§ Mr. Andrew F. BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many industrial pollution incidents of rivers have been prosecuted in each of the last five years; and which companies have been involved;
(2) what percentage of reported industrial pollution incidents of rivers have not led to prosecution in each of the last five years;
(3) what percentage of reported pollution incidents have not resulted in prosecutions in each of the last five years.
§ Mr. HowardInformation on the number of reported water pollution incidents and the prosecutions brought by former water authorities up to 1987, has been published in the annual "Digest of Environmental Protection and Water Statistics", copies of which are available in the Library of the House.
Information on the number of incidents attributable to industrial causes, and the number of resulting prosecutions is available only for 1986 and 1987.
Information on the companies that have been prosecuted is not held by the Department.
Water Authority Number Number tested Works in breach of consent Number Percentage of works tested 1986 1987 1988 1986 1987 1988 1986 1987 1988 1986 1987 1988 Anglian 782 760 775 774 754 748 309 260 208 40 34 28 Northumbrian 196 182 178 196 182 178 37 27 26 19 15 15 North West 458 448 441 458 448 441 62 55 43 14 12 10 Severn Trent 773 753 808 762 742 751 179 160 112 23 22 15 Southern 282 274 273 282 274 271 54 39 41 19 14 15 South West 226 226 232 188 219 228 55 65 67 29 30 29 Thames 374 382 378 374 379 378 67 70 60 18 18 16 Welsh 803 764 710 668 611 650 112 108 107 17 18 17 Wessex 272 272 272 272 270 272 39 29 17 14 11 6 Yorkshire 380 360 360 380 351 354 88 74 61 23 21 17 England and Wales 4,546 4,421 4,427 4,354 4,230 4,271 1,002 887 742 216 195 168
§ Mr. Andrew F. BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to increase the penalties for industrial pollution of the rivers.
§ Mr. Howard[holding answer 4 December 1989]: The maximum penalties which may be imposed by magistrates for offences under section 107 of the Water Act 1989 are fines not exceeding £2,000 and terms of imprisonment of up to three months. However, on indictment in the Crown court there is no limit on the fine that may be imposed and terms of imprisonment can be up to two years. Penalties for pollution offences are kept under review although there are no immediate plans for increasing them.
§ Mr. Andrew F. BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to reform the system of deemed consents for discharges into rivers.
§ Mr. Howard[holding answer 4 December 1989]: The arrangement for granting deemed consents was a transitional provision introduced under earlier legislation and, most recently, under part II of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, relating to those categories of discharges, chiefly into coastal and estuarial waters, which were brought under control for the first time. This arrangement applied only to applications received by 14
332WEnforcement of water pollution controls—including the compilation of relevant data—is now the responsibility of the National Rivers Authority.
§ Mr. Andrew F. BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many non-compliant sewage works there were in each of the water authority areas during 1988;
(2) what percentage of the total number of sewage works in England were non-compliant during each of the past five years;
(3) what progress has been made in reducing the number of non-compliant sewage works.
§ Mr. Howard[holding answer 4 December 1989]: Information on non-compliant sewage treatment works was first collected by the Government for 1986. Numbers of sewage treatment works operated by each water authority with numerical discharge consent conditions, together with the numbers tested by each authority and found non-compliant in 1986, 1987 and 1988, are listed. The results show a steady reduction in the proportion of non-compliant works from 23 per cent. in 1986 to 17 per cent. in 1988.
Further improvements will result from the major capital programme to bring substandard sewage treatment works into compliance with their discharge consents.
October 1987, on which basis deemed consents were granted with the expectation that they would be reviewed and substantively determined by October 1992. It now falls to the NRA to complete this process.
There are no plans to reintroduce the procedure.