§ Mr. Alex CarlileTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the quality of marine life and water in the North sea, what proposals he has for their improvement; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Heathcoat-Amory[holding answer 26 January 1990]: A full quality status report on the North sea was prepared for the second North sea conference held in 1987. As a result of a United Kingdom initiative at that conference, a North sea task force was established to co-ordinate North sea research, identify gaps in knowledge and prepare an updated and improved quality status report for the fourth conference which is expected to be held in 1995. Work on this is under way and in the meantime an update of scientific material will be submitted to the third North sea conference in March 1990, together with reports from the task force on sensitive issues such as seals and algal blooms.
The Department of the Environment is co-ordinating the United Kingdom's input to the task force together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland and the National Rivers Authority. Additional research is being undertaken on a range of topics including fish disease, seabird breeding failures, the seal epidemic, the role of nutrients and transport of contaminants; and there is a special Anglo-French study of the English channel.
I am confident that the third North sea conference to be held in March this year, primarily to review the work undertaken by member states in implementing the recommendations of the second conference, will also generate valuable new measures to improve protection of the North sea.