Environmental Protection

HC Deb 19 June 1990 vol 174 cc789-91

8. Mr. Roger King

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what measures his Department is taking to protect the environment.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Michael Neubert)

My Department has an important role to play in the protection of the environment, and an account of our contribution is given in this year's "Statement on the Defence Estimates". My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has recently assigned to me responsibility for the oversight and promotion of good environmental practice, consistent with necessary military objectives.

Mr. King

I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. Does he agree that it must be the aim and objective of his Department to release as much surplus defence land in the United Kingdom as possible? What progress has been made since 1979 on achieving that?

Mr. Neubert

The Department has large holdings of land, but strictly for necessary military purposes. The extent of the training that is required and the range of modern weapons lead us to need more training land than we have, although we have no major prospects of purchase in the near future. I assure my hon. Friend that when that military need lapses, we dispose of the land in question. A recent example was Gruinard island, off the west coast of Scotland, which was taken over in the darkest days of the war for protection against the then threat. When it was no longer needed, it was decontaminated by the Ministry and restored to the heirs of the previous owners in good condition ready for raising sheep.

Dr. Thomas

Does the Minister accept that the continued use of national parks for military and defence purposes is contrary to the basic objectives of those parks, which are to conserve the environment and promote public access? For that reason, will the Department now withdraw its proposal to construct a radar station in the Pembroke coast national park, reopen the many acres of Dartmoor that are dangerous to the public because of live ammunition and cease its low-flying exercises over Cumbria and north Wales?

Mr. Neubert

No. We need to use national parks, and we work closely with the national parks authorities. Where there is a proven defence need for the nation and where there are no alternative sites, we are obliged to conduct some activities in national parks. But in the course of holding land and using land such as national parks, we conserve great tracts of the countryside that otherwise might not survive.

Mr. Key

Does my hon. Friend agree that were it not for the fact that the Ministry of Defence owns large tracts of our most precious countryside, managed by the excellent defence land agent, we should not be in possession of such ecologically valuable land today?

Mr. Neubert

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and, representing Salisbury plain, he has reason to know that that is an area of countryside that is protected, rather than the reverse, by the activities of the military. For example, there are no fewer than 1,700 ancient monuments on Salisbury plain, and operational restrictions are observed to ensure their continued preservation.

Mr. Boyes

Will the Minister assure the House, as the Labour party has, that the Government will not dump decommissioned nuclear submarines at sea? Because of the problems of monitoring and retrieval, it is an unacceptable option. Will the Minister reassure the people of this country that the Government will fully accept the London dumping convention that nuclear waste should not, in any circumstances, be dumped at sea?

Mr. Neubert

We retain the right to dump at sea, which is one of several options currently under review. Policy for the decommissioning of nuclear submarines remains open at present, so I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks today.