§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ LORD GAINFORDMy Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, 5 which I hope your Lordships will regard as non-controversial. The principle of the Bill is very simple. It is to improve the purity of the streams and rivers of this country, and I believe every member of your Lordships' House as well as the whole community outside will agree that that is a desirable object to try to attain. This Bill is based upon the recommendations of a Joint Advisory Committee appointed as far back as April, 1930, by the Ministry of Health. The reference given to that Committee was to report on the pollution of rivers and streams, and on any legislative, administrative or other measures which may be thought desirable to improve the condition of our rivers.
I need not go into the recommendations of that Committee at considerable length, but I would point out that they recommended, first of all, that the local sanitary authorities in the country should take and dispose of trade effluents. They also recommended that traders should have a right to discharge their effluents into the sewers of the local sanitary authorities; that there should be regulations for the preliminary treatment of these effluents where necessary; that they should provide separate sewers, if necessary, for the reception of those effluents; and that the local sanitary authorities should have the right of access to traders' premises in order to inspect the effluents in regard to the poisonous matters which might have to be taken into their sewers. Further, they recommended that certain poisonous effluents should be excluded; that riparian interests should be protected, and that the Ministry of Health should have power to interfere where it was thought necessary in the interests of various authorities. Those recommendations have practically all been accepted in the provisions of this Bill.
Clause 1 deals with the duty of authorities to provide for the reception of trade effluents. Clause 2, as your Lordships will see if you look at page 2 of the Bill, provides that traders have to give certain adequate notice to the sanitary authority before their effluents may be discharged into the sewers of a local authority. Then, under Clause 3, certain safeguards are to be imposed, really under the control of the Ministry of Health. Clause 5 deals with by-laws. That is a new suggestion rather different from that of the recommendation of the Joint Advisory Committee, which recommended 6 only that regulations should be imposed. If the Ministry of Health desire, as I understand they do, that bylaws should be imposed dealing with this matter, it is for the Ministry to see that proper safeguards are inserted in those by-laws so as to secure the interests of traders as well as the interests of sanitary authorities. I might point out that trade processes vary so much from time to time that by-laws promoted by one sanitary authority to-day may be quite out of place a few years hence, and that therefore it is necessary for the Ministry of Health to have some control or power of revision in connection with the by-laws which are required by the local sanitary authority.
Clause 6 merely deals with the agreement made between the sanitary authorities and the traders. Clauses 7, 8, 9, 11, 13 and 14 are all clauses similar to those already inserted in many Private Hills which have passed through both Houses of Parliament without objection and which, so far as they have gone, have worked smoothly and well. Nobody takes any exception to them. Clause 10 deals with the possibility of prohibiting the discharge into public sewers of any matter calculated to cause damage to the sewers or to any works of sewage disposal. Clause 15 is a clause dealing with the title and the period when the Bill comes into operation. It is suggested that it should come into operation on July 1 next year.
I want to impress upon the House, if I can, and the public outside, that this Bill is the result of an enormous amount of work. Examination of the recommendations has been made by a great number of parties interested in the subject of the purity of our livers. The Central Council for River Protection is a very important body under the auspices, if I may say so, of the Fishmongers' Company and the following very important bodies:—The British Waterworks Association; the Water Companies Association; the Royal Sanitary Institute; the National Association of Fishery Boards; the Council for the Preservation of Rural England; the National Federation of Anglers; the Pure Rivers Society; the Salmon and Trout Association; the Society of Medical Officers of Health; the Alliance for the Prevention of the Pollution of Rivers and Streams; and the Oyster Merchants' 7 and Planters' Association. All those bodies have had representatives to consider these proposals and have agreed to them. I met them recently in the City of London and they asked me to take charge of this Bill on their behalf. But these are not all the authorities that have been consulted. The Ministry of Health has been consulted also, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries; the Federation of British Industries; the County Councils Association; the Urban and Rural District Councils' Association; and the Association of Municipal Corporations.
I think that was a pretty wide field of consultation covered with a view to securing an agreed Bill; but since coming to your Lordships' House this afternoon I have been informed that there has been an omission and that the London County Council and the Standing Joint Committee of the Metropolitan Borough Councils have not been consulted. For such omission I apologise. I think that probably the reason for not consulting them was that this Bill deals with trade effluents going into the rivers and streams of this country above tidal waters, and it was thought that the interests of the London County Council and the London Boroughs were chiefly in connection with effluents discharged into tidal waters. I am as much concerned about the diminution of pollution in tidal waters as I am about that in fresh water streams, and I hope that between now and the Committee stage there may be consultations between those bodies and the parties interested in the Bill so that we may have their support in carrying this measure into law. The authorities affected by the provisions of the Bill, so far as they have been consulted, are all agreed, and therefore I feel justified in recommending the Bill to your Lordships' House as an uncontroversial measure.
There was a Commission appointed as far back as 1903 to deal with the question of sewage and they made recommendations very similar to the provisions of this Bill. As the matter has been under consideration for such a long period, the time seems ripe for legislation, and all the bodies concerned have come to the unanimous opinion that something ought to be done to enable trade effluents to be put into the sewers instead of into rivers and streams. As 8 I have been identified with the coal industry, I may take that as an illustration. In connection with coal mining, it is necessary to draw water from underground and allow it, by gravity, to find its way into rivers and streams. Again, in connection with the cleaning of coal, it is necessary to have water appliances in order that coal may be adequately washed. Further, in connection with the production of coke, it is necessary to cool the coke immediately after an oven has been drawn so that the qualities of the coke may be preserved, and for that it is necessary to use water. In those processes water is polluted which afterwards finds its way into rivers and streams.
Noble Lords who understand the processes connected with the manufacture of chemicals will know that the use of water is necessary in that connection and that that is also a source of pollution. Trade effluents from the textile, iron and steel, and other industries also get into rivers and streams unless preventive measures are taken. Whilst new concerns are obliged, under the present law, so far as possible, to make their effluents innocuous before discharging them into streams, rights are possessed by a large number of people to continue to put their effluents into the rivers. If those effluents can be diverted into the sewers, the rivers and streams will be relieved of a great deal of foreign and poisonous matter. Some local authorities have already obtained Private Acts enabling them to accept and dispose of such effluents. These include Halifax, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Morley and—the most recent—Salford. Therefore the provisions of this Bill do not embody any untried remedies, because under these Local Acts sewers are now utilised for trade effluents, and experience shows that the condition of the rivers and streams passing through those areas has been considerably improved in consequence. If improvement has been secured in those cases it can be secured in other places, and therefore it seems to me advisable that the principle already adopted in Private Acts should be adopted in general legislation applying throughout the country.
Traders seldom have either the opportunities or the necessary space for dealing with these effluents. Often they have not the necessary knowledge to deal with 9 the elimination of foul matter from the effluents and they cannot command the services of skilled men to deal with the effluents. Moreover, experience shows that local authorities can deal collectively with trade effluents in a far better and more economical way than individual traders. It is hopeless to expect that a proper condition of the rivers and streams of the country can be obtained unless traders can have the advantage of the use of the sewers. I do not expect any very spectacular results to follow from this Bill, but I do feel that prevention is better than cure and that all trade undertakings should take advantage of the provisions of this Bill as opportunity occurs. As we go about the country, all of us must realise how foul are many of the rivers and streams at present. By the passage into law of this Bill we shall do something to improve the condition of our water supply as well as to improve amenities. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Gainford.)
LORD RITCHIE OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I am sure every member of your Lordships' House will sympathise with the noble Lord in the object of this Bill which, as he has explained, is to purify our rivers and streams. In certain circumstances, however, I am afraid that this Bill, if it passes unamended, will have just the opposite effect. I am speaking on behalf of the dock and harbour authorities, many of whom are vitally concerned with questions relating to the purification of their waters and with obstructions that may be caused to navigation through sewage effluents falling into their waters. The noble Lord has told us that although a great many authorities were consulted before this Bill was promoted, the London County Council was not consulted. There was also the omission to consult the dock and harbour authorities who, as I say, are vitally interested. Two of the greatest are the Mersey Harbour Board and the Port of London Authority. He told us that the Ministry of Health had been consulted, and I assume from that statement that the Ministry of Health have given the Bill their blessing. That is even more remarkable, because the Ministry of Health know that the Port of London Authority have been gravely concerned for years past about the condition of the water in 10 the Thames. They know, too, that the Port Authority have done and are still doing all they can to improve the condition of the water. The difficulties, which are very great, will be increased under this Bill, unless it is amended in a direction which I will not trouble the House by explaining at the present moment. I wanted to give warning to the noble Lord that I should have to move Amendments, and I hope that he will give us ample time between this stage and the Committee stage in order that they may be prepared. I do not want to oppose the Second Reading; I sympathise with the object that the noble Lord has in mind, and I hope that we shall assist him in effecting that object.
§ LORD MELCHETTMy Lords, I only wish to intervene for one moment in this debate to support the noble Lord in general in the Bill of which he is moving the Second Reading. The question of the disposal of trade effluents in industry has been a very troublesome matter for a long time, and the improvement of their disposal will have a very large effect in improving the health and the general amenities of the country. But I must also warn the noble Lord that there are one or two matters which we hope to discuss with him, possibly before the Committee stage. They are not matters of principle, they are matters of detail, but they are of such importance that if we were not able to reach an agreement I also should have to trouble the House with certain Amendments, from the Federation of British Industries and other industrial interests. In general, however, I think that the measure is in every way designed to improve existing conditions in the most important aspects of this matter, and I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.
§ LORD MOUNT TEMPLEMy Lords, as one who is personally interested in the state of our rivers, may I say how pleased I am that the noble Lord who has brought in this Bill has explained its principle to us so clearly? I hope the House will give the Bill a Second Reading, which will not in any way stop any noble Lord from bringing forward in Committee any Amendments which he may think fit to move. I should like this Bill to receive a unanimous Second Reading, so that the details can then be gone into in a fair way when the Committee 11 stage is reached. I think the principles of this Bill are perfectly fair. I never could appreciate why the law-has so long allowed people, for private gain, to destroy the property of other people—to destroy, very often, the amenities of a whole district—simply because they will not go to the expense of treating their effluents in a proper way. This is a step in the right direction: it makes mandatory what was optional before, and I give this Bill my full support.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, speaking on behalf of the Port of London Authority, while not desiring to oppose the Second Reading, suggested that it might be necessary at a later stage to table Amendments in the interest of the docks and harbours of the country. Now I wish, with your Lordships' permission, to make a very few observations in the same sense on behalf of the London County Council and the Metropolitan Boroughs of this City. The noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of this measure recited a very impressive list of bodies and organisations of one kind or another which had been consulted in the preparation and drafting of the Bill. He omitted, however, from that list not merely the Port of London Authority, to which the noble Lord opposite has already referred, but also the London County Council and the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee. He did that, perhaps, because the County of London is expressly excluded from the operation of this Bill, but he neglected to observe that there is a very considerable area just outside the boundary of the County of London but adjacent to it which drains into the sewerage system of the London area; that is to say, that the main sewers of the London County Council, or the sewers of the Metropolitan Boroughs have to carry of sewerage from these areas, which will be directly affected by this Bill if it reaches the Statute Book.
Therefore, in view of the very important consequences that this measure may entail for the London County Council and the Metropolitan Boroughs, it is necessary to observe at this stage that in order to protect their rights and interests it may be found well to put down Amendments at a later stage in the consideration of the Bill. I should like to 12 make it perfectly clear that the London County Council is just as anxious as anyone else to preserve the purity of our streams and tidal waters and to protect them as far as possible from pollution; that it accepts and welcomes the principle embodied in this Bill; but at the same time that it would like to take this opportunity of pointing out that it may be necessary to urge the acceptance of Amendments at a later stage.
VISCOUNT GAGEMy Lords, I rise for the purpose of saying that the Government's attitude towards this Bill is one of sympathy. We feel that it is an attempt to deal with a very difficult problem, and we are glad to see the degree of unanimity which has been reached in regard to it. Some reservations have just been made by the noble Earl opposite in reference to the London County Council. We appreciate that some further safeguards may be necessary on the Committee stage. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, made some references to the Port of London Authority. No doubt those Amendments which he will put down will also be carefully considered by the Government, but, although it is not a Government Bill, we do not understand that it gives anybody the right to pollute a river to any greater extent than he may to-day. We feel that the Bill will fulfil a threefold object. It should lead to an improvement in the condition of these rivers and streams; it should relieve traders of a troublesome incident to manufacture; and we believe it will tend to economy because, as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Gainford, the cost of the treatment of trade effluents concentrated at sewage disposal works will be less than the aggregate cost of treatment at numerous plants on trade premises.
§ LORD GAINFORDMy Lords, I want to acknowledge the general good will with which the object of this Bill has been received. I was sorry that the Port of London Authority was not consulted in connection with its provisions. I was very anxious that all parties interested should be consulted, because I wanted the Bill to be an agreed Bill from its very inception in your Lordships' House. Time is very important in connection with the passage of Private Members' legislation of this kind. While I know that it is very undesirable to rush a Bill of this kind through your 13 Lordships' House, yet if it is to secure passage into law this Session and before the autumn recess, it is rather necessary to try to secure its passing through this House before the end of this month, if it is possible. Then, if it meets with general acceptance by your Lordships on the Third Reading, it might, I think, pass through another House, I hope with the help of the Government, because the object is so generally approved.
As to the suggestion of Amendments, I am quite sure that those who have been the promoters of this Bill will only be too glad to confer with the Port of London Authority, the London County Council and the Joint Committee of the Metropolitan Borough Councils, and try to meet their points fairly and squarely, so that all parties may be in agreement that the object of the Bill can be secured by legislation. I would suggest that we might have the Committee stage not next week but perhaps in the early part of the following week; but, of course, if this time is too short for the preparation of Amendments, I will defer the Committee stage to a later date, in order to meet the convenience of noble Lords. As, however, time is important, if it were possible to secure by general agreement what Amendments may be necessary before the Committee stage, I am sure that would help the passage of the Bill in another place and assist to get it upon the Statute Book.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.