BURNING OF STRAW AND STUBBLE ETC. (Hansard, 2 May 1990)

§ Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)
I beg to move amendment No. 309, in page 120, line 15, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
With this, it will be convenient to consider the following amendments: No. 310, in page 120, line 21, leave out 'in all, or'.
No. 311, in page 120, line 22, leave out 'in all, or'.
No. 312, inpage 120, line 23, leave out 'in all, or'.
No. 313, in page 120, line 23, at end insert `where disposal of crop residues through incorporation, baling, briquetting or composting is not a practical option.'.

§ Mr. Beith
This is only one of a group of amendments that are designed to strengthen the Government's resolve. Hon. Members will see that they deal with the various options for exempting the ban on straw and stubble burning.
I warmly welcome the Government's decision to include the ban in the Bill. The amendments try to ensure that it really is a ban and that the provision for exemptions does not make it inoperative. I speak with feeling, because a large part of my constituency is on fire, although not in this case because of stubble burning. It may have been started by operations conducted by the Forestry Commission. Such fires spread extremely dangerously. Hon. Members who think that it is funny should go out now with the full-time and part-time fire brigades who have been out night after night for the past month trying to put out serious forest fires. Fires cause enormous damage.
There has been a fair amount of straw burning in the past that has not given rise to dangerous fires, but some of it clearly has. One of the most compelling reasons for the 1169 ban is the fact that any such uncontrolled fires are dangerous. They will be especially dangerous this year. We have had a dry winter and the summer has started dry. We face a serious danger.
A decade ago, serious fires in the north of Scotland ravaged forestry crops there. The same is likely to happen in Northumberland this year if the utmost care is not taken—and not only by the public, who always get the blame. Fires always supposed to have been started by a member of the public discarding a match or cigarette end, but fires started in the course of agricultural or forestry operations often spread.
Last summer, we had fires that caused serious danger to road traffic. There was a fire that caused serious smoke over the A1 not far south of Berwick for a long time. It is extremely dangerous if smoke billows across a busy road, often unexpectedly because of a change in wind direction. There is nuisance and danger; there is also enormous damage to animal and plant life, as anyone who visits areas ravaged by fires can see.
Above all, it is wasteful to destroy straw. Enterprising farmers in my constituency have taken straw to west coast farms for some years now. Usually, they can get a reasonable price for it, or at least a price that pays for the cost of transport. In some years, that has not been possible, and the National Fanners Union has organised the transhipment of straw from the east to the west coast, to the general benefit.
It is in the interests of all those farmers who have tried to abide by and operate the voluntary codes that we adopt something strict enough to deal with the handful of people who still cause problems, danger and waste. We have felt it necessary to table the amendments because we fear that exemptions might be sufficiently numerous to make it impossible for the public to know whether straw or stubble burning is taking place within the law.
I think that the Government's intention—it was certainly our belief—was that it should be quite clear that, as of this Bill coming into force, stubble and straw burning was banned. Exemptions must be so rare as not to cast doubt on a general understanding by farmers, farm workers and the public that people cannot burn straw and stubble. That understanding would be fatally undermined if there were so many exemptions, for which there is not usually strong justification, that there did not appear to be a general ban. One of our amendments indicates the numerous other things which can be done in order to make good use of straw and stubble. Stubble itself, for instance, can be ploughed back into the land.
I therefore ask the Minister for an assurance that the Government intend to see this through and ensure that there is a general ban on straw and stubble burning and that they do not envisage widespread exemptions. If there are widespread exemptions, some farmers will say that the ban is not serious and will feel that they can do a bit of straw burning and check up later to see whether they would have been exempted; and the public will not have the confidence to report any incident which poses a danger to them or a threat to wildlife and which is a wasteful use of products which can be recycled.

§ Mr. Morley
I rise very briefly, because we have gone through some of these points in Committee and there is no point in going over them all again. The Minister in Committee gave certain assurances about the exemptions that would be made available. Legitimate concern has 1170 been expressed by various organisations about what those exemptions will be, and it might help if a code of guidance was published so that we could see the exact thinking of the Government on what exemptions will be allowed.
Just for the benefit of hon. Members who are present, I might remind the House, to show the scale of the problem, that in 1988 there were 160 complaints about smoke and soot nuisance to local councils, a figure which went up in 1989 to 1,635 complaints.
I would also appreciate a comment from the Minister about the treatment of agricultural premises as trade premises for the burning of other wastes. Just recently, as I have travelled round the country, I have noticed large plumes of smoke coming from various farms where presumably people have been burning to dispose of such things as plastic bags, old tyres used on silage clamps and so on. I would be grateful for some clarification on whether the burning of such waste comes under the control of this Bill as it applies to trade premises and smoke pollution control.

§ Mr. Trippier
I very much welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), and I am most grateful to him for supporting the clause I, like him, do not wish to see widespread exemptions. Nor do the Minister of Agriculture or the junior Minister who served on the Standing Committee—I must apologise to the House that he cannot be present at this juncture, owing to the very sad and untimely death of his mother, which has meant his leaving the House today.
I can tell the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed that the exemptions will certainly be limited. It may well be a good idea to come forward with some clearer idea as to what they could be. From memory, my hon. Friend in Committee mentioned two possible exemptions: the burning of linseed in all areas and in certain circumstances and the burning of crop residues in the context of an approved agricultural training board course, even where alternative forms of disposal for that residue exist.
However, if we carry on cataloguing the number of exemptions, we fall into the trap which the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed seeks to avoid, and I agree with him that we should not do that. I will certainly ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to respond to the precise point that he has made, so that it can be clearly seen what exemptions he will consider. I hope that there will not be very many. The signal that must go out from this short debate is that we intend to stop straw and stubble burning. The move has been widely welcomed. The NFU's support of the Government's proposals shows that it appreciates that this change in the legislation is one whose time has come.

§ Mr. Beith
I am grateful to the Minister for his comments. I am a bit anxious about the idea that we need to train more people on courses to carry out straw burning. In the past I might have welcomed it, because it is a job which, if it is done at all, needs to be done with a great deal of skill and care and only when the wind direction can be predicted safely; but I hope that we will not need to train people to do this at all in the future, so courses will not need to be included.
I was also a bit concerned about what was perhaps a slip of the tongue by the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley). We are past talking about codes 1171 of practice now. The Minister will make regulations that will be strictly limited. The fact that the code of practice proved not to be enough led us to legislate on the matter, with the support of those in the farming industry who tried to make the code work. Clearly, we needed something stronger, and the Government have given us that. The Minister has also given us the assurance that I sought, that this is intended to be a general ban and that the exemptions that he mentioned are restricted. Once the legislation and the regulations have been passed, the public will know that straw and stubble burning is banned and so will farmers. That will be a good thing for everyone.