The Environment

HC Deb 28 July 1988 vol 138 cc729-44 4.21 am

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

It is an odd time of the day to be debating anything, either ending or beginning. However, I am glad of this opportunity to speak on the environment. This is the first debate that any member of my party has introduced under our new leadership. I hope that it is significant that the first debate opened by a Social and Liberal Democrat under that new leadership reflects two of the expressed concerns of our leader—our internationalism and our environmentalism. As my party's spokesman on the environment I am glad to have this opportunity.

I welcome the Minister on her first appearance at the Dispatch Box. She would probably have chosen a different time and possibly a slightly fuller House. However, it is good to see her. I congratulate her sincerely on her appointment. I am a little embarrassed because I intended to write to her to congratulate her but she is on duty so quickly that I have been beaten to it.

I have to concede that I campaigned briefly against the Minister's election in the year after I was elected. I had mixed thoughts about the result, but I am glad that she can sit on her party's Benches and has been promoted and taken on her new responsibility. I am sure that she will do a good job.

It is said that, as yet, the structure of the Government does not allow us to have a department of environmental protection with the same overview of environmental matters as the Treasury has of economic matters. I received today the list of ministerial responsibilities under the new regime since the Government reshuffle earlier this week. It is to be noted, and a little regretted, that so far there has not been a clear division of ministerial responsibilities with appropriate titles, similar to the previous way, which I thought was an improvement in the way in which the Department was structured after the general election. Ministers were then described as being the Minister of Environment, Countryside and Water, the Minister for Housing and Planning, or the Minister for Local Government. Perhaps that will come but it is not yet the way in which Ministers are described. At the moment the Under-Secretary of State has a rather anomalous group of responsibilities in her Department. I hope that in future the Department can be structured in a way that will allow the importance of environmental protection to be recognised in its form as well as in its subject matter and work.

What I propose to do is to air a range of issues of which I notified the Minister's office. Without wanting today to have a particular go at the Government, I want to put these issues on the political agenda. The Library has told me that there has not been a general debate on international environmental matters since the 1979 general election. That is sad. I hope that one objective that we may achieve in the coming years is more often to debate our international environmental responsibility.

The title of the debate that I submitted originally to the Table Office was "The Global Environmental Crisis." In the way that the Table Office does, that title was slightly amended to be more objective and less judgmental. But it is the growing awareness of the environmental crisis internationally which has prompted me to seek this debate, and it has prompted many people in the country and throughout the world—not just politicians—to raise it recently as a much more important issue on the political agenda. That is a good thing. It is good that our international and environmental responsibilities are now seen to be politically important.

I confirm that by referring to the words of the Prince of Wales when he presented the European Year of the Environment awards at Merchant Taylors' hall in the City of London in March this year. He said: When we read that over the next 60 years, if we go on as we are doing, something like a third of all the forms of life at present living on this planet may be extinct, can we feel anything but a kind of cosmic horror? We were facing a serious and urgent challenge on a huge international scale. Too many political leaders still gave far more attention to the obvious costs of action than to the concealed costs of inaction. That recognition represented an increasing awareness among the establishment in this country, as well as a general concern. An opinion poll, conducted last year by MORI on behalf of Friends of the Earth and the World Wildlife Fund, showed that 81 percent. of respondents felt that the Government should give a much higher priority to protecting the environment. I am sure that that is a correct analysis of people's concerns and that that number will increase rather than decrease.

I am aware that this subject crosses departmental boundaries. Clearly, it involves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the overseas aid and development portfolio. The two areas are very much interrelated because the way in which we contribute economically in trade and in patterns of trade within the international community affects environmental matters. Therefore, it is difficult in simplistic terms to analyse how much we spend on environmental protection because some of that expenditure is hidden rather than explicit. However, I should point out that there is concern, and I ask the Minister to take on board and recognise the fact that we have been cutting our expenditure on important environmental matters in certain key areas, which is to be regretted.

In reply to a parliamentary question last month the Secretary of State for the Environment gave total figures for the Department's expenditure on environmental research and protection. The figures were then broken down into expenditure relating to radioactive waste, air pollution, water and countryside. The figures supplied cover 1981–82 to the present day.

In real terms, expenditure on radioactive waste and water matters in connection with environmental research and protection has been reduced. It has been reduced for radioactive waste from £11.9 million in 1981–82 to £9.9 million in 1987–88. Expenditure on water has been reduced from £4.5 million to £3.5 million over the same period. We have seen attacks on science and research funding and there have been staff cuts at the Natural Environment Research Council. An article appeared inThe Guardian on 6 July anticipating large-scale cuts in oceanographic research. The Minister should recognise that there is scientific and professional concern that we are not spending what we should to ensure that Britain is sufficiently aware of what is happening. We are not investing sufficiently in research on environmental matters. I hope that that position will be reversed.

Everyone who has considered this subject believes that expenditure today can be very helpful in preventing enormous waste and destruction tomorrow. Unless we are prepared to make that financial public expenditure commitment, the Government's contribution to the strategy of dealing with environmental destruction and despoliation will be considerably impaired.

One of the encouraging aspects of the past few years has been the amount of international concern about this issue. The Minister will be aware that there are two seminal works on the subject—one more general, the other more specific. I am referring to the Brandt and the Brundtland reports.

I want to refer to some of the comments made by the Prime Minister of Norway. Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland was appointed by the United Nations to chair the World Commission on Environment and Development at the end of 1983. Her statements are trite in a way, but they deserve to be repeated because they reinforce the conclusion that, after taking evidence of the international nature of the problem, there is a need to deal with the issues internationally. Mrs. Brundtland states: one of the most fundamental of our findings is that the problems we face are global in nature and that they defy solution by local or even national endeavour … There is now a growing recognition that much of today's development is not sustainable. Rather it is based on a squandering of our 'biological capital'; soil, forests, animal and plant species, even air and water. It consumes its own ecological foundations. The result has been devastating, as was bluntly stated by Bjornulf Kristiansen, a speaker at the Commission's Oslo meeting. He said: The most serious threat facing the world today, apart from nuclear war, is a global ecological crisis. Mrs. Brundtland continues: Many of today's economic, monetary and trade policies as well as energy, agriculture, forestry and human settlement policies, induce and reinforce non-sustainable development patterns and practices. Widespread poverty and concentrated affluence conspire to increase environmental degradation, to increase pressures on resources and to increase inequities that lead to global instability and political tension. Indeed, poverty can be said to be one of the most important environmental problems. One witness who gave evidence in Ottawa said: Poverty is self-sustaining, a self-generating process that compels people to live in a way which destroys valuable soils, water resources and forests. Much of the environmental degradation is the result of the desperate search by the poor and the landless for such basic needs as fuel, food and water. Small farmers are held responsible for environmental destruction as if they had a choice of resources to depend on for their livelihood, when they really don't. In the context of basic survival, today's needs tend to overshadow consideration for the environmental future. It is poverty that is responsible for the destruction of resources, not the poor. It is not that the poor are unaware of the problem. I met an impressive man last year, who was the leader or representative of a group in north India, mainly women, who have taken to protecting their trees by hugging them, and they received one of the Right Livelihood awards. They did this to protect what is both necessary for their ecology and their community. They have taken direct action and it has been successful.

Mrs. Brundtland continued: We are beginning to learn that there are better ways to manage our small planet than to 'react and cure': we must anticipate and prevent. This may sound simple and obvious, but it requires that we recognise environment and development as essential and mutually reinforcing goals. We must learn that we cannot separate the two. The environment is not a luxury, nor can it be postponed until later. Environmental considerations must be built into development at the earliest possible stage, otherwise it will not be economically sustainable. The world—and especially the Third world—is littered with cases of 'development-without-environment', often aid-supported, that have literally consumed their own bases—in soil, in water and other resources—and ended up reducing rather than increasing the future economic potential of their countries. Finally, it requires that we begin to take a much broader view of environmental policy, seeing it not just as air, water, waste and noise policy, but more importantly as resource, energy, agricultural and transportation policy, and development assistance, trade and economic policy". I started there because that was the conclusion by the representatives of the international community, which made it clear that we must look at the subject as a whole. Of course, the subject is made up of component parts, and I now want to deal with them in turn.

Land is a delicate, finite and precious resource. Every year we lose more than 200,000 sq km of land to desert. That happens because of erosion, over-grazing, over-ploughing, poor irrigation and bad farming techniques generally. According to United Nations estimates, every 10 years the Sahara desert alone spreads by the size of Czechoslovakia. History shows repeatedly how more ancient civilisations have been destroyed by desertification than by conquest. There are some very telling examples. The Sahel comprised what once were great civilisations. Timbuktu, which we are all taught in primary education was the end of the earth—the furthest and most remote place one could ever get to—was the centre of a vast empire at the time of the Roman empire. The Lebanon was once famous for its magnificent cedars, which it exported around the world, and were used to build the royal palaces of Egypt, of Babylon and of Assyria, but there are not many of those left. The pattern has been changed as much by ecological as by military or economic change. It is important to recognise that.

By straining land in the short term, the very agricultural practices that produce the food surpluses, which enable civilisations to flourish, starve them in the long term. For example, the area along the southern Mediterranean—all the African shoreline—used to produce the wheat for the Roman empire. Now there is very little production of wheat or other crops; it is very much desert with, I suppose, some tourism thrown in. A once grain-rich area has given way to sand.

Desertification is a major international problem. The expansion of deserts has been far more rapid in the past few decades. We must realise that other countries feel the consequences of that process. The whole international economic order is affected.

Global warming is recognised as a cause of desert expansion. There was an interesting conference in Toronto at the end of June. It considered, even if not for the first time, the climatological crisis that will arise if we continue to interfere with the atmosphere. It is estimated that the earth's temperature has risen by between 0.3 and 0.7 deg. C this century. If the temperature were to decrease by only 4 per cent. on average, we would be into a new ice age. An increase of 0.3 per cent. is therefore enormously significant.

The greenhouse effect contributes to global warming. The concept is now well known and it is the subject of parliamentary questions. It was debated in the other place earlier today. Its causes are becoming clearer. They are gases and pollutants which are used by man, the felling and burning of tropical rain forests and additional carbon dioxide, methane and fluoridated hydrocarbons and other gases which accumulate in the atmosphere, preventing heat from bouncing back into space. The climatological consequences of that are potentially devastating. Many cities could be flooded within 50 or 60 years. If Antarctica were to melt just a little, we would face enormous problems, and they would be the result of our own activity.

There are simplistic ways in which to tackle the problem, such as dealing with CFCs and gas pollution produced privately and by industry, but we must co-operate internationally to anticipate and deal with the potential crisis.

We destroy the earth's resources substantially through soil erosion. Scientists estimate that soil which can have taken between 200 and 120,000 years to form can be lost in a few years. We know from our own gardens that topsoil is vulnerable. It is much needed and can be "lost" easily. Topsoil only 2 cm thick can be removed by wind or water power, but farming throughout the world depends on it. Soil was previously able to form at the same rate as it was eroded, but the pace of erosion now outstrips reformation alarmingly.

The wind erodes soil when natural vegetation cover is removed. Man might cut down forest or overgraze grassland, as happened in the American dustbowl disaster of the 1930s. The soil was lost because of the interests of short-term production. A very odd phenomenon resulted. About 350 million tonnes of fertile topsoil were blown up into a giant cloud, even producing an eclipse. The topsoil was lost and it has taken half a century to recover from that climatological aberration. The retention of soil for farming in this country and north America, particularly in times when, as now, there is a substantial drought, has an important effect. Farming and incentives to farming that we encourage through our aid programme and collectively in the international community are influential.

The third form of effect on the land is water erosion. When the natural protective cover of trees and plants disappears on hills and mountains topsoil can be lost permanently. I gather that 25 million tonnes of soil is washed away by rains, rivers and flood waters every year. Next week I hope to go to north Wales where my family comes from. I have been there in August most years of my life, when there is normally a substantial amount of heavy rain. We see in a small way exactly what happens. It is a major problem and we cannot prevent the effect of water eroding the soil, but we can work to anticipate how we recover it. That is particularly necessary in the poorest areas of the world where only one phenomenal period of heavy rain can eliminate the potential for farming for a long time.

Since farming began in the United States it is estimated that one third of the topsoil across the nation has been lost. The present escalating demand for firewood and forest land for cultivation will mean that increasing quantities of our precious land—I say that as a world citizen—will be exposed to degradation. There are deserts in every continent bordered by vast areas of semi-arid land that support huge populations, many of which are in danger of becoming deserts. We tend to forget that the semi-arid areas provide the world with 20 per cent. of food supplies and support 850 million people. If in 60 years' time they become desert, 20 per cent. of our food capacity will be lost, probably when there is an increase in population making demands on those areas.

At present, 230 million people are directly threatened by desertification, and by the year 2000, only 12 years hence, one third of the world's present farm land will be desert. That is a frightening statistic. Although that figure is reached using the scientifically agreed definition of a desert, which is according to its aridity, we will have a major problem which we must help to solve.

At the same time we must recognise that if we farm over-intensively, whether in our country or by contributing through chemicals and so on to farming abroad, and if we interfere in the soil composition either by using chemical fertilisers, lime, humus and other ways of dealing with the acidity of the soil, or by over-intensive ploughing we shall damage irreversibly an element that we need. The issue is simple: man and woman cannot survive without food, and the earth produces it.

The second most fundamental element of our environment is air. The older citizens of this city will be more aware than most people of air pollution at its worst. I remember that when I was young we had smog the like of which we no longer see. I was brought up in what is now Greater Manchester and we certainly had some pretty grim autums and winters. Such conditions caused thousands of deaths at the turn of the century and before.

We have done better than that. The Clean Air Act 1956 was the beginning of recent legislation on these matters. Unfortunately, however, we do not yet have clean air. A number of very effective lobbying organisations are still trying to ensure not only that legislation is introduced but that when Acts such as the Control of Pollution Act 1974 are passed their provisions are implemented. Sadly, in the past decade or so there have been substantial delays between the enactment of legislation on this subject and its implementation.

We have moved pollution away from the centres of population. We have made chimneys taller and thus spared ourselves, but the pollution that we create now gets sent further afield—western and northern Europe have been the principal and doubtful "beneficiaries". It is a well known fact—we have debated the question quite often —that the forests and lakes of Europe and north America are being damaged, in some cases irreversibly, by the pollution that still comes from our manufacturing processes.

The obvious enemies are sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides, which are discharged mainly by power station chimneys. They mix in the atmosphere to produce acid rain, which may fall near or further afield. Every time I drive up the M4 I look to see the state of the trees on either side of the motorway. People have examined, much more carefully than I, the terrible effects of acid rain in Germany and Scandinavia. The Scandinavians are still very cross with us—that is putting it nicely—because we still cause destruction to their fish stocks, lakes, fjords and trees.

Approximately 40 million tonnes of airborne sulphur dioxide were still being produced in Europe a few years ago—the equivalent of 66,000 30-tonne lorries full of sulphur being dumped directly into the lakes of Europe. In southern Norway, more than 13,000 sq km of lakes are nearly empty of fish. It is estimated that 50 per cent. of trees in West Germany are affected.

Unfortunately, we are still the dirty man of Europe. We still produce nearly 30 million tonnes of airborne sulphur every year—two thirds of which is blown away to Scandinavia. It is estimated that of the 610,000 tonnes of sulphur deposited in Sweden every year, only about a sixth comes from there; the rest is imported, not by invitation but because we expel it.

I am sad to say that we have dragged our feet. I know that at the Environment Council in June we reached an agreement to reduce our sulphur emissions by the turn of the century. It was not as much as Opposition Members —and indeed some Conservative Members—had hoped for. Our refusal to join the 30 per cent. club is sad, and there is substantial room for improvement. I hope that the Minister will take a specific interest in that. The Department has done some good work but when it comes to the crunch we are one of the countries in Europe that has been most reluctant to agree to strict enforcement of control on our pollution.

Similarly, the ozone layer is threatened by air pollution produced on an everyday basis by our chemical processes. That produces not only harmful effects on the environment, but health consequences, too. Skin cancer is on the increase and it is suggested that a factor of 2 to 3 per cent. of its increase is attributable to the damage to the ozone layer. Ultraviolet radiation is causing increased eye disease and there are also effects on marine ecosystems, plant life, crop and timber yields and so on.

The third major element is water, the third resource in the world under threat. Our planet's waters have been contaminated by waste deposited in the sea by rivers, streams, pipelines and dumping vessels. I heard on "Today in Parliament" at 11.30, over five hours ago, about a debate in the other place in which they discussed how, when we talked to the French about sewage deposits, we suggested that perhaps the answer was to make our pipelines longer. Apparently the French replied that if we built longer pipes, sending out our sewage nearer to them, they would build longer pipes, too, and we would get similar coming back. That is clearly not the way to proceed.

With the threat of unclean, environmentally unacceptable beaches—which have now to be notified; we have all had experience of visiting beaches which are foul, to put it mildly—we often have foul water. There are hazards of a short-term nature, and concern has also been expressed recently about the aluminium contamination of water in Britain. Water pollution is bad for the health of this and every other nation, bringing bacteria, viruses and other disease-causing effects. The pollutants are mainly industrial by-products—apart from sewage—and we have a responsibility to deal with this issue to protect ourselves, marine and bird life.

About 3.5 million tonnes of oil is dumped into the sea every year. The Mediterranean contains an enormous amount of sewage, 85 per cent. of it untreated. If people knew that as they waited at Gatwick airport they might decide it was not such a desirable and healthy place to go for their often delayed summer holiday. Mussels and oysters are becoming increasingly unsafe to eat. Typhoid, paratyphoid, dysentery, polio, viral hepatitis and food poisoning are common. They are caused, among other things, by poisoned and contaminated water.

In addition to contaminating the water, the world has been guilty of over-fishing and over-drawing from the marine environment. We cannot afford to do that. For example, nearly one third of Peru's foreign exchange is earned through anchovy fishing. In 1974, it fished 9 million tonnes of anchovies, and the world was grateful for the fish. But those methods allowed woefully insufficient time for the anchovies to breed and replenish themselves, and by 1980 the catch had gone down to 1 million tonnes. One could give many other examples worldwide. That sort of foolish over-exploitation causes many problems.

In Britain and elsewhere we rely on estuaries for the breeding of fish, crustaceans, and so on. But that is where pollution is at its greatest because of chemical, industrial and sewage pollution. As a result, many of the world's estuaries are dying. We cannot put off dealing with that problem.

If, as estimated, there is a 200 to 300 per cent. increase in water withdrawals in the world by the end of the century, we must make sure that the water that is withdrawn is suitable and is used properly. At the same time, the water table is falling in many key agricultural areas. Much water needed for irrigation is being lost through over-evaporation and transpiration and is not available for re-use.

If we do not have water we will perish. Earth, air and water are the staple elements of our planet's life-support system. With them we have the basis for food and shelter. With them we can accommodate, feed and provide the resources for the increasing global population, and that is one of the remaining issues with which the world must deal.

Although world population growth has been slowing since 1965 to 1970, the highest annual increase, averaging 87 million extra people per year, will be between 1990 and 2010. The global total has already passed 5 billion and may reach more than 10 billion before it starts to level out— and 96 per cent. of that growth will be in the developing countries. Regional trends are highly diverse. Birth rates remain high in Africa and western Asia, growing at 3 per cent. and 2.8 per cent. per year respectively. In Latin America and south Asia the figures are 2.3 per cent. and 2.2 per cent. and have started to slow down. In east Asia, the increase has slowed considerably. Rapid population growth, coupled with wasteful or polluting technologies and lifestyles, are depleting the planet's finite resources and jeopardising our life-support systems of soil, forest and climate. We can produce enough food to feed future populations, but in 73 of the 122 developing countries food production has fallen behind population growth, arable land per person is declining and in many countries population exceeds, or soon will exceed, the carrying capacity of the land. That is a vital area to address in terms of political pressure.

Aid for population programmes is still inadequate. Since 1965, when the total was just £10,000, it has grown to £1 million and then to £15.5 million, but population programmes receive only 1 per cent. of total British aid compared with an OECD average of 1.5 per cent. British bilateral aid is patchy, with one or two projects accounting for a large chunk of the aid. In 1984 and 1985, two thirds of our bilateral aid for population programmes went to one project in Orissa state in India. The whole of sub-Saharan Africa received an average of only £235,000 per year from us in the three years from 1982 to 1985—the price of a four-bedroom flat in Hampstead, as was pointed out in a briefing note that we all received, and scarcely an acceptable contribution on a world scale from the British Government.

Aid for population programmes drawing attention to the dangers of failure to act and concern that we give more in overseas aid must be among the key elements of our strategy in the future. We must anticipate the greater problems that lie ahead.

We must educate to ensure that our young people are aware of their global responsibility and invest in that education. We must encourage the idea that an environmental approach to all our activities, particularly our economic activity, is a prerequisite for a sustainable economy for us all in this and every other country. Those are the principles of environmental awareness that we must follow.

I end as I began, with a quotation from Mrs. Brundtland: We stand at a crossroads. In the past the pursuit of 'progress' in the industrialised West was founded on four dominant beliefs: that people dominate the earth, that they are masters of their destiny, that the world is vast and unlimited, and that history is a process of advancement, with every problem solvable. But we must now call into question those four basic beliefs. Instead, the essential basis for sustainable development must be the concern for the world's environment. We need individual participation at all levels in the care of the planet and, based on this deeper and wider perception of the basis of life and human activity, we need profound changes in economic and social attitudes. If the planet is to be saved, this is a battle we are all called on to fight. Government and Parliament have a responsibility to respond to an international call such as that. Whether it is food, energy, arms, defence, aid or education policy, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that all activity of Government makes for a much greater priority to be attached to it. I believe that the international community is now ready to be pushed into taking that sort of action. I hope that our Government will make international environment and responsibility a major political priority. I trust that we shall see that reflected in an increasing amount of attention being given to these matters in this place, and increasing resources given to them on behalf of the people of Britain, both in energy and in money.

5.5 am

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mrs. Virginia Bottomley)

It is a privilege and an honour to reply to the debate, which has centred on environmental issues. I thank the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) for raising such important questions, and especially for presenting his remarks in such a thoughtful, detailed and well-informed fashion. I thank him for his kind remarks about my appointment. I have taken an interest in our environment throughout my career, and it is an exciting challenge to tackle the many problems that remain to be solved.

The Government's environment record is a good one. One of the first papers that I read this week was the Department's recent publication that is entitled "Protecting Your Environment". This excellent guide, which understandably had to be reprinted to meet public demand, sets out succinctly and convincingly the Government's policy for environmental protection. Our basic principles stress the need to base decisions on the best available scientific foundation, to adopt a preventive approach and when necessary take precautionary measures, to set realistic goals for the quality of the environment, and to take full account of technical feasibility and economic considerations. We want to ensure that the public are aware of the state of our environment and that their feelings are reflected in our policies, which are designed to develop the concept of the best practicable environmental option. We have published today a consultation paper on integrated pollution control.

We recognise the international dimension to so many environmental problems, and welcome the fact that the hon, Member for Southwark and Bermondsey has chosen to focus on this aspect of the subject. We play our full part in finding international remedies.

I am especially keen to work more closely with the many environmental groups that have done so much to raise the profile of environment matters, and with the press and the journalists who keep the public better informed and more enlightened about the vital importance of developing policies for the environment worldwide.

I am looking forward to working with my noble Friend Lord Caithness, the Minister of State, who has already proved his commitment to the environmental cause as well as showing his great skills as an international negotiator. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey referred to some confusion about the roles of various individuals. My noble Friend will still lead on this subject, but I am pleased to say that I shall be speaking on environmental protection in this place.

I hope that the House will join me in paying a tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State with responsibilities for sport. He has shown his understanding and persuasive abilities in this place when discussing these important topics.

I pay a personal tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe). She is a much valued parliamentary colleague whose concern for rural housing, the provision of low-cost houses and protecting villages has greatly impressed the House. Her personal commitment to and support of the housing association movement is well known to us all in this place and to many outside.

Before dealing with the issues that particularly affect the Department, I shall deal briefly with some of the arguments that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey was advancing, which is some respects should more properly be raised by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston). Having had the privilege to serve my hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development earlier in my time here, I am well aware of the serious commitment the Overseas Development Administration has to many of the topics raised by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey. He rightly pointed out the extent to which these subjects cross departmental boundaries. One of the privileges of being a Back Bencher that I am quite sad to lose is that of being able to stroll freely across Departments. I shall now have to observe the convention and confine my remarks primarily to my own Department.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the ODA booklet "The Environment and the British Aid Programme". The questions of preservation of soil, desertification and tropical rain forests were all given keen attention during the International Year of the Environment, and I think that he will find there a good deal of useful material. The tackling of population expansion, which the hon. Gentleman also mentioned, is also a matter primarily for the Overseas Development Minister. The Government accept the grave threat to sustainable development posed by rapidly increasing populations in many poorer parts of the world, and we share many of the Brundtland report's conclusions about giving more priority to support for primary health care activities, with special emphasis on mother-and-child health and family planning.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has taken great steps to spell out the need for reform of the common agricultural policy, and to consider the overproduction in Europe and the United States in the context of the shortages in many Third world countries. Again I refer the hon. Gentleman to the work done by the Minister for Overseas Development on the reform of food aid, in which he has given priority to these issues.

Let me return to the responsibilities more directly in my Department, particularly the international aspects. Clearly the European Community plays a central role. More and more legislation in Brussels affects our lives here. Important EC legislation helps to govern the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the seas and the life that surround us, and even our stratosphere. This is not an imposition; the Government are positively committed to improving the quality of our environment. We see Europe as a challenge, an opportunity to share our concern for the environment and to work together with others on transboundary issues to shape the environmental future for our own children and those of our fellow Europeans.

A major event last year was the European Year of the Environment, which was a great success in the United Kingdom. Our national committee included many non-governmental bodies, which played a crucial role. It mounted an energetic publicity campaign which stimulated hundreds of first-rate, small-scale environmental projects. This is relevant to what was said by the hon. Gentleman in relation to the increasing public awareness, interest and concern about these important subjects.

The European Year closed on 31 March, and its momentum led within three months to European Ministers agreeing far-reaching measures to protect the environment. The positive role played by the United Kingdom in helping to bring about those achievements was of major significance.

On 16 June, after four and a half years of difficult negotiations, the Environment Council reached agreement on the large combustion plants directive: a phased programme of reductions in emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from power stations and other large combustion plants. Even more far-reaching was the agreement to ratify and implement the Montreal protocol. I am glad to say that we also reached agreements in December 1987 and June this year on pollution standards for medium and small cars. June also saw the virtual conclusion of negotiations on amendments to the so-called Seveso directive, which deals with major accident hazards from chemical stores. We also made substantial progress on a draft directive aimed at controlling waste from the titanium dioxide industry. We hope it will be possible to sew up an agreement in November.

The hon. Gentleman rightly spoke about the importance of air pollution. Many thought that the Clean Air Act 1956 would solve the problem. It was a major improvement and a recognition of the need, but of course new threats have emerged and developed since then.

This year we have reached historic agreements on the means to protect the quality of our air. I thought that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey was a little mean-spirited in his description of the country's performance in that regard.

The outstanding agreement is the large combustion plants directive. The directive commits the United Kingdom to reducing 1980 levels of sulphur dioxide emissions from existing large combustion plants by 20 per cent. by 1993, by 40 per cent. by 1995 and by 60 per cent. by 2003; and nitrogen oxide emissions by 15 per cent. by 1993 and by 30 per cent. by 1998, again from a 1980 base.

Before that agreement, the United Kingdom was already undertaking a substantial £1 billion programme to reduce acid emissions, the second largest in Europe. That included plans to retrofit three major Central Electricty Generating Board coal-fired power stations with flue gas desulphurisation equipment and to fit all major CEGB coal-fired power stations with low-nitrogen oxide burners. All new coal-fired power stations are required to have technology to control acid emissions. The commitment undertaken in the directive will require substantial further effort over and above existing programmes.

The United Kingdom can be proud of the major part it is playing in reducing European emissions and helping to bring about an end to the acid rain problem.

Vehicle emissions are another important component of acid rain. They are set to fall substantially following the Government's intention to introduce, as soon as practicable, tighter new exhaust emission standards agreed in the European Community in December. Still further progress was made last month when EC Environment Ministers reached agreement, subject to views of the European Parliament, on the further tightening of standards for small cars.

I would like to point out the great strides we have made in promoting sales of unleaded petrol. The Government are fully committed to the introduction of unleaded petrol. My first engagement in the Department was to chair the unleaded petrol group, which brings together the oil and motor industries, consumers and Government Departments to work for a smooth transition to the new fuel. In this year's Budget the tax differential in favour of unleaded petrol increased significantly. Unleaded fuel is now being sold some 6p per gallon below the price of 4-star and comfortably below that of 2-star. There are powerful incentives for motorists to save money and contribute to a cleaner environment.

I urge all motorists to find out whether their cars can use unleaded petrol—two thirds of cars can run on unleaded petrol, although some may need a minor adjustment. Some 1,520 petrol stations now sell unleaded petrol—a significant improvement, but there is still further to go. Environmental groups, fuel companies, vehicle manufacturers and the media, working with the Government, must urgently get the message across to more motorists.

Global issues need global solutions. Protection of the ozone layer is a classic instance of the need for action on an international basis. The United Kingdom was one of the first countries—and the first EC member state—to ratify the Vienna convention on the protection of the ozone layer, which we understand is due to enter into force in September. We played an active part in negotiating the Montreal protocol to control emissions of chlorofluoro-carbons. That protocol is a landmark in international co-operation on the environment. It is the first international measure designed to prevent rather than cure a global environmental problem.

Our first priority—shared with our partners in the EC —is to ensure that the protocol enters into force on 1 January 1989 as planned and with the widest possible participation. On 16 June the Council of Environment Ministers agreed, in principle, proposals for the Community and for all the members states to ratify the protocol before the end of this year and to implement it in the EC. Clearly, however, in the light of important scientific developments since Montreal we must look ahead to the process of assessment and review of the protocol measures. British scientists, economists and officials will be participating fully in the international meetings in the Netherlands in October which will set the process in hand. By then the Department's stratospheric ozone review group will have published its second report, which will give a full assessment of the latest evidence. In the meantime, we have noted carefully the warning in the executive summary of the group's report issued last month about the need to strengthen the protocol. The Environment Council, on 16 June, gave a clear political signal in its resolution on the ozone layer about the importance of going beyond Montreal and calling for further measures on a voluntary basis to reduce the use of CFCs and halons to the maximum possible extent.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned research. I can assure him that the NERC changes will not affect research on stratospheric ozone. The United Kingdom has a strong programme of stratospheric ozone research. British scientists were involved in the Antarctic campaign last September, and will be involved in the Arctic programme next January. The Department supports this and other work and keeps in close touch with the results of other United Kingdom research programmes, principally the Meteorological Office, NERC and SERC, collectively amounting to some £2 million a year. The United Kingdom has taken the initiative in bringing together research programme managers from EC and EFTA countries to discuss how stratospheric ozone research in Europe should be co-ordinated. Progress on that front has been encouraging.

The protocol provides a stimulus to research into alternatives. The two United Kingdom producers are actively engaged in research and development work to find substitutes and have joined an international consortium to speed their commercial development.

We are all well aware of the importance of the issue of climate change, raised by the hon. Gentleman. As my noble Friend said in a message to last month's conference on the changing atmosphere in Toronto, the principle of sustainable development faces possibly its greatest challenge in man-made climate change. Its causes and effects pose difficult and challenging problems which can be solved only internationally. There are great uncertain-ties, but it is important to reduce them as quickly as possible by co-ordinated international research. The Department has increased spending on climate change research and has commissioned a study of possible impacts of climate change on the natural environment of the United Kingdom. There are measures which can be taken now on the basis of our current understanding. For example, CFCs and halons are also greenhouse gases. The Montreal measure will not only benefit the ozone layer but reduce the greenhouse effect.

Turning to the water environment, the hon. Gentleman mentioned bathing and the water round our beaches. I can assure him that £70 million a year is already being spent on cleaning up bathing water, and it is likely that the amount will increase.

The United Kingdom has a history of international collaboration on measures to prevent and remedy pollution. Because of our island location, we do not suffer from the problems of transboundary pollution in the same way as many of our continental partners situated on major international waterways. As a result, much of our collaborative effort has been directed towards combating pollution of the seas.

The North sea is one area in which the United Kingdom has taken a series of initiatives, together with its North sea partners, to make a real contribution towards protecting and improving the international environment. Last November my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State hosted the second international conference on protection of the North sea. Its successful outcome was internationally acknowledged.

The United Kingdom has taken an early lead in implementing the conference declaration. In February the Department published a detailed guidance note on implementation addressed to water authorities, industry and other relevant agencies throughout the United Kingdom. Today we are publishing our detailed proposals for reduction of dangeous substance inputs to rivers. Earlier in the year a new programme of regular aerial surveillance was launched by the Department of Transort to monitor illegal discharges by ships and offshore installations. In March, we hosted the inaugural meeting of the international scientific task force and, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution is now reviewing licences for liquid industrial waste dumping and incineration.

Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhondda)

Will the hon. Lady give an undertaking that, in investigating those issues, her Department will look closely at the development of "the polluter pays" principle so that the people who pollute our waterways pay for the cleaning up?

Mrs. Bottomley

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I shall certainly consider it with some urgency. I know that it is the subject of discussion, and I shall provide him with a more considered response.

Many of the issues raised tonight—and many more— are covered in depth in the Government's response produced this week to the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, "Our Common Future". The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey paid his repects to and drew at length on the Brundtland report. Like his, the Government's response recognises the importance of a variety of Departments. They include the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the ODA, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Department of Energy, the DHSS—or rather the DH and the DSS—the Ministry of Defence, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices, the Treasury and indeed the Prime Minister herself——

Mr. Simon Hughes

That shows better than anything I could have said the importance of giving one Department a cross-departmental lead responsibility in environmental matters. In economic affairs, it is impossible for Departments to run their finances without someone from the Treasury taking charge. Clearly, as the Minister's list shows, the same needs to apply to environmental matters. Either her Department or another newly created one needs to be in charge and bring others together.

Mrs. Bottomley

An excellent response has been produced by co-ordination and collaboration, and I find no fault or difficulty in that. I commend that response to the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members.

When the Brundtland report was launched in April 1987 the Government gave it an immediate and warm welcome. The response, "Our Common Future", examines the report point by point in more than 60 pages of detailed commentary. It demonstrates where we have already made progress in putting the message of the report in hand. For example, all Government Departments have been asked to examine their policies against it. But the report also recognises that many of the problems identified will require concerted international efforts if they are to be resolved. We are working hard through various international organisations, notably the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations environment programme, to follow up the report. And we have seconded a senior Government official to help the Norwegian Government with their preparations for a major follow-up conference in 1990 to review progress. Copies of "Our Perspective" have already been placed in the Library. I would thoroughly commend it as suitable holiday reading for all hon. Members.

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister says in her foreword, "Our Perspective" describes where we stand in the United Kingdom. It is intended to inform interested organisations and individuals at home, and to stimulate further international consideration of the report, notably within the OECD and the United Nations. I see it also as a contribution to the ministerial conference which the Norwegian Government will hold in 1990 to examine what progress we have made to safeguard "Our Common Future".

The Prime Minister's remarks underline the nature of the task that lies ahead. Considerable and encouraging progress has already been made on international measures to protect the environment. The Government have played a leading and constructive role in a series of important achievements. In the past year the Montreal protocol was signed and the successful second North sea conference held. In the past few months agreement has been reached on the European Community large combustion plants directive and the Luxembourg vehicle emissions package. The EC ratification and implementation of the Montreal protocol, the endorsement of the Brundtland report by the Toronto economic summit and the publication of our formal response to it have all occurred in recent months. Only a consultation paper on integrated pollution control was published.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey on raising this vital subject, and I assure him that I shall give serious consideration to what he said. This has been an excellent opportunity to emphasise the great importance that the Government attach to improving and preserving the environment, to highlight a number of the Government's achievements in this crucial area and to point the way ahead.