§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many oil or chemical pollution incidents have been reported by each member state party to the Bonn agreement on pollution in the North sea in each year since it came into force; and if he will place in the Library copies of each submission made by the United Kingdom under the Bonn agreement. [8366]
§ Mr. BowisThe Bonn agreement secretariat has informed the Department's marine pollution control unit that, between 1984 and 1996 to date, it received 36 pollution reports from contracting parties as in the table.
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1984 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995 1996 Total Belgium 1 1 1 1 2 6 Denmark 1 2 3 France 1 1 2 Germany 1 1 2 Netherlands 2 2 3 2 3 1 13 Norway 1 1 2 Sweden 1 1 2 United Kingdom 3 1 1 5 The secretariat has said that the Bonn agreement 1983, as amended by the decision of contracting parties of 22 September 1989, does not impose a formal duty on contracting parties to send copies of all pollution reports to the secretariat. In practice, all contracting parties resort to instant operational contacts with neighbouring parties from the start of an incident, often under the umbrella of bilateral arrangements.
Since 1989, the marine pollution control unit has notified the Bonn agreement secretariat on five occasions of oil pollution or threatened oil pollution in the UK as shown in the table. The Bonn agreement does not require members to make submissions. Of the five UK incidents listed, reports of two—the Philips Oklahoma and the Braer—are available in the Library.