AMENDMENT TO COMMONS AMENDMENT NO. 134 (Hansard, 11 July 1995)

§ Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 134C as an amendment to Commons Amendment No. 134.
I am taking up a lot of your Lordships' time and shall endeavour to be brief. The noble Baroness, Lady Hilton, referred, quite rightly, to anxieties felt by local authorities in regard to the likely cost of proceeding with the strategy. That is not to say that there is a reluctance to do so, but inevitably the question arises whether local authorities will be able to finance the process. I recognise that there may be a question of privilege if I were to seek to include an amendment calling for a higher level of public expenditure. I hope therefore that Amendment No. 134C, in drawing your Lordships' attention to the issue, will achieve the appropriate response from the Minister.
Local authorities will be under a duty to review air quality; to declare the whole or part of their area as an air quality management area and, in relation to those air quality management areas, under a duty to produce action plans. That will clearly mean that new costs will be incurred. The Minister indicated earlier that the costs may not be very high. However, monitoring will not be a paper exercise and in some areas continuous monitoring will be required.
In London we now have an established monitoring system—the London Air Quality Network—which was commended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in its recent report on transport. That network will need to be augmented to ensure that all local authority areas are covered for all the target pollutants. Areas outside of London which do not currently monitor air quality are likely to be faced with substantial extra costs.
I therefore tabled an amendment to add, at the end of subsection (5) (c), that the way in which the Secretary of State draws up his strategy should include an assessment of the likely costs to local authorities for carrying out their reviews and implementing action plans. There should also be a statement by the Secretary of State of his proposals for making a contribution to those costs. I tabled that amendment in order to require the Secretary of State, as part of the whole exercise, to make clear what the costs are likely to be and what proposals there may be for meeting them. I beg to move.

§ Lord Renton
My Lords, Amendment No. 134C raises important issues. It is interesting that Amendment No. 134, the new clause, introduces something which I have not seen in statute before; namely, a requirement upon the Government to prepare and publish a statement to be referred to as "the strategy". That is a fine concept.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is fully entitled to ask, as she did, whether, as part of that strategy, the extra costs to be borne by local authorities—that is 1550 inevitable—should be a stated part of the strategy. My noble friend Lord Ferrers may say that the amendment is not necessary because the clause as it stands is quite far-reaching and, in any event, the Secretary of State is obliged to publish a draft of the strategy before it becomes effective.
The noble Baroness has performed a useful service by asking the Government to consider this matter and I shall be interested to hear what my noble friend says.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Renton is correct when he said that I may say that the amendment is not necessary. That is what I do say.
Costs are always a problem. First we say that there is terrible pollution and that we must do something about it; then we produce a Bill to say what must be done, and certain responsibilities are placed upon local authorities. Then everyone screams that local authorities do not have any money and the Government must provide it. But of course the Government are always trying to curtail their expenditure. We tend therefore to go around the houses.
If we are not prepared to take action, then nothing will ever happen. We must settle down to the business of saying who will provide the service and where the resources will come from. We recognise that the new system of air quality management is bound to have cost implications for local authorities. It is the Government's aim to obtain the best possible estimate of those costs and of the potential cost to others—for instance, industry. It is difficult to be able to say what the costs will be. We want to obtain as reasonable an estimate as we can. We are already in extensive discussions with local government and are setting up a formal liaison group to take forward the implementation of the new provisions. Costs will be an important topic for discussion as we prepare the draft strategy for consultation.
We must accept that it will not be possible to provide accurate figures which may be implied by a statutory requirement at the outset of a new and complex system and one which must not only be set up, but also be able to adapt itself. We shall therefore be working closely with local government at all stages of the implementation. We shall be revising and refining the cost estimates—for example, as we prepare the regulations. Those estimates will be taken into account when we consider local authority resources in the normal way.
We shall be directing central government activity towards implementation of the new system. We shall encourage councils to make use of the extensive local and national data already available and many will be able to rely largely on that for their national reviews of air quality. We are expanding the networks—the new government stations—and we are funding the integration of some existing local authority equipment so that it can operate to national standards. We are paying for detailed emissions inventories for some of the largest conurbations. Those are an essential tool in an air quality management system. We will be looking to what else should be developed nationally as the system comes into operation.
1551 These are fairly large undertakings. The system is in the process of being put into place. Costs are important. We cannot give a guarantee as to exactly what they will be but the noble Baroness can be assured that we shall do this in close consultation with the local authorities. I hope she will consider that, if nothing else, her amendment has provided me with the opportunity to say what the Government are doing. I rather fancy that that was the purpose of her amendment in the first place.

§ Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, the purpose of my amendment was to make it clear that the Government, while producing one sort of bill, recognise that there is another sort of bill and that there is a responsibility to meet the costs. I do not make an apology for drawing this matter to your Lordships' attention. Inevitably, this is an issue where immediate costs will fall on one set of shoulders and the long-term savings, quite apart from personal savings, may well be in another area. I refer to expenditure on health. After all, that is a lot of what this is about.
I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. I am pleased to hear what the Government are doing and I shall he pleased over the next few months and years to hear more. It is an important area. However, it is also important to recognise that there are savings to be made over a longer period and that those will require an investment in the shorter period. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.