§ 19. Mr. MansTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his policy towards increasing public awareness of environmental issues.
§ Mr. Chris PattenI am firmly committed to increasing public awareness of environmental issues. My Department has taken many initiatives in this area, including greater public access to information, explanatory leaflets on environmental issues and plans for eco-labelling of products.
§ Mr. MansDoes my right hon. Friend agree that at the moment the public is suffering most from too much inaccurate information and ill-informed opinion on the environment? Anything that the Government can do to increase the amount of factual information available must be an improvement on the present position.
§ Mr. PattenI totally agree with my hon. Friend. That is one reason why we have advocated the establishment of an environment agency, which we discussed earlier in Question Time. The more the public are aware of real and accurate information about comparative environmental statistics the more they will recognise that this country has a good record, but that we are not complacent about it and we want to do even better.