HC Deb 11 May 1993 vol 224 cc371-2W
Mr. John Marshall

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has to nominate candidates for essential use of halons under the Montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer for continued production in 1994.

Mr. Maclean

The Government are committed to keeping extra production for "essential uses" to a minimum. In order to be considered for extra production after phaseout, applications must meet a number of strict criteria agreed by parties to the Montreal protocol at their meeting in Copenhagen last year. These criteria include that the use is essential to protect health, safety or critical to the functioning of society; that there are no technically or economically feasible alternatives; and that there is insufficient supply of banked or recycled material available.

The Government have scrutinised all nominations made to them for continued production of halons in 1994 and consider that six uses meet all the criteria at this time. These are:

  1. (i) the use of halon 1211 in civil aircraft cockpits and passenger cabins;
  2. (ii) the use of halon 1301 in the cargo compartments of civil aircraft;
  3. (iii) the use of halon 1301 in civil aircraft engine nacelles;
  4. (iv) the use of halon 1211 on civil airport rescue arid fire fighting vehicles;
  5. (v) the use of halon 1301 in the engine compartments of the class 92 and 373 locomotives;
  6. (vi) the use of halon 1301 in various applications in existing installations in the offshore oil and gas industry including control rooms, diver support areas and radio rooms.

We shall be proposing that the parties to the Montreal protocol agree that production should be allowed in 1994 for these six uses. This is likely to involve new production of some 30 tonnes of halons for United Kingdom uses in 1994 compared with a total estimated United Kingdom consumption of some 1,500 tonnes in 1990.

There are a few other uses which might fulfil some but not all of the criteria—because of the efforts of those concerned to bank and recycle halons they do not need new production in 1994. I hope that the efforts of the Halon Users' National Consortium will soon show that sufficient quantities of recycled material are available to meet all continuing needs.

We shall be considering what nominations, if any, we put forward for continued production in 1995 later this year.

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