§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Arbuthnot.]
10.16 pm§ Mr. Colin Pickthall (Lancashire, West)I am grateful for the opportunity to draw the attention of the House to some of the problems relating to petrol leakage from storage tanks in garages throughout the country. I apologise to the Minister for keeping him late, but I am sure that he will find the matter of some interest.
In my constituency, there have been three serious leakages of petrol from garage storage tanks, involving many hundreds of gallons of fuel, in the past 12 months. In one case, on County road in Ormskirk, the problem, although serious, was tackled efficiently because a large company—Esso—was the owner. I am informed that, where large companies such as Esso or Shell are involved, the lines of responsibility are clear, the pollution is tackled correctly and the polluter pays. However, in the case of the other two leakages, the garages were small companies and the problems were more acute.
In one case, on the A59 in Rufford village, the petrol leaked through the drains under the trunk road and into the cellars of the Hesketh Arms on the opposite side of the road. I am sure that the Minister will agree that it is not petrol that one wants to find in the cellars of a pub. The potential tragedy in such a situation is not hard to imagine. In that case, the local authorities moved rapidly to neutralise the danger.
The third incident encapsulates all the problems that I want to bring to the Government's attention. Almost 12 months ago, a severe leakage of petrol was detected from Church garage on the A570 in Scarisbrick. The pollution from that leakage covered 20,000 sq m. It contaminated 2,000 cu m of soil and 500 cu m of water. The leakage passed into and under adjacent houses and, through the drains under the trunk road, to houses opposite. The cellar of an old vicarage nearby was filled with a mixture of petrol and water, and I believe that about 150 gallons of petrol were taken from the cellar. The owners of the old vicarage, the Kennedy family, who have spent everything they have on refurbishing the building, are now devastated to find that their property is virtually worthless. The same applies to several other home owners in the vicinity.
I am indebted to David Pirret, the general manager of Shell UK retail division, who made a clear analysis of such problems in a speech on 29 April. He said:
The fragmentation that now exists at local and regional level; and the widely differing levels of technical understanding; make any meaningful dialogue extremely difficult.In the Scarisbrick case, the garage owner, faced with tremendous costs, put his business into liquidation. For any business of that size, the identification of statutory nuisance and the threat of the serving of an abatement order, are almost bound to lead to liquidation. That means that there is no company on which to serve the abatement order.We then move into the question of responsibility. That is shared between several bodies. The first is the district council—in this case, West Lancashire district council—as the environment health authority. West Lancashire has already spent about £60,000 on monitoring and testing, which is a substantial slice of its total capped budget of £9.2 million.
343 The county council is responsible for licensing through the petroleum officer—in this case, the fire brigade—and it is also responsible as agent for the trunk road under which the petrol leaked through the drains. The Department of Transport is ultimately responsible for the trunk road itself, and the National Rivers Authority became partly responsible, because the petrol leaked for a while into a small watercourse. In other cases, I believe that the water board and local planning authorities have also had responsibilities.
The garage's insurance policy appears to cover only unexpected immediate leakages. The Scarisbrick leak seems to have been going on for some time. Some petrol was found to be fresh, while other petrol had broken down. It may therefore prove impossible to establish insurance liability.
To dig out the affected land would cost up to £250,000, according to the district council. Clearly, the district council cannot afford that. It becomes an awkward question of judgment for the authorities which must assess the risk involved in such pollution with cost very much in mind.
Lancashire county council and West Lancashire district council assess the risk now as small. However, only three or four weeks ago, vapour levels again rose dramatically, probably due to the petrol underground rising on the surface of water. The land there lies on a clay layer, which is virtually impervious.
While both local authorities are doing their job properly, they cannot tack le the problem faced by the neighbouring householders who have seen the value of their houses reduced to nothing. Yesterday, Mrs. Kennedy informed me that her insurance company had informed her that it now refused cover for her house. I am sure that the other people who have been affected, including Mr. and Mrs. Chisnall next door but two and the Reverend Mr. Goode who inhabits the new rectory, have identical problems.
That is the immediate personal crisis for several of my constituents that I would like the Minister to consider. They are ordinary citizens who, through absolutely no fault of their own, find themselves possibly ruined. Although they are personally protected from danger by the local authorities—at least, I hope so—they are unable at the moment to seek compensation from a company which has gone into liquidation. They also face insufficient insurance cover.
In those cases, the polluter does not and cannot pay. that is just one example. A Salford university student, David "Watson, recently produced a study which showed that there were more than 280 cases of leakages from storage tanks across the country, although over an unspecified period of years. Petroleum officers informed our local authorities of 216 cases in the past 12 months in just 29 local authorities, and 54 cases were assessed as fire hazards. In Warrington, there was a case in which 17,000 gallons were spilled in that manner. The worst case was in the constituency of the Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton) and involved between 20,000 and 25,000 gallons.
The Minister will appreciate that the country is threaded by pipes, culverts and underground watercourses which can transport petrol or vapour in unforeseen and even undetected directions. In the Scarisbrick case, it was found that petrol had been leaking through an old culvert under a nearby church, the church of St. Mark, and close 344 to a nearby primary school. It makes me shudder to think that only a couple of miles up the road is Martin Mere, the country's second largest wetland bird sanctuary. If petrol had got into that area, there would have been a different disaster.
David Pirret from Shell reports that between 30 and 40 per cent. of United Kingdom petrol filling stations have problems and that those problems centre on suction lines—that accounts for 90 per cent. of the total—the flexipipes on the pumps, single-skin tanks—the one at County road turned out to have quite a hole in it when it was dug out—and the absence of a proper monitoring system of tank space, overfill prevention and vapour recovery systems. He also makes a point that I wish to emphasise; the problem is more likely to arise in rural sites, which tend to be older. The Minister's constituency, which I know extremely well, contains many garages which might present a hazard at some point in future.
In the case of Shell, a renovation programme is in process—replacing single-skin with double-skin tanks, replacing metal suction lines with plastic suction lines, putting check valves on pumps and, perhaps most important, installing sensitive tank monitoring systems which he says could detect a teacup of oil disappearing. In the cases that I am talking about, several hundred, if not thousands, of gallons have disappeared undetected for a long time. The costs of all that for Shell are vast, and could be undertaken only by large companies. It is not a solution for a small company.
I hope that the problems are clear, and I shall conclude by putting the key points to the Minister. Is it possible to legislate for unambiguous insurance policies which cover the total cost of pollution from leaks? Is it possible to have tighter monitoring, more frequent monitoring and inspection? Is it possible to tighten up the licensing process?
At present, there is only annual relicensing. The local authority can require inventory checks, but it is not obliged to, and after the first installation of storage tanks, the next inspection does not have to be undertaken for 20 years. Is it possible to simplify the range of responsible authorities? How can help be given to small local authorities in particular when they face crises that they cannot fund?
Am I pessimistic in my assumption that, if proper and sufficient regulations are fully implemented, the logical conclusion will be that small garages become completely non-viable and only the big chains will have the resources to protect the environment, as Shell is trying to do? Of course, most important, how can my constituents who face appalling domestic calamity be helped out of the hole into which they have undeservedly been thrust? The Minister will appreciate that, because of the time, I have not ventured into the decommissioning of sites and the existence of abandoned storage tanks, but enough problems have been aired for one evening, and I am grateful for his attention.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris)Order. Does the hon. Gentleman have the permission of the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Pickthall)?
§ Mr. PickthallYes.
§ Mr. HallI am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Pickthall) for initiating this important debate. I am grateful also to the Minister for allowing me a couple of minutes of his precious time to add to some of the points that my hon. Friend has made.
My hon. Friend referred to the work of David Watson, who works for the environmental health department of Warrington borough council. I commend it to the Minister, as it encapsulates all the problems that my hon. Friend outlined. One problem is that, when petrol leaks from petrol station tanks, it spoils the environment in several ways. It gets into the soil and into the local environment; it can get into water courses and end up in sewers. The problem is that, if 1 per cent. of the natural atmosphere is affected, it is then a flammable atmosphere, while if up to 8 per cent. is affected, the atmosphere becomes explosive. The report refers to a number of such incidents; I shall refer briefly to three.
The report—a statement of qualification experience prepared for Warrington borough council—mentions, for instance, an incident in Lincolnshire in which a petrol station leak put 5,000 litres of petrol into the surrounding area. It threatened the water supply of a local hospital. In another instance, vapour levels in the basement of an adjoining cottage reached explosive levels. In Warwickshire, in the west midlands, after a long-term leak from a petrol station, a number of adjacent properties were affected. That is just a small sample.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West has mentioned two major issues involving Warrington, part of which I represent. The principal problem is the number of agencies involved in trying to clean up after the leaks. First, there is the petroleum officer, who registers petrol stations and retains responsibility while they are still operating. If a station goes out of business, the petroleum officer's role ends, as he has no off-site monitoring powers. An officer can be appointed by the fire brigade; he can also be a member of the trading standards authority. In Scotland, he may even be a member of the local authority. Three agencies are thus involved.
Secondly, the local authority—under the Environmental Protection Act 1990—has a responsibility for off-site contamination from petrol station sites. Its responsibility is first to investigate complaints put to the local authority; it must then decide whether to take action on the basis of the following test: is what is happening prejudicial to public health, or is it a nuisance? If the leakage fails to meet those criteria, the local authority is not obliged to act.
The National Rivers Authority also has some power. It is obliged to act under the Water Resources Act 1991, but only when controlled waters are affected. The Health and Safety Executive is involved in the storage of petrol at petrol stations, but has no remit when pollution extends beyond them. Then there are the water companies, which can take action if their water supply is threatened. Having acted, they then bill those who have caused the problem; but if—as in the case cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West—the petrol company has gone out of business and lost its third party liability insurance, there will be no one for the water authority to take action against.
In the majority of cases, effective action takes place. There are 20,800 petrol stations registered in the United Kingdom. When there is co-operation between the petrol companies and the authorities, there will be few problems, 346 but when companies have gone out of business, there will be a serious problem, which my hon. Friend has highlighted.
The Warrington example has already been mentioned. As a result of a long-term leak from a petrol station, 17,000 gallons of pollution ended up in a local environment. All credit must go to Shell UK. Investigating the site, it discovered the level of pollution and brought in the local authority. It pumped off 17,000 gallons of petrol. The local authority then found petrol in the drain next to the station, and got the fire brigade to flush out the drain. That process pushed petrol into the water course. The National Rivers Authority was notified, but took no action; the local authority had to go back to its drainage section to trace the problems that had led to the original leak. The land is now being decontaminated. The whole thing worked quite well.
We see a different side of the story, however, in Braintree, in Essex. Over a long period, between 20,000 and 25,000 gallons of petrol ended up in the subsoil around a petrol station there as a result of a leak. The county and district councils were faced with the cost of clearing up, because the petrol station had gone out of business and the third party liability insurance had disappeared. Over four and a half years, the two local authorities spent a great deal of money trying to solve the problem. That is okay, but what happens when a small district authority cannot afford what could be £250,000? It is a real problem.
I shall conclude now because I have used my two examples. We want stringent guidelines for petrol station storage; we want more frequent and effective inspection and we want a unitary authority that will deal with the problem from top to bottom—it should not be left to a multi-agency. We need help for local authorities so that, when they recognise their responsibilities, they have the resources available to tackle the pollution problem.
If local authorities are given the power to inspect off-site pollution from petrol stations—the Minister may agree to this—the onus will not fall on small petrol stations and force them out of business simply to avoid their responsibilities. I commend the recommendations in the report to the Minister, which I shall certainly let him have. I thank my hon. Friend for the opportunity to participate in this debate.
§ The Minister for the Environment and Countryside (Mr. David Maclean)I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Pickthall) and thank him for bringing this matter to the attention of the House. It is in one way a local matter, but it also raises issues of general importance to which the House should rightly turn from tiime to tme.
The cases to which the hon. Gentleman drew attention illustrate the problems faced by local authorities and other public bodies in dealing with contamination. I am conscious of those problems and their complexity. The issues I will address include the powers and duties of public authorities to control or remedy contamination, preventive measures, methods for treating land once pollution has taken place and assessing the risks that attach to particular types of operation with polluting potential. The first point is that more than one public authority can get 347 involved in a case of this sort to prevent it from happening in the first place, to put the burden of remedial action where it belongs—on the polluter—or to take action when
As the hon. Members for Lancashire, West and for Warrington, South (Mr. Hall) may know, the Government have decided to review the powers and duties of public authorities which bear on contaminated land, including their powers to recover costs. That review has a considerable bearing on the issues raised tonight by the hon. Member for Lancashire, West, and I shall refer to it several times.
First, we wish to see cases of contamination such as the ones described by the hon. Gentleman tackled on a sensible basis. That is, action should be taken where the hazards to health or the environment are real and the means for tackling them are appropriate to both the problem and the continuing or intended use of the site. "Appropriate" also includes the matter of costs. We do not want to see environmental improvement or restoration carried out whatever the cost—the benefits must exceed the costs.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether small companies can survive proper regulation. That is another way of matching improvements to resources. I can assure him that we will not impose unnecessary or costly regulations on any company, large or small. He is right to draw attention to the fact that, while Shell and other large companies can take great measures to improve the potential for no leakage from their tanks—especially as they operate bigger sites—in rural areas and many smaller stations we could make the petrol tanks water tight. As the hon. Member for Warrington, South said, we could have stringent regulations to ensure that there would never be the slightest leak, but that would result in no smaller petrol stations at all—the cost would be astronomical.
Secondly, we wish to see the polluter pay. A company, large or small, should bear the cost of putting right any damage that it has done. But, in these cases, the "polluter" has gone away. Under such circumstances, there is no ready answer to the problem of who should pay. It can be unfair if the cost falls to others—notably, as the hon. Member for Lancashire, West pointed out, people like his constituents, who are on the receiving end of the damage. That is why our review includes the issue of liabilities for past pollution. I am afraid that I cannot promise that the outcome will please the hon. Gentleman, but the issue of fairness is one that we are addressing. In the meantime, his constituents have the usual rights of landowners to seek legal redress against others.
Thirdly, our review is focusing on the role of the pollution control authorities. It is intended to remove any doubts and inconsistencies in the way in which their powers operate. I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman that we will reduce the number of the appropriate players in this.
After all, the situation that has been described has many dimensions—health and safety at work, the threat to public health and homes, the threat to groundwater and threats of air pollution. The Health and Safety Executive, the National Rivers Authority and the local authority all have legitimate roles at present.
I should be worried about trying to create the all-singing all-dancing agency that the hon. Gentleman suggested, because it might not have the appropriate expertise to deal with all aspects. What we must do is ensure that, where two, three or four agencies are involved, 348 they clearly understand their responsibilities and there are no gaps or unnecessary bureaucratic overlaps between them. Therefore, we want to ensure that the right structure is in place.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke about the scope for clarifying the terms of insurance cover for petrol filling stations. Compulsory insurance to cover the costs of remedial work is among the issues raised in a Green Paper from the Commission of the European Communities about paying for environmental damage. We are, of course, considering our response to the Green Paper. Once again, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are therefore addressing the problem he has raised.
But I should point out that insurance must be paid for. It is a form of contract between the insurers and the insured. I understand that the Association of British Insurers looked at the question of the terms of cover for environmental pollution. I also know that individual brokers are developing policies to meet needs for cover in this area. I am not sure that we should interfere in that process. Nor is it likely that there is, for the moment at least, the ambiguity to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
I know that it is no comfort to the hon. Gentleman and to his constituents to know that the future should bring a more widely accepted solution to problems of past pollution. The problems of the hon. Gentleman's constituents are here and now. They are rightly exercised about why the problem developed and what will now be done to sort it out.
In the first instance, this is a matter for the West Lancashire district council. It has long-standing powers to tackle what are called "statutory nuisances". I understand that the council has done that to the extent of serving notices on the filling station owners who have now gone out of business.
As I said, we understand that West Lancashire district council has served abatement notices. That is, it has decided that these are problems within the scope of the legal powers conferred upon it by the Environmental Protection Act 1990. But it has found that the notices have not had the desired effect of getting the pollution cleared up by the persons responsible for it.
At this point, it is again for the council to decide whether the problem is in need of urgent action. It has the powers to take action itself to remedy the problems it described in the notices it served. It is for the council to explain why it has chosen not to act—if that is, indeed, its decision.
There are controls over petrol station operations. Prevention is obviously better than cure. All storage of petroleum has been controlled by licensing for many years. The Health and Safety Executive has issued guidance on appropriate conditions for licensing, including the testing of tanks. However, it has always been the policy that, in addition to physical testing of tanks, operators should have systems of continuous inventory control to show when petrol was being lost. I think that the short word for that is a dipstick. Most authorities make continuous inventory control a condition of licensing.
The hon. Gentleman has asked whether those controls can be tightened. I am aware that the Health and Safety Executive wrote in July 1990 to petroleum licensing authorities with interim guidance on tank testing and supply line testing. Tanks and lines are out of sight and, like all systems, deteriorate with age. That makes testing necessary but difficult. In particular, methods using water 349 tests proved costly and raised the problems of disposing of the contaminated water once the tank had been filled with it.
The interim guidance will be included in draft guidance and will be the subject of extensive public consultation. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will respond to that public consultation, bearing in mind the points made about the costs to smaller operators if we go for a Rolls-Royce approach with knobs and bells on. That process should give rise to a system which will balance the costs of better testing and regulation against the benefits of greater confidence and control over pollution.
Therefore, there is a framework for action and a framework for prevention. But it is not for us to interfere with the way in which the council acts in such cases. The Government's job is to channel resources and advice. The hon. Gentleman asked about the resources available to small councils. We are doing a great deal to help the handling of such cases.
First, we have made resources available in the form of supplementary credit approvals to local authorities, whether large or small, to tackle contamination where there is a threat to human health. A local authority can apply to my Department for SCAs to fund the investigation of a case or for clean-up work where the private sector polluter cannot pay. It is open to West Lancashire council to make such an application, which will be considered fairly, on its merits, along with the others.
The council may be concerned about precisely how to tackle a particular problem. To that end, we prepare advice. There are several methods for the remediation of land contaminated by petrol and related substances. Such methods are of little use unless potential users like the council know about them. My Department is carrying out 350 research to provide guidance on dealing with contamination of soil by a range of contaminants, including hydrocarbons such as petrol and diesel. We have already published some guidance.
In addition, the Institute of Petroleum has recently issued a useful "Code of Practice for the Investigation and Mitigation of Possible Petroleum-Based Land Contamination". My Department contributed comments during drafting, and the National Rivers Authority was represented on the editorial committee. Those are part of a broader programme of research into general contamination problems being carried out by the Department. Some other relevant research carried out by my Department includes a project to produce a framework for assessing the impact of contaminated land on groundwater and surface water, preparation of a screening protocol for contaminated land and participation in a major programme of research to produce guidance on remedial treatments sponsored by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association.
I have covered a lot of ground—I hope that the petrol has not—and I hope that I have reassured the hon. Gentleman. We are aware of the pollution control problems which pose challenges at all levels—organisational, technical and scientific. We are trying to ensure that we get all of them in balance. We would not claim to have got all the answers, which is why we are conducting the wide-ranging review. But, for to-night, I hope that I have shown the hon. Members for Lancashire, West and for Warrington, South that West Lancashire district council has the means, if it wishes, to take care of the interests of the residents of Scarisbrick. The same would be true of incidents in Warrington. I hope that the council will contribute to the review that we are conducting.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ The motion having been made after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing order.
§ Adjourned at thirteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.