HL Deb 22 March 1990 vol 517 cc465-71

7.33 p.m.

Read a third time; an amendment (privilege) made.

Baroness Robson of Kiddington

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.

Moved, That the Bill do now pass.— (Baroness Robson of Kiddington.)

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, before the Bill passes through this House I should like to pay a very warm tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, for her work in preparing the Bill and seeing it through all its stages to this final point.

I hope very much that the Minister who is to reply on behalf of the Government will be able to assure the House, and in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, that the fact that the Government have not divided the House on any of the amendments or on Second Reading, indicates that they do not intend to sabotage the Bill by any means when it goes to another place. I stress "by any means" because there are various means by which, as shown in the: passage of this Bill, the Government can frustrate the will of this House, when the Bill goes to another place. I very much hope that the Minister has come tonight armed with the authority to say that the Government are prepared to give time and support to the Bill when it passes from this House to another place. I believe that that is his duty as we have spent time passing the Bill through all its stages in this House.

I should like to answer one or two of the points that have been raised in opposition to the Bill from the other Benches, and in particular from the Government Front Bench. I am supported in that by correspondence that I have received and personal contacts that I have been privileged to make in the commercial world.

Since the Bill was given its Second Reading a number of clauses have been added which have strengthened the prohibition of the production and use of a variety of gases and compounds. There is a view, which has been expressed by the Minister, that it is better to use those gases and compounds in preference to CFCs because they are less damaging.

I accept that they are less damaging. I also accept that those who have lobbied me on the subject, particularly General Chemicals, are working on a variety of alternatives to CFCs which, while it is not claimed that they do not damage the environment, are less damaging to the ozone layer than are CFCs. However, the reason for including those additional gases and compounds in the Bill and setting time limits for them is in order to encourage the discovery of substitutes for CFCs which will not damage the environment, whether it be the ozone layer or through the greenhouse effect. I wish the work that is being done by organisations such as General Chemicals well, provided that that is the objective.

Another objection that has been raised from the Government Front Bench is that such matters should be left to the companies, or what is euphemistically termed market forces but which I prefer to call the world of profit and loss.

Here I come to the nub of what I wish to say on the Motion. As the House knows, the appliances which are mainly responsible for the emission of CFCs are refrigerators and the various referigeration processes. It is calculated that they account for 10 per cent. of the world's CFC problems. Work is being done to prevent the emission of CFCs when refrigerators and refrigeration processes are decommissioned. It is estimated that in the United Kingdom alone 1,500 tonnes of CFCs are released into the atmosphere from scrapped appliances each year. It is also estimated that 22,500 tonnes of CFC gas could be prevented from being released into the atmosphere over the next 15 years, which is the approximate life of a fridge.

What, then, is preventing that? There is a general public opinion about CFCs and their effect on the ozone layer and the tremendous danger that that presents to the human race. There is a desire on the part of many local authorities to dispose of refrigerators without releasing the dangerous CFC gases.

What, then, is missing? What is missing is legislation. That was specifically spelt out to those of us who met the company that I mentioned earlier— the Bird group of companies— which claims to be able to dispose of refrigerators (both the 20 per cent. of the CFCs which are contained in the refrigerant and the 80 per cent. contained in the insulation material) without releasing any CFCs into the atmosphere and with the advantage of recycling the metal from which they are made.

However, that process costs money. It is heavily capital-intensive. It involves purpose-built facilities such as airtight containment buildings, air locks and a temperature-controlled environment maintained at a negative pressure. That is in addition to the mechanical plant for separating the insulating foam from other constituent materials of a refrigerator. The revenues generated by selling the recycled metals and plastics contribute to that expense, but they by no means approach it.

We are therefore left with a situation in which that process is possible, but is commercially viable only if legislation is passed so that local authorities use that process and the Government take responsibility, either by paying directly or by paying through local authorities, for the extra expense. I shall quote one sentence from the letter that the Bird group of companies sent to me in preparation for this debate. It states: It is my firm belief that without legislation which requires the environmentally sensitive disposal of refrigerators, they will be landfilled or fly tipped, leading to 1,500 tonnes of CFCs being released into the stratosphere each year from the United Kingdom alone". I put it to noble Lords that the Bill, provided that the Government give it their support and encourage and allow it to go through another place, can be a practical aid to those all over the world who have seen the danger of CFCs to the ozone layer and who want to take action, not just using fine words, in order to prevent that menace to the future of the human race.

7.45 p.m.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, from these Benches I join the commendations of the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, who has brought this worthy measure before the House. My noble friend Lord Hatch explained at some length what he believes will help to persuade the Government to support the Bill in another place. I should like to address the Government much more briefly and I hope that they will listen equally carefully.

As my noble friend said, whether the Government are minded to give the Bill an easy passage— and approval is wholly within their gift— I am certain that there will be an opportunity in another place for them to obtain a great deal of kudos because the Bill will be supported throughout the House. That is a political advantage, but, as my noble friend pointed out, there are enormous advantages to the environment and to a range of other interests. I say earnestly to the Minister with such power as he might have with his ministerial colleagues: this is a small Bill, but it is not unimportant. It might be the vehicle by which the Government, by amendment, do what I am sure the noble Baroness wanted to do in the first place; namely, to put a few teeth, a bit of muscle and a bit of spunk behind so many words, which might well be empty words, not just from the Minister but from the Government in general.

I hope that, at this point in their travails, the Government will recognise that the Bill might be used to their own advantage. The people of my local community and of the British Isles, Europe and indeed the world will benefit from the Bill, amended or otherwise. It is up to the Minister to give a manifest of the Government's commitment and faith. We on these Benches give the Bill a warm welcome and wish it a speedy passage, and we hope that the Minister will say something helpful to encourage us.

Viscount Hanworth

My Lords, we have been talking about the 1,500 tonnes of CFCs which could be recovered and which at the moment go to waste. A large proportion of that comes from government establishments so, regardless of waiting for legislation, I think that the Government should do something to put their own house in order.

Lord Reay

My Lords, perhaps it would be useful if I were to set out the Government's position before the Bill leaves this House.

The debates surrounding the Bill's progress have provided much food for thought. The Government have found them encouraging. They show that your Lordships share our concern— depletion of the ozone layer is an alarming problem and we must move as quickly as possible to eliminate its causes.

As I have said, that process can have any real effect only if it is carried through at the international level. Great efforts and achievements have already been made by British industry and consumers. That has happened in the context of restrictions on the overall supply of CFCs and in the knowledge that we are committed to their early elimination. In 1986, this country used about 6 per cent. of the world's total of CFCs. That figure has probably now fallen below 4 per cent. because we have already cut our consumption faster than most.

Getting rid of that 4 per cent. as quickly as possible is of course an urgent priority, but getting the world as a whole committed to similar action, on a similar timescale, is more effective, more important and more urgent.

To that end, the Government are concentrating on strengthening and broadening the Montreal Protocol. Progress in the negotiations is encouraging. We are broadly content with the emerging consensus on revisions to the protocol, although, for the CFCs themselves, we are finding it difficult to persuade our negotiating partners to cut their consumption as quickly as we should like.

It is also essential that more countries join in. Negotiations over assistance to developing countries, to help them comply with the protocol, are going well and I am confident that in the light of those, countries such as Brazil, India and China will join soon. The various strands of negotiation will come to a head at the meeting of the protocol parties which we are hosting in London in three months' time.

In the debate on Second Reading, I set out two different kinds of difficulty which the Government have with this Bill. The first is that we are already tackling the problems which it seeks to address, but in different ways, and in ways which are more consistent with the international process which is so vital. The Montreal Protocol is based on the reduction of overall production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances, rather than imposing timetables for ending specific uses. The second difficulty is that the schedule of dates contained in the Bill in our view is unrealistic. As we see it, it does not allow time for the necessary testing to ensure that substitutes are safe to work with.

The Bill has been made even less acceptable by the amendment which provides for the prohibition of many CFC substitutes by the year 2000. Such a provision would mean that the necessary investment in such substitutes would never be made, and this in turn would delay the timetable for prohibiting the far more damaging CFCs until well into the next century. I must say therefore that it is unlikely that the Government will be able to support the Bill in another place.

None of this means that we shall merely sit back and do the minimum that the new protocol will require of us. We are encouraging the development of a Community-wide environmental labelling scheme. We are seeking to identify what more needs to be done to encourage recycling and the reduction of emissions. This should apply not only to CFCs but also to the new substitute chemicals, which do some environmental damage, albeit only a fraction of that done by the CFCs that they will replace.

Above all, we fully accept the need to cut CFC consumption more quickly than the protocol requires, if the protocol is not strengthened as much as we should want. The European Commission has already published a proposal for a regulation which is stronger than the revised protocol is likely to be. While the details still have to be sorted out, the Government are committed to early and substantial cuts, regardless of what is agreed for the world as a whole. They will not be as rapid as set out in this Bill, but I am confident that the Community will agree to measures which force the fastest reductions that c an realistically be achieved.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask this question. Can he explain why he says that the year 2000 is much too early? Does he agree with the findings of the United Nations environmental programme which give the end of 1999 as the timetable date? That is why the year 2000 was taken.

Lord Reay

My Lords, as I said, in our view the danger would be that if they were to be prohibited by the year 2000, their manufacture would not be undertaken. As I said at Report stage, this was simply making the best the enemy of the good.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, do the Government believe that they know better than the United Nations environmental programme?

Lord Reay

No, my Lords, I do not say that. We believe that it is important to try to reduce the quantity of CFCs admitted to the atmosphere and the way in which I set forth that it should be done is in our view the best way to approach the matter.

Baroness Robson of Kiddington

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the various stages of this Bill. I cannot hide the fact that I am desperately disappointed in the reply that the noble Lord has just given. He seems to take objection to one amendment in particular. When the Bill goes to another place, it can be amended again. It does not have to condemn the Bill. I sincerely hope that the Government will think again on this matter.

Many of the issues that have been discussed during the debates on this Bill have found some new answers, even in the past few days. I cut out of today's Times a small notice which states that the Minister for the Environment, Mr. David Trippier, announced that the production and consumption of CFCs had been cut by more than half, 10 years ahead of time. I put to the noble Lord that that reduction has been achieved by consumer interest. It has not been achieved by government action.

The consumer interest which achieved that cut has gone as far as it can because consumers cannot influence general industrial production. They can decide whether or not to buy aerosols which contain CFCs. The general public in this country have done so. I should like the Government to put extra legal protection into the way in which we run our affairs with regard to CFCs in this country.

Much was said during the debate to the effect that we could not eliminate halon from fire extinguishers because it was the only safe way to extinguish a fire. This morning I received a letter from Chubb Fire Security Limited in which they say: You may be interested to know that Chubb Fire Ltd. is the UK's largest manufacturer of portable extinguishers and we have recently taken the decision to withdraw from the sale of portable halon extinguishers for general use … Furthermore portable halon extinguishers have in the past been sold in large numbers because of the effectiveness of halon as a fire extinguishant. It offered therefore an easy route to providing multi-risk fire protection … The consequence of this is that there are now considerable numbers of halon extinguishers, located in public, commercial and industrial premises as well as in Government and Local Government premises. I would suggest that in the vast majority of cases there are perfectly acceptable viable alternative extinguishers to these, ones which will provide at least as good fire protection cover as halon and in most cases at a reduced cost. Can we appeal to the Government to remove the halon extinguishers at least from government premises?

The letter concludes: We support the content of your Bill". I am delighted to hear that, because one of the arguments against the Bill was that halon was very difficult to remove from fire extinguishers. It is true that so far research has only been able to remove halon from portable fire extinguishers and certain fixed fire extinguishers still use it. But I do not believe that, having gone that far on the portable type of extinguisher, it is beyond the wit of man to remove halon from the fixed type. So things are moving. The country as a whole is in favour of legislation which will concentrate people's minds and make certain that we do not further damage the environment in which we live.

We have just listened to a debate on overseas aid. We know that the developing countries will develop some of the manufactured products that use CFCs and halon. I should like us as a nation to be able to go to the developing countries and not to say, "Do as I say but do not do as I do" but to say, "Do as I do".

We have the expertise and research facilities in this country. We have a duty to lead the world. The noble Lord said that this problem has to be solved at international level. There is no better way of solving it than to take the lead and prove to other countries that it can be done. I want this country to be in the forefront of environmental research and improvement; not always lagging behind as we seem to do in many environmental matters. I therefore hope that the Government will give this Bill time in another place. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.

On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.