§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the proposals set out in his joint consultation paper on the future of air quality monitoring networks in the United Kingdom; and what is the closing date for submissions.
§ Mr. YeoMy Department issued the paper "The Future of Air Quality Monitoring Networks in the United Kingdom" for consultation on 2 November 1993. This fulfils the Government's commitment made in the second anniversary report of the 1990 White Paper "This Common Inheritance" to examine the possibilities of better integration of national and local ambient air quality monitoring and greater uniformity of practice. The closing date for submissions is 10 December 1993.
The paper sets out proposals on ways in which local and national monitoring can be brought together to produce one coherent quality-assured network and seeks views on ways this can best be achieved. The proposals include the development of a central and accessible pool of national and local data of broadly common format and standards, which would be subject to effective quality control and be freely available to the public.