HC Deb 02 March 1978 vol 945 cc330-1W
Mr. Cohen

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress he has made in considering the form of the high-level independent body to advise on energy policy and the environment as announced in the Government reply to the Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Shore

In the White Paper "Nuclear Power and the Environment" (Cmnd. 6820) the Government accepted the Royal Commission's recommendation that such a body should be established. We have decided to set up a Standing Commission on Energy and the Environment with wide-ranging terms of referenceto advise on the inter-action between energy policy and the environment".

The new Commission will be linked through a degree of common membership with the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the Energy Commission and other bodies in the energy and environmental fields.

The Chairman of the Commission will be Sir Brian Flowers, FRS, and the following have accepted the Government's invitation to serve:

  • T. J. Chandler, PhD.
  • A. H. Chilver, DSc.
  • J. G. Collingwood, Hon. DSc.
  • A. G. Derbyshire, FRIBA.
  • Professor Sir Richard Doll, OBE, FRS, FRCP.
  • Professor Sir William Hawthorne, CBE, FRS.
  • Professor F. G. T. Holliday, CBE, FRSE.
  • A. W. Pearce, CBE, PhD.
  • M. V. Posner.
  • Sir Francis Tombs.

I shall shortly be announcing the names of several more members whom I have invited to serve.

The task of the new body will be to provide the Government with authoritative advice on the inter-action of energy policies and the environment. The Commission will have a great diversity of interests. It will have to consider the environmental implications, nationally and globally, arising from the production and use in the United Kingdom of coal, oil, nuclear power, gas and electricity. It will need to examine the environmental side of renewable energy sources. It will be concerned with pollution. It will also be concerned with planning—though not with specific planning cases—examining the interface between energy policies on land-use planning, and the implications of such policies for the natural world and the urban environment.

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