Subsidiarity (Hansard, 15 July 1992)

§ 1. Mr. Wright
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the areas of environmental policy currently within the responsibility of the Commission of the European Community which it is his policy to seek to return to the responsibility of nation states alone.

§ The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Howard)
As agreed at the Lisbon European Council, the Commission and the Council will be working urgently on the procedures and practical steps necessary to implement the principle of subsidiarity and will report to the next European Council in Edinburgh. We shall he looking closely at environmental policy in the context of this work.

§ Mr. Wright
Is the Secretary of State aware that the proposals that he has just described are causing great dismay among all environmental organisations which, having seen us finally—under the impact of European directives—get rid of the tag of being the dirty man of Europe which the Government gave to us, are now seeing the Government, under the cloak of subsidiarity, planning to celebrate the British presidency of the Commission by trying to reinstate it?

§ Mr. Howard
This country is not and never has been the dirty man of Europe. We have frequently and habitually taken the lead in persuading the rest of the Community to adopt high environmental standards and we have at the moment the best record in the Community for implementing European legislation. Subsidiarity does not mean and will not mean any weakening in our resolve to achieve the highest environmental standards.

§ Sir Teddy Taylor
As article 130R of the Maastricht treaty appears to me, probably wrongly, to cover almost all the activities of my right hon. and learned Friend's Department and to transfer all our independence, will my right hon. and learned Friend assist the House in its educational process by publishing a list in the Library of those functions of his Department which he believes are still its exclusive territory?

§ Mr. Howard
I shall give the most careful and earnest attention to my hon. Friend's request. I suspect that he will find an analysis that the effect of the Maastricht agreement is rather less fundamental in the respect than appears to him at first sight.

§ Mrs. Ann Taylor
Who in this country supports the Secretary of State's moves to wreck the EC treaty on drinking and bathing waters? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman under pressure from the newly privatised water companies, which recently donated so much to Conservative party funds? Having always dragged their feet on environmental protection, the Government have created the situation in which people have to look to Europe for the environmental protection that the Government have failed to deliver.

§ Mr. Howard
The hon. Lady's capacity for rewriting history is unlimited. Her question is riddled with misapprehensions. The only people who were concerned about subsidiarity and who needed to look to the European Community to protect our environment were those who wanted a Labour Government elected on 9 April. They knew that they could have no hope of improving environmental standards at the hands of a Labour Government. Fortunately, this country was spared that prospect.

§ Mr. James Hill
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that some of the worst pollution ever known is to be found in the vicinity of the M3 and Winchester bypass? That issue touches not only on transport, for which my right hon. and learned Friend does not have a mandate, but the pollution caused by delay in finalising that much sought-after motorway. In wresting other parts of environmental policy away from the Commission, could not my right hon. and learned Friend return motorway policy to our national Government?

§ Mr. Howard
I fully understand my hon. Friend's concern and those of his constituents, which he consistently seeks so assiduously to represent. We have complied with every relevant aspect of European law in respect of the M3. It was the subject of numerous public inquiries, which took into account to the fullest extent all environmental issues. I entirely sympathise with my hon. Friend's point.