HL Deb 21 November 1983 vol 445 cc108-9WA
Lord Tanlaw

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many tonnes of carbon are released into the atmosphere each year through the practice of stubble burning by certain sections of the British farming community; and what specific legislation prevents local councils from prohibiting this practice completely or from restricting it through the issue of licences to burn based on acreages applied for by individual farmers.

Lord Belstead

A proportion of the carbon contained in straw and stubble is released during combustion and converted into oxides and other organic compounds, and a proportion remains unburnt. It would not be possible without disproportionate cost to estimate the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, and such estimates would necessarily be subject to wide margins of error.

As statutory bodies, local authorities possess only such powers as are conferred upon them by statute. Section 235 of the Local Government Act 1972 empowers district councils in England and Wales to make by-laws for good rule and government and for the prevention and suppression of nuisances, and many district councils have used this power to regulate straw and stubble burning. It would not, however, empower them to establish a licensing system; nor, unless the local circumstances were most exceptional, to prohibit the practice completely.