Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill

HL Deb 16 November 1992 vol 540 cc454-85

3.7 p.m.

Viscount St Davids

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

The Bill before your Lordships is intended to authorise the construction of a barrage and associated works across the estuaries of the rivers Taff and Ely in Cardiff Bay. It provides for the acquisition of the land and the rights necessary to achieve those two objectives. There is also provision for the necessary framework to enable the barrage to be operated in an appropriate manner with regard to water quality, flooding, the protection of fish and for the management of the lake.

The scheme embodied in the Bill is exceptionally important to the future of Cardiff and to the economy of south-east Wales. It provides an opportunity for the former docklands area of Cardiff to be redeveloped as a high quality, high density part of the city itself and would permit the development of a waterfront that would be an asset to any major city in the world. It would provide an environment where housing and jobs could be created on a scale which could not be achieved by any other scheme which has been considered for the area.

No one who is familiar with South Cardiff can doubt the need to regenerate the area. Much of it is derelict and polluted by the remains of the industries which used to be located there, and major sewerage outfalls flow into the bay itself. Such a situation can only have served as a disincentive to investment. The barrage project will result in the clearance of that dereliction and the recycling of land within the city's existing boundaries for productive use. It will also mean the removal of the 14 main sewerage outfalls which currently flow into the bay. Many opportunities will arise to create environmental benefits for the people who live and work there and for a range of flora and fauna to flourish in the new freshwater environment created by the barrage.

Improved access to new and existing development will clearly play a vital role in the success of the regeneration strategy. Lessons have been learned from docklands. The development corporation place great emphasis on improved infrastructure and has committed £25 million towards the costs of the Butetown link currently under construction. This is a major road link running directly into the heart of the bay area. It will provide key links east and west from the bay. Links between the bay area and the city centre are also being improved. The corporation has undertaken several studies into the provision of public transport in this area. It is concerned that the employment opportunities created should be open to people from the valleys of South Wales as well as from Cardiff. It is discussing options with South Glamorgan County Council and with British Rail, including the possibility of providing a light rail system.

I should remind your Lordships that this is by no means the first time that this House has had an opportunity of debating a Bill to authorise the construction of the Cardiff Bay barrage. Your Lordships may recall that a Private Bill promoted jointly by the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and South Glamorgan County Council completed its passage through this House with little amendment on 12th July 1989. It then passed to another place where it underwent extensive debate and further detailed scrutiny. However, on 16th April 1991 that Bill failed to complete its consideration stage.

The Government had given very careful consideration to the barrage proposal and supported the objectives of the Private Bill. Therefore, when the Bill failed to make progress in another place, they announced that they would introduce their own Bill to achieve the main objectives of the Private Bill.

The proposed line of the barrage as shown on the plans deposited with the Bill was one of several options considered in the early feasibility studies. It provides the greatest area of enclosed water, retains the operational use of Cardiff Dock and provides the greatest opportunity for waterside development and recreational use. It is a fundamental principle that the design of the barrage authorised by the Bill should impound the estuaries of the Taff and Ely, thereby replacing the current tidal regime with a fresh water lake. In doing so, it should not impound the entrance to the operational Cardiff Docks but should enclose the Penarth Marina.

The Government have been fully aware of the need to study carefully the environmental implications of the project. In accordance with standing orders a detailed Environmental Statement was deposited with the Bill in another place. I have arranged for copies of the Environmental Statement, and a non-technical summary of it, to be available for your Lordships. Your Lordships will have satisfied yourselves that, in coming to a decision on the principle of the Bill, a full assessment of its environmental effects has taken place.

An inevitable, and regrettable, consequence of the barrage would be the loss of the Taff Ely site of special scientific interest, which provides feeding grounds for migrating birds, notably dunlin and redshank. Those of your Lordships who followed the debates on the Private Bill, and particularly those who were involved in detailed scrutiny in Select Committee, will recall that the Bill included provision for a tidal lagoon at Wentloog, just to the east of Cardiff, to act as alternative feeding grounds for birds displaced from the bay by the impounded lake. Similar provisions were included in the government Bill as introduced in another place.

However, your Lordships will wish to know that these provisions do not appear in the Bill as presented to this House. They were removed at the request of the Select Committee in another place. For our part, the Government remain committed to seeking some form of compensation for the loss of the feeding grounds. We have consulted the Countryside Council for Wales and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds about other possible means of mitigating the loss of those feeding grounds. Their firm advice was that they did not wish to see the lagoon provisions reinstated in the Bill.

On the 30th June my honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary at the Welsh Office announced that the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and the Land Authority for Wales had commissioned a feasibility study into the suitability of a site on the Gwent Levels as a major bird reserve. Both the Countryside Council for Wales and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds were closely involved in drawing up the terms of the study and continue to be represented on its steering group. The intention is to create an area of wetland which could prove to be a far more effective mitigation measure than the original lagoon proposal. The study is being carried out by consultants, including Mason Pittendrigh and David Bellamy Associates, with high reputations in their fields. The results should be available by the end of the year and your Lordships will, therefore, be able to consider the proposal in more detail at a later stage if you so wish.

If the results of the study are favourable and a decision is taken to proceed with the creation of a bird reserve, we shall not be seeking power under this Bill. No new legislative powers are being sought: the necessary authority is available under existing legislation.

Part I of the Bill provides, in Clause 3 and Schedule 3, for a deemed impoundment licence under the Water Resources Act 1991. These provisions have been included in the Bill with the full agreement of the National Rivers Authority which has a statutory responsibility for such matters. Your Lordships should be aware that in December 1991 the National Rivers Authority issued a detailed position statement on the proposed Cardiff Bay barrage. Copies of the statement are available in the Printed Paper Office. It deals at length with issues for which the NRA has statutory responsibility. Your Lordships will note that the statement indicated that, on the basis of undertakings given to the authority by the Welsh Office and the development corporation, together with the provisions of the Bill, the NRA believes that its statutory duties are adequately safeguarded. Since that time I can tell your Lordships that legal agreements between the NRA and the Welsh Office, the development corporation and Cardiff City Council have been finalised. These cover flood defence and fisheries monitoring arrangements. The agree-ments were signed last month and the NRA has confirmed that its statutory duties were fully preserved and protected.

As I have already indicated, the Government believe that the economic case for the barrage is a very strong one. The proposal has been subject to rigorous and detailed economic appraisals. An updated economic appraisal was published last month, copies of which are available to your Lordships. It shows that the attractive new environment created by the barrage could support over 23,000 new jobs. Private sector investment of well over £1,000 million could be attracted into the area. About 4,400 homes would be built. In all respects the barrage proposal produces greater returns than development without a barrage.

South Cardiff has already attracted significant amounts of private sector development in recent years. The Atlantic Wharf project, involving Tarmac, Wimpey, Lovell and the local brewers, Brains, has transformed the derelict Bute East Dock area into a high quality residential, office and leisure development, at a total project cost of some £40 million. Some of the best known names in the United Kingdom housebuilding industry—Barratt, Beazer and Westbury—have combined to develop a major housing complex known as Windsor Quay on what will be the edge of the impounded lake. Grosvenor Waterside has planning permission for its prestigious office, residential and leisure development at Capital Waterside, on which construction has already begun. The total development cost will be about £20 million. Given the level of commitment that we have seen from the private sector in advance of the construction of the barrage, we believe that the assumptions in the economic appraisal concerning the likely level of private sector investment post-barrage are justified.

Your Lordships should note that the economic appraisal considers development activity and property values over a 20-year period. This is a sufficiently long period to ensure that intermediate fluctuations in the property market do not undermine the validity of its long-term assumptions. The appraisal has also been subjected to stringent sensitivity tests which also made a range of pessimistic assumptions. The results of these sensitivity tests are contained in the appraisal, which is available to your Lordships. They show that the economic case for the barrage remains robust.

I should like now briefly to refer to groundwater. There have been considerable concerns about the possible effects on houses of rises in groundwater levels once the barrage is built. The former Private Bill contained detailed protective provisions in respect of groundwater. That protection has been reproduced and extended in the government Bill. The details are set out fully in Schedule 7. Although they look different from the earlier provisions their effect is the same.

The groundwater protection scheme embodied in the Bill is a very comprehensive and generous one. Nevertheless, it is by its very nature a complex scheme and we cannot guarantee that minor difficulties may not emerge when we come to put it into practice. The Bill, therefore, contains a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations to amend this scheme of protection. Your Lordships will wish to know that during the Second Reading debate in another place my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales gave this assurance about the power to amend the groundwater protection scheme. He said: I wish to make it clear that I have no intention of using that power at present, but I would be prepared to use it if it emerged that individuals' interests were not being fully protected by the scheme in practice. If I decided to act in that way, any regulation to amend the scheme would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Therefore, the House would have the opportunity of debating any proposed changes to the scheme".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/91; col. 636.] Your Lordships will wish to know that the reassurance given by my right honourable friend still stands and I am happy to give the same reassurances today. However, should it prove necessary to amend the scheme, the opportunity to debate any proposed changes will, of course, be available to your Lordships as well as to those in another place.

The very complex issue of groundwater has been examined in detail over a long period. At the request of the Select Committee in another place which examined the Private Bill detailed studies were undertaken of the possible effects over a 12-month period between August 1990 and August 1991 by Hydrotechnica Ltd.

The results of these studies were published in September 1991. There followed a three-month public consultation period for interested parties to make written representations to my right honourable friend on the reports produced by Hydrotechnica. The public consultation exercise ended on 31st December.

My right honourable friend then considered all the evidence, including representations received during the public consultation period. He also considered the advice of his specialist groundwater adviser, Mr. Roy Stoner, Director of the Institute of Irrigation Studies at Southampton University, who had been appointed specifically for that purpose. The Government had made it clear that public funding for the construction of the barrage was conditional on the satisfactory outcome of these studies. On the basis of Mr. Stoner's report, copies of which are available in the Printed Paper Office, my right honourable friend was satisfied that the economic, safety and technical criteria relating to groundwater can be met.

Your Lordships should also be aware that in his report Mr. Stoner suggested that it might be possible to control groundwater levels after the barrage had been built by means of dewatering wells. Very simply, the suggestion is that if groundwater in the gravels is controlled by pumping wells, the groundwater in the made ground above it—on which much of South Cardiff is built—will remain at existing levels.

A feasibility study into this proposal was published in August 1992. Copies are available in the Printed Paper Office. It concluded that dewatering wells could make a significant difference should the "extreme" case of groundwater rise predicted by the Hydrotechnica studies arise. I should tell your Lordships that Hydrotechnica Ltd., Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and Mr. Stoner do not believe that the "extreme" case will arise. The Government share that view. However, we believe it is right that a pumping well pilot study should take place as recommended by the dewatering report. Results should be available in the New Year. If they confirm the report's findings, the need to carry out remedial works to properties —as set out in Schedule 7 to the Bill—will be significantly reduced or removed altogether. That would, of course, mean little or no disruption to householders.

Clearly, we cannot yet know whether it would be appropriate to proceed with dewatering wells. We must await the results of pumping tests. If a decision to proceed is taken, the Government will not be seeking powers under the Bill to do so. That can be done under existing legislation.

There is a related issue which I should draw to your Lordships' attention. The Select Committee in another place was concerned about the adequacy of local authorities' land drainage powers to deal with land which became saturated as a result of the barrage but did not show any apparent sign of surface flooding. The Government, therefore, propose to amend the Bill at a later stage in its passage through your Lordships' House. Intention of that has already been published to allow interested parties to petition against it if they so wish.

The Government have concluded that by extending three references to flooding in Sections 14, 15 and 66 of the Land Drainage Act 1991 local authorities would have adequate powers to deal with saturated land caused by changed groundwater levels. We are not proposing to give local authorities new powers. Instead we propose an extension of the application of existing powers. It will, in effect, clarify the ability of local authorities to act in respect of land saturated by changed groundwater levels in exactly the same manner as they are currently empowered to do in respect of flooding.

The three local authorities in Cardiff, the National Rivers Authority and Welsh Water plc have been closely involved in this proposed amendment to the Bill. Your Lordships will wish to know that the principal local authority involved, Cardiff City Council, has indicated that it is content with it. None of the other bodies consulted has expressed objection in principle.

Many of your Lordships will be familiar with Cardiff and its former docklands area. Many have supported fully the regeneration of Cardiff Bay. They know that regeneration cannot be successfully achieved on the scale and quality which Wales's capital city deserves unless we have the barrage. That is certainly the Government's view. It has been borne out by the economic appraisals. The scheme embodied in this Bill will replace the dereliction of the past with an attractive, modern urban environment. There will be many thousands of new jobs and thousands of new homes. This Bill is of vital importance to the future of Cardiff and I commend it to your Lordships.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. —(Viscount St Davids.)

3.30 p.m.

Lord Prys-Davies

My Lords, first, I welcome the participation of the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, in the debate as he is the Government Whip with special responsibility for Welsh affairs. I thank the noble Viscount for explaining to the House so carefully and comprehensively the contents of the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill.

The Bill is contentious. It has generated an intensive debate among all the people and interests which may be affected by it. The strong support for the Bill and the equally strong opposition to it have divided the political parties and local authorities and caused divisions within local authorities. Indeed, the controversy is reflected by the 93 petitions which have been lodged against the Bill.

That is also reflected by the Bill's parliamentary record—and that was touched upon by the Minister. The Bill was given a First Reading in 1987 and subsequently was converted into a hybrid Public Bill. There are four versions of the Bill; two of the Private Bill and two of the hybrid Public Bill. Apart from the first Private Bill, which did not proceed to Second Reading, each of the Bills has been examined in detail by a Select Committee; yet it would appear that the Bill is still in the learning curve stage. There remain key issues which need to be further examined by, I suggest, a Committee of your Lordships' House.

Of course, it is agreed that the barrage will bring economic benefits to the people of Cardiff and beyond. That is right. Sadly, unemployment in Cardiff is among the highest in Wales. However, I must challenge the Minister's claim, which he made more than once, that the need for the barrage and the huge artificial lake behind it, covering some 500 square acres, is essential to the reorganisation of Cardiff docklands. By its very nature that is a claim, at this stage, which is not capable of being proved or disproved.

I am heartened that the text before the House shows evidence of concessions to meet some of the real anxieties that have been expressed. I am particularly pleased that the long Schedule 7, which contains vital provisions for groundwater damage protection, has been strengthened. Nevertheless, perhaps consideration should be given as to whether some of the powers and safeguards in Schedule 7 should be entrenched and not subject to Clause 21(2).

The Bill incorporates also additional powers for Cardiff City Council which has all the necessary powers it requires to discharge its land drainage duties. The Minister confirmed that we are still awaiting two further reports. In turn, they may indicate the need for further amendments.

It would be extremely difficult not to be concerned about some aspects of the multi-million cost of constructing the barrage and its associated works. Indeed, the total costs are estimated in the Financial Memorandum to be £146.9 million. It is an old and significant doctrine that Parliament, having passed a Public Bill, must be satisfied that the funds will be available to implement it. However, there could be a problem with one of the estimates. The sum earmarked for repair of damage to basements and foundations of properties by rising groundwater underneath them is £13 million. However, in the light of the report to which the Minister has referred, one is bound to ask whether that is enough. According to Mr. Stoner's report, the number of properties which might be in need of repair because of rising groundwater could be between 1,650 and 5,695. The cost of repairing 5,695 properties could be as high as £23.52 million.

Mr. Stoner notes that the development corporation is at pains to point out that it considers 5,695 properties to be an extreme case and would expect much lower levels of groundwater in practice. However, in earmarking only £14.3 million for repairing groundwater damage, the Welsh Office has disregarded the worst scenario. That is worrying.

In our present state of knowledge, that is an area of great uncertainty; and the Minister acknowledged that. However, in the light of the uncertainties, I ask what will happen if the Welsh Office has got its figures wrong. The fact that this question can be asked this afternoon is far from reassuring. Was it a Treasury decision that £9 million must be saved from the cost of the scheme? If it transpires that the Welsh Office figures are wrong and that £14.3 million is an underestimate who will provide the deficit, which could be as high as £9 million? Will it be the Treasury, the Welsh Office, the development corporation or will it be shouldered by the citizens of Cardiff?

The noble Viscount told the House that the Welsh Office had commissioned from KPMG an up-to-date economic appraisal of the project. Much has changed since 1987, the date of the first Private Bill. The Welsh Office was clearly right to commission an up-to-date appraisal. However, it seems to many who have studied the appraisal that the updated appraisal—and the final conclusions are cautiously drafted—fails to address itself adequately to the future demand for development land and property and assumes too readily that the short-term property market performance is only of limited relevance. Clearly I am not equipped to offer any worthwhile comment on the differing views, but there are differing views.

I return to the foundations and the basements of the properties which are likely to be affected. Those are basements of old houses built about 75 to 100 years ago in an old part of Cardiff. As the Minister acknowledged, there is considerable anxiety among the people of Cardiff about that issue. Of course, prevention is better than cure. I believe that it was at a very late stage in the long history of the Bill that minds began to concentrate on preventing the groundwater table reaching the risk level. In theory it should be possible to control the levels of the groundwater in the gravels so that the barrage impoundment would make no practical difference to the groundwater level. As the Minister explained, one possibility is the use of dewatering wells. However, I am advised that dewatering wells are untested over time in built-up areas anywhere in the world. If the field trials are successful, I am informed that it will be necessary to sink 70 to 80 such wells. How many will be sunk in sensitive areas in the vicinity of people's homes? How will the pumping process affect nearby householders? How will the well water be disposed of, particularly where the well is at a good distance away from the banks of the lake? What is the life expectancy of each dewatering well?

The Bill as drawn contains no specific reference to dewatering wells, and the Minister explained that omission satisfactorily. However, it may be that the Bill must be amended further to deal specifically with the operation and renewal of the wells, and also to provide compensation for any disruption or blighting which may arise.

I earnestly hope that the Select Committee's timetable, if your Lordships see fit to refer it to a Select Committee, will be so designed that it will be able to defer its consideration of the impact of the dewatering wells until about the end of February, by which time, I am informed, that the trials, to which the Minister referred, will have been completed. Clearly, the Committee must have the benefit of access to the results of the trials.

An issue which has been the subject of some anxiety is the water quality in the impounded lake, particularly under low flow conditions. I live not far from the River Taff and the reduction of flow in both the Taff and the Ely is enormous during the summer months. Both rivers are nutrient rich and are among the most heavily polluted in Wales. We have an assurance from the Welsh Office—and the Minister repeated it—that the Bill contains a framework for the maintenance of acceptable standards of water which, under Clause 12, must comply with the reasonable requirements of the National Rivers Authority. That is reassuring. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, is to speak in the debate. He will speak as a supporter of the barrage, but also with the authority of his office as chairman of the NRA. I trust that he will be able to confirm to the House that the NRA is satisfied that the appropriate protective provisions have been built into the Bill or are covered by agreements and that the NRA's capacity to discharge its statutory duties has been fully safeguarded.

In December 1991 the NRA, when fortunately the Bill was still at the Private Bill stage, issued an appraisal of the position. That was placed in the Library of the House of Commons. We now understand that this document is in the Printed Paper Office of your Lordships' House but it was not available to me here at the end of last week. I congratulate the NRA on producing the document. It identifies all the critical issues relating to water quality, fisheries, conservation and it discusses ways and means of ameliorating the problem. It is a frank and thorough document and is essential reading.

It has been submitted that there is a snag about Clause 12. It places on the development corporation a duty to comply with the requirements of the NRA. That is fine. But there is also a provision that in the event of a dispute as to the reasonableness of any direction, that dispute has to be referred to the Secretary of State for Wales for determination. That proviso is worrying. Many people are puzzled as to why the development corporation, which is one of the Secretary of State's quangos, should enjoy this right of appeal to its own principal because the relationship between the two bodies is that between principal and agent. Given that it is the NRA's statutory duty to preserve and protect water quality, fisheries, conservation of flora and fauna, recreation, flood defences, navigation—and all these areas will be affected by the Bill—why should the development corporation enjoy this right of appeal against its reasonable directions? After all, it could have access to a judicial review if it considered that the NRA was unreasonable in the matter.

It is not reassuring that the Welsh Office is so determined to build this appeal mechanism into the Bill. If a right of appeal is necessary it should be to a tribunal, which is manifestly a disinterested party, to adjudge between the very finely balancing arguments. I ask the Minister to tell the House whether there is a precedent for this provision. I know of none. The Minister was pressed in Standing Committee F on two separate occasions to answer that question. He skated lightly over it. I am sure that the noble Viscount can do better. I also hope that the Select Committee will wish to address itself to the question of the right of appeal to the Secretary of State for Wales.

At a late stage when the Bill was being examined by Standing Committee F, two other issues as regards water quality bubbled to the surface. They appear to me to require some clarification. The first relates to the possible application of the EC municipal waste water directive which is to be implemented in stages after 1998. Will its provisions apply to the impounded lake? In Committee the Minister again skated somewhat lightly over that question. Will the noble Viscount inform the House whether the impounded lake is to be defined as a sensitive area within the meaning of the directive? If so, what new measures will be required to treat the water and where will the treatment works be located? What additional capital and revenue costs will be involved? If the Minister cannot give the answers to those two questions today—he may well feel that he is unable to do so—may we have an assurance that the answers will be available to the Select Committee while it is still considering the Bill?

The second issue arises out of a recent study in Oxfordshire by Dr. Max Wallis and Mr. Munro. I have not read the study, but I am informed that it establishes statistically a possible relationship between waterlogged soils and infant mortality. Will the noble Viscount tell the House whether the Welsh Office has any evidence which suggests a positive link? Does it have any grounds for believing that the risk, if it exists, is so small that it can be safely disregarded?

That brings me to the next area of concern. It is an area which is described as being of extreme concern in three of the Petitions. I refer to the profound damage to water fowls. The barrage will destroy forever the 400 acres of mud flats and salt marshes—as acknowledged by the Minister—in the Taff Ely estuary which have been there since time immemorial. It is an SSSI comprising rich feeding grounds for about 8,000 wading birds in the winter months. The site is also of international importance. It forms an important and integral part of the Severn estuary which qualifies for designation under the 1971 Ramsar Convention and as a special protection area under the terms of EC directive 79/409. The Welsh Office has excluded it from the designation proposal although it is, so I understand, the most important of all the other areas in the Severn estuary to be included in the SPA.

Unlike the three earlier Bills the current version does not place any duty on the development corporation to provide adequate alternative feeding grounds for wading birds. But the Minister has explained this omission from the Bill. Such was the anxiety—and possibly the despair at one stage—of the Countryside Council for Wales, that it is now to be found among the objectors to the Bill before the House although it did not petition against it when the matter was before the House of Commons. I was therefore greatly heartened to hear from the noble Viscount that the discussions between the Welsh Office and the CCW are proceeding smoothly to their conclusion and that they are close to agreeing the mitigation measures which are to be introduced. Those measures should be available to the Select Committee. But it must be emphasised that they are always second best. Moreover, their adequacy is untested. They will not fully compensate for the loss of an SSSI which is a part of our national heritage and also of international significance.

The angling interests which are so strongly represented in your Lordships' House appear to be satisfied with the Bill, subject to what the noble Lord, Lord Moran, has to say when he speaks. I was delighted to read in the NRA position paper that salmon and sea trout are now once again entering the Taff and the Ely and that their numbers are expected to increase substantially within the next decade. With the likely closure of the Taff Merthyr Colliery in a few months' time, the river Taff will be free from coal pollution for the first time for about 200 years. In that respect at least it can revert to its pre-industrial condition when it was the premier sewin river of Wales, and as famed for its sewin as the Usk for its salmon.

However, the barrage will be a formidable man-made barrier to the passage of fish to and from the open sea. It is therefore vitally important that the design of the fish paths complies with the best design available and that it works. I trust that there will be an opportunity for the Committee to satisfy itself on that key point.

Finally, I wish to touch on the membership of the Cardiff Bay Advisory Committee to be established under Clause 20. It is a consultative body. The setting up of the committee in the first Private Bill was warmly welcomed and I am gratified that the concept has survived. However, I believe that there are a few problems about the clause. Under it the membership is to consist of representative members of the three local authorities in the area, presumably in equal number, together with an unspecified number of members to be appointed by the Secretary of State. The Bill does not set an upper limit to the total membership. That is rather odd.

Is it intended that the local authority members should constitute a majority or a minority of the membership? It is also appropriate to ask whether the membership will also include, as of right, representation of such bodies as the health authority, the Countryside Council for Wales, the Welsh Consumer Council or the Welsh Sports Council or their nominees, whose interests are likely to be affected by the impounded lake. May I dare ask: is it intended that the development corporation should provide the committee with an adequate budget to undertake the responsibilities which the Bill places on it? Will it be given access to all the information in the possession of the corporation which it reasonably requires? I hope those points will not be overlooked. I suggest that Clause 20 may be another area that could be usefully explored by the Select Committee.

This is a well-intended Bill, but it poses considerable difficulties for very many people although it also has its strong supporters in Wales. One of its most resolute backers is my noble friend Lord Brooks of Tremorfa who introduced the second Private Bill in 1988. My noble friend is the vice-chairman of the development corporation, and an elected member of the South Glamorgan County Council. I believe that he would have told the House that he has no reservations about the need for the impounded lake and about the benefits which it will confer upon Cardiff and south-east Wales. When I discussed the Bill with him last week, he asked me to inform the House that he deeply regrets that he is not able to participate in the debate this afternoon as he has to be abroad attending to other business which had been pre-arranged for today.

I profoundly believe that it is right that a Select Committee of your Lordships' House should have a last opportunity to examine the Bill to see what further improvements can be made to it, and thus make it more acceptable to a larger body of opinion in Wales.

3.50 p.m.

Lord Moran

My Lords, I should like first, if I may, to raise a procedural point which seems to me of some importance. There are 93 petitions against the Bill—some from major bodies such as Cardiff City Council and the Countryside Council for Wales and many others from private citizens in Cardiff. All maintain that their interests will be injuriously affected by the Bill and express grave concerns about various aspects of it.

I inquired about these petitions last Wednesday—4th November—and was told that they were still coming in and that the full set was not available. It was available on Thursday 5th November when I collected a set. It is this thick and heavy bundle that I have with me. That was only four days ago. Three days ago—on late Friday afternoon —the Welsh Office delivered nine documents, one of them with 150 pages—another substantial bundle—to the Printed Paper Office. It seems to me unreasonable to expect noble Lords to be able to read, absorb and reflect on 93 petitions and nine documents in three or four days. But noble Lords taking part in this debate should have an opportunity to study all the petitions and the documents carefully beforehand.

It may be said that your Lordships' Select Committee will be able to consider the petitions. Indeed, it will. But noble Lords taking part in the Second Reading, who cannot serve on the Select Committee, surely ought also to consider the petitions, many of them submitted by citizens who have vital interests at stake. It seems to me wrong to put on this Second Reading only four days after the petitions became available. To do so suggests at any rate at this stage that we are not taking serious notice of the points made in them. This is surely denying the House the opportunity to give full and proper consideration to the Bill at each stage and is, in my view, unfair to the petitioners. I hope that when he replies the noble Viscount will explain why this Second Reading has been put on before noble Lords have had a proper opportunity of studying the petitions and the documents, and how the Government justify this way of proceeding to the petitioners.

This legislation has had an extraordinary history, as the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, has pointed out. The present new hybrid Government Bill is, in effect, the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill Mark 4. But the project itself has not, I think, changed fundamentally since we gave a Second Reading to the second Private Bill on 23rd February 1989. I gave my views in detail on the project in that debate and essentially they have not changed.

The rivers of our country are a priceless part of our national heritage. For millions of years they have flowed unobstructed to the sea. In England and Wales we have set up the National Rivers Authority under the vigorous chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, to look after them, which it is doing very effectively. It will be no surprise to noble Lords when I say that I dislike the whole concept of barrages, fashionable though that concept unhappily still is. To build a concrete barrier across a river, blocking the downward flow, seems to me unnatural and damaging. All the muck that we tip into the rivers, particularly into those that, like the Taff and the Ely, flow through urban areas—sewage effluent, heavy metals, plastics, pathogens, nutrients, dead animals, supermarket trolleys—instead of being carried out to sea, is held up in stagnant water and either remains there or has to be removed at substantial expense. The cleansing tide can no longer ebb and flow. Fish passes can be installed, but, however elaborate, can at best be only partially effective, as studies at Pitlochry have shown.

I am particularly sceptical about the arguments for those barrages which, like the proposed Usk barrage or this one, are for purely "amenity" or cosmetic purposes—simply to cover up mudbanks so as to create a stagnant lake which is supposed to attract investment. All of us want to see the regeneration of Cardiff and the development of an attractive and prosperous city. The key question is whether to that end a barrage is essential.

When the second Private Bill came to your Lordships' House, a Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Elibank, in HL paper 57 of 1989, broadly accepted the promoters' case for the barrage, while making some amendments to improve groundwater protection, accepted the destruction of the site of special scientific interest, dismissed concerns about the water quality of the inland lake and recommended that the Bill should be allowed to proceed. I must say that at the time I was profoundly disappointed by that report, and the fact that our Select Committee was so easily satisfied contrasted rather painfully with the immensely thorough consideration given to the Bill in another place.

I hope that the Select Committee which will consider the present Bill will undertake a much more rigorous scrutiny of all aspects of this contentious proposal. I would suggest that it should address itself to the following main aspects: first, the economic arguments. It is for the Government and the promoters to demonstrate that the barrage proposal is the only means by which Cardiff can be effectively regenerated and that consequently the severe environmental damage it will entail must be accepted. The Government have to show that the project is economically viable. Doubt has been cast on their appraisal by a report prepared for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds by Jacqueline Mallender, an economist formerly with the Treasury, who contends that there will be a large negative economic return on investment if the project goes ahead. The Select Committee will want to look at that, bearing in mind that the previous plan fully to develop the Ferry Road refuse tip site has been abandoned, that costs have greatly increased and that the property market is, as we all know, in a dismal state. Canary Wharf is a warning. It should consider whether, as many contend, Cardiff can be effectively regenerated without a barrage.

Secondly, the Select Committee should consider the intractable problem of groundwater and the effect of a rise in its level on properties in Cardiff, a problem which was considered very thoroughly in another place and is raised in many of the petitions. The cost of tackling this in an urban area will be substantial, and the Select Committee should note that the special provisions set out in Schedule 7 provide for remedial work on houses and gardens but not on commercial properties.

Thirdly, the Select Committee should consider the problem of the SSSI, the proposed designation of the Severn Estuary as a special protection area and the threat to the 8,000 or so wading birds which use the mud flats in Cardiff Bay in winter. I continue to think it is entirely wrong for the Government to plan the total destruction of an SSSI. To do so makes pretty good nonsense of their overall conservation policy. Nevertheless, I welcome what the noble Viscount has told us this afternoon about the plans for an alternative site for the birds on the Gwent levels.

In its petition the Countryside Council for Wales says: The SSSI is of particular importance in supporting large numbers of water fowl during the winter months and has the highest density of waders for any site of its size in the Severn Estuary. The site, which by reason of the richness of its feeding grounds, shelter in adverse weather conditions and tidal regime, forms an important and integral part of the Severn Estuary which is of international importance for its water fowl, and which has been identified as qualifying for designation under the Ramsar convention and as a Special Protection Area for the purposes of the European Community's Council Directive". It points out that, following amendments to the Bill in another place there are now no proposals contained in the Bill for the provision of any compensatory measures to take account of the loss of wetland that will arise from the construction of the barrage and the subsequent impoundment of water within the inland bay". It goes on to say, the Secretary of State for Wales has confirmed in another place that the Government is committed to the provision of some form of mitigation for the loss of the wetland areas presently providing feeding grounds for wading birds and that proposals have been made in this respect which are the subject of various feasibility studies. As yet those studies have not been brought to any conclusion and therefore it is not certain as yet as to whether the current proposals will prove to be feasible and provide adequate compensation or whether other proposals will need to be considered". It urges that if the Bill should be approved, such approval should be on condition that assurances are given to your right honourable House by the Government that prior to the construction of the barrage compensatory measures which are regarded as satisfactory by your petitioner and which include provision for permanent management and protected funding shall be put in place and shall be fully operative prior to the impoundment of any waters within the inland bay so as to minimise the effects upon wildlife of the loss of habitat thereby caused". That seems to me only right. Any new habitat for the birds must be adequate in size and satisfactory in design in any event and funding must continue for all time.

The Government have not only delayed declaring the Severn Estuary as a special protection area under the Community's bird directive but have decided to exclude Cardiff Bay from the future SPA, which appears to be a deliberate and rather shameful attempt to circumvent Community law by excluding Cardiff Bay from the ecological unit of which it is an integral part. I am not surprised that the RSPB says on this in its petition: In reaching that decision, the Secretary of State made it clear that he has paid regard to the requirements of the Wild Birds Directive and to the implications of the decision of the European Court of Justice in case no. 57/89 Commission v. Germany ('the Leybucht case'). However, he has treated with Cardiff Bay in isolation, alleging that it does not meet the selection criteria for SPA status … Your Petitioner is concerned that the Secretary of State, in considering the Leybucht case, has noted that but for the exclusion of Cardiff Bay from the potential SPA he would be in contravention of the Wild Birds Directive; and consequently the barrage scheme would be unable to proceed … Your Petitioner wishes to register extreme concern at the manner in which the Secretary of State has sought to circumvent the Leybucht decision, and to record that this is a matter about which it intends to lodge a formal complaint with the European Commission". At the Second Reading of the second Private Bill on 23rd February 1989 I moved an Instruction to the Select Committee, to which the House agreed, relating to water quality in the inland bay and the effect of the barrage on the migration of fish. I know that the National Rivers Authority has had detailed discus-sions with the Welsh Office and the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation on these matters and that the arrangements for fisheries have been substantially improved. I welcome the fact that the noble Viscount has told us today that the authority is now satisfied that the side agreements and the schedule within the Bill provide full protection for the NRA in relation to the performance of its statutory duties. The NRA seems now to be reasonably content with the arrangements for maintaining water quality in the inland bay, but I see from the petitions that a group of members of South Glamorgan County Council say that they are, concerned about the quality of the impounded water especially in periods of hot weather and low river flow", that they are, particularly concerned about smell, scum, algal growth, bloom and rodent infestation at the heart of their capital city and the unhealthy and unpleasant effect upon residents and visitors", and that, it is disappointing and contrary to advance publicity that the inland bay is most unlikely to be suitable for water contact sports". One of the essentials for fisheries is to provide a minimum flow through the fish pass. This, I understand, depends on an agreement between the CBDC and Associated British Ports, which at present has abstraction rights which, if exercised, might cut off that minimum flow. I believe that, though negotiations continue, there is as yet no such agreement, but perhaps the noble Viscount or the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, who is to speak next and who is, I believe, a non-executive director of Associated British Ports, can tell us how matters stand on that.

And, despite all the efforts, I do not think that we can really be happy about the prospects for the fishery. We cannot be certain that salmon and sea trout, sweeping up the estuary on the tide, will be able to locate the small entrance to the fish pass. At a conference some time ago organised by the Atlantic Salmon Trust and the Institute of Fisheries Management, which the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, and I attended, an NRA fisheries scientist gave an account in the presence of the Prince of Wales of the 20 years' work on the restoration of the Taff after the ravages of the industrial revolution and said that, even if fish passes were built and water quality in the inland bay strictly monitored, he expected that numbers of salmon and sea trout would fall by at least one third and possibly much more. If that happens the CBDC will now have responsibilities to mitigate by restocking or compensation, but it will be sad to see a river that has been so brilliantly restored by the NRA damaged again in this way.

I draw attention to one further point. In its petition Cardiff City Council says: The Bill as drafted makes no provision identifying the successor to the Development Corporation for the ownership and management of the barrage, the outer harbour and the inland bay. The Development Corporation is a body of limited life. Your Petitioners contend that it is absolutely vital that proper provision should be made from the outset for the long term ownership and operation of the Scheme—not least so that prospective developers will have confidence in it". That seems to me a point of fundamental importance on which the Select Committee should satisfy itself beyond any doubt.

4.6 p.m.

Lord Crickhowell

My Lords, I have three separate interests to declare. I am, as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, reminded the House, a director of Associated British Ports Holdings, which is a major landowner in the area. I am also chairman of the National Rivers Authority, which has major responsibilities arising from the Bill. And it was I, as Secretary of State for Wales, who originated the scheme and brought it to the starting block.

Perhaps that is not the best analogy. Starting blocks are used for sprint races, and this particular race has turned into a marathon. I little thought when I made the announcement and set up the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation at the end of 1986 that we would still be debating the whole affair in Parliament six years later. Perhaps, fortunately, in view of the length of the race, I had not hurried the training programme but had spent a whole year in consultation seeking views and advice from both sides of the Atlantic. After such prolonged consideration of all the issues, both in Parliament and outside, I hope that this House will not delay things much longer. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that I cannot think of any measure that has passed through Parliament, at least in modern times, that has had such detailed scrutiny of all the points that he has raised and a great many others besides.

As chairman of the National Rivers Authority I must make my position perfectly plain as I did when the previous Bill had its Second Reading. Because of my other interests I gave an instruction in writing to the authority's chief executive at the outset that I was not to be involved in any way in the NRA's consideration of the issues and that the authority's highly skilled professional staff should take whatever action they felt was necessary regardless of my views. I need hardly say that they have done just that. Last week I asked them to send me a position statement. I quote now from the document sent to me by the regional solicitor: During the passage of the Bill through the House of Commons, the NRA had detailed discussions with the Welsh Office and CBDC on a wide range of technical and legal matters. These have culminated in a comprehensive 'package' of protection for the Authority in the form of:—

1. (i) A schedule to the Bill containing deemed conditions on the impoundment licence
2. (ii) A detailed agreement with the CBDC covering (inter alia) fisheries monitoring, compensation, etc.
3. (iii) An agreement with Cardiff City Council, CBDC and the Secretary of State in relation to Flood Defence.

Taken together, the side agreements and the schedule within the Bill provide full protection for the NRA in relation to the performance of its statutory duties". The position statement goes on to address precisely one query raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moran. The authority's solicitor says that, before any work starts on the barrage the NRA must be satisfied as to the arrangements for what has been referred to as 'the water budget"'. That protection appears in paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 3 to the Bill which provides that before the commencement of construction of the barrage the corporation must submit to the NRA for approval proposals for how the minimum flow of water through the fish pass should be maintained. Therefore, before construction starts the NRA has to be satisfied about the arrangements that have been made concerning ABP's rights of abstraction.

The scope of the clauses in the Bill that relate to the NRA's range of responsibilities is sweeping and remarkable; so also, in my view, are the arrangements that have been made to deal with fears about groundwater. The Minister referred to the de-watering scheme proposed by Mr. Stoner. I understand that investigatory works are being carried out at the present time. I am bound to say to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that that does not seem to me good grounds for further delay. The Bill provides very extensive protective arrangements for anyone who may suffer from the consequences of rising groundwater. What we have here, as I understand it, is an added protection in case that can be done more cheaply and effectively than by providing compensation. I make the same point to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, who speaks from the Front Bench. He was complaining about the possible cost of any programme for dealing with compensation. As I understand it, what we have here is a scheme that is being pursued at least in part because it may provide a cheaper and more effective form of protection without any need for compensation.

Lord Prys-Davies

My Lords, I was not complaining about the cost of the prevention works. I wanted to be certain that the matter had been adequately covered in the estimates and, if there was a deficit, to discover who at the end of the day would meet it.

Lord Crickhowell

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord will be satisfied that if the CBDC decides that this is a cheaper and more effective way of proceeding to some extent his fears will have been mitigated.

The House will understand my impatience with the delays that have occurred, but I feel also a growing sense of satisfaction and pride in what has been achieved since I first gave the CBDC its task. Large parts of south Cardiff are no longer a wasteland. The time has been used to prepare imaginative plans for the area, establish standards of design, construct infrastructure, clear dereliction and prepare public areas. A promising start has been made on development. That being so, it is legitimate to inquire whether the barrage is really needed. At the outset we in the Welsh Office judged that it would be on the basis of the advice received from those with experience of these matters both here and in other parts of the world. We have heard that since then there have been further extensive studies. Speaking simply on the basis of the knowledge I have acquired as a director of ABP and the experience gained in Cardiff by its subsidiary Grosvenor Waterside, I strongly reinforce that judgment.

Initially, there was great hesitation by developers and potential occupants of sites because they had serious doubts whether or not the barrage would go ahead. I believe that the major developments now under way or about to start would not have gone ahead without the commitment of the Government to the Bill and the progress being made with it. As the legislative process has approached its final stages so the interest of possible investors and occupants has been growing, even in the midst of recession. I have no doubt that the scale and pace of redevelopment of south Cardiff will be of a different order of magnitude if the barrage is built, with immense potential benefits not just for Cardiff but the whole of South Wales.

The connection between Cardiff Bay and the rest of South Wales is a point that needs to be made again and again. If one looks around the world the lesson that is driven home is that a prosperous city creates a prosperous hinterland. Cardiff is linked to the valleys by a network of rail lines and increasingly excellent roads. However, old prejudices and antagonisms die slowly. Those who know Wales and its history will not be surprised that the small group of Members of Parliament who have delayed the project has included a number from valley communities that have traditionally distrusted those on the coastal plain whom they have regarded as rivals. That may have made some sense in the days when men walked from their homes to pit and plant; it makes no sense today.

The House must understand that this is not a party issue. From the outset I took great care to try to create a partnership between the new CBDC and the Labour-dominated local authorities. That partnership has worked well. I have much appreciated the encouragement given throughout by the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, whom I am delighted to note is to speak later in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa, who regrettably cannot be with us this afternoon, has played a leading role both in local government and in the corporation and his contribution has been of inestimable value—a judgment that I know will be warmly endorsed by Mr. Inkin, chairman of the corporation.

A wider majority of those involved in local government, business and politics in Wales have from the start recognised the potential and importance of what has been attempted in Cardiff. During the past 10 or 15 years Wales has thrown aside its mood of hopeless pessimism and has begun increasingly to recognise that it is at the end of the long bleak decades of relative economic decline. I had the great privilege and opportunity to play a significant part in the process of attracting new industry, removing dereliction, creating the necessary infrastructure and building a new mood of confidence and pride. Wales now sees itself—as the competitive world outside increasingly recognises—as a place able to compete with the best and a suitable location for industry and business that wishes to succeed in European and world markets. Wales is determined never again to be dependent on a few basic but vulnerable industries or to have just a "branch factory" economy.

What is in train in Cardiff is a crucial part of a wider process of broadening and enriching industrial, economic, social and cultural activity throughout the region. Cardiff is a city insufficiently known or appreciated by the rest of Britain where people seem to be unaware of its magnificent parks, civic buildings, great museum, concert hall and university faculties or the wealth of its activities. For all its virtues Cardiff has for too long been like a sailing ship with one of its masts missing. What used to be its power base, driving force and the reason for its growth and success has been broken and left a tangled wreck. Despite the importance of the still active port, the sheer emptiness of the city south of the railway for many years bore witness to what had been lost. Cardiff has for too long been half a city incapable of fulfilling its full potential, and yet it possesses—and the barrage can enhance this —one of the most magnificent locations for a modern city anywhere in the world.

Few of those who praise the muddy estuaries that open into the bay live there. Fewer still, in recent decades, have bothered to go there, and that applies to most of the population and business leaders of Cardiff. It is only because of the work that has been done in the last half dozen years that people are flooding to look at, and be astonished by, the area. The excitement of what we are about in its potential has come as a revelation to many.

However, I was told by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that the mud is an SSSI and the feeding ground for waders, part of a potential RAMSAR site and, therefore, untouchable. As someone who spends the greater part of his working life protecting the environment, I do not take lightly the claims of rare and precious sites to protection, but each day, as chairman of the NRA, I find, as I found each day when I was Secretary of State for Wales, that there are conflicting priorities to be balanced and differing environmental requirements that cannot be recon-ciled. Very often hard choices have to be made.

I should like to explain why I have made my choice. The House of Commons Committee heard evidence that the winter count of dunlin is 2,891 and of redshank 486. We may doubt the remarkable precision of those figures. I do not know if any noble Lord here has tried to count dunlin 400 yards away across a misty bay in winter, but, be that as it may, I accept that a considerable number of dunlin and redshank feed in the bay and that not all of them may find alternative feeding grounds in the Severn Estuary.

The existing bay area, with its mud, is the artificial creation of 19th century man and the present enclosed area was largely created by the building of Cardiff Docks. Dredging has ceased and the bay is silting up. Over the next 20 years a significant part of those feeding grounds may cease to exist, barrage or no barrage. However, that is not the decisive factor now any more than it was when I made my decision as Secretary of State. First, I weighed the fate of a proportion of those birds against the unemployment and social deprivation that had been the fate of the people of South Wales for so long. I decided that it was an intolerable suggestion that the birds were more important than the people.

If there are those who say that they have no confidence that the barrage will create jobs and better living conditions, then I must respond by stating that I have immensely greater confidence in the forecasts of those who believe that it will do so than I have in the judgment of those who say that the birds will not find somewhere else to feed.

That is not the only argument. There is a powerful environmental case. The barrage will create a vast area of fresh water, bordered by large areas of grassland, with island and river bank habitats that will attract birds in great numbers. There may be many fewer waders, but I suspect that before we know where we are the conservation organisations will be proposing the designation of SSSIs for other reasons.

During a recent visit to Slimbridge I began to wonder whether or not we would soon be welcoming Bewick swans and other visitors from northern Russia to the new habitats in Cardiff Bay or to the possible bird reserve on the Gwent Levels about which we have been told this afternoon.

Perhaps more important, so far as I am concerned, is the contribution that the construction of the barrage will make to alleviating the pressure on the Vale of Glamorgan, that beautiful vale, dotted with largely unspoiled villages, that is the green belt for Cardiff, a precious heritage under grave and continual threat. It is a nonsense to contemplate allowing development in places like the Vale of Glamorgan when there are derelict, polluted, empty deserts close to the hearts of our great cities, waiting to be brought back to use, and when we have a chance to reverse the remorseless process which has led people further and further from increasingly lifeless cities into a ceaseless round of petrol-consuming, ozone layer-devouring, soul and environment-destroying commuting. I want to bring people back to live and work and play in the cities, and that is what the barrage will do in Cardiff.

We will not be constructing a few privileged homes for rich people alongside the water. We are bringing people of every kind back to live close to where they work. The Bill will bring university premises close to industry; modern industry and business close to new places of entertainment; and office buildings and an opera house, places of recreation, parks, avenues, pubs, restaurants and play houses into a desert in order to create a living, vibrant, heart, pumping blood back to the communities that spread out into the valleys of Wales that have contributed and suffered so much.

If it is wrong to dream a dream, I plead guilty, but I am proud to have dreamt it and pray that this Parliament will make it a reality.

4.25 p.m.

Lord Thomas of Gwydir

My Lords, I cannot pretend to speak with the authority and experience of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell on the subject of the Cardiff Bay Barrage project. When I was the Secretary of State in the Welsh Office my experience was limited to taking the occasional initiative in order to help Cardiff, but I never had the good fortune to be instrumental in introducing a momentous project such as this.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and my noble friend Lord Walker of Worcester, who followed him in the Welsh Office, on the way in which they have brought this project into being. We have just heard a remarkable speech from my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and anyone who heard that speech inevitably must vote for the Second Reading of the Bill with a clear conscience. It is a very important Bill and I support it not because I know much about it but because I am very concerned about the future of the capital city of Wales. It is Cardiff that we should think about.

Very few noble Lords have mentioned the fact that we are talking about a derelict deprived area. We are talking about a city which is the youngest capital city in Europe which once upon a time was the biggest coal exporting port in the world. There has been a change in the economy of South Wales and there has been a change in the port of Cardiff. Cardiff has improved and has become a capital of which we can be enormously proud, but there remains a part of Cardiff which needs regeneration.

I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, because he represented the part of Cardiff with which we are concerned. I hope that he will have the opportunity of intervening in the debate.

My knowledge of the Bill is restricted to having read the Bill and one or two of the reports. I understand the concerns that have been expressed. I was very surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, was so critical. I hope that he is speaking for himself and not for his party because if ever a Bill should be bipartisan, this is it.

The Private Bill about which noble Lords have spoken was presented jointly by the development corporation and South Glamorgan Council, which is Labour dominated. There is no doubt that, although the noble Lord is right to state that the Bill is contentious, most Bills are contentious in some way, but it is not as contentious as he tried to make out in his speech.

Since the Private Bill left the House almost four years ago there has been delay and contention—if that is the right word—in the other place caused by a small select group of people. That may initially have been for political reasons, because we were approaching an election, but it has not been anything of which we can be proud. This is an enormously important Bill.

In his excellent speech, my noble friend the Minister said that the economic case for the Bill was strong. He said the Bill was important for the future of Cardiff and south-east Glamorgan. I agree with him. This is the biggest capital project ever to take place in Cardiff. The project would transform that deprived area of Cardiff which I mentioned and would be a high quality asset for our capital city. In place of the present dereliction, there will be a freshwater lake of some 500 acres and over eight miles of waterfront. It will regenerate a large part of Cardiff and provide permanent jobs, new houses and private sector investment.

The noble Lord, Lord Moran, said that he hoped that the Select Committee would study the economic viability of the proposal. He obviously again felt that there was contention and that its economic viability may not be made out. He will be aware that over the years, while the Bill has been under the scrutiny of both Houses of Parliament, appraisals of the project's economic viability have been carried out by independent bodies. However, shortly after a report is published people say that there has been a change and that therefore a new report is needed. They call for the report to be brought up to date. The latest report was in October 1992.

That report claims that everyone seems to accept that there must be some regeneration and redevelopment of that area of Cardiff, and that the barrage scheme is superior in all respects to redevelopment without a barrage. It suggests that over 23,000 permanent jobs could be created by the barrage scheme—almost twice the number of permanent jobs that could be created without the barrage. Further, construction employment with a barrage scheme will be twice as much as that without the barrage, and over twice as many new houses would be built with the barrage scheme than by redevelopment without the barrage. According to that independent, up-to-date report, the most important factor is that the project should attract over £1 billion of private sector investment. Although I agree with the noble Lord that one should always study the economic viability of such a scheme and measure it against other suggestions, the evidence which is presently before the House and which was before the other place indicates that the barrage scheme is infinitely preferable to any redevelopment without the barrage.

I do not wish to go into all the objections that have been raised, but it is obvious that people in the area are worried about issues such as the rise in the groundwater level. That is a matter which will undoubtedly cause considerable anxiety. I have some experience of studying Bills and Acts of Parliament, and I have to say that Part IV and Schedule 7 contain exceptional provisions designed to provide protection. I do not know how many noble Lords have read Schedule 7 but it is exceptional to find incorporated into a Bill such a schedule which provides for the protection of people who may be injured by a project. I commend that to the House.

Another matter raised by the noble Lord was that under the Bill the Secretary of State has the right, by order, to change Schedule 7 in some respects should it be desired. The Secretary of State, and my noble friend who opened the debate, have made it clear that there is no intention to weaken the protection afforded by the provision. It is essential that the Secretary of State should have that power should it be necessary to amend in order to improve the provision. As my noble friend said, the power will never be used to weaken the provisions. The House can bear in mind, as my noble friend said, that the affirmative resolution procedure will be used. That of course means that both Houses of Parliament will have an opportunity to debate any proposed changes.

The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, expressed anxiety about dewatering wells. As I understand it, the full report on that issue has not been received, but I understand that it is proposed that there should be a well-pumping pilot study. I should be grateful if my noble friend would confirm that that is so. The House would be grateful to know when the report is likely to be made. Dewatering wells could be the complete answer to the problem of groundwater levels which worries so many people. All the surveys, remedies and compensation provided in Schedule 7 may not be used because there may be no risk. We all hope that that will be the case. If dewatering wells are not the answer, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales has made it clear that there will be no change in Schedule 7. Therefore, I commend the Bill to the House. I hope that everyone will give it a Second Reading.

4.37 p.m.

Lord Callaghan of Cardiff

My Lords, my name is not on the list of speakers because it was not until 2.30 p.m. that I gave notice that I should like to speak. I thought that the Bill was so uncontroversial that it would go through on the nod. However, I was a little disappointed to find that that was not the case and so I thought that I had better add my voice. As one who has known the area for 50 years and represented it for many, I have some slight knowledge of it.

I should like to begin by saying something that I never thought that I should live to say, and that is how much I agreed with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. It was a remarkable speech, and I thank him for it. He raised our eyes from some of the considerations that have loomed large in the Bill to the point of excluding the general approach and magnitude of the proposition. He enabled us to see the proposal in perspective. I hope that your Lordships will read carefully what he had to say, because I believe that that is a speech that will stand.

The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, gave us the history. My own approach—and I cannot remember who invented the phrase—is that this is "deja vu all over again". I have not heard a single new argument this afternoon that has not been put forward during the past six or seven years. Nothing further can be said. Many relevant questions have been asked during the progress of the plan and the approach to the Bill has been considerably improved as a result.

When, as Secretary of State for Wales, I first supported the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on this proposition, I immediately raised one issue: the history of flooding in that part of Cardiff because of the land on which the houses are built. The problem was the groundwater and the possibility of flooding. That had not been properly considered at the outset; there was no real time to do it then. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gwydir, said, since then it has been exhaustively examined. Perhaps I do not have experience of it, but the provisions in the Bill to safeguard against the possibility of anyone conceiv-ably being damaged by flooding go beyond the limits of anything the noble Lord said he had seen. I therefore defer to what he said. On that ground, which was my first and principal worry when we started the procedure, matters have been very much improved.

My noble friend Lord Prys-Davies rightly asked a series of questions. I wish he could have expressed himself a little more warmly about the magnitude of the proposition and the beneficial effect it will have, not only on Cardiff but also on the valleys from which he comes. Like all hinterlands, they depend upon the prosperity of the port, as we have been told. If we go to the other side of the world, we can see the impact that Hong Kong has had upon the province of Guandong in China, precisely because of the way in which that area has been developed. The same would be true of the valleys. I hope that there is no lurking suspicion in my noble friend's mind, in view of his valley loyalties, that this can be of benefit only to Cardiff. That is not so. It will be of benefit to the whole of the hinterland of South Wales. I hope that if he speaks again, he will be a little more enthusiastic about the Bill. Nevertheless, many of his questions will need to be examined and answered and he was correct to raise them.

On the nature of the proposition itself, every time a new proposal is put forward in Wales one can guarantee that there will be a thousand objections. It is our nature and I speak as one who is an adopted son. I suppose one or two noble Lords here will recall the great objection raised when the proposal to build St. David's Hall was put forward. There were editorials in the South Wales Echo, objections were made on the ground of cost and all the rest of it. Now St. David's Hall is a treasure in Wales, we all speak of it with great delight and it is a building where we are on an international footing. I warrant that the same will happen in relation to this proposal when it eventually gets through and when the opposition has died down.

I ask my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies to modify some of the things he said. The plain truth is that on a proposition of this magnitude there is no limit to the number of speculative questions that can be asked. There is no limit to the number of doubts that can be raised and alternatives that can be presented. I do not speak of my noble friend here, but it is in that spirit that much of the opposition to the Bill has been conducted. People are interested in different matters. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, made his position quite clear. He said unashamedly that his interest was that he was opposed to barrages in general, so he would vote against the Bill. I suppose that that is a perfectly valid reason for voting against it, but if he sets that against the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, I feel he ought to think again.

There are others whose prime interest is in the 500 dunlins and the 460, or whatever it is, redshanks which feed—no doubt very happily—in the feeding grounds there. On reflection I would say that there are probably nearly as many rusty bicycles in the feeding grounds as there are redshanks in the course of the winter. That is all right, it is a perfectly legitimate interest and the bird preservation people are quite right to put it forward. I think that a great effort has been, is being made and rightly should be made to meet them on it. We cannot meet the noble Lord, Lord Moran, on the barrage because either we have it or we do not. But we can meet people who are genuinely concerned about the birds.

However, when all is said and done and all the interests have put their case, I am afraid I have only one interest—the people who live there. When I weigh that interest against the limited interest of the noble Lord, Lord Moran, in his opposition to barrages, the interest in birds, which can be met in other ways, or the difficulties of the anglers who wonder whether their interests will be interfered with, I have no doubt on which side I shall come down. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that, considering that I represented the poorest and most deprived area of Cardiff for over 40 years.

I put it to your Lordships that in the end, if we add on the basic interests of people who have lived in the deprived area, the worst area in Cardiff, and weigh them against the other interests that have been put today, there can be no doubt which way the vote should go.

I hope that in Committee the opposition to the Bill that has been raised by the special interests will not be pursued to the point of disruption. We have had enough of it; it has been going on for six or seven years since the proposals were first put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. It is time the matter was brought to an end. Some people will not be satisfied, indeed, they cannot be satisfied. But in my view, there is no doubt where the balance of advantage lies.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that I am sorry to tackle him in this way because I agree with him more often than not on many matters. However, when he says that it is shameful that these mud flats around which people in Cardiff have been living should have ceased to be a site of special scientific interest, I can only tell him that all of us who know and have lived in the area and who know the people there are astonished that this was ever included as a site of special scientific interest. It makes me wonder whether some of these sites of special scientific interest are all they are cracked up to be. However, that is another problem.

I wish to say a word about water quality. Much has been said, rightly and properly, about it and I have no objection to that. However, it has certainly not been said here this afternoon—nor has it often been said elsewhere—that in south Cardiff we already have a small illustration of what might happen (but no one can be sure) to the quality of the water when the barrage is built. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Moran, has been to see the Bute East Dock. If he has, and if he visited it on a Saturday afternoon, he would have seen that not only are there people sail-surfing, falling in regularly, but there is also dragon boat racing where people manage to topple out of the boat on many occasions. It is an area of water which is wholly enclosed, fed from the river Taff up at Blackweir and which is impeded in its exit in the same way as the barrage would be impeded. The quality of the water there, which has been tested, is as good as anyone can possibly find. By any standards, now that the sewage discharges will be diverted to Lavernock, I would say without hesitation, speaking as a layman, that the probable result is that in the end the water will be of better quality when the barrage goes through than at present. I believe that on the basis of the evidence that has been given so far it is difficult to reach any other conclusion.

I do not wish to hold up your Lordships. I only disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on one point. I may have misheard him but I thought he said that Cardiff was lifeless. The noble Lord shakes his head, and I am glad; obviously he said something that I misunderstood. I believe that Cardiff, having had a stagnant period during the 20 or so years after the war, has recovered to a remarkable degree. Everyone who goes to Cardiff goes with some apprehension, but when they get there they say what a wonderful city it is. They look at the civic centre and see how it has been developed. They see the university and the civic buildings too. One can get out of Cardiff into the countryside in 10 minutes and there is the River Severn and the Bristol Channel nearby.

I remember when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer 30 years ago having arguments with the Civil Service because its members did not want to go to Cardiff. However, they went and now they could not be persuaded to leave. Incidentally those civil servants have contributed a great deal to the life of the city. Cardiff has a cultural centre and a sporting centre. In parts the city is wonderful already and I believe that with this development has the potential to become one of the show places of Europe. I hope that this Bill will meet with no difficulty in obtaining a Second Reading. I also hope that those who have genuinely expressed their own interests will recognise that a great deal has been done to satisfy those interests and to meet the difficulties that have been raised.

I hope that when the Bill reaches the Committee stage we shall be able to proceed with reasonable expedition while taking into account all the proper reasons that have been brought forward for consideration by the Committee. Finally, I wish to add to what has been said by my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies about the noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa. I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Brooks, cannot be here today. Much of the initiative that has been taken in Cardiff is a result of his forward vision. He has now relinquished some of his responsibilities there although he will remain a member of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. However, his name as a City Father and as one who will have helped to create the 21st century will, I believe, live in history. I am glad to add to the tribute paid to the noble Lord, Lord Brooks, by my noble friend.

4.52 p.m.

Viscount St Davids

My Lords, the Principality has been well served by your Lordships this afternoon and I join with its people in thanking your Lordships for the informed and enthusiastic comments which, despite a few reservations, you have made about the Bill. Having heard the speeches of my noble friends Lord Crickhowell and Lord Thomas of Gwydir and of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, I may as well pack up and go home because they seem to have covered most of the outstanding questions that were raised by other speakers.

In summing up the feeling of apprehension about the scheme we need to re-examine certain points. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked whether the barrage was essential. We have never claimed that no development would take place without the barrage although there is wide support for its construction among developers already in the Bay. What is clear is that, without the barrage, development would not be of the same value or quality. It would not create as many jobs and it would not attract so much private sector investment.

If one looks out across Cardiff Bay today one sees what is no more and no less than a manmade sewer. One asks oneself whether that is to be the centre of the capital city of the Principality. Without a barrage that is exactly the vista one would be presented with. However, with a barrage the vista will be very different.

Questions have been raised about the water quality in this manmade lagoon. I listened to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Moran. If I were young and unemployed and I were looking out over Cardiff Bay today, I would wonder whether the noble Lord and I lived on the same planet. The intimation is that having built this manmade lagoon we are going to try to recreate the Sargasso Sea with seaweed, mud, muck, filthy water, supermarkets, plastic and I do not know what else. I listened in amazement to the noble Lord. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales and many of your Lordships here today would not have put years of work into this project if we intended to replace one hideousness with another. An unemployed 21 year-old in Cardiff would wonder whether we were living on the same planet if that were our intention.

The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, referred to remedial questions. There must be some apprehension in this area. I can reassure him that if, without dewatering, we have to look at the higher number of houses which may need remedial action, we are talking about another £9 million. I cannot say that that sum is earmarked within a budget because when we are talking about a 20-year government budget noble Lords know as well as I do that I cannot do that. However, it is in the mind of the Welsh Office that we may have to consider the higher figure. Dewatering, as we know, is an innovative procedure. I should say to my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gwydir that we hope to receive the results of the first pumping experiments together with a report on that early in the New Year.

The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked where the wells would go. One can almost imagine the scenario of a poor council tenant waking up one morning to find a nodding donkey in his back garden pumping out the water. We believe that any land that is needed on which to place dewatering wells is already within public sector holdings. I understand that the wells are not likely to disturb anyone's vista. I cannot say they are invisible because they would not be invisible. There are a couple of manholes in the ground.

Some claims have been made by parties involved with both the bird life and the wild life of the estuary. There has been apprehension about the fish going up the fish pass. As I said, consultations are continuing with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Countryside Council for Wales as regards providing a compensation site, although not necessarily a mitigating site, for wildlife. That will be discussed no doubt in the Select Committee. We do not necessarily believe that the dunlin and redshank which at the moment live in Cardiff Bay will move to where we want them to go. We are not replacing mud flats with mud flats. However, it is proposed to replace mud flats with a water-based environment. We may lose some of the population of redshank and dunlin but we may obtain other rarer species on the compensation land. Obviously the RSPB would like to gain half the planet, but we cannot give it that. We have to think of a smaller site, and the budget for that site must be reasonable. However, as I said, we shall shortly receive the results of the consultations I have mentioned.

I do not believe the EC directive poses a problem. It is probably disingenuous to say that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has done everything to, as it were, duck this issue. We have to do the very best we can for the people of Cardiff and for the regeneration of Cardiff. We have to square the circle with the demands of wildlife and of fish. We shall endeavour to abide by all directives which are placed upon us.

The EC waste water directive is not required to be in full operation until the year 2000 for larger outfalls and 2005 for smaller outfalls. For waters considered sensitive areas the directive must be in operation by 31st December 1998. We are not in a position to say exactly how the requirements of the directive will be applied.

On the basis of criteria likely to be applied to the designation of sensitive and less sensitive areas, under the directive it seems unlikely that at present the Taff-Ely estuary would be designated as a sensitive area. Clearly, different circumstances will apply after the construction of the barrage. It is likely that the bay waters will then meet the criteria for designation as a sensitive area. If so, the extent to which discharges affecting the bay may require additional treatment will be considered at that time. At present that is as far as I can go in answer to the noble Lord. As more information on the directive comes to hand I shall write to him.

At the beginning of his speech the noble Lord, Lord Moran, raised a procedural point. I have tried to find an answer. The 93 petitions will not all be heard on the Floor of the House but by a Select Committee. The Select Committee will be examining them at some time in the coming months. Therefore, the gathering together of the petitions by the Select Committee and the timing of today's debate are not in synchronisation, but they are not required to be so. I do not know whether that is a satisfactory answer but I understand that that is what is to happen.

The noble Lord, Lord Moran, also raised questions concerning the economic argument. Other speakers today have given him as good an answer as I could. He tried to draw a parallel with docklands. Many lessons have been learnt from docklands. One was the lack of public transport infrastructure when development started. That will not be the case with Cardiff. Due not to our own good management but perhaps to divine providence, the Cardiff Bay barrage scheme will start at the right point in the economic cycle. I cannot think of a more opportune time in the economic cycle at which to start than at the beginning or on the upswing.

Doubts have been expressed in relation to the fish pass, but I understand that those points have been covered by the National Rivers Authority. I understand that the water flow over the fish pass will be in excess of that required by the NRA.

The Cardiff Bay barrage is a vital component in the regeneration of Cardiff Bay. The benefits it will bring will not be confined to Cardiff alone. Recent surveys of major employers in Cardiff suggest that nearly 40 per cent. of their employees live outside the county of South Glamorgan. The thousands of job opportunities offered by the inclusion of the barrage in the regeneration strategy will, therefore, benefit the people of the valleys as well as the residents of the city and its immediate periphery.

The image of Wales worldwide will be enhanced by such a prestigious project. Wales already has an excellent record of attracting inward investment. The perception of Wales as an attractive location for the international investor will be greatly increased. The benefits of the project are substantial, and are far greater than development without a barrage. I make no apology for mentioning some of the figures. Development with a barrage will support over 23,000 permanent direct jobs. That is some 10,000 more than would be supported without a barrage. About 4,400 new homes would be built in the barrage scenario; over 1,600 more than would otherwise be built. The barrage scenario would draw in £7.50 of private sector investment for every £1 of public money spent. That is nearly twice what is likely to be achieved without a barrage. Private sector investment with a barrage could exceed £1,200 million. Without one, it would be reduced to just over £650 million.

A great deal of development is already taking place in the bay area. That reflects the measure of confidence which already exists in its future. When the barrage is built I am sure that we shall see a further impetus in the pace of development. The project offers a unique opportunity to secure for the capital city of Wales the type of development which would be a major asset for any city in the world.

As I indicated in my opening remarks, derelict and polluted land is being cleared and made available for a range of industrial, commercial, residential and leisure uses. Significant environmental improvements have already been achieved. Before construction work starts on the barrage the development corporation will divert 14 main sewers and thus remove a major source of pollution from the bay.

An attractive new environment will be created around the lake. This will include the introduction of trees and plants along the shoreline and the creation of wildlife habitats. Your Lordships will wish to note that the Bill obliges the development corporation to have due regard to flora and fauna. They are required to have regard to the desirability of developing and conserving flora and fauna before and after the barrage is built. Construction of the main and ancillary works, the operation of the barrage and management of the bay must all be carried out with that objective in mind, and in perpetuity.

The Bill contains provisions for the protection of water quality. The corporation will be obliged to meet the very stringent dissolved oxygen levels prescribed in the Bill. The National Rivers Authority also has powers of direction, which will ensure that the barrage is operated so as to protect the quality of water in the inland bay, to prevent or alleviate flooding and to protect fish in the inland bay. I remind your Lordships that the NRA has confirmed that its statutory responsibilities in respect of those issues are already adequately safeguarded.

The householder, too, is protected by the Bill. The Government do not believe the pessimistic prediction about groundwater which opponents of the scheme have made. They are not borne out by the detailed studies, nor by the eminent expert who advised my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales. Nonetheless, the Bill contains a very detailed scheme for protection which will ensure that where damage does occur the development corporation and its successors will be obliged to put it right.

I referred in my opening remarks to what the Government are doing outside the Bill—to mitigate the effects of the scheme on birds and to explore fully the dewatering solution. I believe that the protection written into the Bill, and the willingness to pursue measures such as mitigation and dewatering outside it, is ample evidence of the Government's constructive approach to this project.

I believe that this approach strikes the right balance between the most beneficial regeneration of the former docklands area of Cardiff and the need to ensure that the interests of all—particularly the local population—are adequately protected. I urge your Lordships to give the Bill a second reading.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.