Severn Estuary Tidal Power: The Bondi Report

HL Deb 15 February 1982 vol 427 cc414-45

6.45 p.m.

Baroness White rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take on the principal recommendations of the committee chaired by Sir Hermann Bondi, FRS, on Tidal Power from the Severn Estuary, which was received by Ministers in April 1981.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name. If any of your Lordships have not had the pleasure of reading this document, copies are available in the Printed Paper Office, and those of your Lordships who consider they are capable of understanding Volume 11 which contains the technical and scientific papers, I have no doubt will be able to obtain that also.

This debate, coming after the fascinating major debate, if I may say so, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, on science and government, is perhaps an unusual example of passing directly from the general to the particular. In the matter we are about to examine tonight Ministers are brought face to face not with general principles of organisation but with specific science-based decisions by which the quality of their mental processes, if I may say so, and of their moral attitudes to succeeding generations may be tested.

As a lay person myself, I might perhaps have hesitated to initiate this debate, but I am very greatly fortified by the willingness of a number of most distinguished scientific colleagues to add the weight of their authority to the discussion. In addition, there are several noble Lords who between them represent the more localised interests on the Welsh and English sides of the Severn Estuary, the areas which would be specifically affected in their social, economic and environmental conditions if a barrage were to be constructed. I should perhaps mention that I received an apology from the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, who had hoped to be with us, and I have just had a message from the noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa, chairman of the South Glamorgan County Council, who very deeply regrets that, owing to unforeseen circumstances, he is not able to be here. I am particularly sorry about that because the special interest of Wales in this matter is, I think, clearly indicated in the list of speakers. To these and to all other noble Lords taking part, I would express my own deep gratitude and I am sure that of the House.

What we are about tonight is not, of course, to ranger over the whole spectrum of pros and cons as to the possible construction of the barrage, nor even to urge that a firm decision should be announced here and now that a barrage across the Severn should or should not be built. I am sure subsequent speakers will appreciate the distinction between a wide-ranging Motion and an Unstarred Question. In the present state of knowledge, I believe that no final decision could reasonably be expected tonight, although I gather that one or two members of the Bondi Committee were prepared to recommend that we should go ahead forthwith. But important questions remain to be answered before one could, I think, proceed with well sustained confidence.

We are, however, very much concerned that the main recommendation should he followed through without delay. The Committee, set up at a time when Sir Herman Bondi was himself chief scientist at the Department of Energy, and subsequently reported to that department, last year, was a powerful one, and included members of standing who I am sure must commend general respect. They unanimously confirmed that, following their own studies, enough is now known about the feasibility of constructing and using a barrage to augment our national energy supply, from a location which they chose after much consideration, to justify this further major investigation which they propose should now be undertaken. So we are looking tonight at the relatively narrow but vital question: Ought we now to pick up the threads where the Bondi Committee have left them in what, after all, I am sure they would agree, is really no more than an interim report on something which potentially is one of our major renewable sources of energy?

We must ask ourselves: Have the committee made out their case? I could expatiate on many of the details but I shall leave such appraisal primarily to the distinguished scientists who are to follow me. who can judge with far greater authority than I could the justification for the committee's request. Besides, I must confess that I have perhaps some subjective bias coming as I do from an area which feels that it needs the barrage and what it stands for very badly.

We should also ask ourselves: Are there any sound arguments for postponement or delay?— because the proposed programme is a major one and relatively expensive. As we all know—and as, if I may say so, the noble Lord. Lord Swann, put so persuasively and elegantly in his speech in the immediately preceding debate—the endemic failing of government is taking the short-term view, of having little care for any morrow beyond the next general election, or, at best the one after that. For example, one has only to look at the profligate use of our nonrenewable reserves of North Sea oil as a fiscal or financial eiderdown under which we can snuggle for a little very short-term comfort, to realise that principle. In parenthesis, it can perhaps respectably be argued that even this short-term fiscal comfort is illusory, on account of its damaging effect on our industrial structure, as the Dutch seem to have discovered in their handling of their own bonus of natural gas.

It is easy to use the well-worn excuses for postponement—that the time is not ripe that it is too soon to judge what conditions will be like in 2010 and so on. We can all roll out the phrases. However, in this instance those who use them are in effect saying that our salvation lies in nuclear power and that, in any case, we can fall back on coal, so why go to the trouble and expense of adding to the scenario? I think that is a fair summary of that attitude of mind.

But I am sure that there are many lay people like myself who are deeply concerned about our responsibility for the use of non-renewable materials, in particular fossil fuels. One does not have to be a scientific genius to suppose that future generations are likely to need coal for uses other than for burning in power stations. If we persist in burning more than we really need, it will not be there for those who follow us and their needs might just conceivably be greater even than our own. Simply to say, as did the European heads of government at their Venice Summit, that we should aim to double—and I repeat "double "—western European coal production by 1990 is, indeed, a recipe to tide us over our short-term undue dependence on oil; but it does nothing to safeguard future chemical feedstock or to take account of the time when we may need to obtain oil itself from coal.

The present Minister for Energy, Mr. Nigel Lawson, in a debate in the other place as recently as 1st February and last December, when he gave evidence before a sub-committee of your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Communities, stressed the need for diversification and flexibility in our energy supply programmes. He conceded the difficulty of forecasting future needs—after the incredible extrapolations of the past we hardly need to be told that—but concluded, and I quote, that: even in the most pessimistic of the alternative projections there will be in the United Kingdom a substantial growing need for new generating capacity through the 1990s and into the next century ".—(Official Report, Commons, 1/2,82; col. 26.)

So where does a possible Severn Barrage fit into this picture? In particular, what are the arguments for proceeding now with the major investigations recommended in the Bondi Report, as against either postponing further consideration to some indefinite future or—what might be the most unsatisfactory of all—trying to get by with a window-dressing exercise of inadequate selective action? On the latter point, if the Bondi Committee was emphatic on anything it was on the interdependence of the knowledge needed in this complex web of circumstances. One can no doubt trim a bit here and there from the schedules in the two volumes of the Bondi Report, some of which have been further studied and refined, for example, by the Natural Environment Research Council and the Nature Conservancy Council and I have no doubt that similar comments have been made on the engineering side, although with that I am less familiar.

It is true perhaps that some of the costing looks a bit impressionistic and will need review, but basically the package is a whole and must be regarded as such. Neither the environmental nor the engineering side can stand without support from the other and together they need a correlated timetable, plus very necessary and important additions from the economic and social research side which is also designated as being necessary. To my mind there is no half way solution: either one goes ahead substantially with the programme as proposed or one says, "We wash our hands of the whole thing for another generation".

I have heard one or two noble Lords remark that the Severn Barrage is a rather expensive piece of pie in the sky, that it has already been officially investigated twice in the past 50 years or so, and that in any case nothing has so far come of the comparable investigations undertaken in, for example, the Wash, Morecambe Bay and the estuary of the River Dee. But I think that most of us would agree that these facile comments have only to be heard to be rejected by any well-informed person.

I am sure it must be accepted that one cannot properly evaluate the full true cost of the proposed scheme without more thorough investigations as indicated in the report. Secondly, recent technological progress and experience, particularly through offshore engineering construction, has so radically altered earlier projections of feasibility as to make them, I would suppose, practically valueless. In any case, I do not think that anyone has fully contemplated a location as far down the estuary as is now proposed which, of course, involves engineering works of a size and complexity much greater than if one had chosen a location further upstream. In any case, the Severn Estuary differs remarkably in character from the other situations mentioned. Therefore, as I have said, the pretty facile comment which I have heard from quarters from which I would hardly have expected it, is not one which can be sustained.

If we look beyond our own shores across the other Channel towards France, at La Rance on the estuary between Dinard and St. Malo we there see the only tidal power station in the world of anything approaching a comparable size, and looking at that we can understand, I think, how galling it must be to our own professional engineers to find their French counterparts benefitting as much as I beileve they do from the strength of being able to point to their own actual operational experience of a tidal generating plant in existence. Their British colleagues must know that they themselves would be capable of harnessing the far greater tidal flow of the Severn—one of the strongest in the world—with a potential, I am told, of up to as much, possibly, as 50 times greater than that of La Rance.

Apart possibly from the Bay of Fundy in Canada, the Severn, with its physical characteristics plus its proximity to heavy demand areas—which is very significant—is probably the most favourable site for tidal generation now under serious review. I am advised that a number of sites in Alaska, Australia, Latin America and the Far East are likely to be explored and possibly exploited in the coming decades. So can we not, in addition to our own domestic requirements, for once get in on the ground floor in this situation and, if we may, without disrespect, regard La Rance as perhaps a semi-basement? There are long lead times in these matters and it is surely foolish to procrastinate if we want to maximise the skills of our design and construction teams.

Finally, if we examine our own probable energy timetable, to make good progress now with these essential investigations would, I submit, make good sense. Even if a decision actually to construct a barrage is taken very closely following on a satisfactory outcome of the proposed investigations, it will be well into the mid-1990s before any fresh power supply from the barrage becomes available. But from then into the first half of the next century is surely just the time when additional alternative supplies would be most valuable.

The construction of the barrage is, in principle, well within our experience. This is very important, to my mind. It is not subject to the kind of speculation which affects the technology of fusion or the more widespread use of geothermal power, which I gather is now considered to be more readily accessible than was at first supposed. It is not even burdened with some of the potential disadvantages of the use on a large scale of more conventional alternative energy resources, such as wave or wind power.

Given that in this period there will be a sizeable increase in the proportion of energy derived from nuclear sources—and I am not here tonight to argue the pros and cons of that—no one now expects quite such rapid progress in the nuclear programme as at one time seemed likely. Hence, the Minister stressed the proposed reliance in the interim on coal. But, if we are agreed that oil and natural gas should be conserved, that coal resources should not be heedlessly dissipated, surely this would seem to be just the right period, before as yet untried alternative sources may become available, to seek to bring into use a possible renewable resource, wholly under our own control and, once constructed, relatively speaking, very inexpensive to run.

But if we accept this argument, we must pick up the Bondi Report threads forthwith. The all-important sedimentation study—probably the most crucial of of them all—together with other essential ecological, physical and chemical studies will inevitably take time, and by that we mean years not months. Too long a pause now would halt momentum, add to the time-scale and make us less well poised for optimal development.

There are many aspects, not least the needs of my native South Wales, on which other noble Lords will elaborate. But I think that there may be one argument which would appeal to the Government in addition to those which I have attempted to advance, and I presume to offer it to the Minister as a piece of political advice—free, gratis and for nothing. A Government who have shown themselves to be truly in earnest in their desire to use renewable energy resources wherever possible, and have convincingly demonstrated their conviction, could find their path smoother when defending more controversial propositions. So I look forward very much to the contributions to this brief debate from those, as I have said, far more authoritative than I. At the end I hope that we shall receive a far-sighted and statesmanlike response from the Minister.

7.4 p.m.

Lord Hooson

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House is grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady White, for introducing this subject by way of an Unstarred Question. It is most timely and I very much agree with what she has said here today. I must confess immediately that I regret that the decision to build a Severn Barrage was not taken many years ago, because it seems to me that the decision has eventually to be taken on political and economic grounds.

The value of the Bondi Committee Report is that it has unanimously said that the scheme is technically feasible, and that is a valuable contribution. But I think that the difference between our age and the Victorian age, for example, is that in the Victorian age, which was a very creative age, people tended to get things done and to take decisions. As the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, is to follow me in this debate, perhaps I could point out that the Britannia tubular bridge, which is on a much smaller scale, spanning the Menai Straits was built to take the railway across, and it is very significant that in our age, a century later, we have been able to add to it another dimension. Now, reinforced, it also carries a road over the Menai Straits. But the great thing about the Victorians is that they did not prevaricate as much as we do. They tended, if it was technically feasible, to get on with things.

I am bound to say that over many years when I attended political meetings in my party we always found enthusiasts for the Severn Barrage, whether they came from one side of the Severn estuary or the other, and for many years members of my party pressed for feasibility studies of this barrage. I appreciate the point made by the noble Baroness that here we are concerned with the narrow question, will the Government implement the recommendations of the Bondi Report? A great deal of work has already been done; papers have been published by Dr. T. L. Shaw of Bristol University and all his associates. There are the very detailed findings of the Bondi Report, particularly the technical findings in Volume 2, which I am incapable of appreciating. But there are certain significant findings. For example, paragraph 7 of the Summary of Finding says: The economic prospect for tidal power has improved significantly compared with the view held at the beginning of this study and described in Energy Papers 23 and 27. It is now believed that about 40% more energy might be obtained from an Inner Barrage than had previously been estimated, for the same capital outlay. Also, the first electricity might be generated within 9 years of the start of construction, rather than 16 years ". It is a significant factor that in fewer than four years the anticipated production of electricity had gone up by 40 per cent. in that period of study alone.

It seems to me that the great attraction of the Severn Barrage scheme is that it not only provides a renewable source of energy, but of course it diversifies the supply of energy. If this county's prosperity in the past depended on anything, it depended on access to relatively cheap energy. Of course, it was founded on coal, and we are in the lucky position to have very considerable reserves of coal in this country. We temporarily have the benefit of North Sea oil as well. But in the longer term, when one does not know, for example, how accessible uranium will be, or how difficult will be the political and other problems associated with nuclear plant, it seems to me that there is an overwhelming argument for having a diversification of supply. Surely the potential of the rising and falling tide to provide energy must be enormous. We should be in the vanguard of development.

There is one other factor which I think should be taken into account in considering the recommendations of the Bondi Committee. Clearly, if the Government intend—as I think they should—to implement the recommendations of the Bondi Committee, because of the capital expenditure involved in further investigation it will really be a tremendous commitment to the idea of developing a Severn Barrage. But there is also another factor to be taken into account in considering the large capital expenditure which is both involved in further study and, indeed, in the implementation of the scheme. That is, that the capital expenditure, once it is incurred, means that thereafter the running costs of the scheme are relatively small.

Additionally, the Government should remember that they are dealing with an area where there is a great deal of unemployment, and that development of this kind of scheme—the preliminary work and the major work that would follow it—would create such economic activity in the area that the capital cost must also be balanced against what it would cost the country not to do anything here. They should remember the cost in unemployment benefits; what is entailed in a rundown of the economic activity on both sides of the Bristol Channel. If that was quantified, then it would take up a substantial proportion of the capital cost that is envisaged for this development. On behalf of my party, I warmly support the views advanced today by the noble Baroness, Lady White.

7.11 p.m.

Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos

My Lords, the House is indebted to my noble friend Lady White for initiating this debate on a most important, interesting and indeed fascinating subject, and for the thoughtful speech with which she opened it. My noble friend's advocacy of conservation interests, especially in Wales, is well known. As chairman of the Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales she has worked constructively over many years to protect the Welsh countryside, its fauna and flora, and what she says about the Severn Barrage proposals must be considered with respect.

My noble friend and I worked together in the Welsh Office some 15 years ago, shortly after it was first founded. I recall that there was talk of a Severn Barrage then. But, as we know, such a scheme had been discussed many times over the years. I should like to join my noble friend and others who will wish to congratulate Sir Hermann Bondi and his colleagues on the Severn Barrage Committee for all their work, and especially for this excellent report. They have reduced a most complicated subject, with all its attendant technical and scientific problems, into a readable document, most of which a layman can understand. I refer of course to Volume I and not Volume II.

The decision whether or not to proceed now or at some future time with such a vast undertaking is for the Government. But we can now pose some questions and perhaps receive some preliminary views from the Government, who have had a few months to consider the report. The noble Earl the Minister will not, I hope, say to the House that they wish for more time to consider this, that and the other. I hope he is in a position to make a fairly clear statement to us this evening.

The arguments for the scheme are summarised in Paragraph 1 of the introduction. ft is interesting to have it confirmed, as my noble friend has reminded us, that the Severn estuary is one of the world's best sites for tidal power. If we are to embark upon such a scheme, here is the ideal place for it. Because the period of cheap energy is ended; because experts believe that energy may prove to be a constraint in the future, the arguments about the relative merits of nuclear power, coal and oil, and the concepts of other forms of power such as tidal power are becoming more relevant and urgent each year that goes by.

As my noble friend reminded us, there was an interesting debate in another place on nuclear power on 1st February. This highlighted some of this growing concern. There will obviously be a continuing debate between the relative merits of PWR and AGR and the safety aspect of nuclear power: nuclear power, we have to recognise, is the cheapest method of production and must continue to make a significant contribution. But there is a clear need for a longterm energy policy, with the parts which the various sources of energy are expected to play made reasonably clear to the British public. Because Britain is rich in coal, this resource will play the major part for at least 25 years or more; but we also have oil and gas, although they are finite, and we should, if we can manage our affairs efficiently, become a very prosperous country once again.

The report gives the scenarios for 2030 and these are relevant and extremely interesting. But, because we cannot rely totally on coal and because fossil fuels are finite, we must, as other countries are doing, look at alternative sources of energy. We cannot and should not opt out of the development of alternative sources. It is encouraging to know that a good deal of research is going on in this country at present. For example, people—and this includes the CEGB—are studying windpower. I believe that the windmill of the future which produces electricity is called an aerogenerator. Anglesey, where I live, was once an island of windmills, and it may be so again. I am informed that the first megawatt aerogenerator system is being planned for Burga Hill in the Orkneys, and it is hoped to be fully operational in 1984. These are great and exciting developments.

Solar power has its part to play. But in this debate we are concerned with water power. Wave power has been studied for years, and here again a lot of serious research is being carried out. It would be interesting to know from the Minister when he replies what the views of the Department of Energy are on the different systems—the so-called oscillating water column, and so on. But the tidal source of energy is perhaps the most significant, and the huge civil engineering project which comprises the Severn Barrage scheme is now on the Minister's desk.

The Government must decide whether they will take some positive action about it or shelve it indefinitely. There are of course profound implications, financial, planning, social and environmental. They have been referred to by my noble friend Lady White and by my noble friend Lord Hooson. The planners for example, will have to consider the question of locks for shipping; the difficulties of long-term construction under difficult variable tidal conditions, and the enormous water pressures that will be built up.

The cost of the barrage is discussed on page 27 of the report, and I am sure that noble Lords will have studied this carefully. It is formidable, running to several billion pounds. No Government under present economic conditions would contemplate a commitment of this size immediately and without the most careful preparation. Sir Hermann Bondi's committee sensibly recognise this, and say so in the report. In considering cost, however, it is necessary to take the capital cost and the subsequent operating cost of the Severn Barrage scheme together with the volume of output and its reliability over a period of time, and then compare all of these with the cost and comparable life and performance of, say, the Dungeness 'B' nuclear power station. That is the way to do it. I hope that the noble Earl will, if he can, give us some estimate of the relative cost of this scheme and its estimated operating cost compared with the capital cost of the Dungeness ' B ' nuclear power station and the operating costs there, and then the House will have some idea about the real feasibility of this proposal.

The report says: The barrage is assumed to have a nominal working life of 120 years (although in practice it could be much longer)… The annual cost of normal operation and maintenance is estimated to be at most 1% of the capital cost of plant and equipment and 0.75% of the cost of the structure ". That is to be seen in paragraph 88 at page 29. Once built, it will secure over a century of low operating costs.

It is also important to note that the report concludes in paragraph 105 at page 31: the principal effect of building a barrage would be to save fuel in thermal power stations rather than to reduce the need to construct other power stations". But the advantage is summarised on page 3, where it states: The major benefit of any of the leading tidal power schemes would be to reduce by 5-8 million tons of coal equivalent per annum the amount of fuel burnt in other power stations ". I am bound to confess that I found the discussion and arguments about comparative costs somewhat difficult. There are so many imponderables. Like my noble friend, I am glad that there are so many able scientists and engineers in the House who can explain these matters to us. One need only read paragraphs 9 and 10 on page 4 to appreciate the difficulty of the judgments that have to be made. The price of oil and gas, and the proportion of nuclear plant in the generating system, have a bearing on the value of tidal power. The judgments the Government will have to make are not easy ones. Furthermore, the impact of the scheme on people and the environment is crucial, although the committee concluded that the changes were in their view not such as to preclude further consideration of a barrage scheme.

In that context, of course the views of those who would be most closely affected must be taken carefully into account. South Wales and South Glamorgan would be vitally affected. I regret that my noble friend Lord Brooks of Tremorfa is not able to be here for this debate; he has explained that he has another very important engagement in the House. He is, as my noble friend said, Chairman of South Glamorgan County Council and he has informed me that at a Severn Barrage seminar held at the South Glamorgan county headquarters on 26th January, more than 90 representatives of various organisations attended. They expressed their interest in the project and their thoughts on its implications for Cardiff and South Wales. The Director of Environment and Planning for South Glamorgan County Council said: We shall be using a source of energy that is enternally renewable. As the demand for energy increases, it is a moral and probably an economic imperative to use renewable sources … It is better for projects with a long life to invest in capital intensive schemes with low subsequent running costs than vice-versa. This is because inflation quickly erodes the loan burden over time". He went on: If one is to invest in a massive engineering project, then it is best to choose a known-technology scheme rather than one that is still being tested". If we cannot make judgments on detail, we can at least reach some general conclusions. We know that coal, oil, gas and nuclear power will play the major role in the production of energy, although we also appreciate that, as the years pass, oil and gas are likely to be in short supply and expensive. We do not know what percentage of our electricity will be produced by coal and how much by nuclear power. This is the kind of long-term policy which Ministers are under an obligation to explain to Parliament and the people of this country. The debate in another place showed that some very difficult decisions are to be taken, and Case 3 on page 86 of the report underlines that.

I now come to a personal view which I know will be shared by many noble Lords—namely, that it would be a great mistake for this or any other Government to neglect to invest money in research and work on alternative sources of energy, and the report has reinforced that belief. The committee discuss three possible future programmes on page 83 and conclude that the 15-year programme for the inner barrage is the most reasonable. That would involve a 4-year acceptability and preliminary design study, and let it be noted that the costs of it should not deter the Government; about £20 million. South Glamorgan County Council recommends that option. I believe it to be a necessary step, and it is an exciting prospect as well. However, it does not commit the Government at this stage to the adoption of the scheme. It would, in my submission, be pusillanimous to do less than that and I hope the Minister will be able to tell us this evening that the Government have decided upon this course.

This is a great engineering challenge and, goodness knows! something on this scale is needed to touch our imagination in Britain today. As my noble friend Lord Hooson said, a great and urgent decision is now called for. I hope the Government will match up to it.

7.25 p.m.

Lord Flowers

My Lords, there was a time when Sir Hermann Bondi used to say with considerable relish, not to say exaggeration, that in Whitehall there were two kinds of committee, those of which he was chairman and I was the most awkward member and those to which the converse applied. Certainly we had a lot of fun, which is why I feel a bit deprived for not having played my customary role in Sir Hermann's superb study of the proposed Severn Barrage; it is not the same at all trying to snipe at it afterwards!

Since Sir Hermann and I always ended up in agreement on essentials, a tradition I should like to continue, I wish to say at the outset that I have studied the report with some care, that on particular aspects I have consulted a number of people much more expert than myself and that I have come to the firm conclusion that the principal recommendation is correct; namely, that for the reasons stated in paragraph 15, there should now be an acceptability and preliminary design study starting as soon as possible. In doing so, I wish from this Bench to thank the noble Baroness, Lady White, for having initiated a debate on Sir Hermann's report which, if I may say so, is a model of economic and environmental project assessment.

The Severn Barrage is novel, mainly because of its scale. As the noble Baroness said, it is conservative in concept and uses conventional engineering skills, conventional components and conventional materials. The inner barrage will take about 12 years to build but will thereafter provide the equivalent in annual energy output of a 2½Gw base-load power station. The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, reminded us that it will produce that amount of energy at a very low running cost for 100 years or more, saving us between 5 and 8 million tonnes of coal per annum. The Severn Estuary is an exceptional site for the purpose, there being few comparable sites anywhere else in the world, it has the highest tidal range in Europe, a suitable geometry and is close to demand centres. Technologically it seems a very safe bet indeed.

Moreover, the scheme would employ a lot of labour, with a bit of retraining, in a region of chronic unemployment, and I suspect that the Bondi Committee have under-estimated the amount of employment the scheme would in fact generate. The figures they present lead to the conclusion that the average capital spent per man year during construction of the inner barrage is nearly £50,000. That seems very high compared, for example, with the corresponding figure—I believe it is about £ 15,000 per man year—for the construction of a nuclear power station, or £10,000 to £15,000 for manufacturing industry in general. I do not know why the committee were content with such a high capital cost per man year during construction and I should be grateful if the Minister could shed any light on the problem, although I apologise for not warning him that I would raise this point.

It seems hard to believe that they under-estimated the numbers employed, or to be employed, by a factor of three or more. Perhaps the figures I have given are not strictly comparable, but since their economic case rests primarily on a comparison with nuclear power, it would at least be appropriate if in future the employment estimates were treated similarly. It may he that the committee have neglected employment generated in the electrical engineering industry off-site. It may be that they have neglected employment generated in the steel industry. They may also have assumed that it would be necessary to go abroad for many, or even most, of the turbines. Certainly the prospect of building them all in this country is fairly daunting, representing an annual production large, I believe, even by world requirements. It would be worth a try though, and it is not impossible that the aero-engine manufacturers might be able to help with design; they are very clever people. I must not give the impression that I know anything about turbine design and manufacture, but the report makes clear that there are types other than the bulb-type to which they pay most attention. Some of these, I believe, will be undergoing large-scale tests in hydroelectric applications over the next few years. At any rate there still seems some room for design work and for assessment here. It seems entirely possible that new companies might emerge to develop and build the very large numbers of turbines required for the barrage project. I hope that no reduction in employment opportunities will be sought in that area without very careful examination of our own capabilities.

In the construction of the barrage embankment some 150 million tons of fill will be required—rock, sand or mine waste. The report is rather vague about where this will come from and about its cost. If overland transport costs are to he avoided or minimised, one might consider quarrying nearby. Since there is a limit of about 7 million tonnes to the allowed annual output of a hard rock quarry, one would need several large quarries to supply the required rock over the period of embankment construction. Anywhere in the Avon or in South Wales I should imagine that such quarries would be strongly opposed. No doubt dredged material would be used for in-fill to lessen demand for hard rock. Even so it is doubtful whether overland transport costs can be avoided. If they cannot, it would be worth thinking in terms of mine-stone and colliery waste. I do not seriously propose that existing tips in South Wales, or even in Yorkshire, should be dismantled and sent by rail to the site. That might cause more environmental upheaval than would be worth while, although come to think of it, that is exactly what is being done in reclamation of some of the South Wales valleys.

But it is surely worth bearing in mind that the annual production of new colliery waste by the National Coal Board is about 50 million tons, from over 200 collieries, and that spoil disposal is one of the worst problems facing the coal industry. If colliery waste only were used for in-fill, it would take about three years' annual production. Spread over many more years, as of course it would be, it would still take a significant fraction of the annual production—that which could perhaps be most readily handled by rail and which was the most difficult or expensive to dispose of locally. There might be special cases where it might prove economic. Since the National Coal Board in any case has to pay for spoil disposal, it would be reasonable that it should continue to contribute something to the cost of transport.

About 1½ million tons annually is tipped by barge into inshore waters off the North-East coast—a thoroughly dubious practice. At least this small contribution, one might think, could readily be made available by sea transport to the barrage site. It should not be too difficult to add to that the 3½ million tons dumped annually on the Durham beaches—an even worse practice. I hope that in the future study very close attention will be paid to the possibilities of using mine waste for embankment construction, perhaps in the form of cement-stabilised minestone. The mining executive of the National Coal Board is already experimenting with the use of minestone in sea water in connection with the Dutch coastal delta scheme.

The report rightly devotes much attention to the likely environmental consequences of the barrage. Even so, I do not believe that the committee would claim that is has done more than spell out most of the relevant questions. It can say in general terms that overall the effect of the barrage is likely to be beneficial because of the reduction in mechanical energy at present dissipated in the estuary. There can still be points of potential damage, however, especially when the estuary is the natural habitat of so many rare species of birds and fish.

One major threat receives but scant mention. This is to Brean Down itself, which sustains some plant communities unique in Britain. I know about it because it is where our biology students at Imperial College are taken for their second-year field course. The report says that damage to Brean Down could be avoided by the landfall access being by tunnel. No information is provided about what would happen at the landward end of the tunnel, where it would be, or how construction work could be carried out at the seaward end of the down without causing considerable environmental damage. Clearly there is room for more work on this point during the acceptability phase of the proposed study.

Some attention is rightly devoted to the possible accumulation of heavy metals in sediments above the barrage, and the chronic poisoning of fish and bird life that that might give rise to. In brackish water the heavy metals form stable complexes with organic matter in the sediments, but these complexes may break down when the sediments meet sea water, so liberating heavy metals in solution. If that is so, any massive sea-water incursion above the barrage, resulting from a very high tide combined with a south-west storm, for example, would lead to a sudden flow of heavy metals into solution, which might turn chronic poisoning into acute poisoning. It is not clear that the barrage has been conceived so as to prevent such an occurrence.

The report includes deep-water locks, at considerable cost, to enable ships to continue to proceed up-channel to the ports at Cardiff, Newport and Bristol. I should have liked to see some discussion of whether it is really necessary to continue these ports into the next century, together with a lock; or whether instead it would be better to build a new deep-sea port in place of the lock. I have heard it said that the cost of such a port would be less than the cost of a lock, and that it would provide an unequalled opportunity to initiate the development of a port fully capable of meeting the needs of the next century. I can, of course, imagine that there would be the strongest objections from the present ports and from the cities which own them. Nevertheless, I would hope that the possibility would not be neglected. I am sure that the removal of dock facilities to further down the Thames estuary has been of benefit not only to shipping and to commerce, but to the conurbation of London also.

Those are a number of comments, randomly produced and perhaps in some cases insufficiently thought out. I make them not at all to criticise the report but, in the spirit of Sir Hermann's most awkward member of times past, to emphasise that there may be good reasons for asking the Government to agree to the acceptability and preliminary design study over and above those given by the committee itself. I will not attempt to go into the details of the economic analysis. The committee seems to me to have followed a careful and reasonably conservative path in making its comparisons of the benefits of the proposed barrage against the benefits of spending the same amount of money on nuclear power over about the same time interval, choosing the optimum mix of plant in both cases.

On the straight comparison nuclear power wins every time, but not by so large a margin in a low-nuclear scenario. That scenario is likely to continue to be the reality only if nuclear power turns out to be considerably more expensive than at present predicted, or if—and it might amount to the same thing in the end—there was even greater opposition to nuclear power than there is at present on the grounds of safety. The report argues that the barrage should therefore be seen as an insurance policy, and it is of course in such eventualities that an insurance policy would be needed. Of course, if the price of coal were to rise substantially—and this depends upon wage demands perhaps even more than technology —the barrage would again be of greater economic benefit.

If I read the report aright, it is saying something like this. If in the middle of the next century energy turns out to be cheaper than we now think it may be, building the barrage will be seen to have been a minor error in our investment policy half a century before; but should energy turn out to be expensive, our progeny will be extremely grateful that we had the vision to have provided them with this relentless and reliable source of natural power.

Of course, the cynic can always ask: What has the future ever done for me? Let me plead, instead, on the grounds of flexibility, as the noble Baroness has already done. Until at least the end of this century we find ourselves in the "coconuke "straitjacket of coal, conservation and nuclear. Around the year 2000 other possibilities can, if we meanwhile invest in them consistently and generously, begin to make their contributions. None of them seems likely to be very cheap, nor very extensive. Every one has technological problems and environmental implications. Perhaps windpower will begin to contribute something locally useful before the year 2000, and the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, has referred to this. But there are immense problems in developing it to provide the equivalent of a few gigawatts of coal or nuclear stations.

At the present time, and in comparison, the Severn Barrage seems altogether a safer bet, the first significant step the United Kingdom can take to loosen the grip of "coconuke" and give us a measure of much needed flexibility. The committee do not demand a decision now, only that studies should continue and should become more purposive. There is indeed a great deal of preparative work still to do. I hope the Government will allow it to continue.

7.42 p.m.

Earl Waldegrave

My Lords, it is perhaps appropriate that I should make a small contribution to this debate as one who lives on the English side of the Bristol Channel, and, indeed, not far from the coast. I am not a scientist, I am not an engineer and I am not by any stretch of the imagination an economist; so I shall speak on the assumption that the work which has been done by the committee and as set out in the report has established beyond reasonable doubt, firstly, that a barrage for generating a significant proportion of the electricity demand of England and Wales is technically feasible; secondly, that what is described as the inner barrage—that is, one running from Brean Down, just below Weston-Super-Mare, on the English side, to Lavernock Point, just below Cardiff and above Barry in Wales—is the most economically viable and could generate 6 per cent. of the present electricity demand for the whole of England and Wales; and, thirdly, that though the cost of this inner barrage scheme is estimated at £5,660 million, with running costs of some £35 million per annum, this can be shown to be economic in the sense that it would show a rate of return greater than the 5 per cent. currently required by the Treasury for investment in the public sector.

But, my Lords, £5½ billion is a massive financial undertaking by any standards, and no Government can be asked to undertake such a programme unless and until a great deal more is known about various aspects of this project than is known at present. Indeed, this is the view of Sir Hermann Bondi's report, which states that much further study is required on certain aspects, as we have been told this evening by all the speakers, particularly on the environmental impacts, before any Government could responsibly come to a decision. The report therefore recommends that, … An acceptability and Preliminary Design Study should be undertaken forthwith ". This work will cost at least £20 million and take perhaps four years to complete. That is 0.5 per cent. of the cost of the barrage.

It seems to me that probably the only valid reason why this undertaking should not be taken to its second stage now is the view which is held that as fossil fuels run out or become intolerably expensive all the generating need can be met by nuclear power. But while not denying for a moment that nuclear power is, at present supply and cost levels, more economic than tidal power, can we really be quite certain that an indefinite proliferation of nuclear generating stations will always be acceptable? That is even if nuclear fuel forces can be relied upon to an unlimited extent. Looking ahead, there will almost certainly be a need for tidal power, and the case is a strong one for being in a position to utilise it when that need arises, which may not be as far off as is often thought.

There are only two small tidal barrages in existence in the world as yet, one in Russia and one in France, of which the noble Baroness told us; but if ever tidal power comes to be generally acceptable the Severn estuary, with its enormous tide ranges, must rate as one of the most suitable sites in the world. Now what are these environmental impacts that are not fully understood and which therefore call for this further study? They cover a very wide range, and are very fully set out in the report. In fact, they constitute roughly half of the whole report. They include the impact on water levels and flow patterns; the intensely complex subject of sedimentation, of silt—the most crucial of all, I think the noble Baroness, Lady White, said—and the impacts on ports and shipping. We have heard of some rather violent impacts that they might have on certain ports from the noble Lord, Lord Flowers. They include the impacts on industry, recreation amenity and tourisms, sea defences, land drainage, agriculture and, very important, pollution and water quality. Then, last but not least, there is the whole range of subjects one could group under the heading "impacts on the ecosystem and nature conservation in general ", which, in the Severn estuary, includes such nationally important and sensitive subjects as salmon and other migrating fish, and wild fowl. The Usk, the Wye and the Severn itself are salmon rivers, and there is the world-famous Wildfowl Trust, I would remind your Lordships, at Slimbridge, which is on the estuary.

I have consulted the Bristol City Council, which is the port authority for Bristol and actually owns the Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Docks. I have also been in touch with the Woodspring District Council, which covers the English side of the estuary along what used to be the North Somerset shore but is now the Avon County shore. This includes Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon and Portishead, which would all be upstream of a proposed inner barrage. Both these councils are quite clear that further research and investigation is necessary, and hope that it will be undertaken.

Both these councils, I should say, recognise the potential of the controlled water space beind the barrage as being of very significant importance to the development of recreational facilities in the area, which, in turn, could stimulate the creation of a much larger small boat industry. But Bristol, as a port authority, is concerned about the effect of a barrage on shipping and on shipping channels, and whether there would be any limitation on the size of vessels. They point out how serious it would be if it was found that estuarial dredging, which has not been necessary in the past, would have to be undertaken above the barrage in the future. They would consider it, I am sure, a very alarming proposition that the whole port of Bristol might be shut down and a new port built below the barrage; and so might Cardiff.

One very important factor which might make ports above the barrage totally uncompetitive and lead to a drastic decline in the number of ships using the river is the matter of charges for locking. The noble Lord, Lord Flowers, has mentioned the cost of the locks. It is stated in the report that the annual locking charges might be in the neighbourhood of £5 million or £6 million, and that these have been taken into account in the annual running costs of £35 million of the inner barrage scheme. But it is not quite clear whether some or all of these charges might not fall upon the ships using the locks.

The other district council, Woodspring, has corm- mented that if the barrage is built out from Brean Down then, apart from the nature conservation aspect, which has already been touched on this evening, there would be a very significant effect on the holiday town of Weston-super-Mare during and, indeed, after the building. Though we understand that most of the work would probably be done from the Welsh side, Weston-super-Mare has in mind the drastic effects that the oil rigs have had on Aberdeen.

Here again that council are fully aware of the advantages that could ultimately accrue to recreation and tourism but are not clear, as the report is written, as to how much additional costs would have to be borne locally and set off against an enhanced recreational revenue. Much of the land in-shore on this part of the estuary is low-lying and drains out at present to sea through ditches which end in tidal flaps. This is an economical and efficient method, but the new higher tidal levels would probably necessitate pumping. Possibly the greatest worry for authorities on the estuary above the barrage would be pollution. If, because of the reduced tides, all sewage and all industrial effluent had to be treated, and often pumped, before it could reach the estuary there would be very heavy additional charges to be borne by someone. In fact, I think the report estimates that annual drainage and purification costs might be as much as £25 million a year.

I have already mentioned the problems that would have to be overcome for migratory fish and wild fowl. I would also emphasise that the whole of the Severn Estuary qualifies as a site of international importance as a wintering ground for certain species of wading birds and ducks. There are also important nature conservation problems in the Somerset wetlands.

So, I think there is an overwhelming case for the acceptance of the Bondi Committee's recommendation so clearly set out at paragraph 15 in the summary of their report: The Committee unanimously recommends that a further phase of work should be undertaken forthwith and that this should be concentrated on the Inner Barrage". A job that is worth doing is worth doing properly. If this second stage of the investigation is not undertaken, we shall only have done half a job, so I very much hope that we shall hear from the Minister who is to reply that it is the Government's intention to put this second stage of the work in hand.

7.52 p.m.

Lord Ashby

My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Baroness for introducing the House to this fascinating report. She has confessed that she has conscripted a number of "tame "scientists to support the case. As a ex-scientist, I should like to make a small contribution. I should like to begin with a digression. We have listened this afternoon to a very important debate on science and government and some of the witnesses to the committee dealing with that subject emphasised the need to have some generalist scientists; and the most important skill, perhaps, needed is the capacity to be able to interpret to politicians and to civil servants the complexities of the scientific issues and their relevance.

This report on the Severn Barrage is a masterpiece of that kind of interpretation. I would recommend to your Lordships, even if you have no interest whatever in the Severn Barrage, that you should go to the Printed Paper Office and get a copy of Volume 1 and read it for its sheer literary value as a piece of scientific clarity, almost unequalled in anything I have read recently. After I read the report, I felt that if only in the early days of nuclear power equally lucid statements had been made, we should have been saved an enormous amount of inconvenience and embarrassment.

The report is admirably objective. It does not try to make a case. It states clearly that energy from the barrage would not be cheaper than energy from nuclear fuel and that the main economic benefit, as one noble Lord has said, would be to save between 5 million tonnes and 8 million tonnes of coal from coal-fired power stations. It is significant, as has already been mentioned, that that 5 million to 8 million tonnes is an advance on the 2 million to 4 million which was the view only a few years ago. It shows the value of this preliminary study which has been made.

It is true, as is also admitted in the report, that a barrage would produce only about 6 per cent. of our present energy needs, and only if we had an economy in which a good deal of our energy came from coal would it fulfil the Treasury's criterion of producing 5 per cent. on invested capital. But there are many other considerations apart from the Treasury criteria.

The first one, which reassured me when I read the report, is the view of the committee (which included some very distinguished engineers) that the actual building of the barrage requires only proven techniques; so that there should be no serious and unanticipated technical difficulties. There was one problem: that turbines bigger than those that had been made hitherto, 9-metre turbines, would be needed; but, on inquiry, I have had the assurance that if that turned out to be a technological difficulty, it would be possible to use 7½-metre turbines which are already in use in many places at only a small loss of power. So there seems to be no engineering technical problem in the actual building, although there are other technical problems which I should like to go into later.

Secondly, it would give employment to at least 21,000 people over the period of the building, plus an unspecified number of secondary activities which would be organised, in a part of the world which needs the employment, requiring skills that are not so high as those involved in building some other kinds of power station. But, most important, is the consideration that this would be an insurance and an act of diversification. It only needs an incident like the Three Mile Island incident in the USA, with no casualties whatever, no deaths, no injuries, to threaten the nuclear power programme for many years towards the end of this century. We have to remember that only three or four years ago the Austrian people in a referendum voted against having nuclear power and a station which had been already partly fitted to provide it has had to be partly dismantled. Therefore, it is quite a consideration that there should be some sort of option in case of that sort of emergency.

The matter before your Lordships at present on this report is not whether a barrage should be built, but merely whether further investigation should be made so that it is, so to speak, "on the shelf "ready to be put in operation without a long tortuous inquiry if, between now and the first 10 years of the next century, there were some crisis which made it important to produce even this rather small fraction of our energy in this way. That is why there is this unanimous recommendation to spend some £20 million on an environmental acceptability study and on design plans, and possibly another £25 million on building a prototype part of the barrage.

The question which I think is before your Lordships now is whether this expenditure of £45 million is justified in view of the benefits that might be gained by it. It is not a question that can be answered by quantitative prediction alone, but that can be of some help. In order to get a second opinion, I went to the Energy Research Group in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge under Dr. Richard Eden, and had a long session with his experts after they had themselves read and considered the report. I pass on to your Lordships one or two conclusions that I drew from that meeting.

First, is the question of how much energy will be needed. This is a matter of great controversy but the Energy Research Group has made predictions on three different assumptions: one, that the demands will be very low, within a stagnant economy with no growth and a very low increase in gross domestic product; secondly, a medium assumption; and lastly a large assumption. The interesting result they obtained is that, even on the lowest assumption—a stagnant economy and very little growth of gross domestic product—there would be by the year 2000 a considerable increase in the demand for electric energy over today's demand.

On the moderate assumption—which anyone with a grain of optimism hopes to entertain—something like one-third more of energy would be required then than is now. These are arguable points. The CEGB estimate is somewhat different, but I think they both lead to this kind of conclusion—that on present planning, knowing that certain power stations will have to be retired, there is expected to be by the year 2000 a shortfall of supply compared with demand, a shortfall that may be as much as 15 gigawatts.

The barrage can only make a very small contribution to this. But it has, as noble Lords have mentioned, a long life, 120 years or so, and the equipment would only have to be renewed once every 40 years or so. So it would have lower running costs. There are two uncertainties, and it is those which the Government are invited to consider. They have to be considered together.

The first is the acceptability of nuclear power as a main source of energy for the end of this century and the early part of the next one, The second is the acceptability of the Severn barrage, environmentally, socially and as a feasible operation when it is put up. We know already that there are serious risks in assuming that nuclear power will be acceptable, and we do not know at all at this stage whether the barrage will be acceptable. That is why the report is asking for this further expenditure.

The art of weighing uncertainties is better learned on the race course than in the Cavendish Laboratory. But one member of Dr. Eden's team, Dr. Chris Hope, calculated for me a very interesting piece of betting. He worked out—one can get this from the second volume of the report—that the net benefit of the barrage would amount to some £600 million. The bet which has to be put before your Lordships is as follows: What are you prepared to spend in order to derive the possibility of the benefit of £600 million? Are you prepared to spend or ask the Government to spend £20 million on the acceptability and design study and possibly another £25 million on the prototype?

Here is Dr. Hope's conclusion. I will read it slowly so that it gets correctly into the record. He says: Even if there is only a 20 per cent. chance that nuclear power would be delayed as unacceptable or too costly, then it would be still worthwhile to go ahead with the study, provided the odds on the barrage being acceptable when the study is being done are a bit over 60 per cent. So the political problem involves betting on these odds. If there is roughly a two-thirds chance that the acceptability study will meet with the approval of the public and will remove therefore the environmental objections that may be made to it and others, then it would be worthwhile to pay for the acceptability study. So that the option is, so to speak, in stock and ready for use.

After this point of course the matter becomes one of subjective judgment. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in its third report concentrated on the pollution in estuaries in Britain, and on that occasion it was possible for those of us who were serving the Royal Commission to learn a great deal about the Severn. My personal opinion—for what little it is worth—based on that experience, is that I would he prepared to bet on the odds that the acceptability would be sufficient to enable Government to go ahead and the people concerned round the estuary to he satisfied.

There is no doubt whatever that the barrage would cause massive environmental changes in landscape and in sedimentation. This is one of the great problems that would have to be tackled in any further study. Also, the movement of fish and bird migration would have to be considered. Although there would certainly be some injury to the environment, there would also very probably be some advantages as well. The salt marshes might go but they would be replaced by rush beds on which other birds could feed. The large, open water in the estuary would provide for 2 million people who live round that area, an amenity which at present they do not have.

There is the serious danger that has already been mentioned that there would be an accumulation of heavy metals in the water which might go into solution and become poisonous. However, it is already the policy of Her Majesty's Government to improve the treatment of sewage, and the removal of heavy metals is not an impossible problem in sewage technology. That is something that ought to be done, anyway. It is not sufficient to allow the pollution to drip into the Severn estuary on the assumption that it will just dilute itself, go away and one need not bother about it. So this will certainly increase the urgency of dealing with sewage properly.

Sir Hermann Bondi's report makes an estimate of the cost of that. It is a guess, but it is probably a pretty good guess judging by the cost that has been incurred regarding some of the American lakes in removing heavy metals from pollution draining into their lakes. Therefore, the bet which has to be put to Her Majesty's Government is to my mind a two-for-one in which there is a two-thirds chance of winning the bet. The bet is to go on with the feasibility study so that if there is a serious need owing to the balance of our coal and nuclear power economy in the year 2000 and beyond it or for other reasons quite unforeseen, that will be a solution which locally and to that area will provide a very precious supply of electric energy. I hope, therefore, that the Government will encourage the work to go forward, realising that it is still only a study to get acceptability and to overcome a great many at present only listed environmental problems.

8.8 p.m.

Lord Swann

My Lords, I, too, like the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and, I suspect, one of two others, am one of Lady White's "conscripts". To be honest, I do not think that she need have bothered with me because others have said almost everything that I would have said and they have said it with much more knowledge and authority. Since the hour is late, I am not going to paraphrase the same things that have been said. There are a handful of points I should like to raise, one of which has been said before but I want to repeat it. The others have not been picked up and are perhaps worth mentioning briefly. This is a remarkably well-written report. I have read a fearful lot of Government reports in my day, and I have been responsible for the production of quite a number. I cannot think of one that is so clear and is so well written. As a result of effortless reading, one knows what it is all about.

I have three points. The noble Lord, Lord Ashby, said that this will be a massive change to the environment—and so indeed it will, at least in terms of square miles. I do not know what it is in square miles, but it looks like 100 or 150 square miles. It is going to be changed. The marine environment is going to be changed; the littoral, the shoreline environment is going to be changed, and I do not doubt that, if and when the time comes, all sorts of pressure groups will be upset by that—some with reason and some perhaps with less reason.

I should like simply to say to the Government that in principle I do not believe they should worry too much. After all, the change to the evnironment that the Severn barrage will make is as nothing to the change to the environment that out forebears have brought about in the last eight or nine hundred years by turning England and, to a lesser extent, Wales and Scotland into agricultural countries. That is a far greater and more massive insult to the environment: yet we now take it for granted that that was an all right thing to do because we needed the food and the result in fact is agreeable and pleasant, though it has certainly altered the flora and fauna, sending up some species and sending others down in a most dramatic way.

I do not therefore think that in principle one should worry too much about a major change in the environment when it meets a genuine human need. Now, does it? There are a couple of points I think I should make here. The scheme is feasible technically. The cost calculation is almost uncannily like most of the other costs—at least of the same order, though one does not know the errors of magnitude. It has been suggested, though, that we can readily—apart perhaps from some objections from environmental or health groups—see a possible future in terms of getting our electricity out of nuclear power. That is not altogether clear, and the report actually does express one or two caveats on that point. Uranium, after all, comes only by and large from some various politically sensitive areas of the world. It is not certain that you could go on getting your uranium. Although of course there are now and no doubt will be more regenerating so-called breeder reactors, they arc not fully proven in the same sort of way and one cannot be quite certain of a future where one is relying solely on them. Therefore I think it is wise that there should be a diversity of forms of energy. It needs rather careful thought about how one does that, because many of the possibilities are still fairly uncertain.

There is the best one of the lot, if it would ever work: nuclear fusion. Whether that will happen in 50 years, a hundred years or never would be difficult to say. It would almost certainly be the best and most nonpolluting form of energy production one could have, if it were ever to work. Some of the others in their different ways are desirable, but difficult or expensive, like geothermal energy. I think therefore there is a positive virtue in trying to have a diversity of methods of doing this simply because there are too many other uncertainties.

You may say: "It is all right because if necessary we will fall back on coal."I find it a worrying society where we are apparently regarding it as all right socially, and all right even morally, to go on using up this rapidly exhausting supply of energy. Actually I find it terrifying—that is almost the word—to see the freedom with which we go on using oil, which, after all, has certain unique uses which would be very difficult or immensely expensive to replace with anything else. Suppose, for instance, our successors were ever forced to synthesise hydrocarbons to put in an aeroplane. You can hardly use most forms of energy in an aeroplane. Therefore, it is extremely worrying that we are apparently regarding it as all right to go on using fossil energy and, as it were, not paying the bill ourselves today, which is what a prudent head of a household would do, but dumping it on our children to pay, when the bills will be incomparably greater than now. Quite apart from the enormous cost, I think there is a certain social obligation to try to get a move on with the other forms of energy. This does look an extremely promising one, and therefore I also hope that the Government will see fit to spend the modest £20 million and look more thoroughly at what at first sight seems to be an extremely promising proposal.

8.15 p.m.

Viscount Hanworth

My Lords, if I am to be certain of reaching home tonight I shall have to leave at nine o'clock and if the debate is not finished by that time I hope the House will excuse me.

The first thing I was going to say was how very cellent the report seems to me. This has already been said twice, but I think it needs emphasising yet again. I believe it is true to say that almost all Peers speaking in previous debates on energy have agreed that there will be an energy gap some time in the not-too-distant future and that it can be met in the short term only by nuclear energy. Whether or not we in the West make energy economies, the world requirement for energy must rise if the developing nations are to develop. It is sensible and wise on safety grounds that the more sophisticated nuclear energy should be relied on in the West, leaving oil as the first and easiest option for the developing countries.

Many people strongly dislike nuclear proliferation, and I agree that it is not an ideal situation; but I am afraid that Pandora's box has been opened. It follows that much of the opposition, for example, to the use of fast reactors is trying—and I mix metaphors—to shut the stable door after the horse has escaped, because in my view the true hazard is not the safety of the reactors nor the disposal of nuclear waste but the acquisition of the nuclear bomb capability by some of the politically less stable nations, who will sooner or later use it for blackmail.

In spite of these views, I nevertheless think that alternative forms of energy are very, very important for the long-term future. I say "for the long-term future "because in my view there is nothing, apart from the Severn tidal barrage, which in Britain could have more than a very marginal impact on our total energy production within the next 30 or 40 years.

Nearly all the potential runners have environmental and other objections. Moreover, apart from coal, they are very much in an early state of evolution. Let us for a moment look in detail at three possible contenders. First, coal: even if we could mine enough out of the ground—and we cannot—there is now the worry about the carbon-dioxide "greenhouse effect "and sulphur contamination, as well as the fear of depleting reserves of coal, which many think will be needed for the chemical industry and quite possibly for producing fuel for cars. Secondly, windmills: straight away you run across the problem of producing energy when it is required, and there is no satisfactory answer to the storage problem. To make any worthwhile impact on the total energy requirement in Britain —say 5 per cent., which is roughly what the barrage will produce—it would need about 1,800 windmills in groups of 25. Each group would cover an area of four by four kilometres, and the total land area involved would be more than 1,000 square kilometres, which is approximately one-half per cent. of the rural land in England and Wales. To build them out to sea would be costly.

Thirdly, wave generators: once again the output is uncertain and storage a major problem. Even ignoring this, the economics and reliability are also very uncertain factors. It is difficult to make valid comparisons, but to produce the same power as the Severn Barrage scheme would use something like 200 miles of coastline.

It is surely obvious that the Severn barrage scheme, which would use techniques already tried and developed, provides the best solution to the alternative energy problem. Although maximum energy production will vary with the height of the tides, it is even possible to arrange for continuous output by means of pumped storage. The economics of the barrage are very promising, even by today's standards, and the one thing which is almost certain is that the cost of energy, in real terms, will continue to rise and, over the time when the barrage might be in use, it will be much more viable economically than we might suppose today.

In conclusion, I would say, first, that I hope that all people who dislike the nuclear solution will give full and undivided support to the barrage. Secondly, even if the Government's support for alternative energy policies is as yet half-hearted, they surely cannot begrudge the £20 million required for further research into environmental considerations, preliminary design studies and further economic evaluation. I realise that the £6 billion which it is estimated the project will cost is daunting, but it is less than the cost of a new Trident nuclear missile deterrent and would be spread over several years. There is no time to lose, bearing in mind that perhaps four years are required for the further study, two years, at least, for the Government to make their decisions and 9 or more years to construct the barrage.

If your Lordships look at the number of energy papers listed in the front of the barrage report—and there are many others—I wonder whether it would he too cynical, or too unkind, to suppose that in the Government's view proliferation of papers provides a "complication "which can be used as a justification for doing very little in the alternative energy field, their absence of action being, of course, usefully backed by the vested interests of the CEGB.

8.22 p.m.

Lord Energlyn

My Lords, we are again indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady White. She has posed a Question to Her Majesty's Government with care and forethought, and has raised an issue which some of us have grappled with for many years. As she has clearly stated, it is time for making decisions. I therefore hope that those of us who support her attitude towards this subject will impress upon Her Majesty's Government the need to listen to her words of wisdom concerning the tidal energy of the Bristol Channel.

But I should like to suggest to your Lordships that we should question seriously the impact and the value of a barrage. What do we really hope to gain from constructing a barrage? If there were no disadvantages this barrage would have been built many decades ago. Additionally, it is claimed that this barrage would provide a highway across the channel. But do we need to have such a highway, when we have recently constructed a fabulous bridge? Moreover, in its daily use the roadway would be interrupted by the opening of lock gates to let the ships through.

As I said earlier, if there were no hazards involved in the construction of a barrage, it would have been built long ago, because there are no serious engineering problems involved, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, pointed out. For decades, feasibility study after feasibility study has been tried to select a line across the channel which will meet all manner of objections. Why have these claims failed to produce a barrage to harness this enormous tidal energy? The answer is straightforward. There is no line which can be drawn across the channel which will not disturb the natural rate and mode of sedimentation created by the River Severn. Wherever you place a barrage, there will be changes in the tidal distribution of sediment.

I know of two examples, of which I would remind your Lordships, where man has outwitted the power of the sea. One is at Portland Harbour and the other is the Great Dam of Holland. Portland Harbour was constructed by a harbour wall, many miles long, along a line parallel to the longshore currents and this did not obstruct the movement of sediment. The result has been a harbour which is almost unique, in which no dredging is required. By contrast, I ask your Lordships to remember the disaster which overtook Fish-guard Harbour. Brunel built the fastest railway line in the world from Fishguard to Paddington Green. A beautiful hotel was built to receive the trans-Atlantic passengers and a harbour wall was projected to receive the liners. In an unbelievably short space of time, the harbour silted up and Brunel's dream was shattered beyond repair.

In the heyday of coal exports, docks were built at Newport, Cardiff, Swansea and elsewhere. For ever afterwards, dredgers have been at work to keep them viable. Build a barrage anywhere in the channel, and the days of Bristol, Newport and Cardiff will be numbered as seaports, as has been pointed out. The barrage itself will have to withstand the waves, and we know only too well in these islands how vulnerable are our attempts to defend our coastline against the incessant movement of the sea, especially when it is dramatised by freak storms. These are, in outline, the hazards which prudent Governments have had to take into account when issuing refusal after refusal to provide the money for what, at first sight, is an obvious source of energy.

But while I, and others, see no sense in the barrage concept, we must, nevertheless, make use of this vast source of tidal energy. Like those who built the harbour wall at Portland, we should endeavour to trap this energy, not with obstructions such as a barrage wall, but in parallel with the pattern of sedimentation. In other words, we should turn our attention to long-shore constructions to envelop this tidal energy.

At this point, I must declare a personal interest. I am personally associated with Hanscomb International. We have been asked to assess concepts for harnessing the vast tidal forces in such places as the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tidal range in the world, and also at Passamaquoddy. These are as obvious sources of tidal energy as the Bristol Channel. A boost was given to these studies by the success which the French have had in harnessing the tidal force in the estuary of the River Rance in Brittany. This is a single basin scheme, but it is unique, in that the turbines are designed to work without interruption on both rising and falling tides. These turbines are now generating about 75,000 horse-power. This illustrates that a single basin can generate electricity without the use of a vast conventional barrage. We then examined the thought processes which led to the well-known Tennessee River Scheme, where, along its stretch of 650 miles, small dams were created step by step, containing turbines for generating cheap electricity. Unfortunately, the volume of water in the Severn is insufficient for such a scheme and this concept was abandoned, but not before we became aware of a facet in planning which is of prime importance. When you have created this energy, to what purpose is it to be directed? Roosevelt must have asked such a question when he gave his engineers the go-ahead for the Tennessee Valley scheme and also for the scheme to construct the Coulee Dam which was to generate electricity and to irrigate the wastelands along the 49th Parallel. At that time he was faced with our problem: how to create something which would be labour intensive and bring about healthy growth of employment.

This has been uppermost in the minds of our team. We have approached the harnessing of tidal energy as a commercial exercise, starting with a definition of objectives. These were to produce tidal energy at the lowest possible capital cost, using as much manpower as possible, and then to use the power to electrify steelworks and petrochemical factories, to desalinate the coastline for agriculture and horticulture and to service small businesses with cheap electricity.

Into this format were injected all the financial and commercial question marks conventionally used for such forms of enterprise. To our satisfaction we have eliminated most of these question marks, and in bare outline this is the picture which has emerged. The primary task is to push the coastline between Cardiff and Newport at least one mile out to sea by copying the Dutch method of land reclamation. Holland was reclaimed from the North Sea by dams made successively out of clay—I repeat, out of clay. They found that the sea will not erode clay. This is why the Great Dam of Holland has never been breached. We now know the scientific reason for this remarkable discovery. Clay is water repellent so that the waves glide over it, leaving it undisturbed.

Plastic bags are equally water repellent. Laboratory tests have shown that when they are filled with any material and properly sealed they will withstand pressures of 2,000 lbs. per square inch and, when dropped into the sea, will remain in place undisturbed. This simple discovery led to designs of plastic containers which would be exceedingly strong and cheap to produce. They would also have to lock with each other to form walls, like brick walls.

This design problem is practically solved. If we are right and our methods are accepted, the production of these containers, in itself, will create a new industry because they will be produced in millions, to be used at home and abroad. When filled with waste materials they will erect a sea wall which will advance, stage by stage, repelling the sea, because they are water repellent, and we shall end up with an area of some 10 square miles of new land between Cardiff and Newport.

The next step will be to create within this reclaimed land tidal channels which will contain turbines, like those in Brittany, to generate electricity on a scale four to five times that which we have at La Rance at the moment. I am talking of the order of 250,000 horsepower. These channels will be made by the systematic removal of containers fitted with specially designed hooks which cranes will pluck out of the ground and which will be reused for the advancing wall of the new, reclaimed land. We would have here, therefore, complete control over the channels which would be completely water repellent. At this stage the site would be ready to let in the sea and to use the tidal flow to drive the turbines. This will in no way affect the sedimentation pattern of the channel, but additionally it will improve the harbour facilities at Newport and Cardiff which are at the moment fighting with dredgers to keep themselves viable.

The next important factor is to find enough material to fill these plastic containers. This material is on our doorstep: the coal tips and the slag tips of South Wales. Here is an opportunity to rid the mining valleys of their menacing coal tips and to save the National Coal Board millions of pounds per annum in maintaining them to prevent them landsliding into the valleys, with a repetition of that horrifying disaster at Aberfan.

Now comes the question of cost. Every coal tip in South Wales contains a very high proportion of coal. It has been proved over the last 10 years that this coal can be removed in a commercial manner. This is being done at the moment. What holds back this production of cheap coal is the disposal of the slurry after the tip has been processed. This slurry is the material we would containerise for making the new, reclaimed land between Cardiff and Newport. There is no problem with transport, because every coal tip in South Wales is in one way or another connected by a railroad to Cardiff or Newport.

It is estimated on reasonable grounds that this simple process of extracting coal from these tips and producing the fill required for reclaiming the land will amount to something of the order of £400 million-worth of coal. We have here, therefore, a vast reduction in the overhead cost of producing this new land from the sea.

One might well ask why this picture has not been presented before. I have vaguely presented this picture before in your Lordships' House—on two or three occasions—but the time was not ripe. However, one's ideas are very often more acceptable abroad than they are at home. These are the thoughts which are in the minds of the Americans when they are considering barrages in the Bay of Fundy and such-like places.

It is difficult to convey in a few words the way in which this containerised material will actually be transported and used for the purposes I have tried to outline. However, when these channels have been created perhaps noble Lords will grasp the picture if they visualise the incoming tide filling a tank, while alongside it another one has emptied itself on the previous tidal flow. Like the La Rance basin there will therefore be a continuous input and output of water, with the enormous power of the driving force of the tidal system of the Bristol Channel, because the Bristol Channel is a funnel. We can therefore confidently expect these tidal tanks to generate at least 200,000 horse-power, with scarcely any maintenance costs, for ever and a day. We have not yet got down to the capital expenditure involved. However, I am prepared to forecast that it will be 50 per cent. cheaper than any barrage one might wish to construct across the channel.

Obviously this reclamation of the land will create as much work as the barrage—immediate work, I mean. But, more than that, this reclamation of land will create an area in which one has cheap units of electrical power upon which one can build factories, receiving the direct current from the turbines which industry needs. Although, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has pointed out, it is a small percentage of our total energy requirement, nevertheless it is a pertinent source because it will be designed for industrial development, not for domestic consumption. In addition to that, one has the growth factor which Roosevelt had in mind when he developed the Tennessee Valley scheme. He did not just produce electricity from the river. What he wanted was electricity with which to develop industries, and we know how successful that has been.

We still have within this scheme enough land in which to create an airport. So one would have in this complex an airport of sizeable dimensions which, thanks to Brunel, would be within two hours of Paddington Green. So I suggest to Her Majesty's Government that, in considering the question put to them by the noble Baroness, they should take into account other solutions than the harnessing of the tidal forces of the Bristol Channel. I humbly present to your Lordships one which has not been considered before. I speak with complete confidence when I say that this is not a "dreamer" talking this is a group of people who have pragmatically put together conventional practices and off-the-shelf hardware to construct an area of tidal forces that has never been seen before.

8.41 p.m.

Lord Winterbottom

My Lords, like other noble Lords I wish to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady White, for having initiated this debate. I should also like to say that I am not one of her "conscripts"; I am only a volunteer and as such I hope that a volunteer's contribution will be measured accordingly. I was in touch with the general intellectual discussions and studies which took place up to about five years ago, but from that time on I have lost touch. But, listening to today's debate, I feel that all the questions we were asking then are being asked today and we are being given a chance to try to answer to those questions. I have only two questions to put to the noble Earl who is to reply, and they relate to the cost of the project and to the cost of the studies.

Looking back to the period when I was interested in this problem, my recollection is that studies were undertaken by the Department of Energy of the day under the Minister-ship of Mr. Benn, and that Dutch engineers were called in to make an assessment of the capital cost of the project. I would be grateful if the noble Earl could tell me whether the calculation of £6 billion is based on the Dutch calculations or upon more recent calculations? I believe that the Dutch calculations were almost certainly erroneous because they were based upon the tidal forces of the North Sea and not on the tidal forces of the Severn Estuary. My other point is that a figure of £20 million for the studies seems to be extremely high. People have been looking at the Severn Barrage since the latter half of the last century and I believe there is a mass of information available; does it need to be repeated? I believe the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, took a rather cynical view of the need for reproducing paper rather than establishing facts. I will not be as cynical as that. Nevertheless, I believe that a figure of £20 million for a study of this kind is probably excessive.

I am strongly in favour of the study going ahead and of the barrage being built. The one thing that gives me confidence that it will be a success is that we are not trying to create or discover any new techniques; that has been said time and time again. We are just dealing with the usual problems of large-scale hydroelectric power stations. After all, Wales has in the north the great pumping station of Dinwordic, where reversible turbines are operating to drive water up and down the mountainside. There is no reason whatsoever why the new types of turbines which are being developed should not deal equally with the forward and backward flow of the tide in the Severn estuary. This means that the cost need not be as astronomically high as, possibly, it is necessary for those people making proposals to put them. We should be confident of the enormous value to our society of a scheme of this type. The noble Lord, Lord Energlyn, re-educated me on this matter some time in the past and he spoke of the enormous value not only in the whole business of creating electricity but in removing spoil heaps and so on. This is one of the additional reasons why we should go ahead with this study, without trying to multiply the difficulties too greatly.

8.45 p.m.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (The Earl of Mansfield)

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will join with me in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady White, for raising this interesting yet complex subject tonight. Equally we are indebted to her for giving so many noble Lords with such varied expertise the chance to come and air it. I have listened very carefully to everything that has been said and I will try to answer at last some of the points which have been made.

As the House will be aware, the Bondi Committee was set up by the then Secretary of State for Energy in 1978 to assess the feasibility of a Severn Barrage. The committee's studies extended over some three years and cost rather more than £2 million. I share the obvious view of everyone who has contributed to this debate that Sir Hermann Bondi and his committee are to be congratulated on the way in which they carried out their remit and produced such a concise and readable report. The Government published the first volume of the report containing the committee's main conclusions and recommendations in July 1981 and Volume II which, as has already been said, consists of rather more technical material for specialists, was published in October of last year. Many of the detailed reports produced for the committee and listed in Volume II are available also in principal libraries.

In announcing the publication of Volume I in July, the Government welcomed the report as a basis for consultation about the complex issues it raised. Comments were invited from interested parties during the subsequent months. The Government made it plain that decisions about the report's recommendations would be taken in the light of such public debate.

It is important to emphasise that the Severn Barrage Committee did not recommend that construction of the barrage should go ahead. They concluded that it was technically feasible to build a barrage in the Severn for the primary purpose of electricity generation and recommended that an inner barrage—from Brean Down to Lavernock Point—would be the most cost-effective. However, such a project would cost £6 billion at present prices. Because it is dependent on the tides, and this is a point that has not been made (or if it has, it has not been made sufficiently tonight), a barrage of this nature would not always be available to generate at times of peak electricity demand and it would not therefore significantly reduce the need for future power station capacity. The benefit from the barrage would be in the saving of some 5–8 million tonnes coal equivalent of fossil fuel burnt in power stations. It could also, in the committee's view, provided some insurance against a future in which there was a rapid increase in the costs of conventional electricity generation. The committee concluded that on present estimates, nuclear plant would be a more economic investment. The committee were also greatly concerned that the environmental, social and industrial impacts of a barrage were not fully understood, and required further detailed study before the Government were in a position to authorise in a responsible fashion the building of a barrage.

The Government are grateful to the many individuals and organisations who have already responded. Their views are now being analysed and will all be taken into account in the Government's further consideration of the report's recommendations. It had been envisaged that comments would be received by about the end of last year, but a few organisations have indicated that although they wish to comment they have so far been unable to complete their consideration, and the views of those bodies are expected shortly.

I do not think it would be right for me to go into the details of these individual comments which cover all the aspects set out so clearly in the Committee's report but it is obvious—and noble Lords will have appreciated this—that they include those who for one reason or another do not wish to see the barrage built, those who are as yet undecided until the result of further studies are known, and, of course, those who do wish the barrage to be built. The Government must consider all the factors in the light of the comments they have received. I am sure noble Lords will recognise that they are complex and require serious consideration. But at a time of severe financial constraint, it is necessary to examine very carefully any proposal which requires a significant increase in public expenditure.

If I might come briefly to a number of points which noble Lords have made, several noble Lords, and more particularly the noble Baroness, Lady White, raised the matter of the French barrage at La Rance. The barrage across the Severn which in effect was recommended by the Bondi Committee would have a capacity of 30 times the size of La Rance. Its length would be 15 km compared with 1 km. We are, therefore, talking about a considerable scaling up of size, and of course a totally different method of construction would be used.

The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, and indeed other noble Lords, have spoken about the employment which could be generated by the construction of the barrage and all that goes with it. As the committee point out, somewhere in the region of some 20,000 to 30,000 jobs might be provided. But, as the committee in effect said, it is important to bear in mind that the numbers required would vary significantly during the construction period, and, on the committee's assumption, the jobs would mainly arise some two years or so after the construction had started. Before then, the committee envisaged that some six years would be needed for the further environmental and design studies. Therefore, even assuming that no problems are thrown up during those studies, we are not talking about a significant effect on local employment before the 1990s. I think it also important to recognise that investment in a barrage, or in this particular barrage, would not necessarily increase total employment in the economy, since it would, or at least might, displace other investments, or have other macroeconomic effects.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked about the comparative costs of this barrage and Dungeness. The comparison which should be made, and indeed was made by the committee, is between the barrage and future nuclear stations. On that basis the committee concluded that nuclear power was more economic, and the figures they used are set out in the report.

The other matter on which the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, touched, as indeed did a number of other noble Lords, was the question of wind power. I mention this because I have been to Orkney and seen the pilot generator which has been set up with the assistance of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. I think it is an exciting concept, but, of course, it is only going to be applicable in certain situations and under rather special circumstances. Then the noble Lord turned to alternative sources, such as wave power. There are seven different types of device being studied, and comparison of such a wide variety is very complex, particularly at the present formative stage of the technology. But I can tell the noble Lord that the present detailed review is now at an advanced stage, and it would, I think, be wrong of me to pre-empt the findings of the engineering studies.

The noble Lord, Lord Flowers, spoke about the number of people employed and also the question of colliery waste and the sediments of heavy metals. I noted with interest the points that he made, but some of the technical considerations will have to be taken into account if there are further studies, and, if the Government decided to go ahead with this further study, I have no doubt they will be given the closest attention. I am afraid that I cannot answer tonight the noble Lord's specific question about the estimate of the numbers employed. I will ask those who were directly associated with the estimates to look at the noble Lord's comments. The noble Lord then went on to talk about port facilities. The Severn Barrage Committee recognised that a major change to the pattern of shipping was a possibility, perhaps as a result of the barrage, but they considered it prudent to accommodate the current and projected ship movements to and from existing ports.

The noble Lord, Lord Flowers, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, made a comparison as between a barrage and nuclear power stations. I have already touched on this, but I think it is important to emphasise and possibly to reiterate that the main reason for building new power stations is to meet the peak demand for electricity or, alternatively, to replace old capacity. Renewable forms of energy usually produce a variable output. This is true of wind, waves, solar and tidal energy, and the maximum output from these sources cannot be controlled to coincide with peak demand. The Severn barrage would have a maximum output of about 7,200 megawatts, but it would contribute only 1,000 megawatts towards meeting peak demand. This is only saving in effect 1,000 megawatts of capacity required from other fossil fuels and nuclear power stations. What it comes to, my Lords, is this: the main benefit of the Severn barrage would be a saving in fossil fuel and not the saving of nuclear power stations.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, made a point about tidal power also in comparison to other alternative energy sources. He can read tomorrow that the Government accept that tidal energy from the Severn barrage is of course one of the most attractice forms of renewable energy. I come to the noble Lord, Lord Energlyn. I hesitate to enter into a technical discussion with him, and indeed I am not capable of doing so. But I am advised that some of the alternatives to a barrage were considered by the committee and they concluded that they did not achieve a significant energy output, similar to a barrage, and were therefore less economical. I have no doubt that if a study on the lines recommended by the committee goes ahead, it will he up to the noble Lord and his group to make what contribution to that study they think the situation warrants, and I have no doubt, interesting as it sounded, that the closest attention would be paid to whatever his group said.

Finally, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, who asked me about the cost of the project and the cost of studies. The capital cost calculations are more recent than the Dutch costs. The costs of studies were regarded as realistic by the committee. They must cover a wide range of environmental, social and technical issues.

From what I have said it will have been gathered, not least by the noble Baroness, and probably not with great surprise, that I am not in a position to make any announcement tonight. In other words, at this stage I cannot say when the Government will be ready to make and announce their decision. I can only tell noble Lords that they will do so when they have considered all the issues. But I can give the undertaking that all the matters that have been brought to the attention of the House tonight will be put before my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and no doubt he will give them every consideration.