§ 2.48 p.m.
§ LORD O'HAGANMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what they are doing about lead in petrol.]
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONMy Lords, Her Majesty's Government are considering whether any action is needed to reduce the lead content of petrol.
§ LORD O'HAGANMy Lords, I can hardly thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Do Her Majesty's Government accept that lead substitutes for calcium, and that it inhibits the formation of hæmoglobin? Are they aware that high octane petrol is one of the main sources of lead in blood? Do they accept that children living in or near big cities already have much too much lead in their blood?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONMy Lords, no, I think the advice Her Majesty's Government have is that the content of lead in blood is not, at this moment, dangerous in this country. The content we absorb each week, I am advised, is something in the neighbourhood of 262 microgrammes. A microgramme, I may explain, in case your 56 Lordships are as ignorant as I am, is only one millionth part of a gramme, which in its turn is only one twenty-eighth part of an ounce. Having said that we absorb 262 microgrammes weekly—the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, looks interested, so I must give him the full answer—I would add that only 52 of these microgrammes are taken in through the air, and of those 52 only 18 can in any way at the moment, it is thought, be attributable to lead in petrol exhaust.
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, the noble Lord said that I was interested. I was interested, because much of what he said was said to me two years ago when I represented the Ministry of Transport in your Lordships' House. We were considering this matter then. Can the noble Lord give me any indication of when the present Government will come to a conclusion on this matter?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONThat is all very well, my Lords, but we are faced with exactly the same problem as the noble Lord and his Government. We have the same experts governing us and modern research has not taken us much further. I think there is one great fallacy in this matter. We are dealing with high compression or low compression engines, and if you take the lead out of the petrol you must have a lower compression engine. That leads to other forms of pollution, so we may end up not necessarily any better off.
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, can the noble Lord say what he meant when he said that he was governed by someone else?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONMy Lords, needless to say, I meant only in the advice which is technical.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, can the noble Lord say how he can be so positive about measuring these minute quantities? Is he sure that these very few microgrammes are all that is inside us?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONMy Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has made a good point, but I have some figures on which the Medical Research Council have been working. They had one gentleman who was purported to be standing in Fleet Street for 57 eight hours every day, another gentleman had to stand there for thirty hours in a week, another gentleman just lived in London, and another gentleman lived in the middle of the country. The calculation is based on figures of that sort.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, I see the noble Lord's difficulty, but he will forgive me if I say that I find his answer somewhat unconvincing. Can he say whether the gentleman in Fleet Street had greater quantities than the gentlemen who were placed elsewhere?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONMy Lords, the gentleman in Fleet Street found that he was gathering 52 extra, the gentleman who spent eight hours every day for one week had 67 extra, and the gentleman who was merely in central London had an extra 34. So we are taking the average.
§ LORD BYERSMy Lords, is this the normal scientific method used by the Government?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONNo, my Lords. It is a hypothetical example of what would be absorbed.
§ LORD ROYLEMy Lords, can the noble Lord say what will happen when we go metric?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONMy Lords, I thought the terms we were using were metric.
§ LORD O'HAGANMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to explain what appears to be a contradiction in some of his earlier answers? First of all, he appeared to say that the problem was so small anyway that it was almost minimal. Then he said that, whatever the size of the problem, if you did nothing about it it would make things worse. Can the noble Lord resolve this contradiction and say whether in fact the Government are doing anything at all?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONNo, my Lords, I did not say that it would make things worse. I merely said that as you remove one evil you may lead to other evils which are not so far apparent. This is very well known in medicine.
§ LORD ALLERTONMy Lords, will the noble Lord not agree that the exhaust 58 gases of high octane fuel are no more detrimental than exhaust diesel smoke emitted from ill-adjusted diesel engines?
§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTONYes, my Lords. I think all extra pollution of the atmosphere is to be deplored, and I certainly agree with my noble friend that one of the greatest benefits that can be achieved in this pollution field is by getting people to tune their engines properly, with proper carburettor adjustment.