HC Deb 27 October 1971 vol 823 cc336-7W
Mr. Oakes

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what action he has now taken in this country and with international organisations to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in its first Report in February, 1971.

Mr. Peter Walker

Since the publication of the Commission's Report we have tightened our grip on the pollution problem. To quote a few examples, my Department has:

made arrangements for expenditure of over £700 million on sewage treatment in the next five years, an increase of 50 per cent. in real terms over the past five years;

agreed to a capital programme for some £30 million on a scheme to improve tidal parts of the Tyne; accepted an invitation to give technical assistance to a joint working party of local authorities, the Mersey and Weaver River Authority and local industrialists which has been set up to organise a progressive cleaning-up programme for the Mersey Estuary; begun consideration of a £20 million scheme for sewerage and sewage disposal on Teesside;

begun close co-operation with the French and German Ministers responsible for anti-pollution policies;

taken part in a continuing series of international meetings of experts aimed at reaching agreement on the control of pollution of the North Sea;

made regulations requiring new cars sold after 1st January, 1972 to be fittted with a "crank case breather", reducing the emission of hydrocarbons by 25–30 per cent;

decided to make regulations requiring diesel engines to meet the new British Standard Specification AU 141, as regards the emission of smoke, and reducing the maximum noise levels for all new motor vehicles;

set in train urgently a number of new studies on the effects on the environment of lead in petrol;

made arrangements to overcome the shortage of solid smokeless fuel, enabling the clean air programme to go forward again;

played a full part in the preparatory work for the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment.

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