European Environment Agency (Hansard, 23 May 1990)

§ 10. Mr. Paice
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the role of the proposed European Environment Agency.

§ Mr. Chris Patten
The aim of the agency is to provide the Commission and member states with objective, reliable and comparable environmental information at Community level. It will work by co-ordinating information from a network of national institutions and co-operate with other international bodies to avoid duplication. The regulation setting out the role of the agency in detail was adopted on 7 May 1990.

§ Mr. Paice
My right hon. Friend will agree that the agency will gather statistics, which will prove once and for 277 all that Britain is well ahead of many other European countries in protection of the environment. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Labour council in Cambridge has said that it does not wish the agency to be based in the city of Cambridge, thus displaying the council's real level of concern? May I assure my right hon. Friend that there are many suitable sites in my constituency close to the Cambridge city boundary where we would be pleased and proud to see the agency based?

§ Mr. Patten
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Whatever others may have done or said, he has consistently and vigorously pressed the case for Cambridge and the Cambridge area as the best base for this important agency. Cambridge has all the resources that the agency needs to operate successfully. It is the best candidate in the European Community, and I very much hope that the decision will take account of the overwhelming case for Cambridge and the surrounding area.

§ Mr. Maclennan
Will the Secretary of State also recognise the strong case that has been made by Aberdeen university to share in the work done by the environment agency and in the north of Scotland? As we do not wish to see centralisation, would not it be appropriate to steer some of the work north of the border?

§ Mr. Patten
If we had the opportunity at this Question Time, I have no doubt that more than 600 good cases could be made for the agency to be sited in different parts of the country—I will forbear to press the argument for Bath—but whatever the case for other universities, it is recognised well beyond our shores that Cambridge has an outstanding case.