HC Deb 20 October 1989 vol 158 cc260-1W
Mr. Flynn

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make it his policy to introduce legislation covering the requirements to disclose information on difficult, hazardous, special and controlled toxic wastes by private waste treatment companies, which includes the same criteria for disclosure as are included in the United States Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act legislation.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley

The Government accept the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution that there should be a presumption in favour of unrestricted access for the public to information which the pollution control authorities obtain or receive by virtue of their statutory powers, with provision for secrecy only in those circumstances where a genuine case for it can be substantiated. It is already a duty of waste disposal to maintain a public register of waste disposal licences issued by them. We propose to extend the scope of these registers to include information on the monitoring of the facility by the authority, including details of enforcement notices served and prosecutions taken. We are consulting on public access to information on the processes to be scheduled under integrated pollution control. The disclosure criteria incorporated in the United States SARA legislation are tailored to the pollution control regime in that country and not all are applicable here.