The Environment

HC Deb 12 July 1991 vol 194 cc1249-88

Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.

11.34 am

Sir Hugh Rossi (Hornsey and Wood Green)

I hope that the atmosphere of general goodwill and accord will continue and that we can deal with the question of the environment on an all-party basis, not on the partisan and biased political basis that was a feature of the debate earlier this morning.

On behalf of the Select Committee on the Environment, I warmly welcome the statement made by the Prime Minister on 8 July that it is the Government's intention to set up an environmental protection agency which will bring together Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution and related functions of the National Rivers Authority. The idea was first launched in the Environment Committee's second report on toxic waste, ordered to be printed by the House on 22 February 1989. The preface to that document refers to how that concept or idea emerged.

Mr. Alan W. Williams

The hon. Gentleman made that point earlier this morning, but I checked the details a few minutes ago and found that as early as 1987 the Labour party made a specific commitment in its policy document to introduce legislation as a matter of urgency when a Labour Government came to office.

Sir Hugh Rossi

If the hon. Gentleman wants to go back into history, I too, can do so. I did not want to mention this matter, but the germ of the idea first grew out of our report on the pollution of rivers and estuaries, published just before the general election in 1987. The Committee proposed that a National Rivers Authority should be established as a national regulatory authority.

I remember discussing the matter with the late Allan Roberts who was a member of my Committee. I expressed the wish that this could become all-party policy. I said that I would do my best to persuade the Government. He said that he would do his best to persuade the Labour party to accept this as official policy. At that time Allan Roberts was having discussions with the then Opposition spokesman on the environment, the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). The message that came back to me was that the idea commended itself to the Labour party. It matters not how a good idea emerges. What is important is that it is adopted. Nothing delights me more than that this policy has been adopted by the Opposition, the Government and also, I understand, by the minority parties. Therefore we have consensus. Everybody agrees that the nation requires such a policy.

I am delighted that the Select Committee's hard work, over many years, has been recognised and adopted. The concept was generated by an all-party Committee of the House after many inquiries, over many years. It concluded that a national regulatory body of this sort was necessary. That justified the many hours of hard work of Select Committee members in studying and collating evidence from all quarters so that recommendations could be made that would be universally accepted. All the recommendations were agreed unanimously by the Committee. The environmental protection agency emerged out of Parliament's traditional role of examining the work of the Executive. There will be a general election soon and each side will try to prove to the electorate that it is greener than the others and that it thought of the idea first. However, the record is plain for everyone to see. It is not simply what is written that matters, but the informal discussions that take place between hon. Members so that ideas like this emerge.

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has accepted the idea, although it required a great deal of consideration by the Government, having set up the NRA as a residual authority with responsibility for leisure pursuits on water, for sea defences and land drainage which the Select Committee felt was a distraction from what should be the agency's core purpose.

If the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) were to read the preface to the toxic waste report, and consider it in conjunction with what I have said about the history of the matter, he would learn that we said: we are attracted by the concept of replacing all the existing Waste Disposal Authorities with about ten new authorities in England and Wales, regulated by a national body … We had hoped that this national body might be the same national body which we had previously recommended be created to regulate river pollution. That is how the idea emerged and was accepted.

We then proposed the shape and form that the "Environmental Protection Commission," as we called it in paragraph 12 of the preface to the toxic waste report, should take. We said that it would be charged with an overall responsibility for safeguarding environmental quality in the United Kingdom. This responsibility would include:

1. a. monitoring environmental quality and publishing appropriate statistics;
2. b. control of all discharges to the external environment;
3. c. raising environmental standards and the status and professionalism of environmental control through provision of advice and guidance, commissioning research, developing standards and expertise on the impacts of pollution, and promoting clean technology;
4. d. keeping under review the adequacy of existing arrangements for environmental protection and submitting to the Government proposals for new primary legislation, regulations and codes of practice as appropriate; and
5. e. supporting the United Kingdom's role in international environmental affairs."

I submit that that is a blueprint for the environmental protection agency.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did not spell out the form or shape of the new agency. However, he said that there would be consultations on the matter. I am sure that my Select Committee will want to take part in that process, examine the proposals further and present our considerations in the light of other experiences and evidence that we have obtained since we published the toxic waste report two years ago.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's statement raised some items for further discussion and I am sure that my Committee will return to them in a more considered fashion later. However, I want to put my hon. Friend the Minister on notice in respect of those matters and if he can respond to them this morning, I shall be more than grateful.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that the Secretary of State for Scotland would announce his own proposal shortly. However, there was no mention of Northern Ireland. Last November we recommended an environmental protection agency for Northern Ireland, but that was not accepted. What will be the future direction for environmental policy in the Province? Given the relatively small area and population of the Province, it could be argued that Northern Ireland has the strongest case for the establishment of an EPA as quickly as possible.

We recognise the conflict between the need for national standards and the need for rapid local response to pollution incidents. The Prime Minister's announcement says nothing about structure. Will the new agency work through a regional structure, as the NRA already does? In our previous reports, we have shown how, with regard to water and waste regulation, the river basin concept—the river catchment area being identical to the responsible authority's area—commends itself much more than the historic and artificial boundaries between local authorities. The river basin concept is more closely related to the way in which water flows, how contaminated land pollutes that water, and other such matters. I hope that that point will be given serious consideration.

Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution has suffered from staff shortages and low morale. It seemed to us that the regionalisation of Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution did not meet with universal approval. How will the creation of the new agency affect the work of the existing inspectorates? That is a matter of supreme importance. If the concept does not operate on the ground, we may have a grandiose bureaucratic structure, but that will not help to deal with the problems about which we are all concerned.

According to the Prime Minister's speech, the Government are clearly undecided about taking waste regulation into the new agency. In the toxic waste report to which I have referred, the Select Committee expressed concern about the low standards of some local authority regulators and we recommended a system of about 10 waste regulation authorities for England and Wales based on the London regulatory authority.

Our initial reaction is that waste regulation should be part of the agency's remit and we should like the Government to re-evaluate our original recommendation, especially in the light of the present review of local government and the implications for local authorities' waste regulation and disposal functions. All those matters arise directly from the Prime Minister's statement and this has been our first opportunity to raise questions about them and to debate them.

More generally, the Prime Minister's speech highlighted the fact that in one sense it is impossible to talk about "The United Kingdom's Environment". On issues such as global warming, degradation of the ozone layer, the maintenance of bio-diversity and marine pollution, the United Kingdom must be considered as part of a global environmental system. That brings me closer to home. We are experiencing being part of the European environment as the Commission's role in the formulation of environmental policies grows ever stronger. I do not know whether the House is aware of this, but the European Court of Justice recently issued a ruling in the titanium dioxide case from which it appears likely that in future that EEC directives will be agreed only by a qualified majority vote. That is important and significant for us in this Parliament.

It may be very difficult for us to scrutinise legislation early enough in order to ensure that the United Kingdom's interests are properly protected. The Select Committee had difficulty in having discussions with the European Commission on some of its proposals. That is regrettable because it means that we do not have an early opportunity during the formulation of policy to say to the Commission, "Yes, that's a very good idea, but it won't really work in the United Kingdom because our geography or geology is different." We had such a difficulty with the landfill proposals that are coming out of Brussels at the moment. Originally, it was proposed not to allow the co-disposal of industrial and domestic waste, by which method 80 per cent. of our waste in this country today is disposed.

It is important that, when Europe considers legislation that will be of universal blanket application, this House, through its representatives—it does not matter whether it be a Select Committee or a Standing Committee—has an early opportunity to consider those matters before the proposal is written on tablets of stone. It is of increasing anxiety and concern for the Select Committee that we are not adequately putting across the United Kingdom case. In that respect, the Government can help. We feel that, perhaps, the team that the Department of the Environment sends to discuss such matters with DG XI should be strengthened by the use of outside experts and consultants. That does not seem to be the case at the moment. My hon. Friend knows my views on this matter; they are reflected in our reports. However, I welcome the opportunity to state my view more publicly on the Floor of the House.

The Committee is concerned—it has mentioned it in report after report and found it in inquiry after inquiry —that we are lagging behind in our research into these matters in the United Kingdom. Far more emphasis must be put into environmental research. The science budget of the Natural Environment Research Council is presently forecast to decline in real value by 10 per cent. over the five year period 1990–91 to 1994–95.

There is much emotion in environmental issues. It is more than important to ensure that whatever action we take and whatever resources we make available are directed at the real problem in respect of which action should be taken, and there should be priorities in such issues. That cannot be done if we are allowed to push, or allow ourselves to be pushed, one way or the other in policy making by pure emotive reactions. We need a sound science base for decisions. The Government cannot have a sound science base unless they are prepared to make resources available to people whose lives are dedicated to carrying out research into these matters.

I should like, for example, the proposed environmental protection agency to make full use of the services offered by the Warren Spring laboratories the hydrological research people, and all the other arms of research that have recently been hived off. For that purpose, the agency will need not only the staff but the resources to be able to commission that important research. It will also need resources if it is to carry out proper monitoring and police work, to have its own scientific laboratories, or to be able to commission scientific laboratories in the various regions that I have indicated to my hon. Friend the Minister as a pattern for control by the EPA. The agency needs to be able to draw upon the best available scientific advice.

I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Minister several questions concerning my Committee's recommendations which are still outstanding. On toxic waste, the Government promised to take steps to facilitate the production of more comprehensive and usable data on waste arisings and disposal. We have revealed that there is still a lack of centralised statistics in our current inquiry into landfill waste. We regret that, having come back to the same subject through another inquiry, we find that that recommendation has not been fulfilled in accordance with the Government's promises to our Committee.

The Government also did not accept our recommendation for the regulation of the dumping of colliery waste at sea or on the foreshore and that such regulation should be transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to HMIP. I ask that that question be addressed once again. Our recommendation for strict liability for waste producers was also rejected. The principles governing United Kingdom law on civil liability in respect of waste are still unclear, notwithstanding the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The proposed directives on landfill waste and on civil liability could overturn the legislation that we have tentatively proposed in this Parliament. Therefore, I again ask the Government to consider strict liability on the part of waste producers.

With regard to contaminated land, it has been a matter of great regret for the Committee that the caveat emptor rule on sales of land remains. We feel that the registers that have been proposed, in accepting our recommendation that local authorities prepare registers of potentially contaminated land, and inquiries by professional advisers are not sufficient to protect the public. An owner of land normally has a good idea of what he has done with that land and what lies under it. There is no reason why he should be allowed to conceal what he knows. Therefore, there should be a machinery in law requiring him to make full disclosure when he places his property on the market in those circumstances.

Our recommendation that the interdepartmental committee on the redevelopment of contaminated land be abolished and a contaminated land unit be set up within HMIP was also rejected. Now that a full-blown agency or commission is being proposed, I ask the Government to reconsider the proposal in the light of the new structure.

On pollution of beaches, we described the position of the Department of the Environment on eutrophication of coastal and fresh waters as complacent. We recommended greater consideration of the impact of phosphorus and other nutrients and, where appropriate, nutrient removal at sewage treatment works, such as we saw when we were in Northern Ireland. The Government thought that our criticism was unfair, but the NRA has accepted the need to review arrangements for collecting and analysing data relating to coastal eutrophication.

The Government also rejected our recommendation for a full technical and economic evaluation of technologies for disposing of sewage sludge and for more support for and R and D on alternative uses. The Government said that it was a matter for the water industry. From my continuing discussions with local authorities, water companies and the waste disposal industry, I know that there is a crying need for central guidance in such matters. A range of technologies are being offered on the market, whether they be the composting of waste, the incineration of waste, the spreading of waste on agricultural land or a variety of other methods such as biodegradation, farming with bugs and so on. Most people have no idea how to select or whether they are selecting the right method. Is it beyond the resources of Government to have a central research unit that can test various technologies and issue papers giving guidance to those who must buy them in the marketplace? After all, if we are dealing with the scientific treatment of certain unwelcome pollutants, the laws of nature are such that after proper research and investigation, it should be relatively easy to choose the best method of treatment because it is no longer a matter of opinion, but of scientific assessment.

Who is best placed to do that? I suggest that it is not the various water companies. I am certain that my hon. Friend will find a great willingness in our universities to help, on a contractual basis, with the research that is needed in so many areas. Perhaps the Department of the Environment officials in Marsham street felt that that was outside their remit as administrators, but if we are to have an environment protection agency to advise on the regulations that are to be made, that agency should be able to commission research such as I have described.

I realise the difficulties that particular Departments encounter. I am sending my hon. Friend the Minister away to talk to his Secretary of State, who will then have to go into Cabinet and argue with his colleagues who have equal demands for increased expenditure on education and social security and on all the other things that are desirable and that the people of this country want. It is difficult to have everything that one wants immediately, but my Committee would welcome a statement from the Government that they are sympathetically considering the ideas that we have put forward and that, as resources become available, they will progress towards them in an orderly and structured fashion. I am sure that if we could do that we would elevate environmental policy and remove it from the party political hull ring—

Mr. Trippier

We shall never do that.

Sir Hugh Rossi

My hon. Friend says that we will never do that, but the Select Committee has been able to do it. The important thing is the right idea and, if we have the right idea and people of good will on all sides, I am sure that it will be accepted and acted upon. I do not mind where the idea comes from—the important thing is that it is accepted.

I have given my hon. Friend the Minister a certain amount of stick, but he has broad shoulders and can accept it. I know that he is personally sympathetic and wishes to progress as far as he can and to be of as much assistance as he can in these matters.

Finally, therefore, I should like to show my even-handedness and to return to a question that the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) refused to allow me to ask her when she was talking about the last Labour Administration's expenditure on water. She said that the figure was about three times as much as had been spent previously. My question is, do the figures that the hon. Lady consistently quotes include the costs of the development of the Keilder dam and of the reservoir in Ditchley, outside Heathrow? That policy was laid down by the 1970–74 Conservative Administration and contracts were let and, given that contracts had been let, the Labour Government were bound to spend that money, which was on an increasingly rising graph. However, because they were forced to spend the money in that direction, they then lamentably failed to maintain the necessary investment in sewage treatment plants. That was the reason for the situation that my Committee discovered when it inquired into the pollution of rivers and estuaries—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady's hon. Friends who serve on the Committee accepted that that was the scenario. If she reads our report more carefully, she will find that it states in terms that the condition of our rivers and estuaries in 1987 was due in no small part to the lack of investment between 1974 and 1979, and to the long lead time that was necessary to recoup that loss of investment.

I hope that I have been even-handed in my censures of both parties. I hope also that the positive suggestions that I have outlined on behalf of the Select Committee on the Environment will be taken forward seriously.

12.5 pm

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

Before I start my speech, I ask the House to accept that I shall have to leave immediately after it because I have to attend the funeral of a constituent whose family I have known for many years and who was murdered some weeks ago. The funeral is this afternoon in south London.

I shall follow in one respect the speech of the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi). The hon. Gentleman, who is Chairman of the Select Committee on the Environment, said that there appeared to be agreement among the three main parties represented in the House on the need to set up an environmental protection agency. He described me as the representative of the minority parties. As far as the public are concerned, we are all minority parties. None of us commands majority support. Only this place distorts that picture. We should remember that fact in environmental policy, as in everything else.

The hon. Gentleman called for cross-party agreement. That is a desirable objective, but I am sure that he does not expect that any Government should be immune from criticism from the parties that are not in government if they fail to live up to the best standards or to move as quickly as others think they should.

I welcome the debate and the fact that we are at last debating the environment in Government time. However, I share the view that we are making an anomalous distinction if we try to debate the environment by subdividing it into the United Kingdom environment and the rest. That is a failure. This first attempt is welcome but botched in one respect in terms of trying to reform the procedures of the House. The Government have been put under pressure by myself and others to provide an annual occasion for debating the problems of the environment. We should follow the example of the United States Congress and hold a debate following the presentation of a report. Such a report could be presented by the Select Committee on the Environment or by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution which could have an extended remit, subject to later cross-examination by the Select Committee. The report could then come before the House as part of an ordered timetable of Government and parliamentary business. That debate should be long enough to allow us to discuss British, European and global environmental matters. I hope that that will happen.

Although I welcome today's debate, it is unfortunate that it is being held on a Friday. Although it is better held on a Friday than never, it is a fact that our Friday business is not held to be as important as our Monday to Thursday business, for reasons of which we are all aware. I hope that this debate will not preclude us from having a debate in the proper cycle. I understand from Government announcements that, following the publication of the environment White Paper last year, the new Secretary of State has said that a follow-up document will be produced this autumn and will examine the Government's record on implementing some of the proposals that were contained in the White Paper and the Government's environmental record over the past year. I welcome that.

The sequence of events ought to be that we have a Government annual report, which I presume that we shall receive in September and, if Parliament is continuing, we debate it as the Government's contribution to the debate thereafter. I hope that we shall get into a habit of doing things in that order in Parliament. The Government and outside bodies should make an annual commentary on what progress they believe has been made which can then be debated in the House.

Mrs. Ann Taylor

I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does he agree that one of the fundamental things that we must establish to ensure that the debate takes place in the right context and with the right degree of openness is proper freedom of access to environmental information? Otherwise, statistics will be bandied about meaninglessly.

Mr. Hughes

I entirely agree. Freedom of information, and especially of environmental information, is important. When I hear cross-party dispute about facts and figures, I often reflect that it would be wonderful, if it were possible, to have machinery which made a loud noise whenever anyone mentioned a statistic or fact that was clearly untrue. I wonder how often Members' speeches would be precluded from being heard by the truth buzzer when environmental or policy porkies were shouted across the Floor of the House.

One of the problems about debates such as this is that they suffer from allegation and counter-allegation. The figures on the water industry are a good example of that. It is certainly true that investment by the Labour party when it was in government was higher than the average investment in the Tory years. Yet it is also true that the investments fell from 1974 to 1979 as a result of the intervention of the International Monetary Fund. The total Labour investment ended up being lower than the Tory average. Both of those sets of statistics are true, but we must ensure that people outside understand how they are interpreted.

We can say about environmental politics in Britain in the past decade that all political parties represented in the House are much more conscious of and committed to reforms to support protection of the environment than they were a decade ago. I welcome the fact that the Government have moved a considerable way. Inevitably, my view is that they have not moved far enough. There are substantial issues on which they could have moved further. There are fundamental flaws in the philosophy and politics of the present Tory party which have prevented the environment from being the priority that it should have been, but I welcome what movement there has been.

I welcome the fact that the Labour party has moved, too. The Labour party's record in government was not good. Since then, many things have happened and it has been persuaded. There are still obvious defects in its policies. One which is often pointed out by Conservative Back-Bench Members is that Labour is tied to certain interest groups who influence its policies in certain areas. It has made that judgment, which has resulted in certain weaknesses. The Labour party has had a commitment over the years to the nuclear industry, the coal industry and so on.

It is a weakness in my case that I cannot point to what Liberal Democrats or Liberals have done in government and say that they are wonderful environmentalists. However, I can point to our record in local government. We have a good record. I pray that in aid of our commitment to the environment over many years. Objective analysts will say that in policy commitment we have been more advanced, progressive and committed. I leave that for others to judge.

We should all recognise that the advancement of environmental politics and commitment owes a great deal to people who are not represented in this House. It owes a great deal to the Green party, which has had its heyday and has subsequently declined. It pushed us. Certainly the Euro-elections gave the three largest parties in the House a shock. It also owes a great deal to environmental pressures groups such as Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature, Friends of the Earth and so on. They have made sure that we are up to the mark. Bodies such as the Council for the Protection of Rural England and the Council for the Protection of Rural Wales and statutory bodies such as the Countryside Commission and the Nature Conservancy Council have all kept on the pressure. We welcome that and we have all benefited from their efforts. I hope that in the future we shall see slightly less aggressive counter-reaction from the Government to proposals and criticisms from, say, Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. The Minister sometimes gets excitable when Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth or the World Wide Fund for Nature make allegations about Government policy and its effectiveness. Such organisations have done a good service in arguing the case on environmental issues, and we should recognise that.

The other test is how well we are doing in relation to our European colleagues. We are improving, and in some areas we have led the way. But in many areas we have not led the way. The European Community has often been the motor in making us substantially improve our policies. Without pressure from the European Commission, we would not have moved nearly as quickly as we have done on the bathing beaches directive or water pollution standards.

It was not accidental that we were called the dirty man of Europe in the 1980s. In many ways, we were. That does not mean that all European countries were better at everything. Some countries were better in theory, but less good in practice because they commit themselves in theory but do not deliver the goods. The European Commissioner, Carlo Ripa di Meana, and other Commissioners and directors-general have also done a service. The commitment of the Commissioner and his predecessor have pushed us much further.

If people ask me for a justification for our increasing involvement in and adherence to the EC, I cite environmental policy. It has served us and the country well and pushed the Government further and faster than they would otherwise have moved.

My last point about the structural aspect of the debate is that we are beginning the sequence of debates which will lead up to the Brazil conference in June next year to which the Prime Minister referred in his speech on Monday and to which hon. Members have referred in the House. I hope that we can have proper and careful consideration of the line that Britain should take before the conference in June. If there is not an election in autumn, it will probably be in the spring. We cannot be certain which Ministers will go to Brazil. I hope that I shall be there myself in an official capacity. That possibility should not be excluded. According to the latest opinion polls, no overall control is a high possibility.

Whichever Ministers attend the conference, we do not know now who they will be. Therefore, it is important that we do what the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green wants, which is to seek as much agreement as possible about what the Government's policy should be at the conference on behalf of the people of Britain. I hope that that is possible and that the Minister and his colleagues will respond. I hope that we can have a debate in the House and in another place soon after the summer to decide what our policy should be at the United Nations conference on the environment and development in Brazil next June.

One thing that was welcome about the Prime Minister's speech on Monday was that he made it. He did not take as long to make a speech on the environment as his predecessor took. It was a welcome acknowledgement that the Government give importance to the issue. However, I have to say that there were weaknesses in it. The fundamental weakness was that he accepted only conditionally that the Government should make commitments, and only where others did as well as we did. The obvious example is carbon dioxide emissions. The Prime Minister said: The United Kingdom has committed itself to act. We have said that if others do their part, we shall return emissions of CO, to 1990 levels by 2005. The Minister knows that I and my colleagues believe that the commitment should not be conditional on others playing their part, although I accept that the United States has a far greater part to play, and that to return to the present level in 15 years is not nearly a sufficiently tough target.

Mr. Trippier

Until we came to this part, I thought that the hon. Gentleman was making a fair and reasoned speech. I am anxious to know precisely the Liberal position on CO, emissions as a matter of record. I am more interested in knowing the Labour position because I might take that a little more seriously. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) would pipe down a little, we might get the matter off our chests.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said at a conference that I attended with him on Saturday that, of course, the Liberal party is committed to phasing out nuclear power. I think that I am right in saying that its manifesto proposes to do so by the year 2020. I and my hon. Friends believe that to go for a faster target by the year 2000 on stabilisation and reduction does not stack up. I will obtain a more decent reply on that than I obtained from the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor). What is the answer?

Mr. Alan W. Williams

Energy efficiency.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

Energy efficiency.

Mr. Hughes

I have a backing group. With the chorus behind me, it is rather like appearing on "Top of the Pops". I shall answer the Minister's question in a moment.

In the past year there have been various occasions when the Government have not done what they said they would. I want to list those things on which the Government did not live up to their promises. Their rejection of the hedgerow amendment to the Planning and Compensation Bill was a failure to honour a previous commitment. That was a black mark against the Government. Their refusal to accept the principle of sustainable development in the Planning and Compensation Bill showed that when it comes to including environmentally sound principles in legislation the Government have failed to deliver. That is especially true in that case, as the Government said that that principle was something with which everyone would agree. The publication in May of the mineral forecasts that predict an increase in demand of 60 per cent. until the year 2011 shows that that industry is unconstrained by environmental criteria, despite the recognition by Government and others of the environmental costs of mineral extraction.

Some issues are still to be addressed including, for example, the problem of a potential shortage of water. I accept that we have plenty of it coming down, but the problem is what we do with it after that. There have been problems with over-extraction and drought is bound to occur in certain parts of the country. Hosepipe bans are already in operation.

Mr. Mans

rose—

Mr. Hughes

I am sorry, but I shall not give way. As I have already explained, I have a funeral to attend and I do not want to speak for much longer.

There are also associated problems concerned with water leakage. We have not properly grasped the environmental assessment principle that was included in the White Paper. We have not resolved the conflict between the environment and agriculture, as was demonstrated by reaction of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to the common agricultural policy reforms proposed by the Agriculture Commissioner.

I understand that the "green" Ministers have met only once this year. I also understand that the Cabinet sub-committee—MICS. 141—has met only once in the past year. That suggests that the Government's structural commitment to pull environmental issues together is not strong.

I have tabled many questions to each Department to discover how they have implemented the White Paper, and some of their responses have been feeble. The Government must be honest about where they have failed.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) referred to a report recently published by the global environment research centre at Imperial college entitled "Institutions and Sustainable Development". The Minister should read that report as it makes fundamental criticisms of the structure of government and their inability to co-ordinate environmental policy. At present it is in a terrible muddle and has not been combined in a functionally effective manner. The Minister should read the summary of that report as well as the report itself so that he can deal with the problems identified.

My party believes that there should be a major structural reform of the Department, but, above all, the Treasury is central to environmental sustainable development. We must stop relying on the GDP and GNP indicators as measures of success. We must use a much more environmentally accountable set of indices. David Pearce made that clear in his report. Unless the Treasury policy reflects sustainable environmental principles, everything else will be second rate. In passing, the Government should set much tougher targets on many emissions, not just CO₂ emissions.

The Minister asked me about energy and energy policy. We had a spat about that in environment questions earlier this week. I was disappointed with the Minister's reply as it was not an accurate description of my party's policy; nor did it take into account what should have been the obvious answer. I asked why so little importance had been attached to the Select Committee reports of this House and the other place on energy conservation and efficiency. The Minister said that it was no good for me to argue about that when my party wanted to scrap the nuclear programme and increase the dependence on coal.

I accept that my party is committed to scrapping the nuclear programme by 2020 or earlier—whether that appears in the manifesto is another matter. However, we have never stated that we are committed to an increased dependence on coal—that is wrong. I should be happy for the Minister to study all our policy announcements; he will see no evidence of that commitment.

The dilemma is how to reduce emissions, achieve tougher targets, and still provide the energy the country needs. Energy policy is one of the crucial tests of Government environmental policy. The answer, as the hon. Members for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) and for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) rightly said, is energy efficiency. I would add energy conservation. I want to cite the evidence that backs that, as I wish to persuade the Minister.

Dr. Barry Dale, the chief scientist of the energy technology support unit, which is sponsored by the Department of Energy, has said that a threefold increase in nuclear power—12 more nuclear power stations— could, at most, provide 11 per cent. of the necessary reduction in CO₂ emissions. He described that percentage as an "economically feasible" reduction. If we had 20 more nuclear power stations, that would still mean that, at best, CO₂ emissions would be reduced by 11 per cent. However, energy conservation and efficiency could reduce CO₂ emissions by 40 per cent.

I gather that the House of Lords Select Committee on Energy report has not been formally published, but it states that the structure of the industry created since privatisation makes it much more difficult for us to meet our targets. Under the new system a generator does not have a financial interest in reducing consumer demand. That committee also argues that market forces need a fiscal boost from the Government to aid energy efficiency. We have proposed that in our alternative budget, but amendments to that effect to the Finance Bill were resisted. The report also says: Market forces alone will not produce a level of investment in energy efficiency sufficient to meet the Community's stated objective. That objective is a further 20 per cent. reduction in emissions.

Mr. Roger King

What is the effect of high energy prices? If the hon. Gentleman visited a Rover plant in my constituency, he would discover that people are for ever complaining about the high price of energy. There already exists a drive to reduce the cost of energy by being ever more efficient. There is little need for extra motivation.

Mr. Hughes

All the experts argue that there is a need for extra incentives and motivation. Prices are, of course, important. The supply industry must decide whether to spend money on advertising—an unnecessary cost—or on encouraging conservation. The hon. Gentleman must accept that the supply industry is subject to different motivations.

The budget of the Energy Efficiency Office is half the level of five years ago. The Select Committee says that the Government were wrong to cut its budget. The office needs more money to respond effectively and I appreciate that the sums involved have risen recently simply because of the switching of the home energy efficiency scheme from the Department of Social Security to the Department of Energy. It will be the second report in three months to criticise the Government and I hope that the Government take that seriously, remembering that the Select Committee on Energy in this House made the same criticism. It said that energy efficiency responsibility should be transferred away from the Energy Department to elsewhere in government.

I am happy to go through our figures. I have heard Department of Energy officials say in public that we could manage as a country to be dependent within 50 years on only renewable resources if we sufficiently prioritised energy efficiency and conservation, and that is without nuclear power.

Mr. Trippier

I do not dispute the fact that we must go for energy efficiency, and the Government are committed to that, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware from the White Paper. Indeed, nothing can be achieved by way of stabilising CO₂ emissions unless we go down that road. The trouble is that the hon. Gentleman's figures do not stand up. It is not a case of simply improving efficiency from the existing base. To replace the present 20 per cent. nuclear contribution would require action within a short time scale.

Had the hon. Gentleman said—because he is stuck with his party's target of the year 2000—that, even if we lived in a mad world and the Liberals were to get power, they would not start to wind down the nuclear industry until the year 2000, that would have been more credible, because the figures might begin to add up. But he and his party would start to wind it down immediately.

Mr. Hughes

I shall deal briefly with the Minister's intervention and then, if I may, come and see him to discuss it because I am anxious to persuade him that our figures add up. Nor would it be a mad world if we had a Liberal Government. It would be a saner world.

Our policy on CO₂ is for a 30 per cent. cut by the year 2005, compared with the Labour party's commitment of stabilisation by the year 2000. The Minister is right to say that our commitment on the nuclear industry must be dovetailed into that. It is about not building any more nuclear stations, including Sizewell B and so on. The Minister is right to say that one must marry together the timetable pre and post 2005 with the next deadline of 2020. A substantial reduction in nuclear capacity would have to come between 2005 and 2020, when some of the present power stations come off stream.

I shall be delighted at any time to go through the figures with the Minister. Our advice is that they add up and that what we wish to achieve is possible—that is, if the Government are persuaded, as I think they may be, of the less important use of nuclear power when, in 1994, that subject is reviewed by the Department of Energy.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Hughes

I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for not giving way. I shall, as the Minister would say, answer any of their queries in writing if they care to put them to me.

The next priority for the Government should be transport. Many actions could be taken by them to make the nation's transport policies more compatible and environmentally sustainable. Some obvious ones include removing the remaining advantages applying to company cars, graduating vehicle excise duty to provide an incentive to vehicles which are most environmentally beneficial, introducing an energy tax, and examining Department of Health research into the link between health or poor health and pollution by vehicles. The Government could then take action to reduce traffic congestion in urban areas.

Many of those matters are already on the Government's agenda, but they involve road pricing policy, more pedestrianisation, more investment in public transport, and a reduction in the road building programme. The crucial test after that would affect areas such as Oxleas wood, parts of the M3 and not ploughing up some of the most important areas of the countryside for roads that could be constructed differently.

The Minister referred to recycling, in many areas of which we lag far behind the European Community average. We are not good on paper and cardboard, although we are better than some on recycling cans and other objects. On glass we are among the worst in Europe. There are many ways in which we could improve our recycling record. The Government have the target of 50 per cent. of materials recycled by the end of the decade, but we are not on target to achieve that. We must do more if that target is to be achieved.

As a country we have made a start to being environmentally more responsible, and the Government have made their contribution to that. They could have achieved much more, more quickly and more effectively. I hope that today's debate will help to encourage a speedier and tougher response in the years ahead by this Government or whichever Government follow them.

12.34 pm

Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and Devon, West)

We are fortunate to have this valuable debate today. I am glad to have been able to hear my hon. Friend the Minister's speech, and especially glad to have heard the powerful speech of the Chairman of the all-party Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), whose knowledge is profound and probably unequalled by any of us other than the Minister.

The problem with debating the environment is that it really concerns quality of life. We must be careful not to identify it as a new religion, because it is nothing but an uprush of fear designed to dragoon people into following causes, sometimes for monetary reasons. After all, we are simply discussing the proper and wholesome care for the world in which we live. There is no need for it to become a turquoise vision, such as Mr. Icke claiming that he is the son of God. Neither is there a need to join some of the pressure groups that make unsustainable claims about concerns that are not real.

When I was a child I remember an elderly lady saying that the advance of television aerials would deplete the world of oxygen. She was very old when the television was invented. None the less, her claim was similar to the claim that was made by the Parents for Safe Food Campaign —a body of well known, publicly spirited women such as actresses and other public figures—that apples treated with a preservative called Alar will cause cancer. There is no causal link whatever, yet that pressurised campaign misled many housewives into not buying that invaluable food—the apple—for many months. The campaign has now moved on to pounding other foodstuffs. The campaign's success demonstrates the growing membership of quality of life organisations. I call that "greenness in a non-politicised arena". There are great health consequences from some of their actions.

The biggest industry in Devon, in which my constituency lies, is tourism. People come to us because they enjoy the quality of life that we offer—a true greenness. We have many sites of special scientific interest, for example the trail of Tarka the otter. The river and riverside walks around which the "Tarka the Otter" book was written have been identified as SSSIs and cleaned up. We also have the North Wyke Agricultural Research centre, which is carrying out serious and well-funded scientific research into low input grasslands. That is a good example of research which the Chairman of the all-party Select Committee identified as a long-term investment with no immediate return but with highly beneficial consequences to us all if the research proves positive. Indeed, it is already proving positive because low input grasslands research means high output in terms of more sheepmeat and higher quality lambs with the minimum input of potentially toxic substances.

It is worthwhile reminding hon. Members that farmers are the stewards of the countryside and the natural guardians of our common heritage. Today's great green movements build on what farmers have achieved for centuries. Many other hon. Members who are fortunate enough to represent rural constituencies see the fears and worries of those who come to live in our areas. For example, they want wind farms. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) spoke of sustainable forms of energy and wind farms are one such possibility. However, in a densely populated island such as the United Kingdom, wind farms are enormously noisy and visually intrusive. In Scandinavia there are beautiful, sparsely architecturally designed modern windmills in profusion. They make a noise like a tractor farming and harvesting a field all day. It is an intense, tractor engine-like noise, which people do not like.

There are also worries about incinerators, particularly those to incinerate carcasses infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. At Whiddon Down there is enormous concern that such an incinerator may have to be built

I received a letter from some people who moved into a beautiful village and bought a house overlooking a green field. The farmer ploughed it up and planted rape, and the newcomers wrote to me to complain that their view was now yellow, not green.

Such small factors that matter so much locally identify the natural conflict that exists between greenery and growth. That conflict can be seen in this week's announcement that car production is currently depressed due to economic factors in the United Kingdom. We should want fewer cars if we truly support the environment because cars cannot help but pollute, even when they use lead-free petrol, and they force us to create more roads.

It is difficult to get the priorities right, which is perhaps why the British electorate have now turned their attention away from Green party politics. The electorate have noticed that if the Green party had its way politically, there would be no electorate as that party's underlying ethos is that people pollute. Therefore, the logical conclusion must be that there should be no human reproduction, hence no electorate. Having identified its policy and seen the reaction of the electorate who, if the Green party had its way, would disappear, the Green party realised the logical conclusion of its policy and rapidly withdrew it from its manifesto.

Poverty, dirt and squalor are inescapable partners, so the first commitment to the environment has to be economic growth. The country has to be well off for us to be able to clean up after ourselves. I am delighted that the Conservative party committed itself first to economic growth and then, a little later as the economic growth started to boom in the 1980s, decided to dedicate itself to the environment.

However, we still have to answer the question as to who pays. The central tenet of Conservative policy is that the polluter pays. I have always been concerned that roads in the United Kingdom have traditionally been a free resource. When other countries began to introduce toll motorways, we did not. I am glad that Transport Ministers are now committing themselves, however gently—it is traumatic and difficult—to the prospect of private toll roads, and to debating whether we could charge people for coming into the most crowded districts, including central London.

I was fortunate to be present when various pieces of water legislation were discussed. I learnt of the Government's fine track record. Britain's water prices are among the lowest in Europe, and likely to remain so. All the water that an average United Kingdom citizen needs for drinking, cleaning, cooking, washing and gardening still costs only 15p a day. That makes nonsense of so many of the speeches of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), who has now left the Chamber—I am sure temporarily—during the passage of the Water Bill. She made claims about the degradation of our water supplies and the extra costs that consumers would have to bear.

Water privatisation has brought vast benefits to the environment and the consumer. As a result, the record £28 billion, to which the Minister referred and which is to be spent over the next decade on water infrastructure, will be critical to ensure that the cleanliness of our water supply remains the best possible and at the upper end of the scale of water available in Europe. In my constituency, we have a long history of underinvestment. Major investment is now being made, especially in the Bideford area, where there are some remarkably beautiful estuarial waters which have been allowed to degrade because of underinvestment.

I am sorry that the Labour party has committed itself to renationalisation of the water industry. There is hypocrisy in its saying that it would do that at lower prices to shareholders at a time when it claims to be the party of the City and the party which backs the free market. It is not even able to say that it is offering renationalisation at a cost of £3 billion and would remove the £28 billion privately funded investment programme over 10 years. It would leave all those who have invested in the water industry with a pay-out of a lower value than that at which they bought their shares.

Mr. Win Griffiths

The hon. Lady has repeated what her hon. Friends have said. She has talked about the nationalised water industry and the renationalisation of the water industry. The water industry was never nationalised. It was run by municipalities or by statutory water companies acting as public utilities. We do not intend to turn the water industry into a national industry. It is well known that we intend initially to improve the regulatory aspects of the Government and of the environment protection executive towards the water industry and ultimately, water and sewerage services will be provided through the regional authorities that we plan to introduce. That will be at a far later stage. The change will be similar to the changes that we propose for transport, which will allow private investment to continue.

Miss Nicholson

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for attempting to clarify the murky policies of his party. I remind him that the Labour party halved investment in sewerage and sewage disposal. I have little belief that any clear thinking on the matter will come from Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen. There are vast difficulties. The Opposition want to support the free market because they see the benefits that the Conservative party has introduced, but they have to go back to the trade union movement and to central control.

I do not see any real difference between saying that one will renationalise something and control it by public expenditure rounds and saying that one will bring it under public expenditure control, but run it through the regions. Surely that is merely another layering of major responsibilities. I say that with feeling because the proposals for women, with which I will not bother the House this morning, involve layer on layer of interference in private lives and in the way in which we all wish to work.

Only the Conservative party can genuinely privatise and pull back state control. The result of privatisation is readily visible to all of us in terms of private investment. We have taken investment out of the milk round and away from the Treasury which faces pressures over hip replacements, hospitals, pensioners and all the rest of it. We have created genuine private investment. I can see no way in which the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) can claim that he would allow private investment in view of the huge overseeing structure that the Labour party would create. It is nationalisation, although Labour does not wish to use that word because it is so unpopular with the electorate.

Labour is not a green party committed to green policies. Its environmental policies are shallow, like weeds with shallow roots which are easily plucked and wither and die. Jonathon Porritt, that noted environmentalist, said on 23 March about the Labour party and environmental issues: Most Labour candidates will sound more than a little stilted on environmental issues for the greenery still does not come naturally—and it certainly does not come coherently." As we have heard in the debate, that is true. According to another Labour party Front-Bench spokesman a Labour Government would take action to regulate the water industry. That would reduce the profitability of the privatised water companies and would therefore be likely to depress the share price. Investors should take account of that. It is a different proposal from that of the Conservative party. Labour's environmental spokesman has said: We are traditionally seen as a producerist party, always giving priority to jobs and to pay packets rather than to environmental concerns. The Times said: The Labour party document 'an Earthly Chance' is disfigured by Labour's own bugbears—bureaucracy and union power. Enacted in its entirety, Labour's policy would do little for the environment at great cost. I am delighted that the Minister has put so much before the House. I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister's speech last week because it showed that the United Kingdom leads the way in making further great moves in the European and international context of the quality of life. I support the environmental agency and look forward to further moves by the Conservative Government.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd)

Order. Before we make further progress, I must repeat that which the House already knows, that the Chair has no authority to control the length of speeches. So far this morning Front-Bench Members have taken not less than 40 minutes and, with the exception of the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson), Back-Bench Members have taken no less than 30 minutes. If everyone who wishes to speak is to be called in the debate hon. Members should remember that they are stewards of their own destiny and should act accordingly.

12.53 pm

Mr. Alan W. Williams (Carmarthen)

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. It is a pity that it is the only such debate in this Session and that it is being held on a Friday rather than on a day earlier in the week. I was pleased at the Prime Minister's announcement on Monday about setting up an environmental protection agency. The need for such an independent agency was put by the Select Committee on the Environment, the Labour party and the minority parties. The argument was also advanced last year in the Standing Committee on the Environmental Protection Bill and it has also been put time and again in the House. Such an agency was not proposed in the White Paper in September, but people are delighted that at the last minute, as a kind of death-bed conversion, the Government have decided to set up such an agency.

Mr. Trippier

The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that. The White Paper said that it would be considered. Would he mind apologising?

Mr. Williams

I meant that there was no commitment in the White Paper or at any stage last year or over the years by the Government. However, as we prepare for a general election the Government have found that their green cupboard is relatively bare and have plucked a proposal from our manifesto and now try to dress it up as an environmental protection agency. We welcome the Government's commitment—if they are returned to office which I doubt—to set up an environmental protection body. What role will the National Rivers Authority play in the new body? There is serious concern that the NRA will be split up and that only the part responsible for pollution control will be transferred into the environmental protection agency. The Labour party is pleased that, since its establishment, the NRA has shown itself to be a watchdog with real teeth. It is a success story for the Government and we want it to be transferred lock, stock and barrel, into the agency. Will the NRA be transferred in full or fragmented? If it is fragmented, it will be weakened, which will have an effect on what would otherwise be the strongest EPA in Europe.

I hope that when the EPA is set up—I trust that that will be done by a Labour Government—it will take responsibility for all solid waste disposal, particularly toxic waste. Solid, liquid and gaseous effluents would then be under its control. I should like it to take over the responsibilities of the Countryside Commission and some responsibility for agriculture, because that involves environmental protection. I should like it to go further and take over energy efficiency which is a critical part of environmental protection. There may even be some elements of transport policy into which the EPA should have a strong input.

We want a robust, independent and well-financed EPA. To help to finance it, we could have green taxes—riot just charges as in integrated pollution control. We want more than the charges for monitoring. We want pollution taxes, to give companies an incentive to pump out less effluent. We could also have landfill taxes. When companies or individuals are prosecuted for pollution, any fines levied could be payable to the EPA. That would give the agency an incentive to prosecute more. We want more vigorous law enforcement.

A critical part of the new agency is its independence from the Government. Here, there is a marked difference between our proposals and those of the Government. We propose a two-tier structure—an executive and a commission. The executive will be responsible for day-to-day policing, monitoring and prosecution of polluters, while the commission will be accountable to the Government. In that way, environmental protection will be at arm's length from the Government. That independence from Governments is important if the agency is to prove effective.

The danger with the Government's proposals is that the EPA will be part of the Department of the Environment and therefore subject to ministerial interference. The day after the Prime Minister made his speech, we saw the result of such interference. Our foremost nature conservationist, Sir Frederick Holliday, resigned as chairman of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is clear from the press reports and his comments yesterday on "The World at One" why he resigned. He was unhappy about clause 11 of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Bill and the fact that he was not brought into the consultations on the moves to undermine the power of the new body that the Bill sets up. We do not want such interference in the EPA when it is set up. That is why the Labour party's proposals of a commission and an executive will ensure a more effective protection body and a better guarantee of its independence.

In our debate today, all hon. Members are aware of the Government's White Paper published in September last year. After months of publicity, we looked forward to something robust and meaningful. Instead, we got 300 pages of glossy pictures, with lots of exhortation and encouragement but very little by way of firm action. That applies to the Government's record throughout the last 10 to 12 years. Their only major environmental measure was last year's green Bill.

I was a member of the Standing Committee that considered the Bill. I enjoyed its proceedings, but throughout I realised that the Bill was pretty small beer. It deals with important matters such as integrated pollution control, litter, waste collection, recycling and so on, but the financial provision for the implementation of those measures is only £30 million. That was the value placed by the Government on cleaning up the environment.

That figure must be compared with what is done in the United States. On 8 March 1991 Science carried an article on the costs of cleaning up the environment. It says: The United States spent $115 billion in current dollars on cleaning up pollution in 1990. That's about 40% of the defense budget and just over 2% of the gross national product. And if a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report is correct, by the year 2000 the total will climb to $171 billion to $185 billion. That is about 2.7 per cent. of the United States gross domestic product. Compared with the $115 billion spent last year by the United States, our little green Bill commitment amounted to only £30 million—a factor difference of 1,000. That is a measure of the priority given by this Government to cleaning up the environment.

When the Government eventually pluck up the courage to face the electorate—let us hope later this year—they will be judged not on today's debate, or on the Prime Minister's speech last Monday, or even on last year's White Paper, but on their record over the last 12 years. Their record does not stand up to scrutiny.

The water industry has been mentioned several times. The Government regularly under-invested in water during the 1980s. Their only policy was to privatise. Privatisation has led to higher bills and much greater salaries for the chairmen of the water companies. However, the quality of our drinking water is lower now than it was in 1979. The pollution of beaches by sewage effluent is worse now than it was 10 or 12 years ago. We await the benefits of any environmental improvements that the Government have set in hand.

As for agriculture, this is a critical year for the future of the common agricultural policy. It has caused extreme destruction of the environment. Hedgerows have been dug up. Farmers have engaged in intensive agricultural methods and used more fertilisers, pesticides and chemicals, which cause pollution.

The MacSharry proposals for the reform of the common agricultural policy mean that when the deep cuts come the big farmers will suffer. They enjoy 80 per cent. of the benefits of the CAP. What do the Government say about the proposals? They are hostile to them, simply because they will hit the big farmers. I agree with MacSharry that small farmers should be protected for both social and environmental reasons. Their style of farming is much more environmentally friendly. However, the Government are very much in the pockets of the big farmers—the agri-business lobby.

The Labour party wants the small farmers to survive and much more emphasis to be placed on environmental protection. Instead of the CAP supporting increased agricultural production, leading to massive surpluses of food, it should concentrate on environmental protection —the green premium, as we describe it.

The Government's record on transport is clear. They have projected an increase of 142 per cent. in traffic over the next 35 years. That increase is ludicrous. The Government are clearly the big car party. They invest £500 million a year in British Rail and public transport, compared with £3 billion a year in France and Italy and £4,000 million in Germany. The Government's emphasis is completely wrong.

The Government's record on energy is wide open to attack. I was a member of the Standing Committee which considered the Electricity Bill two years ago. We were completely hostile to its main proposal to privatise electricity. At every stage during the Bill's passage, we tried to move amendments to introduce energy efficiency. Our main proposal was for least-cost planning.

Least-cost planning is followed in the United States. The regulators of American power utilities must demonstrate to the regulator when they propose to build a new power station that the power station is necessary and that the money could not be better invested in home insulation. Instead of building a new power station for £1,000 million, it would be better to invest that money in home insulation and district heating schemes. About seven times as much energy would be saved pro rata as would be generated with the same amount of money. The Government turned down all our amendments about least-cost planning.

Great savings can be made with energy efficiency. The Minister had great difficulty earlier with my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) and the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) in accepting that major savings are possible through energy efficiency. An article appeared in the New Scientist a couple of years ago which referred to the record in the United States from 1973—the onset of the oil crisis—to 1986. It stated: In the United States … the annual demand for energy is still below that of 1973 even though the country's gross domestic product … is up by 40 per cent. Over that 13-year period there was a 40 per cent. growth in GDP and a cut in energy demand. The article continued: Japan has gone one better. The country used 6 per cent. less energy in 1986 than it did in 1973 even though its GDP grew by 46 per cent. over the 15 years. It used 6 per cent. less energy while its GDP grew by 46 per cent. That is a 50 per cent. increase in energy efficiency over the period. Those are not the findings of an abstract scientist or the results of a feasibility study; that is the record achieved by advanced countries comparable to ours. Compared to them, we are at the bottom of the league.

That article in the New Scientist also stated: The International Energy Agency estimates that if energy conservation measures that are now economically viable were fully implemented by the year 2000, energy efficiency would be more than 30 per cent. higher than current levels. This Government have cut the Energy Efficiency Office's budget. There has been much exhortation, but the Government have not got their hands dirty in terms of doing anything.

There is quite a lot of opencast coal mining in my constituency. That is wildly and widely unpopular. Under this Government, opencast coal production has increased from 12.9 million tonnes in 1979 to 18.9 million tonnes in 1989. That is a 50 per cent. increase in production. Nothing can he more environmentally destructive than opencast mining. There is a presumption in favour of such development in the mineral planning guidance notes. Labour will reverse that when we are in government.

Coal as a source of energy is much discredited, because it is dirty and sooty. However, clean coal combustion is now possible. The Government are aware of that, but they do not believe in investing in it. In the 1970s, in Grimethorpe, Yorkshire, fluidised bed combustion was developed. It was possible to remove all sulphur in that way, but scientists working at Grimethorpe are now going overseas because that British technology is being developed overseas.

Last Monday, at The Sunday. Times exhibition at Olympia, I talked to someone involved in research into the topping cycle. He explained the background in some detail and spoke of his personal frustration in not getting sufficient support from the Department of Energy. That technology will be the main method of electricity production in the next century. The biggest resource is coal —not nuclear power, oil or gas. In the next century, electricity will be made from clean coal combustion, despite the carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, we are in that no-win situation. It will be clean coal combustion.

Acid rain is no longer one of the environmental glamour issues, but it is a serious problem. In my constituency, thin soils cannot buffer acidity in the rainfall. In Wales, the Lake District, Scotland, and Scandinavia there are serious problems of acid rain poisoning our rivers, leaching aluminium into our rivers and drinking waters, with its relationship to Alzheimer's disease and so on.

Belatedly, in 1987, the Government recognised that acid rain was a problem. They undertook to agree to the European Community's directive to introduce cuts in sulphur dioxide emissions, but, when faced with the privatisation of the electricity industry, what did they do? They reneged on those commitments and cut by a third the number of power stations to be installed with flue gas desulphurisation equipment. The awful fact is that when the Government leave office, not one of our power stations will have FGD equipment. We must compare that with Germany, Holland, Austria and Sweden, where virtually all power stations have FGD equipment. When the election comes, the "dirty man of Europe" tag will fit the Government.

1.11 pm

Sir Hal Miller (Bromsgrove)

The parrot cries of energy efficiency from the Opposition Benches remind me irresistibly of the war cry of the Wilson Government—the white heat of technical revolution that was going to save their bacon in 1969 and 1970. It creates a wonderful picture of the Labour party being as credible as double-glazing salesmen.

I refer to the contribution that the motor industry wishes to make to the improvement of the environment. I pause only to note the deep-seated hostility of the Labour and Liberal parties to the motor car and the motorist, despite the fact that 30 million people hold driving licences and there are 22 million cars on the road. I have no doubt of the consequences of that if it were followed to its logical conclusion.

I welcome the initiative of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at the start of this week, following the Department of Transport paper on the environment. My right hon. Friend set out clearly some of the major considerations: that climate change is a global problem, but that the United Kingdom is responsible for only 3 per cent. of global emissions of carbon dioxide; that road transport in the United Kingdom is responsible for less than a fifth of that 3 per cent; the largest polluters are the power stations that are so beloved of the Labour party; and that businesses, industries, the motor car and other road transport are hotly pursued by domestic central heating as a source of carbon dioxide emissions. We need to get the matter into perspective.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will chair the strategy committee. He also pointed out that one of our main aims must be to work with the market and to awaken individuals to their responsibilities in improving the environment. My right hon. Friend mentioned four subjects. I welcome the fact that two of them were energy saving and transport, about which I wish to speak. In his paper, my right hon and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport referred to the need to give market signals and to provide information, to the role of regulation and to the provision of infrastructure.

There is a balance to be struck in all these matters. If we are considering emissions from motor vehicles, it is important to note that there is a difference between a cleaner engine and a cooler engine—the cooler engine being the one that gives off less CO₂ and contributes less to global warming. The catalyst helps to clean up other emissions, but leads to further emissions of CO₂ and thus militates against efforts to reduce global warming. As I have said, there is a balance to be struck. We are trying to achieve a cleaner, cooler, quieter and safer vehicle. For the cleaner vehicle, which cleans up emissions other than CO₂ great progress has already been made with unleaded petrol, the fitting of catalytic converters and by doing away with the use of chlorofluorocarbons in motor vehicles. However, further progress could be made with the greater use of diesel engines, which are more economical, more energy efficient and give off less CO₂. They could therefore make an important contribution to reducing global warming.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) and I have been going around Government Departments for nearly two years outlining a programme whereby the motor industry would contribute towards the achievement of the stated target of my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) of maintaining CO₂ emissions at their current level until 2005. It is a matter of regret that in the Budget the Government did not pursue the advantages of the proposals that my hon. Friend sought to introduce as amendments to the Finance Bill. 1 hope that our further amendment may be selected for consideration next week.

I much admired, as well as enjoyed, the speech of my hon. Friend the Minister, but must advise him that the motor industry wants identified targets towards which it can work. If we have targets for energy efficiency and for emissions—as are being introduced in the EEC—and for noise and for safety, a programme of manufacture can be developed so that we can work towards those ends. My hon. Friend the Member for Northfield and I would argue that we should go down the route of market signal and incentive, as we did so successfully for unleaded petrol. We have been urging similar incentives for diesel, which would not only reduce its price in this country and bring it closer to the price elsewhere on the continent where the advantages of economy are already well understood, but would help our hard-pressed industry in this time of recession.

There have been some cheap jibes, notably in the literature of the green parties, about company cars, which have been mentioned this morning. I regretted to note a similar reference in the Department of Transport's White Paper. If we examine the facts, we find that the measures that were introduced in the Budget have increased the tax for employees while leaving their bosses with a lower level of tax. According to the Inland Revenue's own figures, more company cars are owned by people on schedule D than are used by those on schedule E. So once more the employees are paying higher tax than those who employ them.

There is also an argument about the arm's-length cost of the company car, as established by the contract hire rate. We also ignore the fact that company cars are newer and better maintained. The quickest way to make improvements is to bring new vehicles into the vehicle park. Otherwise, it will take at least 10 years to work through the 22 million vehicles which are currently on the road and ensure that they are all fitted with a catalyst to achieve the improvements that we all want. One way of helping to speed up that process is to encourage a greater turnover of vehicles and get new vehicles on the road. We must get rid of the 2 million unlicensed vehicles and the innumerable badly maintained vehicles which are the greatest polluters, as well as the noisiest and unsafest vehicles of the lot.

I hope that a stricter MOT standard will be introduced. I hope that we shall not only move immediately to four gas testing, which I was discussing with the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) earlier, but introduce calibration of equipment and standard of workshop and additional safety and noise requirements.

Noise is an important polluter. I have a warning for my hon. Friend the Minister from a constituency factory which is interested in the production of axle load indicators. It has advised me this week that the EEC legislation is moving towards adopting overall payload rather than axle weight. Yet we have always been given to understand that it is axle weight which is so damaging to our road structure and so influential on noise levels.

Time does not permit me to make all the remarks that I had prepared, so I must come to a conclusion to allow my colleagues to take part in the debate. The quality of the environment is an important freedom for us all. When I took my young son swimming in the river two summers ago, I suddenly realised that it was an unusual experience for him, whereas I was taught to swim in the river. Both the schools that I attended took us swimming in the river. I hope that my son and my grandchildren will also in due course be able to swim safely in the river.

The motor industry is anxious and willing to make its contribution to improving the environment for all of us, as well as giving us the advantages of mobility and security. Security is important for mothers on the school run or women travelling late at night who do not feel safe on public transport. It is an important issue. We are willing to make that contribution. We ask that targets be set and that research should be conducted into new technologies, including alternative fuels. What is the point of concentrating all our attention on what comes out of the exhaust instead of what goes into the engine in the first place? We welcome the White Paper and the fact that there will be a report, and we look forward to making our contribution.

1.23 pm

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss green issues, but I regret that this has been such a wide-ranging debate, because it is not easy to comment on some of the issues raised.

In the past three months, I have been fortunate enough to visit the constituencies of Stroud, Salisbury, Exeter, Falmouth and Camborne, Teignbridge, Suffolk, Coastal and Waveney at the invitation of prospective Labour candidates. I have spoken to the various environmental groups in those areas as well as to footpath officers, conservationists, representatives of the National Farmers Union, the Country Landowners Association and others about the Labour party policies contained in our document, "Earthly Chance". We discussed problems such as access to the countryside and how we can maintain the quality of the countryside. Those meetings were constructive and useful and I was pleased at the number of people who were excited by the proposals in the Labour party document.

The consensus that emerged from those meetings was one of concern about farm incomes and the difficulty that is placed on those who are required to maintain our countryside in the neatly farmed way which we have come to accept and enjoy. People were extremely interested in the Labour party's policy of green premiums.

During my campaign I was pleased to note that the Government announced their country stewardship scheme, because it looks as though the Government are following the Labour party. They have now recognised that we must find ways in which we can assist farmers to protect and maintain the countryside. We should not pay farmers just to undertake more and more food production.

I am concerned, however, that the Government are putting up only £13 million for the country stewardship scheme. On Wednesday, I gathered from the Secretary of State for the Environment that the money will be spread over three years and that it will be administered by the Countryside Commission.

I am pleased that the DOE has taken an initiative on the countryside, but it is important to compare it with the negative response to the set-aside scheme, which was proposed by the European Community and is administered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Have we got the balance right? I plead with the Government to expand the country stewardship scheme. Perhaps they should hand it over to MAFF to administer, but the principles set by the DOE should be retained so that we can do much more to protect the incomes of those in the countryside. We are talking not just about farmers' income, but about that of farmworkers and those in the neighbourhood who provide support services. I urge the Minister to consider the scheme to see how some of the money from the EC for the set-aside scheme can be used in a more positive way to develop and protect the countryside.

We must do much more positive work to protect the hedgerows. I am delighted that the Government have stopped giving grants to people to tear up the hedgerows, but I still regret that too many hedgerows are disappearing through neglect. They must be properly maintained and, after 30 years, they need to be properly layed. Throughout my visits, it became the exception rather than the rule to see a well-layed hedge.

I am absolutely appalled at the amount of litter we see. It is not a question whether an authority is Labour controlled, because most authorities have an appalling litter problem. I welcome the Environmental Protection Act 1990 although I am not certain whether the Government have got it right. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will tell us when the provisions on litter contained in that Act will come into operation. When will on-the-spot fines be introduced? When will individuals be able to take local authorities to court if they fail to deliver the goods?

I do not blame local authorities entirely for the litter problem. The fact is that people still drop too much litter. Unfortunately, people are schizophrenic in their attitude to litter. When I visit schools, the pupils are terribly enthusiastic about green issues. The are concerned not just about the rain forests and the whale, but about the problems of littter. There may be huge posters about litter, but when I leave those schools I often see a trail of sweet papers and ice-cream wrappers.

We must convince people that litter is everybody's problem.

I am concerned about the problems in the Tameside and Stockport areas of my constituency, where the litter collection service is a disgrace. Tameside has continually said that it does not have the money to do it and is looking for ways to improve the service. I fear that, so far, it has not succeeded in achieving any improvement.

On the other hand, Stockport fully embraced the Government approach and privatised its refuse and litter collection services. It worked on the basis that, as the Government had claimed, if it privatised the services, the work would be done more cheaply and with better quality. Despite what the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said about the great Liberal green policies, the response of the Liberals in Stockport, where they comprise the largest party on the council, has been a disaster.

The Government's policy was followed, the services were put out to tender and a bid was accepted from Focsa, a Spanish company, which was to carry out the refuse and litter services. Leaflets were distributed to all households stating that there would be a better service. In the event, the service has been far worse, and I have had to contact chief officers about sites not being cleaned up properly.

The local authority discovered that it had made a mess by letting the tender to Focsa because some streets had not even been included in the tender. The company had put in a low bid simply to get the business, hoping that in the future it could put the price up. The authority is now faced with having to decide whether to withdraw the contract from the company and, if so, whether it would then be possible to find another company to provide a service at the right price. At present, litter collection there is a disgrace and it is time that the Liberal-dominated council sorted the matter out.

The Minister referred briefly to the issue of green labels, but I was disappointed with what he said. He repeated the promise that we have often heard in the House—it was stated in an Adjournment debate of mine last March—that it was hoped to have a scheme in place by 1 January.

Mr. Trippier

I had to cover many subjects in my speech and could not spend long on that one. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am satisfied, having attended the last meeting of the Environment Council in Europe, that the eco-labelling directive will come out of the next Council meeting in October or, at the latest, in December of this year.

Mr. Bennett

The Minister promised that a scheme would be in operation by January. If that is to happen, manufacturers must be told in September or October what to state on the packets, depending on the products and how long it takes to produce them and get them to the shops. I hope that the scheme will be in operation quickly. The longer the delay, the more people are conned, as he suggested, by buying products that are claimed to be environmentally friendly when they are not. Much good will is lost in that way.

I like the idea of waste disposal credits. It makes sense to encourage people to recycle material rather than use it to fill up holes in the ground. But a problem exists between the collection and disposal authorities. If credits are given to collection authorities, they remove various items, but the disposal authorities take out the same items, so the two are working in opposition directions.

Greater Manchester waste disposal authority is working hard to extract tin cans, but becomes concerned when the volume of cans in the refuse falls below a certain level because it is then not worth while to run all the refuse through the magnets and so on to remove the cans.

North West Water plc and Tameside local authority —two totally different organisations—have great charters about green issues. North West Water says how environmentally friendly it is, and explains how it has tackled certain problems and how it wants to encourage access to the countryside. The trouble is that trees are cut down to produce those documents on green issues, but when it comes to specific cases neither the local authority nor the water company takes a blind bit of notice.

I am delighted that the Secretary of State has called for an inquiry into the Kingswater development. I hope that the inspector will find in favour of the local residents, who do not want one of the nicest areas of open space between Manchester and Tameside to be destroyed by a business park. A problem has developed in the past couple of weeks. The local authority considered the planning application in the autumn and in January the Secretary of State called for an inquiry—it is now set for 12 September. The local authority's Queen's Counsel has now told the local authority that it is in a mess, because it has no concrete proposals for road access to the site and he has recommended that North West Water should ask for the inquiry to be delayed for six months. The Tameside officials do not want such a delay and are now trying to rush through a road proposal, which was due to be announced yesterday or today. People will have 28 days to object to it, and a local authority meeting will be held to discuss it sometime towards the end of August. The local authority could then simply tell the inspector on 12 September that there is a concrete road proposal. The road proposal reverses a decision made by the inspector on the proposals for a motorway in my constituency. I hope that the Minister will consider the matter carefully and tell Tameside that it is not good enough to try to rush the road access proposal through in two months at the most, in preparation for the public inquiry. If local people are to be consulted effectively, the public inquiry on the Kingswater development should be postponed for six months. The road issue and the subject of the inquiry could then be properly considered so that proper local debate on the issue could take place. I shall write to the Minister in a little more detail on that subject.

The Government must get on with turning some of their rhetoric on green issues into practice. They must set out to make the country stewardship scheme work so that much more money is spent on conservation rather than merely on food production. We must have effective action on litter, because it is an absolute disgrace. A working system of green labelling should be in place by 1 January. Finally, we must do much more to ensure that we do not continue to tip natural resources into holes in the ground, because we may have to dig them out in the future. I welcome the opportunity for a debate on green issues, but I wish that the House had more time to discuss them today and more opportunities to return to them.

1.38 pm

Mr. Richard Holt (Langbaurgh)

About five years ago, having spent almost a lifetime in personnel work, I put my name forward to become a member of the Employment Select Committee. For some reason I was overlooked, so I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Sir M. Fox) why. He told me not to worry because there was a vacancy on the Environment Committee—which also begins with an E. My membership of that Committee was my introduction to the subject. The past five years have been thoroughly exciting and interesting, and I pay tribute to the Chairman of the Committee for the work that he has done in those five years to bring so many issues to the public's attention. Many of them are commonplace today, but were then rare and novel—for example, acid rain and other subjects that we were supposed to have debated this morning but which have not been mentioned. I can understand why as it is difficult to isolate the environment in the United Kingdom from that in the rest of the world. That is one fact that we have discovered from our work on the Select Committee during the past five years or more.

The reports before us have some element of criticism of the Government, some suggestions and some positive points that may be controversial. But every one of our reports has come out with the unanimous support for the composition of the Committees. The manpower changes in those Committees has been quite high, particularly among Labour Members, as more and more of them are promoted to become Opposition spokesmen and women. None of the reports has come out with a minority view. That means that we have sought to put the environment above party politics, and we must continue to do so.

Therefore, I was disappointed—although perhaps I should not have been surprised—by the speech of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), which was nothing more than a catalogue of carping comments, with selective statistics, and which did nothing to elevate the debate or introduce any constructive proposals. That is not the way that we try to do things on the Select Committees.

I always make a wry note of the fact that, because of the way this place works, the Liberal party, from which there is never anyone present at Select Committee meetings, is always offered an early and long bite of the cherry in debates in the Chamber, despite the fact that Liberal Members show no interest in the subject in the House. If someone has to go to a funeral, it is not beyond the wit of man to find someone else to sit in and participate in a debate. However, Liberal Members do not do so, and there is a void in the Chamber and on the Select Committee. That may not be entirely the fault of the Liberal party; it may be partly due to the way in which Select Committees are chosen. The Select Committee on the Environment is a public Committee to which anyone can come, but, to my knowledge, during the five years in which I have served the Committee, not once has a Liberal party observer been present or taken any interest in anything that we have done.

Sir Hugh Rossi

May I set the record absolutely straight? There was a Liberal Member on the Select Committee of the Environment until 1985, when he was made Liberal Chief Whip and had to resign from the Committee. I asked for that place on the Committee to be kept open for the whole of one Parliament so that the Liberals could replace him, but no one could be found from among their ranks who was willing to serve. At the general election, the Labour party asked for and obtained that place.

Mr. Holt

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Committee, whose experience goes back even further than mine, for explaining the correct position.

We have heard talk about the terrible pollution on beaches, but it was not mentioned that the Select Committee has found that measuring equipment used today to determine whether the water contains pollutants is superior to that available 30 or 40 years ago. There is no doubt that, if today's equipment had been available then, we would have found that the beaches were worse in those days than they are today, but we have no way of recording that.

Last week we heard that the east Germans reckon that it will be 10 years before raw sewage is no longer spread around their beaches. We are a long way from that, and a long way ahead of the east Germans, but we still have more work to do.

Chlorofluorocarbons present a huge international problem. I asked an Indian Government official how the Indian Government would deal with the problem of refrigeration and CFCs in the Indian sub-continent, as more refrigerators were used there and as the people turned more to western standards. He said, "I challenge you to go up to an Indian peasant woman who has lived all her life with the wish to have a refrigerator and to tell her that she cannot have it because it will increase the CFCs in the atmosphere, although people in the west want to keep their refrigerators." When we spoke to the Brazilians about the tropical forests, they said that they did not have a problem of cutting down the forests. They said that the west had the problem of too many cars. They said that if we cut out our cars, they would not have a problem with the forests. Trying to introduce some rationale takes the whole debate on the environment outside normal party politics. We should consider the matter more objectively and constructively.

For the first time, we have a Government who have listened to what we have said and who have introduced some of the measures that we have proposed. It was interesting to note that, when we first said that we would investigate indoor pollution, the following week the Department of the Environment, for the first time, issued a circular on indoor pollution. That was a coincidence par excellence. It shows that the Department listened and it shows the value of the Select Committee and its reports.

I endorse the remark made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) about the Minister not mentioning Northern Ireland in his speech. It is an area of particular beauty and, as we saw when we went there, there are pollution problems that we should take on board.

I represent the chemical heart of England on Teesside. There are problems there of toxic waste and cleaning up. We have the new power station from Enron and gases come ashore there to create power. Close by, there is the Hartlepool nuclear power station. We are aware of all the pollution problems, and we are also aware that one cannot turn the clock back. We cannot say to people that they must not have this or that, because they have been used to turning on the switch to get electric light, and to having electricity for cooking and for all the other things that we take for granted. It all has a price which has to be paid in environmental and in financial terms. Getting the balance right is the most important job that the Government must tackle.

I listened to Opposition Members talking about polluted beaches. We have them in Durham. Why? We have coalfields there. Until this Government came to power, no Government had done anything about that. The problem has been recognised, time limits have been set, and something will be done. The churlishness of the Opposition in failing to give the Government recognition for that does their cause no good.

There is no doubt that the water industry was starved of cash under the 1974–79 Labour Government. I was a member of the Thames water board at the time and I know how difficult it was for us as a water authority to keep up with basic maintenance, let alone to carry out replacement and renovation. Everything in the ground was getting older, but could not be replaced or repaired.

It is a shame that we have had this debate on a Friday. It would have been a better debate if more Back-Bench Members had been able to make contributions. They would have been better than the nonsense that we heard from the hon. Member for Dewsbury. Some of her remarks do not deserve comment, but I want to mention Friends of the the Earth. They are an irritant to many people, but they sometimes make good points. If we did not have them, we should have to invent them. Why not recognise that we have pressure groups? All of them have axes to grind and much of the time what they say will be of little consequence. However, occasionally they get it right. It would be good if the Government could occasionally say that the Opposition have a good point and that they accept it. It would be even better if the Opposition would occasionally say that they support the Government on an issue and that they understand the Government's problems. They should say that they understand that the problem of pollution has developed over decades and centuries. We should approach in a far less partisan way matters such as contaminated land for which no records exist.

I warn the Government not to place too much hope on Europe, because it will clearly make the wrong moves on eco labelling. European countries do not know what they want and are pulling in different directions. Consequently, we shall have to take matters into our own hands. I am sure that the Select Committee on the Environment will make recommendations on that important subject. Members on both Front Benches should agree on eco labelling, and we should not play party politics about whether a label will contain too little or too much. The public will have to trust such a label and we should agree on what it should contain.

The environment is and will continue to be a major issue. In a party speech my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) said that we have only a leasehold on this earth. She was absolutely right. It is the Government's responsibility to make sure that environmental issues are properly treated, and it is the responsibility of Back Benchers to make sure that the Government do that. I look forward to another five years' service on the Select Committee, which is carrying out precisely that task.

1.53 pm

Mr. Roger King (Birmingham, Northfield)

Not long ago, my journey from Birmingham to London took two and a half hours and the fuel consumption of the car that I then had was about six gallons. Now, the same journey takes just under two hours and my present car's fuel consumption is no more than two and a half gallons. The difference is due to the fact that the Government have completed the M40 motorway which has relieved congestion along an arduous and outdated route through Banbury and Oxford, causing pollution, congestion and heavy fuel consumption.

New roads and those that are being built have freed up traffic which is therefore not consuming as much fuel and, obviously, not causing as much pollution. The other significant reason for decreased fuel consumption is that I have changed my car. I now drive a diesel vehicle and I am reaping the benefits of a superior form of internal combustion engine which is more energy efficient and which provides the power and performance that I want.

Some differences between petrol and diesel cars are quite staggering. The touring economy of a car is obtained by taking the calculations of fuel consumption for the urban cycle, at 56 mph and at 75 mph and weighting them. Under that formula a car such as the Montego powered by a two-litre petrol engine has a fuel consumption of 35.4 miles per gallon. The diesel equivalent will accomplish 55.8 miles per gallon. That is an enormous increase and it is due to the ability of the diesel engine to squeeze extra energy out of every litre of fuel.

A bigger executive car such as the Rover 827 will deliver 26–6 miles to a gallon of petrol. Its diesel equivalent, the Rover 825, will cover 40.7 miles to the gallon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sir H. Miller) said some months ago, an alternative form of engine would enable us to make enormous strides in saving fuel and in reducing the output of carbon dioxide, which is a difficult gas to control. Of course there are other pollutants, but, because a diesel car can travel further on a gallon of fuel, it will cause much less pollution than its petrol equivalent.

The introduction of catalysts to solve the problem of exhaust emissions from petrol cars may be a good and sensible idea, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove pointed out, catalysts actually exacerbate the problem because those dangerous pollutants are turned to CO₂. Therefore, the vehicle not only goes less far on a gallon of fuel but emits further carbon dioxide.

It has been said that the wider use of diesel vehicles will lead to an increase in other forms of pollution—black smoke, soot on buildings, health hazards, particulate emissions—and that that is a further reason for not embracing the diesel car. However, despite long-standing research into the consequencies of diesel exhaust, there is no evidence that it is in any way carcinogenic. Although German and United States agencies, which are generally in the lead in research on exhaust emissions, have done an enormous amount of testing, no hidden problems have been discerned. I understand that a committee has been set up in this country, but I have been unable to ascertain w ho belongs to it or what findings it is establishing. Presumably, it is either duplicating experiments conducted elsewhere or developing new experiements.

Particulate emissions are a result of the sulphur content of the fuel used. The European Commission has announced that, by 1996, the sulphur content of fuel should be reduced to a low level. However, there is no national standard for sulphur contents in diesel fuel. The oil companies try to keep it to a reasonable level, but it tends to go up and down according to the refining process. The Government have encouraged the use of unleaded fuel, so it would be easy for them to impose a reduction of the sulphur content of diesel fuel at a far quicker rate. We should be moving as a European group of nations.

There is strong evidence that unleaded fuel, which is more accurately and highly refined than leaded fuel, contains more benzine than leaded fuel. Experiments in the United States have shown that this seems to have carcinogenic side effects on those who inhale the fumes when filling up their cars. Therefore, it is not the case that unleaded petrol has no side effects on health. There is some linkage there, although there is not on diesel fuel.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove and I have had similar problems in our attempts to encourage the Government to introduce an incentive for the buying of diesel cars, along the line of the fiscal incentive to use unleaded fuel. If people were encouraged to buy diesel cars, it is possible that we would reduce CO₂ emissions by the year 2005, or even halt them at the present level. Unless we adopt a policy of incentives, there is little chance of the motor industry and the car user being able to play a part in reducing CO₂ emissions.

The Government have many arguments about why no incentives should be offered. We have written to the Department of the Environment and the Department of Transport—and to the Treasury, because it decides on tax concessions. I imagine that the Departments have consulted each other, so we end up with responses similar to the one from my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury. She said in a letter to me: Diesel fuel, derv, contains roughly 14 per cent. more carbon per litre of fuel than petrol does, and thus generates correspondingly more carbon dioxide per litre consumed. That is true, but it overlooks the fact that, for the same amount of fuel, a diesel car will go a lot further.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders—I assume that the House understands that it is well versed in these matters—says: Allowing for relative carbon content by volume of fuel, the fuel economy advantage of the diesel, up to 30 per cent. per litre per 100 kilometre term, translates into a CO, advantage in grams per kilometre of up to a 20 per cent. saving over a petrol equivalent. Although the Treasury and Government Departments say that there is more carbon in diesel, the fact that the car travels further on diesel fuel wipes out the discrepancy and provides a 20 per cent. benefit. Diesel cars are more expensive to manufacture because they are more complex and robust. If, however, we can reduce both the price of diesel cars and the price of diesel fuel, the Government will be able to meet its road transport target by 2005.

If our amendment is selected on the Report stage of the Finance Bill, we hope to introduce a clause that will provide some latitude as regards the 10 per cent. special car tax. We shall concentrate on banding cars, based on their touring fuel consumption. I hope that the Government will consider carefully that interesting concept. Unless they encourage people to purchase fuel-efficient cars—and the only way to do that is through the wallet—they will never meet the target they have set themselves. As soon as the Government appreciate that fact and introduce financial incentives, the target will be met. The car industry will manufacture the products that it knows that it can make and that it wants to make, and that will be good for everyone.

2.1 pm

Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre)

Both Opposition parties have a hang up about nuclear power. They always find a way round admitting that it is a very efficient means of generating electricity. However good our energy conservation measures may be, nuclear energy produces less carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide than power generated by fossil fuels. The sooner we get that message over, the better it will be for our energy policy.

I welcome the debate. I have always believed that we need to keep environmental issues at the forefront of political discussion. I shall concentrate on how local communities can improve their environment. Environmental improvement is not just a matter of the Government telling people what to do. It is up to individuals and organisations to get on with it themselves. That requires a considerable amount of explanation and objectivity on the part of local pressure groups and councillors.

I intend to give an example from my area to demonstrate how things can go right. It might provide a few lessons for the future. It will not be a complete surprise to hon. Members to hear that the coastline around Blackpool, near my constituency, needs to be cleaned up. Neglect over decades by North West Water was largely the result of lack of Government funding, particularly during the period when the Labour Government were in power between 1974 and 1979. In real terms, the amount spent on cleaning up the sewage around our coasts was reduced from £900 million in 1974 to £400 million in 1979.

It should also be noted that the local Labour party first became involved in environmental matters when the Labour-controlled Lancashire county council opposed a scheme to improve the quality of sewage disposal along the Fylde coast. The method suggested by North West Water was old-fashioned and inadequate, in my opinion, but I suspect that the county's opposition to it had much more to do with the imminent privatisation of the water industry than with any long-term concern for the environment.

I shall not detain hon. Members by describing the subsequent events, apart from saying that the Government rightly decided that the scheme was not good enough and asked North West Water to think again. In the intervening period, environmental awareness locally has increased tremendously, partly as a result of the environment becoming an important issue nationally, but also because local people began to discuss in detail the best way that the coastline could be cleaned up.

Over the past two years the political climate on the Fylde coast has also changed. We now have a Labour-controlled borough council in Blackpool and greater representation by the Labour party in Fleetwood. It will not surprise my colleagues to learn that Labour's view on environmental improvement matters has, as a result of those political changes, also changed. We now hear less about Blackpool's dirty beaches, and although Labour councillors in Fleetwood were largely elected on the basis of their opposition to the pipeline, they now face the possibility of the construction of a sewage works and a pipeline beside the town, both of which seem to have the approval of their Labour colleagues at county hall.

Therefore, it is not surprising that many people in Fleetwood feel betrayed by the Labour party which gave the distinct impression that it supported the town against organisations like North West Water which wanted to treat all Fylde's sewage by way of a long sea outfall or by a sewage plant near Fleetwood.

It is interesting to note that the county council now supports the present scheme. It would be no exaggeration to say that the Labour party locally is hopelessly split on the issue. County politicians want the sewage works to be built so that they can support their Labour colleagues in Blackpool borough. In doing that, they have ditched Fleetwood.

I make that point because it shows the difficulty with local environmental issues if they become bogged down in local politics. That is certainly what has happened in this case. We must ensure that in future environmental matters are dealt with on a slightly higher plain so that we can move forward and find the best solution from an environmental point of view.

The scheme on the Fylde coast needs further improvement. We must find ways to dispose of the sludge effectively. The Select Committee on the Environment—of which I was a member for many years—has said that incineration rather than landfill is the way forward. It is also worth stating that landfill has problems because of the need to comply with the EEC directive on landfill sites that will come into force in 1997.

I very much support what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said recently about the creation of a new environmental protection agency. I should like it to be called the environmental improvement agency, because that it is what it is all about. It is important for the Government to create targets, for outside agencies to regulate and for everyone else, in the best way possible, to try to improve the environment individually as well as in groups.

2.7 pm

Mr. Win Griffiths (Bridgend)

We have had a long and interesting debate in which, unfortunately, because it has been so wide-ranging, we have not been able to consider in depth some very important subjects. It is also a pity that we could not have this debate until almost a year after the White Paper was published.

Perhaps the delay was due to the fact that the Government did not want to be reminded of the reaction of the press to the White Paper. Although most papers normally support the Government, the response of the press to the White Paper was lukewarm, to say the least. For example, one paper said that the White Paper contained 350 proposals with more conditions and caveats than an insurance policy. The Times described the White Paper as "a white flag" rather than a White Paper. The Times editorial stated that pressure for further improvements is more likely to come from Brussels than from Whitehall, a sad comment on the efficiency of National Sovereignty. We were told also that it was a compendium of muted declarations of hesitant intent"; and that it set a floor below which it would be disastrous to sink. Another paper said that it was as feeble as it is lengthy. It described it not as an action programme but as a discussion paper, and that is after 11 years of Conservative government.

The immediate response to the White Paper was not very promising. Just about everybody in the press, whatever their political complexion, felt that the Government could have done far better.

Several hon. Members have referred to an environmental protection agency to deal with all environmental protection matters, and some hon. Members have queried the birth of the idea. The idea was probably born in one of the fine pressure groups such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, the Marine Conservation Society or the Council for the Protection of Rural England. A host of bodies are doing fine work and are acting as an irritant, as the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) described it, provoking us to improve our environment.

The Labour party's proposal for an environmental protection service under one roof was first made in a statement to the Labour party conference in 1986. It was included as a manifesto commitment in 1987. I have been looking at the White Paper, because the Minister said that it intimated that the Government would consider an environmental protection agency. All that I have been able to find in the White Paper are some references to it on page 232. When describing the medium-term options, the Government said: The disbenefits of administrative change will diminish over time, and experience with the new systems may add to the case for some further rationalisation of these structures. One option which the Government will wish to consider in due course would be to create a new umbrella body responsible for overseeing the pollution control work of the NRA and HMIP. Under such an arrangement these bodies would keep their separate identity and independence, but the new umbrella body would oversee their implementation of pollution control and work for greater consistency of approach. That is the medium-term option, which still does not envisage a single body. Nevertheless, I would be quite happy for the Minister to direct me to the spot in the White Paper at which there is eminent consideration of introducing a single environmental protection agency. Of course, that is only to be lauded. The Prime Minister made a statement earlier this week, and I hope that, as a result, we will develop a coherent position on an environmental protection agency.

The National Society for Clean Air believes that there are many undecided questions about how the agency will work. Reading between the lines of its brief, it suspects that that idea has not properly been worked out and that it has yet to be considered properly by all Departments. Perhaps the Minister could tell me how many times the ministerial committee for co-ordinating environment policy has met since the publication of the White Paper. I have been given to understand that it has met just once, which hardly seems a good record for a Government who are supposed to be concerned about our environment.

The truth is that the Government are reluctant participants in the effort to clean up our environment. They have been forced to act. Let us not forget that they have been in power since 1979. The White Paper, "This Common Inheritance", was produced only after the Government had been shocked out of their wits by the performance of the Green party in the European elections in areas that are normally thought of as Conservative strongholds. That is why the Government were pushed and prompted into action. However, our policies were already well developed. In 1979, after the European elections, the British Labour group, of which I used to be a member, provided the first chairman of the European Parliament's environment policy committee in Mr. Ken Collins, who is a very good friend of mine. He was the first chairman; he was then vice-chairman for a brief period and is now once again the chairman of that committee. That shows the priority that the Labour Members of the European Parliament attached to participating in environmental policy making.

In virtually every policy area, the Government have been dragged along by European legislation. Let us take water quality as an example. The directive on beaches, about which we have heard a lot this morning, was supposed to have been implemented in full by 1986, but the Government will be lucky if they can implement it by 1996. Although the target date in most cases is 1995, there already seems to be some slippage in the programme. It does not look as if those dates will be achieved. Although, as I have said, the directive was supposed to be fully implemented by 1986, it was not until that year, after seven years of Conservative government, that the number of British beaches falling under the terms of the directive was increased from 27 to the top 300. As was revealed by my own questions in the European Parliament, the Government decided to act only after they had been threatened with action in the European Court of Justice.

Although the privatisation of the water industry resulted in the plus of a separate National Rivers Authority to supervise and to try to control the activities of the errant water companies, sewage works were given derogations that allowed them to pollute the water. Despite having those derogations, there have still been instances of privatised water companies polluting water and being threatened with prosecution or prosecuted by the NRA.

On top of that, the chairmen of the water companies have been giving themselves huge pay rises. The chairman of Welsh Water has had an 88 per cent. rise while that company's workers have received about 8 per cent. The water company increased its charges by 16.5 per cent. In the same year its chairman received a massive pay rise, supposedly to reflect the improved performance of the company. It is true that the company made a huge profit, but the chairman was in charge of a company in which the number of pollution incidents for which it was responsible doubled.

The Government should do something serious about such massive pay increases, which the Minister condemned at environment questions last Wednesday. He should consider introducing a fine scheme. A modest £10 reduction for each pollution incident could be knocked off the salary of the chairmen of water companies. In the case of the Welsh chairman, who is one of my constituents, that would result in a cut of more than £7,000.

The chairman of Welsh Water had the cheek and the humbug to be quoted in a long interview which appeared in yesterday's issue of the Western Mail. He said: What bothers me more and upsets me greatly is when my boys, the workers who provide the water and clean up our mess, get the flak as well. People just do not realise the value of what we at Welsh Water provide—and all for about 25p a day. Those workers were not valued sufficiently for the chairman of Welsh water to give them a similar increase to that which his board gave him. That was at a time when pollution incidents doubled.

The Government have hamstrung the National Rivers Authority in taking water companies to court when they pollute. An unpleasant incident has been the result of some correspondence between the Minister and me. It involved the pollution of Eaglie brook with PCBs. In a reply dated 27 June the Minister said that the Germans had been allowed two years to meet the pollution emission standards. Yet a letter was sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) from the free university of Berlin. It arrived with us the day before the letter from the Minister. It says: Concerning your question whether in Germany the textile industry was given a two-year permit to fulful the PCP directive of the European Community, I have asked the German environmental agency Mr. Neihardt, who is responsible for PCP. He told me that the PCP regulation and the regulation for dangerous materials in 1989–90 came into force and that PCP for textiles was forbidden immediately in Germany. That means that the textile industry had no transitional period. There seems to be a conflict between what the Minister understands about the position in Germany and what the Germans understand.

Across the board the Government have been dragging their feet. For example, for the sake of energy efficiency, how do we cut CO₂ emissions? Simply by following the recommendations in the House of Lords report which was leaked this week—undoubtedly we shall have the benefit of it shortly—we could make a 10 per cent. reduction in our energy use. We could do that if only, instead of cutting the money available for the Energy Efficiency Office, the Government increased it and made a serious effort to deal with energy efficiency problems. That is one simple way in which the Government could take some immediate action.

The Planning and Compensation Bill does not contain a single measure sponsored by the Government which has anything to do with improving our environment.

Mr. Trippier

Does the hon. Gentleman intend to allow me to reply to the debate?

Mr. Griffiths

The Minister will realise that the informal agreement made behind the Chair has not been honoured. I can see no reason why I should not complete the points that I want to make and leave the Minister whatever time is left at the end. Even if I do that, I believe that every Conservative Member has spoken longer than me. I shall complete my remarks and in the time left the Minister can reply to the debate.

Mr. Mans

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Griffiths

If I give way, that would take time out of the Minister's speech.

The Government have dragged their feet on air pollution, because they have not honoured their commitment to clean up power stations.

Mr. Trippier

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Griffiths

No, I will not.

The Government have not honoured their commitments on flue gas desulphurisation which were made when the directive on emission standards was discussed in Europe.

Mr. Mans

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) claims that his speech will be shorter than that of any Conservative Member. I ask him to withdraw that inaccurate claim.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd)

That is an interesting point, but it is not one that the Chair can resolve.

Mr. Holt

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Many of us came here to participate in the debate. We had hoped that, at the end, a Minister of the Crown would answer the points and criticisms that we have made. Is not it wrong, unusual and unparliamentary that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman should deliberately seek to speak out time to preclude the Minister from replying to the points raised by my hon. Friends and me?

Madam Deputy Speaker

It is usual for both Front-Bench spokesmen to have an opportunity to wind up such a debate. That is what I would expect to happen.

Sir Hugh Rossi

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is there a possibility through our Standing Orders to prolong the debate by resolution of the House? It is clear from what the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) has said that he has no intention of allowing the Minister to reply to the debate. As Chairman of a Select Committee representing all parties, I raised a number of important questions on the Prime Minister's statement at the beginning of the week on which I and many people outside the House are anxious to hear an answer. The hon. Member for Bridgend is now denying us that opportunity.

Madam Deputy Speaker

The hon. Gentleman is a long-standing and experienced parliamentarian. He knows that the Chair has no authority in such matters. We have three minutes only left; we must now make progress.

Mr. Holt

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have been here when the Chair has ordered someone to sit down. When Bruinvels was here he was ordered to sit down and shut up because the Chair had had enough. Could not you use that authority today?

Madam Deputy Speaker

I use much gentler tactics and hold my fury for another occasion.

Mr. Roger King

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. What advice would you give to me? I asked my hon. Friend the Minister a number of questions and I am now awaiting a response. Have you any suggestions as to how I might receive that response, Madam Deputy Speaker? Will I receive it via the written word or—

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman understands our practices and Standing Orders, so he will know that the Chair does not offer advice across the Chamber. It is normal for such advice to be sought outside the Chamber. The hon. Member is seeking information from the Minister, and all I can suggest is that he now gets it in writing, unless we can make some progress so that the Minister has a couple of minutes in which to reply.

Mr. Griffiths

When I was interrupted, I had spoken for less than 20 minutes—far less than many Conservative Members. Nearly five minutes have been taken up by the points of order, and I am sorry if the Minister will not have time to respond. Frankly, the time left for the wind-up speeches was 23 minutes, all because Conservative Members spoke for so long.

Sir Hugh Rossi

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In relation to the hon. Gentleman's last statement, do you agree that it has been the time-honoured practice in the House that, whatever time may have been taken in speeches by Back Benchers, the remaining time at the end of a debate is divided equally between the Minister and the shadow Minister? That practice has been breached disgracefully this afternoon by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths).

Madam Deputy Speaker

I have always understood when I have been in the Chair that the time remaining is divided equally between Members on both Front Benches.

Mr. Trippier

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In view of the disgraceful behaviour of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), I assure hon. Members who have participated in the debate that I shall reply to them by letter on the points that they raised. I shall at least observe that courtesy, even if the hon. Member for Bridgend does not seem to recognise any courtesy.

It being half past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.