§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the outcome of the recent meeting of the Paris convention on marine pollution; and if he will arrange for the United Kingdom papers presented to the meeting to be placed in the Library.
§ Mr. MacleanThe Commission established by the Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution from Land-Based Sources (the Paris Convention) held its annual meeting at official level in Paris on 15, 16 and 19 September, and its annual joint meeting with the Commission established by the Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping from Ships and Aircraft (the Oslo Convention) on 17 to 19 September. The progress of work by the Paris Commission was reviewed and the final texts of a number of decisions and recommendations were established. I am placing in the Library of the House copies of the papers submitted by the United Kingdom to those meetings.
A joint meeting of the Oslo and Paris commissions at ministerial level was also held in Paris on 21 and 22 September.
I represented the United Kingdom.At this meeting we agreed a new Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North east Atlantic. I welcome the co-operation and commitment of all the constracting parties which have allowed us to achieve an agreement which establishes an effective framework for future protection of the marine environment from all kinds of pollution. We also adopted a declaration setting out the aims we shall all pursue under the convention and an action plan for protecting our seas into the next century.In addition we adopted the decisions and recommendations whose texts had been prepared by the official meetings the previous week. The United Kingdom did not present any papers to this meeting.