§ Mr. Chris SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what discussions or correspondence the Minister has had with Eurotunnel regarding the use of ozone-depleting substances in the operation of the channel tunnel; and if he will make a statement;
(2) what discussions or correspondence he has had with Eurotunnel regarding the use of HCFCs in the air conditioning system in the channel tunnel.
86WMore widely, I have visited my counterparts in Dublin and Germany to discuss European developments on driver licensing and vehicle licensing and registration. And on 23 October last year I visited the Rijksdienst voor het Wedverkeer, Veendam, Holland in order to sign an agreement with the Dutch registration authorities to set up an exchange of vehicle registration information with DVLA.
Letter from C. M. Woodman, chief executive of the Driving Standards Agency, to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 28 October 1992:
As you know, the Secretary of State has asked individual Chief Executives to reply to the Parliamentary Questions you have tabled for written answer about the Department's Executive Agencies.PO 898192193In the past 12 months I have undertaken six fact-finding visits. These are detailed below:
§ Mr. FreemanThe binational intergovernmental commission—IGC—and safety authority SA—were established under the treaty of Canterbury to supervise the construction and operation of the tunnel on behalf of the United Kingdom and French Governments.
The IGC decided in December 1989—Official Report, 19 December 1989, col 195, that Eurotunnel could continue to develop its shuttle system on the basis of non-segregation of drivers and passengers of cars and coaches from their vehicles during transit through the tunnel. Among the conditions attached to that decision was one requiring that a fire extinction system using halon 1301 or other agent with the same extinguishing capacity should be available either when passengers had been evacuated or as a last resort when the lives of passengers were endangered in spite of the use of other means of extinction provided for in the decision. The SA's paper "Non-segregation of drivers and passengers from their vehicles" which reviews the factors on which the SA based its advice to the IGC is available from the Library of the House.
In the response—Cm 1853, March 1992—to the report of the Home Affairs Committee on fire safety and policing of the channel tunnel, it is made plain that it is important that Eurotunnel continue to work on alternatives to halon 1301 for use in the tunnel. If however, nearer the time of phase out of halons, no suitable replacement has been found, the Government stated that they would consult the French Government with a view to persuading the international community that the tunnel should be included in the list of possible essential uses for which extra production of halons may be allowed.
In the case of the sealed tunnel cooling system, Eurotunnel proposes to use HCFC 22 which has a low ozone-depleting potential and low toxicity whilst being effective for the purpose. The use of this material, too, has been approved by the IGC. Eurotunnel has been required 87W to design the cooling system to accept without great modification, the possible replacement of HCFC 22 by more ozone-friendly fluids which become available.