HC Deb 19 December 1990 vol 183 cc439-55 2.35 am
Mr. Tony Speller (Devon, North)

It is not yet dawn, although it may feel like it, but along the coasts of north Devon, north Cornwall and south Wales people are already at work on the water. I should see, were I in Ilfracombe now—and I wish I were—the lights of the vessels going towards the south Wales ports and Avonmouth and also the lights of vessels coming down the Bristol channel the other way. That waterway is a place of business. Many people live and work on either side of the Bristol channel.

Those of us who represent constitutencies in that area have witnessed with apprehension during the last 15 or 20 years the overdevelopment that has taken place, due to the granting of too many planning applications. That has led to far more sewage and industrial effluent than can be dealt with efficiently. It has to be pumped somewhere. It never occurred to us in years gone by that it would be wrong to empty all our debris into streams, rivers and the sea. Now we are paying the penalty.

I congratulate not just Her Majesty's Government, although they like to be congratulated and in this case deserve it, but the water companies and, in particular, the National Rivers Authority on their realistic views. At long last, money needed for far too long to clean up our waterways has been found for that purpose.

A White Paper entitled "This Common Inheritance" was published in September 1990. It is good to have an overall view of our environmental strategy. The problem is that far too many Ministers have contributed individually to the debate. The White Paper was presented to Parliament by the Secretaries of State for the Environment, for Trade and Industry, for Health, for Education and Science, for Scotland, for Transport, for Energy and for Northern Ireland, as well as by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretaries of State for Employment and for Wales. That accounts for 11 members of the Cabinet. Too many cooks have had to say something about the problems that face this narrow waterway.

This beautiful, busy waterway begins in the east at Bristol and I can clearly see beautiful south Wales from the hills in my constituency as I look over the Bristol channel. On the south side of the Bristol channel we have north Devon, north Somerset and north Cornwall. It has taken me a long time to study and determine which problems can be sorted out, if not during the lifetime of this Parliament certainly during the lifetime of the next.

Britain is not lagging behind in the clean-up race. Our problem is that, being an island, we have proportionately greater problems cleaning up the water, because we have used that water as our dustbin and cesspool for so long. In the old unenlightened days, when we had no thoughts of conservation, we had an effective system for getting rid of refuse into the water. Now, the sheer volume of refuse going into the water has overstretched and overfilled the waters of the Bristol channel.

The Bristol channel is a maritime cul-de-sac. Unlike the English channel, where the water sluices through twice a day on the tide, there is no sluicing effect, although every Minister appears to have heard of the Severn bore. We have a huge rise and fall in tides—up to 36 feet twice a day at Ilfracombe—but it is a huge up and down movement, not an in and out movement, as everyone assumes, and thereby hangs our problem. If this huge tidal range whisked everything away, all the theories would be wonderful, but it does not work that way.

I wish that I could play the tape of an elderly gentleman who spoke to me at length and told me that, if a body went into the water off Hartland, he would know where it would appear a day or two later, depending on whether there was a neap or spring tide and on the other variations in the water which only a local person would know. To my abiding sorrow, some people have drowned in the area in the past year or so. Often, that drowning appeared to be the result not of a lack of ability among the people who have the machinery to call for help but because people did not have the local knowledge of where a body or perhaps a boat would float.

It is wrong to assume that, because the tide goes up and down, it goes in and out. It does so on the beach, but not in the Bristol channel. Eddies of filth go round and round for days and although computer forecasts tell us exactly what will happen in the ideal world, they do not allow for the changes in the tidal pattern every day of the year.

The Government have attacked the problem and have accepted it. I am delighted about that, although I feel that too many Ministers are involved for our small waterway.

Statistics in the White Paper show that 96 per cent. of properties in England and Wales are connected to the sewage system—the highest proportion in Europe and that is very good. Eighty-three per cent. of sewage is treated inland. I suppose that that is good, but a lot of the muck from inland makes its way into our coastal waters. According to the White Paper, Britain disposes of 17 per cent. of its sewage by discharging it into the sea, mainly from coastal towns. If 17 per cent. of sewage goes into the sea,it is no surprise that 24 per cent. of our bathing waters do not comply with European Community regulations.

Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)

I must give the hon. Gentleman a personal anecdote for his valuable exposition. As a boy, I collected cockles on the beach at Swansea directly opposite Ilfracombe and ate them with my family. No one would dare do that now, as it would have the most awful consequences.

Mr. Speller

The cockles were much better on our side of the water. They were sold to visitors, who said, "They are marvellous." As the hon. Gentleman will know, in the past the more sewage that was discharged into the sea, the bigger the cockles were. The water may have had natural sewage in it then, but now it has a lot of unnatural sewage—effluent and traces of cadmium and of all the chemicals that are used in industrial processes in south Wales arid Avonmouth. As we dispose of more sewage into the water, and as we allow so much planned overdevelopment, so the problem becomes worse.

The shape of the waterway is important. I am the chairman of the all-party alternative energy group and I should love to see a Severn barrage built. However, were it to be built in the next few years, the area between it and Bristol would get in the "Guinness Book of Records" as the biggest cesspit in the world. I believe that a treatment plant is about to be built at Avonmouth. Although some might get indignant and say how wicked it is that it was not done earlier, we have now accepted the problem. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can tell me about some of the remedial things that will be done by Wessex Water, Welsh Water and South West Water. None of the water authorities is the villain of the piece; they are all using old technology to the best of their ability.

Given the intervention from the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), it is right that I should recount some of the complaints that led me to make my speech. In May 1988, I had a debate on a similar subject, which was then answered by the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I am happy that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment is answering tonight. Whether one likes it or not, his Department must pull together all the various strings that relate to our waterways.

I have with me a few examples of the large volume of correspondence I have received, which typify the problems encountered by individuals and groups. Such letters have caused me to intensify my crusade to do something positive about our channel.

One letter came from a tourist from Northampton. He complained about the disgusting state of the sea and the lack of signs to warn against swimming in it. I do not look forward to the day when there are warnings against swimming, as that would do the tourist industry no good. Thankfully, we have not reached that stage, but there are dangers and we need no signs to notify people of them.

The gentleman wrote to say that he had contracted middle ear disease from swimming in raw sewage. He said that the sea was too dangerous to swim in and that he would no longer holiday in the area because the water was not fit to swim in. He is not over-egging that pudding: without doubt, a problem arises at certain times when so much sewage seeps into the sea around high tide.

The principle is simple. Sewage is collected in the old-fashioned way, in the old tanks. As the tide rises the non-return valve of the tank opens. The theory is wonderfully simple—the sewage should be sucked out on the ebb tide beyond Lundy to southern Ireland, where it becomes their problem. But it does not happen that way, because, especially on the neap tides, the sewage ends up coating the local sand below the extraction point. That is not a sensible system, although, strangely enough, we did not object to it for many years.

Another complaint came from an excellent modern holiday camp. The management wrote to say that it was not right that tourists should visit the camp and go home with mild symptoms of illness because of the cosmetic light—much of it is cosmetic—of faeces in the water.

The sub-aqua club based in Ilfracombe is worried about plans for long sea outfalls. The club caters for people of all ages and both sexes and it has been operating for many years. I go back to the days when sub-aqua diving meant a face mask and a snorkel, but things are far more developed now. The club secretary wrote to me about the underwater conditions in the Bristol channel and said: We have noticed over the last few years that the underwater visibility has been getting progressively worse. He said that the club had shortened its season of diving from April to November down to June to September and that, even at the height of the season, visibility was never as it had been three to four years ago. Under the water in some parts of the channel, club members pass enormous foul-smelling slicks of apparently untreated effluent; and they can be found in nearly every part of the channel. There is a corollary to that; the letter continues: We have noticed a decrease in the amount and variety of sedentary marine life It is noted that, even around Lundy, which was specifically created as a maritime nature reserve some 10 years ago, the amount of sea life has gone down and the amount of pollution has gone up.

The club continues: There is a foul smelling, slimy, brown silt covering every underwater surface". I draw attention to that phrase because half of our problem is that there are two problems. The obvious problem is that of sewage—I am sorry to take the time of the House on such an exciting subject—leaking into the water from the various pipes from towns and villages. The greater problem has nothing to do with raw sewage. It is caused by dumping sewage sludge 11 miles off Ilfracombe, mostly from Wessex Water.

In the House I could not use the language that my fishermen use about the treated effluent that comes from Avonmouth. The rough-treated sewage sludge looks rather like shiny brown sand—for want of a better word. When it is dumped, it sinks and coats the sea bed. That is the major environmental problem. Everyone thinks that the sewage coming out of the pipes is the main problem, but it is only the half of it. This is what causes men, women or children to have tummy upsets. But the problem for maritime life is the dumped sewage sludge which covers the sea bed.

Each year I buy for very special members of my family a little smoked salmon from a particular retailer on the north Devon coast. About eight hours ago, I was speaking to the retailer. She told me that they had sold their fishing boat because there were no bottom fish left, which means fish such as plaice and skate or what we might call flatfish.

The fish are not there any more because the vast amount of dumped sediment has covered their sea bed habitat. We have two halves to our problem—the dumping of large-scale sewage sludge and the oozing in of local sewage, for want of a nastier word. That family has been fishing for three generations off Appledore and Barnstaple bay.

A surfing instructor wrote to me saying: I am writing to express my concern about the pollution", and enclosed some photographs. These shots show women's sanitary towels etc., etc., in rock pools and gullies where children play. I myself am a surfing instructor … I teach young people to surf. He said that he was worried about their catching infections. And so the sad saga of complaint goes on.

The Ilfracombe angling club took a slightly different line. It said that there is a great deal of marine debris, including old nets and plastic, so that all the debris of mankind is added to the sludge and sewage dumped in the sea. The secretary mentioned that the club's motto is "Conserve, protect and promote". Perhaps Members of Parliament for the area might adopt this.

The last but one of the points made by my constituents was put by a gentleman with a marvellous Devonshire accent who spoke to me on tape. He said that the problem with the authorities was that they knew everything in theory but not a great deal in practice. He was not unkind to them. He said that they were good, well-intentioned, knowledgeable people who sought to help. I stress that we are well served in the south-west by our water companies and the National Rivers Authority. The old gentleman made a point that I made earlier—that the tide does not go in and out with a great big whoosh that cleans out all the area. He says that, if one lets a vessel drift in the water, it will not go right out with the tide and come back on another tide: it will go out some way with the waves and eddy around. So, too, does all the mess in the water.

In our part of the world, we like to think that we are green all the way through. Some of my green friends wrote to me about the plastic that holds six-pack beer cans together. They sent pictures of sea birds which had got the non-biodegradable plastic stuck around their necks and been drowned. We are a thoughtless people when it comes to our recreation.

I can now identify the four specific problems: the sewage sludge, the raw sewage which oozes out from the drains, the debris of our plastic civilisation and the danger to wild life, caused by propellers, old fishing nets and lines. It causes a nuisance also by wrapping itself around the propellers of boats. We must consider carefully what people throw into the sea.

It is not against the law for a boat going up the Bristol channel to pump out its tanks. Interestingly, last year the port of Bristol—Avonmouth—had a notice on the docks asking people to discharge their refuse there but stating that a charge would be made. If one charges a chap for the collection of his refuse, he is liable to dump it somewhere in the channel. That is another pollution which has happened.

Having set out the nastier side of our problem, let me deal with what I call the winners and the losers. One of our two major problems is the quality of our bathing beaches and of the water itself. In respect of our bathing beaches, there is an easy set of winners—the blue flag winners. The trouble is that there are only four blue flags along the stretch of coast with which I am concerned, which shows the local gravity of the problem.

Hoteliers and tourist operators throughout the country will be quick to say, "We have a blue flag; come to us," meaning, "They haven't got a blue flag; don't go to them." But the blue flag is not an absolute standard. I doubt whether many hon. Members realise that the blue flag is a snapshot taken at an instant in time—the day when the tests are taken.

My constituents know that the pollution on a beach depends on whether the tide was high or low that day and on weather conditions. People who keep their beaches clean and are awarded a blue flag may be horrified to find that they do not get one next year. They will wonder why, and there may be great upsets on the local council, but, in essence, the blue flag system is a "spot the winner" campaign. It has nothing to do with who will win the league and is more like the FA Cup than the League.

I have a list of the winners, most of which are beaches on the south coast of Devon where the channel does the sluicing job which the Severn estuary and the Bristol channel does not do. On the other side, we have the list of shame. It is not a list of true failures, because many beaches that have failed the blue flag would not have failed had it been taken the next day, while many of those that passed might have failed on the following day.

Let me concentrate on the area that I know best. Fourteen points of discharge around the north Devon coastline are approved and licensed by South West Water. Let me tell the House the amounts of crude sewage that are licensed to go into the water from various locations: 50 cu m; 2,500 cu m; 2,400 cu m; the crude sewage from a hotel—I do not know how much that is; crude sewage from a population of 6,000; sewage from a lighthouse and sewage from a cottage. Then we have: 5,000 cu m; 220 cu m; sewage from a holiday park; sewage from another holiday park, 800 cu m; sewage from a Christian holiday park, and 953 cu m from a village. A cubic metre is quite a lot and all that sewage is legally licensed to go into the water along one relatively small stretch of coast. The same applies in the counties adjoining mine and the counties across the water in the Principality.

I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us what it is proposed we should do, but before he does that, let me tell him what I should like him to do. The first and simplest step concerns the dumping of sewage sludge. We have agreed with the EC regulation and law saying that this must stop by 1998. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a date much sooner than that. My friends in the National Rivers Authority tell me that it could well be ended by 1993. It would be a great step forward if we were two or three years away from ending the dumping of sewage sludge. I hope that we can work along those lines.

Sewage sludge has to go somewhere, however, and that is also our problem. Two days ago, North Devon district council turned down on environmental grounds a planning permission application for a wind generator. It is a bit rich for a council to reject a clean, renewable source of energy on environmental grounds, but it shows that all of us worry what will be built in our own locality. Somewhere along the line, we shall have to deal with sewage sludge. The most logical way is by incineration—the method chosen by South West Water and, I hope and believe, by Wessex Water. The authorities always tell us that 95 per cent. of sewage sludge is made up of water so that if one boils the water off, only 5 per cent. is left.

Let us be not mealy-mouthed but brave when it comes to saying, "When they change the system, they must also will the means and the powers to have treatment on land." No one on land will want to have what used to be called a sewage farm adjacent to his property. As with the wind generators I mentioned, councils and the national Government must give guidelines on where water companies will be permitted and encouraged to dispose of sewage. It is no good saying, "You must stop doing this" if one does not say, "You may do this instead".

When the main dumping of sewage sludge ends, marine life will surge back up the channel. We do not see porpoises—although I believe that two have been seen recently somewhere off Lundy—and whether we still get the odd dolphin, I do not know. In years gone by sea mammals were to be seen everywhere. The lady who sold her fishing boat sold it because there are no bottom fish. There are no sea mammals to be seen any more, but there should be and they will come back. If we can clean up the Thames, we can certainly clean up the Bristol channel.

The other major problem is the leaching of sewage in smallish quantities—penny packets—from so many outlets all along both sides of the coast. I congratulate South West Water, which now, after probably the best privatisation ever, is goaded and rightly looked at by the National Rivers Authority. Of its own free will, the authority is determined to solve the sewage problem in my part of the world, but that is only a small part of the whole.

The logic is simple—the authority will put collector pipes along the back of the coast where, at present, relatively small dribbles go into the sea; it will collect them, treat them and, presumably, incinerate the refuse. There is no problem about doing that, except for the cost. It can be done, but it is not the responsibility just of the water company or even of the district and county councils that share responsibility for the disposal of waste and the granting of planning permission. We must encourage and allow disposal sites on land. If we do not treat our sewage on land, we shall sooner or later destroy our marine environment and, rightly, be penalised for disobeying the European Community's codes.

I do not seek villains, because there are none. Everyone means well and seeks to do well. I can speak only for my district. In days gone by, we had a good water authority. Now there is a water company and a rivers authority which work well together—it is a joy to see how well they do so. We, the individual water users, must pay—nothing is cheap in this world, and pay we must.

When it comes to getting our act together, the Department of the Environment is the right Department to look after our side of things. I am delighted that tonight's debate is being answered by a Minister from the Department, rather than by an Agriculture Minister.

Sooner or later, one Department should hold all the powers. At present, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food gives the licences for dumping, while permission to allow sewage into the sea is granted by the Department of the Environment.

When the sewage outlets are no longer used, how much industrial effluent will there be, because the Severn and the Bristol channel are industrial districts? It is no good saying that it should be blue in the water and green in the environment, if that means that the industries of Avon and south Wales have to close. I am delighted to say on behalf of the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith), who cannot be here this evening, but is part of my cross-party, cross-channel alliance—because this is not a party political matter—that, at Lavernock point, which serves the west of Cardiff, the outfall of raw sewage is to be replaced with a long sea outfall. That is the bad news, because the problem with long sea outfalls is that they point from south Wales towards north Devon. Meanwhile, we also have long sea outfalls which point from north Devon towards Wales. If we are not careful, they will meet in the middle and the centre line of the channel will be the recipient of all the sewage. Everyone will say, "We have cleaned your beach", but will not say that we have mucked up someone else's beach on the other side of the water.

The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan then gave me the good news—that a secondary treatment works will be put in place. That is the right answer. It is certainly not enough now, and never has been, to treat sewage only once—which means only chopping it up and taking the lumps out. The coastal tourists and residents deserve at the very least a clean sea and environment.

Tourists complain not about sludge on the sea bed that is the fishermen's complaint—but about faeces in the water. Sludge and sewage are equally damaging and both should be treated on shore. Wildlife and the human race both need a clean environment. We build better roads, at great cost, and we subsidise railways to help our countrymen and women to visit the coasts, only to repel them with pollution in the water and a sore throat to take home.

I warn of the NIMBY factor. I understand people who say that they do not want refuse or sewage incinerators in their areas. It is not enough to stop polluting the sea; we must not pollute the land either. This is where the major problem may arise. We all accept that the Bristol channel must revert to what it used to be: a beautiful place of business and of leisure—a place to which those who, like me, have lived all their lives in Devon, would like to take our children and grandchildren to play in the water in safety and without fear of sickness.

I do not like the fact that beaches are often fouled with dog mess and with the mess of humanity coming back from the sewer on to the beach. We can stop this and I hope that the Minister will reassure me that we will. I do not know when I shall be lucky again in the ballot—whether in 12 or 18 months' time—but I will continue to press on in the right direction.

I have three major wishes for the future of my constituency. One relates to roads and another to the continuation of the family farm, but I shall not bother the House with those two now. The third is that we must clean up our coast, so that in due course we pass on a clean coastline and a pure water supply. That is not an ignoble aim and it is one which I aim to achieve within my parliamentary life.

3.5 am

Mr. Win Griffiths (Bridgend)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) on having the perseverance to stay here until the early hours of the morning so that we might have this opportunity to debate the serious pollution in the Bristol channel. I thought that there was an element of contradiction in what he said, however. He congratulated the Government, the water companies and the National Rivers Authority at the same time as pointing out the real problems which still exist despite the Government's having been in power for more than a decade. The water companies and their predecessors, the water authorities, have been in existence since 1974 and the only new element is the recent privatisation of those authorities and the introduction of the NRA. I hope that there will be much more rapid and dramatic improvements now than there have been in the past decade. The hon. Gentlemen's remarks reminded me of a policeman who regularly stops an old car and congratulates its driver on having only two bald tyres whereas a month before he had four.

As the hon. Gentleman said, there is a serious problem. While there have been improvements, the problem shows no signs of being resolved quickly enough. The part of the south Wales coast that can be described as the coast line of the Bristol channel—as far as Port Eynon bay on the Gower, beyond which we move into the wider sea—has 15 designated beaches. In 1986, 12 failed and three passed. In 1987, eight failed and seven passed. In 1988, six failed and nine passed. Last year, five failed and 10 passed. Those figures relate to tests for E. Coli and all coliforms.

The 1989 figures for salmonella show that 11 beaches failed and only four passed. Judged on enterovirus, four failed and 11 passed. Tested for faecal streptococci all 15 designated beaches from Jackson bay in Barry across to Port Eynon bay failed.

The hon. Member for Devon, North spoke about blue-flag beaches, of which Port Eynon is one. In 1989, 19 non-designated beaches interspersed with designated beaches were sampled; nine failed and 10 passed. The situation in the Swansea bay area was so serious that in January last year Swansea city council lodged an official complaint with the European Commission asking it to take the Government to the European Court of Justice for failing to comply with the 1976 bathing water quality directive. The Government should have complied with that directive by 1986. This year in the Swansea bay area, bays such as Langlend, Liverslade, Bracelet, and West Pier slip all failed the salmonella and enterovirus tests. Mumbles pier, Mumbles slip and West Pier slip all failed the E. Coli and coliforms tests.

In the west country, untreated sewage is discharged from three short outfalls at Portishead Burnham, Blue Anchor and Watchet. Untreated sewage passes through storm drains and overflow pipes at Pill and Clevedon South beach. Industrial waste is discharged from short outfalls into the Kings Weston Ryhne. There is screened sewage from long sea outfalls at Minehead and Portbury and what is described as settled sewage is discharged from the Avonmouth sewage treatment works. Chopped, cleaned and chlorinated sewage is discharged at the short sea outfall from the Blackrock pumping station which, in effect, is Weston-super-Mare sewage.

More than 100,000 tonnes of sewage sludge per year is dumped further out at sea by Wessex Water. River Avon untreated sewage sludge is pushed into the estuary at short outfalls at Pill and Avonmouth. Storm overflows, which are not measured, add to the problem. Between Cleveland and Blue Anchor bay there are 10 designated beaches. The E. Coli and coliforms tests show signs of improvement, but the results are a little up and down. Four failed in 1987, seven failed in 1988 and six failed in 1989. As the hon. Member for Devon, North said, the results depend on which day the samples are taken. Perhaps because of the day on which samples were taken, none of those beaches failed the E. Coli and coliforms tests. Three of them failed the enterovirus and salmonella tests.

Wessex Water aims to comply with the directive on its side of the Bristol channel; and on the Welsh side, Welsh Water aims to comply by 1995. There seem to be some problems because the Minister told the House on 14 November that present indications are that 1995 may not be a practicable deadline for nine large schemes on which there are major technical difficulties. That was for Wales as a whole, but some of those schemes were along the Bristol channel coast.

The hon. Member for Devon, North referred to industrial waste and said that the Bristol channel was a cesspit for south Wales and the west county. He might like to know that, in 1988, the Welsh water authority published information on inputs into the Severn estuary and the Bristol channel at the end of the 1970s, of heavy metals and other similar contaminates. It showed that, per day, 13.3 kg of mercury, 62,000 kg of iron, 1,150 kg of lead, 2,780 kg of manganese, 464 kg of nickel, 5,160 kg of zinc, 61.6 kg of cadmium, 224 kg of chromium and 621 kg of copper were dumped, although many of them are serious pollutants.

In 1984, a report by Morlais Owens, who at that time was the assistant director of scientific services for the Welsh water authority, was published. It was about the Severn estuary and appraised the water quality there, dealing partly with what would happen if the Severn barrage were built. It pointed out that a great many water-borne pollutants were brought into the Bristol channel and the Severn estuary by the rivers, including both industrial and domestic discharges. He also pointed out that atmospheric deposition contributed the greatest proportion of lead and zinc—58 and 42 per cent. respectively, as well as 21 per cent. of the cadmium, 19 per cent. of the copper and 12 per cent. of the nickel.

Mr. Speller

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is bringing in many more points than I thought that. I should have time to make. Does he agree that the discharge of much of the metallic and other industrial pollutants could be cut if the sludge being dumped from the Bristol side and the Welsh side were dumped further out? The hon. Gentleman might take that suggestion to his friends at the Welsh water authority and suggest that they steam a few miles further west. I should be most pleased if they would.

Mr. Griffiths

The further we go from the coastlines, whether on the Welsh or the English side of the channel, the more the pollution in the main body or the channel is minimised. The hon. Gentleman has pointed out that by far the best solution is to end the dumping of sewage sludge as quickly as possible, and I shall return to that point.

While I agree that the pollution is mainly caused by the sewage brought into the Bristol channel, I should mention the report published last week by Friends of the Earth. It was damning about many sewage treatment works in England and Wales, bearing in mind that, on privatisation, almost 20 per cent. of some 6,500 sewage treatment works had already been given relaxations as they were breaking the law. Despite that, there are still hundreds of sewage works in the United Kingdom breaking the discharge regulations. We know that the National Rivers Authority has been sadly hampered by the way in which the law has been constructed. It has to produce a mass of bureaucratic evidence, tied up in the red tape that the Government claim to abhor, which makes it difficult to bring prosecutions. In Wales, 69 of the treatment works were breaking the regulations. When the NRA was created, Lord Crickhowell told us that the Government were creating the strongest environmental agency in Europe. Alas, it has proved to be hamstrung by the Government's legislation.

We know that Welsh Water has a licence to dump up to 55,000 tonnes of sewage sludge and Wessex Water has a licence to dump about 300,000 tonnes. We know, too, that many licensed allowances are being taken up. Some interesting figures were published in a parliamentary answer earlier in the year. In 1979, the total dumped was as high as 358,000 tonnes. It increased to 393,000 tonnes and then started to decline. There was a fall to 328,000. In 1983, it had fallen to 230,000. It then increased to 305,000 before there were falls to 259,000, 257,000 and 238,000. Was it being stopped? The answer was no. In 1988, it was 275,000 and last year it had increased to 306,000. That was the amount of sewage sludge dumped in the central part of the Bristol channel.

There is some controversy about whether the dumping has damaged the aquatic environment. The hon. Member for Devon, North thinks that it has and I tend to agree with him. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, however, says that the balance has not swung that way. Considerable research has been undertaken in the North sea. Both the United Kingdom and Germany have published the results of their North sea research for consideration by the Oslo commission. The German bight studies have shown that the bottom fauna, on which fish life often depends, began to be impoverished in 1969. By 1977, the Germans were recording an increased prevalence of fish disease. In 1981, they stopped dumping as a precautionary measure. We know that there is still a difference between the United Kingdom authorities and the Germans on the exact impact of sewage dumping at sea.

Wessex Water is committed to end its dumping by 1993, and all strength to its elbow. One of the ways in which it will deal with the sludge is to have it dried and pasteurised, using methane generated by the sewage treatment process. It will produce a soil additive that will be a peat substitute. That will be environmentally sound in so many ways and valuable peat bogs will be saved as well.

German research on the dumping of sewage sludge shows that is definitely blights the bight, so what deadlines have our Government set themselves? Welsh Water is committed to 1995 while other water companies have a slightly earlier deadline. It seems that 1997 is the latest date. I understand that tomorrow, or later today, the Minister for the Environment and Countryside will be meeting the Vice-President of the Commission, Carlo Ripa di Meana, who is responsible for environmental matters, to persuade him that the Government are doing everything possible to comply as rapidly as possible with the requirements that have been accepted. Yet there is so much evidence to show that they are not.

Only last week there was the scandal of Welsh Water deciding to use £31 million to buy into the South Wales electricity distribution company. Does that show that priority has been given to public health so that there is compliance with the European Community directive on bathing water quality, which was introduced in 1976? It does not. As I stated in a letter to the Vice-President of the Commission, which I hope that he will take into account when he meets the Minister—I faxed it to him today and he will have it for the meeting—Welsh Water has shown that it attaches greater priority to buying electricity shares to boost long-term profitability for its shareholders, at the expense of its customers, than to the 1976 directive. That £31 million is not far short of the total amount that Welsh Water spent in the previous three years trying to deal with the pollution problems of its sewage outfalls. In fact, it spent £41 million, three quarters of that being spent on buying electricity shares. Why could not Welsh Water use that money, or at least a part of it, to speed up compliance with the directive?

The sewage treatment works are breaking even the relaxed standards that they were given on privatisation. Does that show priority? It does not. Another serious problem concerns the National Rivers Authority budget. The NRA's published corporate plan for 1990–91, says that in 1991 it will need grant in aid of £119 million if it is to carry out its work anywhere near effectively. On 14 November, the Government announced that they were increasing their grant in aid to the NRA, but only to £106 million. That was a substantial increase over the previously published figure, but it is still £15 million short of what the NRA felt that it required.

The corporate plan shows that even that figure is below what the NRA needs. It has warned that considerably more expenditure will be needed if water quality improvements are to be secured at a reasonable pace. It says that significant amounts of investment are needed to reduce pollution levels over and above current estimates of expenditure, along with increased monitoring and regulatory activity by the authority in order to achieve the authority's mission to reduce pollution substantially and improve water quality.

Even the £119 million that the NRA wanted in grant aid was not sufficient to translate those wishes into the necessary figures for the budget. Once again, the Government's grant in aid was short of what the NRA required. Does that show that priority is being given to the problem? It is true that matters are improving and that more money is being spent, but we must ask whether it is sufficient.

One or two other problems have not yet been mentioned. They have nothing to do with sewage, but they could result in bad pollution of the waters of the Bristol channel. Recently my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) tabled several questions about the collision of two boats—the Marias AS and the Bell Ranger just off Newport on 24 April. One of the boats contained what was rather whimsically described in the first answer as drums of chemical waste. When my hon. Friend pressed the issue, the Minister admitted that the drums of chemical waste were classified as a toxic substance. As it happens, on this occasion the damage was not serious as the drums did not split open. However, we have only to think about what happens when dangerous chemicals get into our rivers to be able to imagine the sort of impact that that accident might have had on the Bristol channel.

There have been other incidents over the years. Last year, in a storm, a ship had whipped off its decks tanks and drums of various chemicals and contaminated vegetable oil, some of which landed on a beach in my constituency in Sker. I understand that on that occasion even more of the drums ended up on beaches in north Devon. I am told by the Ogwr borough council, which looks after the coastline of my Bridgend constituency roughly from Sker Point to just beyond Southerndown—another magnificent beach, fortunately not badly polluted—that it has from time to time had oil spillages to deal with along that coastline. Fortunately, they have been minor, but the council's technical officer said that he is always conscious of the threat of a major incident.

There nearly was such an incident at Barry dock recently when a Geest banana boat had an oil discharge within the harbour. It was noticed before the boat sailed and the NRA was able to come along and deal with it, but if the boat had left the harbour there could have been serious contamination of the coast. As the hon. Member for Devon, North pointed out, my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) has been conscious of the pollution incidents and the need to clean up the coastline of the Bristol channel to enhance tourism and related business, which will help to revive the flagging economies on both sides of the channel.

We must also consider river pollution. In the report to which I have already referred on the Severn estuary, it was pointed out that most of the pollution came through the rivers and the sewage outfalls into the sea. Let us consider what happened in the rivers on the south Wales side of the coastline. In 1989, 21 km of the Rhymney river were polluted and nearly 20,000 fish were killed.

In 1988, 7 km of the Taff were polluted and 7,000 fish were killed. On the Ebbw, there was a spillage from the Ebbw Vale steelworks. Luckily, the NRA took quick action and neutralised the acids by putting lime in the water and no fish were killed. On the Ely, more than 9,000 fish were killed recently. In the Llwchwr estuary and Swansea bay there has been massive lugworm mortality, probably because of toxic algae. On the Ogmore river, in the constituencies of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) and myself, 30,000 fish were killed a couple of years ago because of the discharge of a chemical into the water. Imagine the impact on the Bristol channel if some of those incidents had taken place much closer to the coast.

The Government are beginning to tackle the problem, but much more needs to be done. More money should be put into anti-pollution measures and dealing better with sewage. Incineration should be a last option, because the use of properly treated sewage on the land, the anaerobic digestion of sewage to produce methane gas and the provision of alternatives to peat should all be explored before incineration is considered. One difficulty with incineration is that it requires critical temperatures in excess of 1200 deg C to be really safe. Even then, there can be dangerously high emissions into the air of substances such as cadmium.

More emphasis should be placed on dealing with pollution. Earlier this year, in proposing some green measures for the Budget, my party suggested a different rate of value added tax for environmentally friendly products. We could stop massive contamination of our rivers by the phosphates in washing powders, and so on, so let us re-examine the corporate tax structure so as to encourage companies not to pollute. The river pollution incidents that I mentioned were the consequence either of poor technology or of carelessness in the way in which technology was applied.

I thank the hon. Member for Devon, North for giving the House an opportunity to debate these issues. Pollution of the Bristol channel is serious and, although the Government are beginning to tackle that problem, there is a considerable way to go. I hope that the Community, through its action in the European Court of Justice, will hasten compliance with the bathing water quality directive, which would have a major impact on overcoming pollution in the Bristol channel.

3.33 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry)

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) for raising this important subject and for his kind comments. He described the situation graphically, sympathetically and clearly, he is a champion of his constituents' interests.

This subject is of concern not only to my hon. Friend's constituents and others living nearby, but to people in all parts of the country who treasure and enjoy our unparalleled coastline and beaches. I welcome this opportunity to tell the House about the substantial improvements in the quality of bathing waters achieved in recent years and of plans for further improvements.

I shall begin with some key facts about our sewerage system and the quality of our rivers and coastal waters compared with those of other countries. Ninety-six per cent. of the United Kingdom's population are connected to the sewer system and 83 per cent. of our sewage is treated. That stands comparison with any country in Europe or in the Community. In 1987, 95 per cent. of river length in the United Kingdom was of good or fair quality compared with 75 per cent. in the Community. No other member state bettered the United Kingdom position.

As my hon. Friend acknowledged, the problem for us lies with discharges of untreated sewage to coastal waters. As the House knows, for a long time it has been our policy to discharge sewage from coastal towns to the sea and to rely on the action of sunlight and salt water to render it harmless. That policy was based on the best scientific advice available at the time that it was adopted.

Starting with the 1959 Jeger report, successive Governments were advised that untreated sewage could safely be discharged to the sea, after prior screening and comminution, through properly designed and located long sea outfalls.

More recently, in 1984, the Royal Commission on environmental pollution, in its tenth report, endorsed that view. Indeed, it concluded that such disposal to sea was often environmentally preferable to alternative methods of disposal on land.

There is no method of disposing of sewage that does not have some environmental cost and impact. Our approach has been to find the best environmental option to suit the particular local circumstances. As I have already said, most sewage is treated before discharge. But this requires a sewage treatment works—not everyone's most popular neighbour, particularly in attractive seaside resorts—and finding a means of disposing of the resulting sewage sludge, whether to agriculture, in landfill sites or by incineration.

For those coastal towns where discharge to sea is the most satisfactory option. the Government, with the water industry, have pressed ahead with a major programme of investment to build well-sited, long sea outfalls to improve the quality of our bathing waters and beaches. Mainly by this means, the proportion of bathing waters complying with the European Community standard has increased from 51 per cent. in 1986 to 77 per cent. in 1990.

However, we believe that it is now time to take a further step forward to improve our standard of sewage disposal. Last year we commissioned a study by consultants into the benefits and costs of treating sewage before discharge to sea. We received a first draft of the report in February this year and we sent a copy to the Environment Select Committee at the same time, to assist it in its investigation into bathing waters. That report showed that, in most cases, there would, on balance, be environmental gains from introducing treatment for coastal discharges.

Within days of receiving that advice the Government acted, and acted decisively. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Patten) announced on 5 March that, in future, all substantial discharges of sewage would be treated. Most would receive secondary treatment, but primary treatment would be more appropriate for coastal discharges, where there was no adverse effect on the environment. I am glad to say that this change of policy has been welcomed both at home and abroad.

Mr. Speller

Does my hon. Friend not realise that the whole problem is that marvellous word "primary" and whether no adverse effects can be proved? I could take him at any time to observe part-treated sewage, which has an adverse effect. We are overloading, because there is only so much water and so much more is going into it. Whereas 10 or 15 years ago, it might have been possible to allow primary treatment alone, now—it really means just chopping the sewage up—it is not the way forward. We shall gain no credit if we use that as our standard.

Mr. Baldry

I hear what my hon. Friend says and I hope that it will reassure him to learn that we have since moved quickly to implement this new policy—we certainly do not intend to stand still—and the National Rivers Authority is now applying it to all new applications for sewage discharge consents. The physical works needed will be expensive and there are complex issues of engineering and planning ahead. We are actively consulting the sewerage undertakers and the various regulatory bodies, in particular the National Rivers Authority and the Office of Water Services.

The sewerage undertakers are now drawing up investment programmes for sewage treatment works for all substantial coastal discharges, in particular to give priority to discharges in the vicinity of bathing waters that fail to meet the directive's standards.

On 14 November, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath announced details of the first stages of the investment programme to treat sewage discharges to coastal waters. About £600 million will be spent over the next five years to improve bathing waters. That is in addition to the £1.4 billion 10-year bathing water compliance programme announced in October 1989.

We estimate the cost of improving our bathing waters and treating all coastal and estuarial sewage discharges at around £3.5 billion. Overall, the water companies plan to spend £12 billion on improving waste water systems and treatment over the next 10 years. That is a massive increase in the funds made available in the past and certainly bears comparison with what was spent by the previous Labour Administration, who succeeded in halving investment on water and massively cut spending on sewage treatment. I do not think that it befits any Labour politician, early in the morning or at any other time, to deliver lectures about investment in water or sewage treatment.

The fact that such enormous funds can now be found to improve the quality of our rivers and coastal waters is attributable to the access to adequate private capital that is now available to water companies as a result of the successful privatisation of the water industry in England and Wales.

Mr. Win Griffiths

Surely the Minister knows that, at the time of the debate on the water privatisation Bill, the issue of investment in the industry was discussed many times. It was only by statistical sleight of hand that the Government produced their figures; the real-terms investment figures show that, although there was a cut in the latter period of the Labour Government, our overall record bears comparison with that of the Conservative Government right up to 1989.

Mr. Baldry

There has been no statistical sleight of hand; the straightforward fact is that the last Labour Government cut investment in water and sewage treatment by some 45 per cent.

The enhanced standards of sewage treatment that we now require are consistent with the proposed directive on municipal waste water treatment, which is under active negotiation in the Council of Ministers. We hope and expect that the directive will be adopted in the next few hours. Our commitment to the directive, and to the early implementation of its requirements, is clear.

The Welsh and Wessex water companies are licensed to dispose of treated sewage sludge in the Bristol channel dumping site about 11 miles north of Ilfracombe, as my hon. Friend has explained. The site is one of the most dispersive in United Kingdom coastal waters and regular monitoring by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has shown no significant impact on the local marine environment. At the end of last month, however, the water companies submitted their proposed programmes for diverting the sludge to alternative outlets on land, in accordance with our commitment—made at the third North sea conference, in March this year—to cease sea disposal as soon as possible. Those submissions are being considered and, as soon as consultations with the companies are completed, details of the national programme will be published. I assure my hon. Friend that that, too, will take place as soon as possible.

The pollution of beaches was recently addressed by the Select Committee on the Environment in its fourth report. One of the issues considered in its wide-ranging and thorough investigation was the evidence concerning the risks to health posed by bathing in sewage-contaminated water. The Committee concluded: it is clear that there have been no major outbreaks of serious disease in the United Kingdom associated with sea bathing: and from this we conclude that the risk of contracting such a disease from sea bathing is minimal". It recommended the continuation of existing research into the relationship between less serious illnesses and bathing.

The Government endorsed that important conclusion in their response to the Committee on 12 December. It lays to rest the more alarmist claims made by some pressure groups, and sensationalised in media reporting. The Government accept that more research is needed into the risks of minor inflammations of the ear, nose and throat and into certain skin irritations and gastro-enteritis. Further research will be commissioned, jointly funded by the Government and the National Rivers Authority.

A further recommendation of the Committee concerned the provision of information on water quality to bathers. The local authority associations have warmly endorsed a proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Mr. Trippier) for posters to display easy-to-understand results of monitoring by the NRA at all identified bathing beaches. With the co-operation of the local authorities, the scheme will be in place for the 1991 bathing season.

The blue flag scheme is awarded to beaches that meet the highest standards of cleanliness and management, at which water quality meets European standards and where information on water quality is displayed. This year we have 29 blue flags, but I should like to see many more. Indeed, I should like to see every beach receiving a blue flag. Water quality is not the limiting factor; 345 of our bathing waters met the directive's standards this year. The next step is for local authorities to bring their beaches up to the necessary high standards and apply for a blue flag. My ambition is to see every beach with a blue flag.

Rightly, attention is given to those bathing waters that do not meet European standards. We are taking action to ensure that we make progress as fast as possible. However, as the Prince of Wales reminded us in his recent speech to the Institution of Water and Environmental Management: Of more than 400 'identified bathing waters' in this country, the majority now do pass the mandatory standards of the European Community directive. This is a real success story and one that deserves more recognition than it has hitherto received. I very much hope that our success story on bathing water quality will get the recognition it deserves. Let us not forget that over three quarters of our bathing waters already meet European standards. As the House knows, there is a £3 billion investment programme to bring the remainder into compliance. Our commitment to improving water quality is firm and is backed by a record of solid achievement.