilities, but it is impossible to say when any of these would come forward.

As to whether there have been consultations with the fishing industry—at any rate that part which is affected, the commercial part—these are carried out by my right hon. Friends in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and we consult the water authorities, the water industry, angling and the other sporting interests.

I was asked whether the shellfish directive would have any adverse effects on employment. I do not think that there is much reason to think so at the time, but this is one of the matters we shall bear in mind in future discussions.

I was also asked what were the differences between the original explanatory memorandum and the one we have more recently issued. All the changes were towards the United Kingdom point of view, quite a few to meet specific United Kingdom problems and in response to pressure from us.

I do not know about progress on the shellfish directive. The Commission has been asked not only by us but by a number of other member States to start again and think out a new draft memorandum.

The right hon. Member for Down, South asked for insertions in italics on the Order Paper. I shall put that to my right hon. Friend to see whether we can do what I want to do, which is to give as good a service as we can in the way of providing information to the House.

The right hon. Gentleman also raised the general question, which I have heard on a number of EEC directives, whether it is a matter with which Europe as a whole should interfere at all. It is not a case of foreigners imposing legislation on us. Our own Ministers are involved in the making of the directives. I am sure that we value the opportunity to have some influence on other countries. The last EEC directive on which I spoke in the House was about bird protection. The House was delighted that we were trying to find a way of bringing the Italian people's view more in line with ours on the shooting of migratory birds.

There was a question about two different standards for the two different types of fish. I am advised that the two species have different sensitivities to polluting substances, and therefore where rivers are particularly considered to be for one type of fish the standards that suit that fish should be applied.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the matter of natural enrichment, and I think that he was right to suggest that in some ways "enrichment" and "pollution" were words for the same thing in this context. This is one of the matters on which we are seeking further clarification from the Commission. The right hon. Gentleman's points will be taken into account.

The distinction made between standards necessary for the survival of the fish and those related to consumption of fish is an anomaly that we have pointed out in the discussions. The Commission now accepts that quality of water for fish is what the directive is about.

I am not able to answer this question at the moment, but I do not believe that it is envisaged that the export of freshwater fish will apply only to designated areas. We receive and export fish to and from countries which are not involved in the EEC.

I am grateful to the House for the comments that have been made. Useful advice has been given. We shall take the comments into account in future discussions.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House take note of Commission Documents Nos. R/2005/76 and R/2641/76 on Freshwater Fish and Shellfish Growth.

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