§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent action he has taken to extend the collection and publication of statistical data on the environment; and if he will make a statement on the policies of other EC member states on the compilation and release of their environmental statistics.
§ Mr. Trippier[holding answer 23 October 1990]: A wide range of statistical material is published by my Department, including the annual Digest of Environmental Protection and Water Statistics. In order to bring together environmental statistics in a more coherent and comprehensive form, the Government proposed in their Environment White Paper "This Common Inheritance" to publish at regular intervals a statistical report covering a range of data on environmental topics. It is hoped that the first report will be published in 1992.
Other EC countries are making similar efforts to improve the collection and dissemination of environmental statistics. All are committed, for example, to support the work of the European Environment Agency, when 269W operational, to ensure that the data underpinning environmental policy are objective, comparable and reliable, at the European level.