HL Deb 14 December 1981 vol 426 cc58-75

6.18 p.m.

The Earl of Cranbrook rose to move, That this House take note of the Report of the European Communities Committee on water pollution by cadmium discharges (39th Report 1980–81, H.L. 257)

The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The 39th Report of 1980–81 of the Select Committee on the European Communities deals with the problem of cadmium in the aquatic environment. This report was prepared by Sub-Committee G of the committee, and I am grateful for support in this debate of other members of the sub-committee, notably the noble Baroness, Lady White, and the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, both of whom are former chairmen of the committee and whose profound experience lends great weight to their words. I shall also listen with interest to the contributions of other noble Lords who speak and, in particular, the reply of the noble Earl, Lord Avon, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government.

I should like, too, to take this opportunity to thank the specialist adviser to the committee on this occasion, Professor Ron Edwards, and also to thank the Clerk, David Beamish, who has now been transferred to another office in this House on a progressive step— whether sideways or upwards I am not altogether sure. We miss him and we wish him luck in his career. We are also grateful to witnesses from the Department of the Environment, the National Water Council, the Water Research Centre, the CBI and the Institute for European Environmental Policy who came before us or submitted written evidence to us.

This report deals with a proposal from the Commission for a third directive in the series which devolves from Directive 76/464 on pollution of the aquatic environment, which is often known in a familiar way as ENV. 131. The first of this family dealt with the "drins". This has not yet been accepted by council, but is working its way slowly through the procedural system. The second in the family dealt with mercury, and I understand that this was agreed with certain amendments at the Environmental Council on 3rd December. Because that directive on mercury is very relevant to the directive on cadmium, I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Avon, will find time to give us details of the agreement that was reached in the Environmental Council.

The third, as I said, is concerned with the pollution of water by the heavy metal element, cadmium. Cadmium is a comparatively rare element, but it is widely distributed in the earth's crust. It tends to be concentrated in association with other metallic ores, notably those of zinc and lead and, to some extent, copper. It is also present in other rocks. If is present in coal and in oil and, as I said, is very widely distributed. Cadmium can be taken up by many kinds of living organisms, both plants and animals, but it serves no known biological function and is, in fact, poisonous to many creatures at concentrations that are really very low.

Where man is concerned, cadmium can be absorbed through the alimentary tract or the respiratory system and it is excreted principally in the urine. With healthy kidneys, the rate of excretion is generally less than two millionths of a gramme per day, so that any intake which exceeds this very microscopic amount can lead to an accumulation in the body. This accumulation occurs progressively from birth onwards and peaks at an age around 50—a somewhat critical age as I approach it—at levels of about 10 to 55 mg. concentrated in the kidney cortex. It is higher in smokers and therefore, I hope, lower in non-smokers, on average. But this level of accumulation in the kidney cortex is something like one-twentieth to one-quarter of the load at which medically adverse symptoms begin to appear. So your Lordships will see that the balance in the human body can be very critical.

The symptoms of cadmium poisoning are generalised and very unpleasant. So it must be agreed by all of us that it is very right that industrial emissions should be closely controlled and that the European Community, like successive administrations in this country, have been concerned to prevent pollution of the aquatic environment by this substance and its derivatives. There is, therefore, widespread and general support among your Lordships' Select Committee for the draft directive.

The report also welcomes certain new features in this directive which did not appear in its predecessors. First, this directive is non-sectoral. With one exception —and this, admittedly, is a very significant exception— the draft directive deals with all direct industrial discharges of cadmium to water. Secondly, within the compass of one directive, it permits alternative approaches. These alternative approaches are, first, that favoured in general by Continental states of the Community—the approach that takes fixed limit values. The alternative is that generally favoured in this country of setting environmental quality objectives which are related to the use to which the receiving water is to be put.

Thirdly, your Lordships' committee found this directive realistic in terms of the water chemistry, both in analysis of sampling results and with reference to the various forms in which cadmium can occur, sometimes in soluble form and sometimes insoluble. Fourthly, it was gratifying to note that in this directive the re-commendations are backed by references to scientific and research literature which could, therefore, be consulted.

Nonetheless, the committee still saw problems which it is hoped that the representatives of the United Kingdom will pursue in negotiation on this draft directive. The first problem to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention is the stipulation that for all new plant cadmium emission levels should be set in accordance with the best technical means. This stipulation raises several problems, not least of all the definition of "new plant". It is also objectionable to insist on the highest of high technology if the results are, in environmental terms, unnecessary. It is objectionable, because it is expensive, and it puts unnecessary demands and unnecessary costs on the industry concerned.

Thirdly, of course, this stipulation is objectionable, because in effect, in time, it would phase out the environmental quality objective alternative which the directive asserts is offered. This same stipulation in respect of new plant also appeared in the draft directive on mercury. I understand that an acceptable compromise was reached in discussion, and I shall listen with interest to whatever the noble Earl, Lord Avon, is able to say to us on this matter this evening.

A second point of concern to the committee is the omission of cadmium as related by the rock phosphate industry from any form of control under this directive. The excuse that is offered is that of technological difficulties, and it is clear that there are problems. One of the problems is the great variation in the cadmium content of rock phosphate from different sources. For instance, that from the Soviet Union can be very low, whereas rock phosphate from Senegal can be two orders of magnitude higher in its burden of cadmium. There is also a problem in separating cadmium from the bulk waste that is produced in the treatment of rock phosphate: that is, from phosphogypsum. It is not impossible to separate it, but it is technically difficult and very expensive.

On the other hand, it appeared to us on the committee that there are solutions to this problem. One solution is to dispose of the phosphogypsum in an environmentally non-harmful fashion by effectively preventing it from leaching into the aquatic environment. Moreover, where it is disposed to water, if it is disposed to sufficiently large bodies of water and if the environmental quality objective approach is adopted, it can be shown that such disposal does not raise cadmium levels to an unsafe degree. In fact, I have been in contact with a major industrial producer of phosphate in north-western England, and I have been assured that the discharges which are made to sea over the year average only 0.4 parts per million, which is within, or close to, the most stringent 1986 limit values that are proposed in the draft directive.

A third issue is that limit values set on discharges to sewers are no different from those set for direct discharge to the enviroment. Here again there are clearly arguments on both sides. On the one hand it is necessary to control discharges to sewers. On the other hand it is the general experience in the United Kingdom that treatment works can effectively remove most cadmium and can yield an acceptable discharge from sewage works. Discussion is needed on this point, but some recognition must be made of the role of sewage treatment in reducing the cadmium load of discharges.

Fourthly, I draw your Lordships' attention to paragraph 26, where the Committee pass observations on proposals related to the environmental quality standards for fish. The main difficulty here is the scarcity of sound information based on field research among wild fish populations. It is to be hoped that this research can be supported and that in due course it will provide sound guidance to realistic quality standards in these waters.

As a fifth issue, the salt water standard that is proposed is on the one hand unnecessarily stringent; on the other hand, it is somewhat ludicrous in the permitted exceptions. It is proposed that, where naturally occurring cadmium is found, the standard shall be in effect a margin above the naturally occurring concentration. Without any basis whatsoever, it therefore appears that this regulation implies that natural cadmium is in some way safe and non-poisonous, whereas only added cadmium is toxic.

The final point in this report to which I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships is that concerning monitoring and analysis. Monitoring is obviously an essential part of any series of regulations. This is not merely from the legal aspect, to ensure compliance; it is also necessary because cadmium is a nasty poison and we must strive to limit its circulation in soluble form in the aquatic environment. But it was clear to members of the committee that reliable analysis of chemical substances such as cadmium, or cadmium derivatives, at low concentrations in water, particularly if that water is already contaminated with other related substances can be both difficult and expensive. It is certain that there will be arguments about where and on whom the burden in terms of manpower and finance should fall. I feel that support for this directive will be stronger if analytical targets are seen to be realistic and if the monitoring requirements are seen to be reasonable in view of the potential hazards, which are recognised.

In closing, I must draw your Lordships' attention to paragraph 13 of the report, which is headed Legal Implications At present in the United Kingdom, emissions of cadmium to water are fully controlled in respect of fresh water—that is, inland waters—and to sewers. Discharges to estuaries are controlled if these discharges are new, since a relevant handful of Acts of the 1950s and 1960s apply, or if the discharge is covered by a tidal waters order. Our coverage of discharges to the estuarine environment is not therefore all-embracing. Discharges to sea, which will also be covered by this directive, will only come under legislative control if or when Part II of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 is implemented. The noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has given notice that he will pick up this lead. However, I must point out to your Lordships that, although the legislation exists on the books, as it were, it does not yet exist in fact to permit the United Kingdom to accede to this directive, were it to be implemented now. I beg to move.

Moved, That this House take note of the Report of the European Communities Committee on water pollution by cadmium discharges (39th Report 1980–81, H.L. 267).—(The Earl of Cranbrook.)

6.35 p.m.

Baroness White

My Lords, first I should like most warmly to thank the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, for his, as always, lucid and comprehensive exposition of the matter which is before us. I am also delighted to know that the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has struggled from Cambridge to be present. But I much regret that my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones has found the climatic conditions so adverse that he, alas! is not with us. Therefore the scientific input into our debate is thereby diminished, which I am sure we all greatly regret.

As the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, said, I hope the Minister will be able to enlighten us a little further as to the situation arising from the recent discussions at the environment Ministers' meeting on the cognate directive relating to mercury. Some of your Lordships are aware that we had originally intended to debate this report, which appeared last July, a little sooner than today. We restrained ourselves because it was felt that until the mercury directive had been satisfactorily disposed of it did not make very much sense to proceed with discussing the directive on cadmium, which is closely related to it and which comes under the same framework directive.

My understanding of the position is that after considerable disputation, but more particularly with our French colleagues, a compromise has been reached, partly by redrafting Article 3(3) of the draft directive on mercury and partly by the addition of two Council declarations on the interpretation to be put on the term "best technical means available". These declarations are not in any way legally binding in the way that a directive is. Nor, of course, is there anything binding in the statement made by the French delegation, as I understand it, that the compromise reached on mercury should not be regarded as setting a precedent for other substances dealt with under the parent directive. Nevertheless, one must warmly hope that our French and other colleagues will accept the compromise which has now been reached, and will not expect their colleagues to go through the same kind of hassle over every other substance in the parent directive as we have experienced over the directive on mercury.

The other point I wish to make is that when one has what one might call glosses on directives contained in a declaration or even in Council minutes, it is extremely important that they should be made freely available to those who are concerned. I say this because my attention has been drawn to two earlier environmental directives, where it appears that non-binding but important conditions referring to the subject were embodied in Council records but were not published in a manner readily available to those concerned. I refer in particular to the Plant Protection Products Directive, about which a Question was recenty asked by my noble friend Lord Melchett, and the directive dealing with emissions of S02 and smoke to the atmosphere. In this instance a condition was included in the Council minutes, so I understand, which was not, of course, legally binding but which was directly relevant. I believe that it was inadvertently published in the United Kingdom in a departmental circular but was not so published in many other member states.

The point of all this is that where mercury and, very likely, cadmium are concerned, agreement on a binding directive simply has not been possible without accepting some ancillary conditions. We must realistically recognise this situation. Nevertheless, it is very important that the terms of any such additional conditions should be fully, accurately and properly known. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give us an assurance that Her Majesty's Government will endeavour to ensure that this will be the case. This is, perhaps, merely a procedural point, but it does seem to me to be important that, having reached the situation on the mercury directive, we should know exactly where we stand in relation to what will no doubt be a series of comparable directives on other substances.

If I may revert to the more general position, as the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, said, cadmium has come to the centre of the stage only in the past few decades. I think he would agree that we still do not know fully the effects of cadmium on human health beyond knowing that it is cumulative and damaging to the kidneys. As with mercury, the classic instance of a major health disaster through cadmium pollution took place in Japan where it was shown that the worst sufferers were likely not to be men over 50 but women, which gives me a particular interest in the matter. However, the disaster of 1935 is most unlikely to be repeated anywhere in the world and I do not believe that one should allow it to influence one unduly. Notwithstanding this, there is no doubt whatsoever that cadmium is a substance which has to be taken very seriously, and as a lay person I was particularly grateful to the Department of the Environment—a department towards which I do not always have feelings of gratitude—for what seemed to me to be an admirable description of the nature and effects of cadmium on the environment and its significance to man in their Pollution Paper No. 17, which was published last year and which I warmly recommend to other lay Members of your Lordships' House.

In the EEC context it is noteworthy that, as I understand it, since 1970 the European Community has overtaken the United States as the biggest global consumer and producer of cadmium. I believe it is true to say that West Germany is, relatively speaking, by far the heaviest user of cadmium, but within the Community Denmark is notable for making virtually negligible use of it, and the United Kingdom comes somewhere in the middle. It is encouraging that within the past few years in the United Kingdom we have a record of steady progress towards the diminution of cadmium pollution. I should like in a moment to give a couple of examples of the recent efforts made by water authorities in the United Kingdom to deal with the problem.

In doing so one must note that, as is customary with pollution directives which are based primarily on fixed emission levels—although after much arguing and persuasion, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, the European Commission has agreed to include the alternative of environmental quality objectives—this directive deals with only one part of the problem. As the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, pointed out, it is not as restrictive as the mercury directive, which confined itself to pollution by one industry only—the chloralkali industry—and ignored all other sources. The cadmium directive does deal with the full industrial spectrum, other than phosphate rock, but it does so only in the aquatic environment.

It seems to me that, leaving aside airborne cadmium, it is confusing to deal in this directive only with direct discharges of industrial effluent, when one of the main sources of pollution by cadmium is through the deposition of sewage sludge on land, or by the dumping of sewage sludge at sea, when these are alternatives with an element of choice. I understand that work is in progress on a further directive on the disposal of sludge to land and there are the Oslo Convention controls already extant on dumping sludge at sea. In the context of the European Community, we seem to have no guarantee that those concerned will look at this problem "in the round", considering the environmental effects synoptically instead of adopting the fragmentary approach which is encouraged by the use of fixed limit values. This difficulty goes to the roots of our environmental quality objective philosophy. We believe that one should study the total effect of a polluting substance and not take it in isolation.

I do not intend to pursue this argument further, but I should like to refer to another matter which was touched upon by the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, and that is the discussion we had with our witnesses on the provision in the present document requiring that industrial discharges to sewers should be regulated at the point of discharge into the sewer and not at the point of discharge into the receiving water, when the sewer was connected to a treatment plant; the latter seeming to some of our witnesses to be more logical.

I was interested in this point and made some further inquiries. It seems to me that opinions vary with the circumstances. In a heavily industrialised area such as the West Midlands, it pays the water authority to process the effluent at its own sewage works and charge for so doing, whereas in an area with perhaps only one or two sources of such polluted effluent, it is much more practicable to insist upon the industry undertaking its own clean-up before discharging into a sewer. It seems to me that the sensible way of dealing with this puzzling problem is that the directive should allow for both situations, which it does not do at the moment.

If one examines recent experience in the United Kingdom, it is encouraging to find that we have already adopted practices whereby contamination by water-borne cadmium has been to a very considerable extent brought under control. If I may quote from a note which I have received from one of the more industrialised divisions of our Welsh Water Authority, Considerable improvements have been achieved in this area during the past six years; the result of pursuing a determined trade effluent control policy. The only remaining discharge of cadmium…", that is, in the district concerned, is a company engaged on Ministry of Defence contracts which continue to require cadmium plating ". Maybe the noble Earl who is to reply could take that up with one of his colleagues and see whether it is really necessary. The note goes on: In plants which used to discharge, new processes are now in use which enable cadmium to be isolated and re-used or sold to a metal refining company ". I am told that levels of cadmium in what used to be one of our badly polluted Welsh rivers now appear to be within the proposed EEC quality objective, and in disposal to sewers the level has been reduced to around one-tenth of that which prevailed as recently as four or five years ago. This is evidence, I believe, that we are taking this problem of cadmium pollution seriously and dealing with it successfully. Similarly, the Thames Water Authority has published figures indicating that between 1973 and 1979–80 the amount of cadmium in the digestive sewage sludge at one of its main works has been reduced by well over one half— surely a very good record for such a period.

I would next draw attention to the River Quality Survey for 1980 which was published last week by the National Water Council, which does not deal directly with cadmium pollution but which does indicate the general improvement in the quality of our rivers, which I believe to be encouraging in itself and an indication that in practical term0, the methods which we adopt, based on our philosphy of environmental quality objectives, are by and large successful. It is quite true that the report on river quality also makes it clear that unless the resources are available some of our rivers where improvements have been made may revert to their less satisfactory conditions, because it will not be possible to deal adequately with out of date sewerage plant and treatment. We cannot in any sense be complacent, in spite of our recent good record. A great deal will depend on how much in the way of finance and other resources are permitted to be used to maintain the progress which we have already made and to seek further improvements.

I would like to say just one further word about the report itself. I can do so, although I am a member of Sub-committee G, because the credit for this particular report is undoubtedly due to the chairman, Lord Cranbrook, and to the specialist adviser and clerk to whom he very properly indicated our gratitude and appreciation. I believe there is a great deal in this report which is of considerable interest to those concerned. It is critical on a number of points which will have to be negotiated by our representatives in Brussels, but I hope and believe that the work done on this rather abstruse subject may be of very great value in our pollution control policy in this country.

6.52 p.m.

Lord Ashby

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, has given your Lordships a very clear and complete account of the material in the report, and the noble Baroness has put it in its European setting. There is nothing that I need to do except add a few crumbs of opinion, and at this time of night not many crumbs. But it is a topic which is worth keeping your Lordships here for a few minutes to talk about. All of us today have asborbed between 25 and 60 microgrammes of cadmium, and we do that every day. It is 10 times more toxic than arsenic or lead. About 1500 tonnes of it are used every year in Britain. The recovery rate of cadmium is less than 1 per cent., and being a metal it cannot be destroyed; it accumulates.

Therefore, it is important for us to consider whether this directive is meeting the problem. I believe it is but I think it is a directive that must be taken seriously. One should welcome it, and it is absolutely right that the Commission should put out some directive which will stringently limit the consumption of cadmium. As the noble Baroness has pointed out, fortunately, Her Majesty's Government have had the very best advice they could have about the problems of cadmium. That report to which the noble Baroness referred is a masterly account of the present state of understanding of cadmium, and it is in some ways a pity that the Commission did not take more note of it when they were preparing their report.

Finally, I think it is worth quoting one sentence from the Department of Environment monograph. It says at the end, about the use and disposal of cadmium, that it should be based on the philosophy that man's intake should be kept as low as possible ". So we all welcome this directive, but there are still problems which remain even after eight years—I think this is the 25th environment directive from the Commission—of discussion, argument and negotiation between Britain and the other European countries. It is worth perhaps pausing for a moment to see just how far we have got in resolving this difference of philosophy which emerged, and which your Lordships who follow these debates on environmental directives will have noticed, the differences of policy that have emerged between the countries, and to ask to what extent we have now reached a stage of some reconciliation. My feeling is that, yes, we have made some progress, but not enough, and that there are faults on both sides which are holding up progress.

There have been three main criticisms of the environmental directives. One comes from the noble and learned Lords who are on the Committee that deals with the legal aspects of Community regulations, who regard some of these as ultra vires altogether. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, put the matter very clearly when he said that he feared that if we did not take some note of this point that the noble and learned Lords were making it would be the beginning of the emergence of a federal constitution for Europe under which all legislative power is potentially exercisable by the federation. That is a matter which I think must be left to the noble and learned Lords within the House to keep an eye on. The main contribution that your Sub-Committee G can make is to look at the contents of these directives and if possible try to improve them.

During the last eight years your sub-committee has had two main criticisms of these directives. The first is that many of them have been founded either on bad scientific evidence or on good scientific advice which has not been taken. There is in fact an example in this report. The scientist who was engaged as consultant to the Commission to advise on the toxicity of cadmium recommended a quality objective of 10 microgrammes per litre—that is 10 parts per million —in sea water. The directive disregards this advice from its own expert and prescribes a quality objective of only one part per million, a level ten times more stringent than the expert advised.

This rejection of expert advice has happened several times. It happened over sulphur dioxide in the air. It happened over the oxygen content of water for fish. There are, of course, occasions—and your Lordships, I am sure, would wish to recognise this and be sympathetic about it—where for policital reasons the directives have to disregard some of the scientific advice given or overrule it. But when they do that we have pleaded with them, so far not successfully, to say that they have departed from scientific advice and if possible give the reasons why they have done so. I feel that these directives would be more welcome in your Lordships' House if more respect was given to some of the scientific advice which the Commission now gets. There have been great improvements in the quality of the directives and to this extent there has been some reconciliation of the difference in philosophy between our practice in Britain and the Commission's practice. Scientific advice is better, and sources are quoted.

The other technical criticism is one your Lordships have heard so often that I wonder sometimes whether we should not ask the editors of Hansard to keep the quotations set in type for regular use. It is the Commission's own definition of pollution in water, and then their apparent disregard of their own definition when they come to write the directive. I must bore your Lordships for a moment by reading the turgid definition so that we have it on record once again. It is the discharge by man: of substances or energy into the acquatic environment, the results of which are such as to cause hazards to human health, harm to living resources and to aquatic ecosystems, damage to amenities or interference with other legitimate uses of water ". The rationale which should follow that mouthful of a definition is that unless substances are present in such quantities as to cause harm or be liable to cause harm then, by definition, they are not pollutants—they are just contaminants and the directives, therefore, should not apply to them.

In Britain we are still having to repair the damage done by the Industrial Revolution and, to that extent, it is impossible to clean up the environment in the wholesale way in which all of us, I suppose, would like to see it cleaned up. So it has been the policy of Her Majesty's Government—and I am certain a correct one—to take account of the use to which a river is being put. For instance, if we were to take all the cadmium out of the Mersey—and it has more than it ought to have in it—that would not benefit the environment greatly if all the other pollutants are left in the Mersey. Therefore, the use to which the Mersey is at present being put becomes enormously important.

That is a point of view which the Commission has not yet felt able to accept. As the noble Earl has pointed out, and as the noble Baroness also explained to your Lordships, we did manage to get one concession, an important one, from the Commission—namely, that instead of relying upon fixed emission standards we could choose instead to base our policies on environmental objectives. We were therefore offered that choice and have, in fact, been offered it in the present directive on cadmium. But when we come to compare the standards which are required in this choice we are driven to the conclusion that either the Commission has got its arithmetic wrong or it is deliberately weighting the choice heavily in favour of what it likes— fixed emission standards.

The fixed emission standard for cadmium, for the factories which are using it like, for example, factories doing electro-plating or making batteries, yellow plastics, pigments and so on, is two milligrams per litre; that is, two parts per million in waste discharged from the sewer. But that discharge has to be diluted by something like a thousand times in order to reach the environmental quality standard which it is British policy to take as a basis. That thousand times dilution certainly does not occur in a great many rivers. So there is a miss-match, as there has been before, between the fixed emission standard, which the Commission would certainly like us to have, and the environmental quality standard which is the very basis of the philosophy of environmental control in Britain.

However, we can in fact, as we look back over these eight years, sum up the prolonged negotiations by saying that there have been some successes. The scientific advice is better, the sources are quoted and there has been the offer of an option although we have not yet managed to persuade the Commission to regard it as a satisfactory option. In fact, twice in the preamble to this directive on cadmium they only admit grudgingly that environmental quality objectives should be used. Twice they say "as an exception" environmental quality objectives may be used as a basis of control.

I said that there were faults on both sides in this unreconciled difference in policy between the Commission and Britain. On our side we have made a great deal of fuss about the need to match the degree of pollution control with the use to which the river has been put, and I think rightly so. But when the Commission said to us, "Let us see a schedule of the uses to which you are putting your rivers", we have not been able to give more than a very evasive answer until, as the noble Baroness mentioned, last Friday when fortunately the National Water Council's 1980 Survey of British Rivers was published with the reclassification of them which does take account of their present potential uses.

As the noble Baroness mentioned, the report makes very encouraging reading. Roughly 69 per cent, of our rivers are suitable for the provision of drinking water, carry game fish and have high amenity value; and only 9 per cent, of our rivers are of poor and bad quality, suitable only for low grade industrial use.

I think that it is a measure of the deficiencies in the Commission's control of the statistics from its member states that to get comparative figures for other states is extremely difficult. The Chemical Industries' Association recently published one comparison that they were able to make between the British rivers and those in Germany and the Netherlands. Whereas only 9 per cent, of the British rivers are of poor or bad quality, 27 per cent, of the rivers in Germany and Holland are of poor quality. So, despite our economic plight, there is evidence that a great deal of trouble has been spent on the quality of rivers and we are now at last, I do not think well enough or clearly enough, backing-up our policy of making use a basis of our classification of rivers by beginning to have schedules of what those classifications are. But I think that more is needed. I think that the Commission want to know what final intentions we have about the 3,600 kilometres of rivers in Britain which are still of poor or grossly polluted quality.

The other fault on our side is the pretence—and I do not hestitate to call it a pretence, because it is becoming that—that we have a comprehensive Control of Pollution Act. The Minister sent Sub-Committee G a memorandum on the cadmium directive and there was a heading in that memorandum, "Impact on UK Law". The statement made was that no additional legislation would be required. Our colleagues in Brussels read that and they rgeard that as an act of sheer hypocrisy because they know that, although we have a comprehensive Control of Pollution Act, we have not yet brought in—and show no signs of bringing in—certain sections of that Act. Until Section 2 of that Act is brought in, it simply is not correct to say that the law is at present adequate. A law which has not been implemented is not an adequate law, at least to a Frenchman.

I come back again to the point which the noble Earl made at the very beginning. Cadmium is a very nasty and dangerous poison. It is about in the world in quantities which, in local places, can be quite alarming. It has not yet been shown to have any serious effects on health in Britain, but then the same is true in other countries—in Japan and in Sweden some years ago. Therefore, if there is a case for being overcautious in environmental legislation it is the case when we are dealing with heavy metals like lead, mercury and cadmium, because they are indestructible and because there may be a 30-year delay before the effects turn out to be edited.

I think that it would be a great pity if the slight shortcomings in this directive were to hold it up and I hope that three things can be done to hurry the reconciliation of the British and the Commission's points of view and in particular to get this directive through. The first is to insist on mandatory quality objective levels which really are consistent with the fixed emission standards— not utterly different as they are at present. The second —and this is a very important point which the noble Earl made—is to make sure that something is done to take account of the main discharge of cadmium which is 11 tons a year going into the sea from the manufacture of phosphate rock. The third is to do something at last about the Control of Pollution Act. I am sure that the noble Earl when he replies will have to explain to us that there would be very great financial implications if Part II of the Control of Pollution Act were brought in, and that it is in the present circumstances lack of money which is holding up that implementation. If that is true, I think that we owe it to our Common Market partners, and we certainly owe it to the growing number of critics in Britain who are getting very dis-stressed about this, to have from the noble Earl, or his honourable friend in the other place, a very clear statement as to what the cost will be, in pounds, of implementing those parts of the Control of Pollution Act which are not implemented. If the cost runs to hundreds of millions, then our partners will understand and will probably be patient; if it is a trivial amount, they may press us even harder to do something about it. I know that, if we were to ask the noble Earl to give some undertaking that the Control of Pollution Act would be fully implemented, he would be unable to do so. I am asking him for something much more modest. Will he tell us what it would cost to do it if the Government intended to do it?

7.11 p.m.

Lord Mottistone

My Lords, in what I have to say to your Lordships, I am advised by the CBI. My only earlier contact with this splendid report was as a member of the Select Committee, and I assisted our noble chairman, Lady White, in agreeing to it being published. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I can tell your Lordships that the CBI were not only most grateful to be given the opportunity to give evidence, both oral and written, to Sub-Committee G, but that they also wish to congratulate the Select Committee and its sub-committee on its comprehensive and detailed report. In fact, they say that industry has no criticism of the report's findings and conclusions and believes the report has highlighted all the major points of concern to industry, although the CBI does not share the belief that the exclusion of the manufacture of phosphoric acid from the directive is an omission. It believes that it is simply a realistic appreciation of the difficulties associated with controlling these discharges. If I heard him aright, my noble friend Lord Cranbrook made that point; I think that he is at variance with the CBI in that he thinks that the difficulties can be overcome, whereas I think that the CBI believes that they cannot.

Industry supports, and continues to support, the Government's agreed policy that discharges to the aquatic environment should be controlled on the basis of environmental quality objectives, and not on the alternative limit value approach. The CBI believes that there is still an area of conflict with other member states, and considers that the Government should continue to impress on our overseas counterparts the validity and justification for our approach. Other noble Lords have said much the same thing. I was heartened by the figures which the noble Baroness, Lady White, gave us about the high quality of our rivers as compared with Continental rivers and, indeed, by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, in the same area. It would be helpful if my noble friend on the Front Bench could give us some sort of encouragement that they are still seeking to persuade other member states that our approach to these matters is perhaps worth looking at.

As your Lordships are aware and as my noble friend Lord Cranbrook said, the first "daughter" directive— as I believe it is called, and I do like this phrase—of the parent Aquatic Environment Directive relating to the discharge of mercury has already been agreed. It will be interesting to hear what my noble friend Lord Avon has to say about that. The only point that the CBI would make is that, being the first daughter directive, it could set a precedent for future directives such as cadmium, and I think that they have slight misgivings about that, though the noble Baroness, Lady White, did rather indicate to us that she does not believe so.

Baroness White

My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, there was an elder daughter called "drins".

Lord Mottistone

My Lords, I gather, if I may put it this way, that she is so far stillborn. The United Kingdom's environmental quality objective approach controls all sources of the substance under consideration and hence industry has opposed, in these directives, a specific reference to discharges from "new plant". However, it has been recognised that, if a complete impasse is to be avoided, some compromise will be necessary, and, at the recent Council of Environment Ministers' meeting, this took the form of specifying controls of discharges from "new plant" which will include a reference to the "best technical means" of reducing that discharge. The "best technical means" concept can be misconstrued— and from what he said I think that my noble friend Lord Cranbrook will agree with that—so as not to give adequate regard to local environmental circumstances or to financial/economic factors. The CBI is, therefore, worried that the compromise agreed in relation to the chloralkali directive—where application is limited—could, despite Government assurance, set an unfortunate precedent.

The worry is compounded by the fact that under the compromise the member state has to explain to the Commission, before granting authorisation to discharge, why the best technical means will not be applied in any particular circumstances. The new plant provisions, as now contained in the chloralkali directive, could create considerable practical problems if extended to control over the more widespread discharges of cadmium, imposing substantial financial and administrative burdens. It would be most helpful if my noble friend Lord Avon could reassure us that, whatever erosion of the United Kingdom's environmental quality objective philosophy has occured in relation to the recently adopted chloralkali directive, it will not be repeated in subsequent directives.

I trust that that is clear to my noble friend. It is only just clear to me. I thank your Lordships for allowing me to put some points of view from the CBI, who, on the whole, were extremely pleased with what they saw. I hope that the Government will be able to take note of those points that I have passed on from them.

7.17 p.m.

The Earl of

Avon: My Lords, I am pleased to be speaking this evening for the Government in this debate on the 39th Report from Sub-Committee G of the Select Committee on the European Communities. I think that the highest praise which I can bestow on the 39th Report of the Select Committee, concerning the draft directive on the discharge of cadmium, is to say that it is up to the committee's usual standard. And as you are well aware, that standard is one of excellence. The authority and quality of Sub-Committee G's opinions on European Community proposals for environmental legislation is, as I have said before in your Lordships' House, well-established not only in this country, but also through the Community, and particularly in Brussels.

The Government fully expect the 39th Report of the Select Committee to have a strong and rightful influence on the negotiations concerning the draft cadmium directive. The Government welcome this report, so admirably prepared by my noble friend Lord Cranbrook, and his sub-committee, and so eloquently and clearly presented by my noble friend this evening. The Government thank the Select Committee for its report. They agree with it.

The Select Committee's report mentions four respects in which the draft cadmium directive is an improvement on the two previous proposals (on the 'drins and mercury) born from the 1976 framework directive on the discharge of dangerous substances. The improvements, with which the Government concur and which, therefore, I stress, are: first, an attempt to treat all sources of discharge of a dangerous substance in one and the same instrument—I say "attempt" because the Commission have found themselves unable to set limit-values for one major source; that is, of course, the manufacture of phosphoric acid from phosphate rock. I, like the Select Committee, regret this lacuna, but fear that it may be a deficiency which is endemic to a system based entirely on limit-values. The second improvement is the incorporation into one text of both the limit-value and quality objective approaches. Thirdly, the Select Committee endorses the specific nature of some of the technical requirements. By and large, the Government agree but will need to look further at how compliance is judged—an average might be better than a 95 percentile. Fourthly, the references to scientific literature are, indeed, welcome but a more rigorous interpretation of the evidence—for example in setting a quality standard for sea-water—would have been even more welcome.

I now turn to those features of the draft directive which the Select Committee found unsatisfactory. The first of these was the obligation concerning new plant. Article 3(4) of the proposal stipulates that all new plant discharging cadmium shall have emission standards set in accordance with the best technical means available. The Select Committee rightly sees such a provision as wrong for a water pollution control régime based on quality objectives, such as we operate in the United Kingdom.

Here, I should like to refer your Lordships to another directive born from the same mother directive—we are getting into a family way—as the cadmium proposal; I am speaking of the directive on mercury discharges from the chloralkali electrolysis industry.

Now, as my noble friend Lord Cranbrook has asked me, I turn to what happened on 3rd December when this directive was agreed by the European Communities' Environmental Council, subject to formal adoption. The issue which had held up agreement until then was this very same question of new plant. Certain member states were very firmly of the view demonstrated by the Commission in the cadmium proposal— namely, that new plant must be controlled exclusively by limit-values, or something tantamount to them. However, I am pleased to report that those member states did not get their way. Some 10 days ago we were successful in persuading them to agree to a provision which fell short of imposing a binding limit-value or indeed a binding obligation to apply the best technical means available.

The obligation for mercury is to ensure that authorisations for discharges from new plant contain a reference to standards corresponding to the best technical means available. Under such an obligation, our prime control under a system based on quality objectives will continue to be dictated by the quality required in the receiving waters.

There is good reason to presume that something along the lines of the mercury solution will be incorporated into the cadmium proposal, and indeed into subsequent directives. Nonetheless—and I hope this will satisfy my noble friend Lord Mottistone—we shall need to look at the detail with some care, because there is no guarantee that what is apt for mercury discharges from the chloralkali industry is equally apt for the various industries discharging cadmium.

All the signs in Brussels are that the Commission would be prepared to see their cadmium proposal aligned with what was agreed for mercury—not only on the new plant issue but on other contentious points as well. I hope that to a degree this will satisfy some of the fears of the noble Baroness, Lady White.

I have already said that the Government shared the Select Committee's views about not setting limit-values for the manufacture of phosphoric acid from phosphate rock. We also share the committee's views that the "greylist" rules of framework Directive 76/464/EEC should in any case apply throughout the Community; namely, control by quality objectives. That is our approach in this country.

The Select Committee's point about sewers is also well made and one with which the Government agree. It is unreasonable for the draft directive to impose the same emission standard for a discharge going for effluent treatment at a sewage works as for a discharge going directly to the aquatic environment. This takes no account of the purification effected by the sewage treatment plant. We shall attempt to get this amended during negotiations.

As to the report's comments about the annexes to the draft directive, the Department of the Environment cannot but concur with the views of such an emminent body of scientists. I can assure your Lordships that we shall press the Commission to explain the illogicalities which the Select Committee has noted among the figures which appear in the Commission's proposal, with the aim of shaping the annexes into provisions which are scientifically based and, especially in the case of quality objectives, environmentally justifiable. As to the structure of Annex II (the one pertaining to quality objectives), we look forward here, as for new plant, to the propitious influence of the now agreed mercury directive.

I should like now to turn to one or two of the points raised during the course of the discussion, and, first, to express my personal regrets that the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, was unable to be here. I am sure that he would have asked me some searching questions which would have me on my mettle. However, the noble Baroness, Lady White, certainly competed very well on his behalf.

The first point that she raised that I should like to take was about the availability of the text and declarations agreed for mercury, and I think that this is a good point. The Official Journal of the Community will in due course publish a text and at least one of the declarations. The Government will undertake to make available in this country any part of the agreement— that is, any other declarations which may not be published in this way.

The noble Baroness said that she wished that the Commission had taken a more global approach to combat cadmium pollution instead of concentrating on just one medium and on the limited number of potential sources. Indeed, we have a great deal of sympathy for the views of the noble Baroness on this point. I hope that her words will be heeded by the relevant officials in Brussels when they read the report of our debate tonight, as I am sure they will.

The noble Baroness mentioned the control of cadmium in sewage sludge. There are two aspects to this problem. First, to restrict the amount of cadmium getting into the sludge, and, secondly, to control the disposal of the sludge. Neither of the two aspects, in the Government's view, falls within the ambit of the draft directive that we are considering tonight. Nor, indeed, do we regard sludge control as a priority task for the Community as distinct from individual member states. We know that the Commission have in preparation a proposal on the use of sludge in agriculture. We have already expressed our doubts to the Commission about the wisdom of their approach, since we do not think that rigid Community rules are appropriate for this kind of control. Our thinking on this point coincides with that of the World Health Organisation's working group on sewage sludge.

To underline something else that the noble Baroness said, we do treat the problem seriously and act accordingly, and regional water authorities imposed restrictions on cadmium-bearing discharges going for treatment at their sewage works, and cadmium levels in sludge have fallen accordingly. The dumping of sludge at sea, as the noble Baroness said, is strictly controlled by the international rules of the Oslo Convention under licence issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. For the disposal of sewage to land there are formal guidelines from my department agreed with the Ministry of Agriculture and the water authorities. Following the publication by the DoE of the Pollution Paper No. 17, Cadmium in the Environment and Its Significance to Man, the department concluded that environmental concentration of cadmium should not be allowed to increase. Working groups have been set up to consider how the use of cadmium can be reduced. One is dealing with cadmium plating and the other with the manufacture of cadmium pigments and stabilisers for plastics and the uses of these compounds. The groups contain representatives of Government departments, but the majority of the members are from the cadmium-handling industries, and the CBI are also represented. They have been meeting throughout 1981, but neither has finalised its work. I am sure that this progress will show that the Government are interested in the amount of cadmium we have around.

The noble Baroness, Lady White, and the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, referred to the river quality report. I should like, also, to make my comment about it and to repeat what my right honourable friend the Minister said. He said: It is encouraging to see the continuing improvement in river quality in England and Wales ". It was providential that this paper came out so recently. The noble Lord, Lord Ashby, asked what are our final intentions about the 3,000-odd kilometres of rivers still classed as poor or grossly polluted. The water authorities have published in the last year or two longer-term objectives showing plans, first, to eliminate all grossly polluted river lengths and, secondly, to upgrade many poor lengths unless physical problems —for example, urban run-off—would make this prohibitively expensive.

In response to some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, I can say that the Government will press in negotiations for the mandatory environmental quality objective levels annexed to the draft directive to be amended in line with the scientific evidence. As for the disposal of cadmium from phosphate rock, I would certainly expect the Commission to make every effort to fill this obvious gap in their proposal. I accept the noble Lord's view that river classification alone is not enough to be the base of the quality objectives system. Use of the waters in question is the essential here. To this end the Department of the Environment and others are working with the Water Research Centre to produce certain use-based quality standards which would eventually allow the production of a schedule on the lines indicated by the noble Lord.

I have taken careful note this evening of the wishes forcefully expressed about the implementation of Part II of the Control of Pollution Act. Indeed, this is becoming almost a regular occurrence when I am speaking at the Dispatch Box, and I am only sorry that my noble friend Lord Craigton is not here to needle me as well. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, will be pleased when I say that I do not think it is necessary to produce the financial figures to which he referred; I can give him a personal assurance to transmit the strength of feeling to my right honourable friend the Minister of State, who I know is already giving the matter serious and urgent consideration, and I hope the noble Lord will take that as a step forward compared with having to produce the financial figures.

The essence of the Government's response to the report of the Select Committee is clear; it is one of thanks and general agreement. Now that the mercury directive has been agreed, negotiations on the cadmium proposal can be expected to begin in earnest. I have no doubt that the report of which we are asked to take note tonight will have an important influence on those negotiations.

On Question, Motion agreed to.