HC Deb 19 October 1994 vol 248 cc260-1W
Mr. Matthew Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) of 18 July,Official Report, column 44, (a) how is the freephone helpline promoted, (b) what assessment has been made of the level of public awareness of the helpline and (c) how many calls the helpline has received in the past 12 months.

Mr. Atkins

(a) The freephone line is promoted in a variety of leaflets and cards produced by my Department as well as literature produced by organisations such as the National Society for Clean Air and the National Asthma Campaign. In addition, the freephone number is carried on Ceefax and Teletext.

(b) In 1993 two assessments were prepared for the Department, an independent consultancy and the survey of public attitudes to the environment—reported in the "Digest of Environmental Protection and Water Statistics No.16". These indicated a 2 per cent. awareness of the freephone line in the general population.

(c) In the 12 months ending on 30 September 1994, a total of 146,325 calls were received on the freephone, an average of 400 calls per day. In the previous 12 months to 30 September 1993 the average number was 259 calls per day.

Mr. Matthew Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) of 14 July,Official Report, column 769, what was the statistical basis for his statement that the number of telephone calls to the air quality bulletin freephone line increased substantially; and if he will place in the Library the survey on public awareness and actions during the pollution episode on 2 July.

Mr. Atkins

The daily average number of calls to the freephone in the week before 2 July was 536. The number of calls received on the freephone over the next three days averaged 1,184 per day.

I have placed a copy of the survey on public awareness and actions during the episodes of 2 to 3 and 12 to 13 of July 1994 in the Library.

Mr. Matthew Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many times serious air pollution has occurred without being forecast by his Department in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

Mr. Atkins

In the last three years air pollution has reached levels which the Department describes as "very poor" on seven days, six of which were forecast to be "poor" or "very poor" and one forecast to be "good".

Sulphur Dioxide
Place Date Predicted Actual
Belfast 10 December 1991 Poor Very Poor
Belfast 20 December 1991 Poor Very Poor
Belfast 22 December 1991 Very Poor Very Poor
Belfast 31 January 1993 Good Very Poor

Mr. Matthew Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) of 18 July,Official Report, column 44, in what form and quantities the information from his Department's non-automatic and automatic monitoring sites is published; and how this information is distributed.

Mr. Atkins

The measurements of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and benzene from the automatic monitoring networks are available on Ceefax, Teletext and the DOE air quality helpline—freephone 0800 556677—and are updated hourly. The information is supplied daily to 20 other organisations for their use and 70 groups have on-line access to the databases currently held at the National Environmental Technology centre. Specific requests for air quality information can also be made to the centre.

Following validation of the data, the air quality measurements from both the automatic and non-automatic networks are available from the operators of the network. Since 1987, annual reports such as "Air Pollution in the United Kingdom" have been prepared which summarise the measurements made by the different national networks. Two thousand copies of these reports are published and are available on request. The information is also published in specialist reports prepared by the Department's review groups and as specialist papers in the open scientific literature.