§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton) of 24 May 2000,Official Report, column 539W, on dioxin, if he will make a statement about the operation of his Department's Hazardous Air Pollutants Programme in East Sussex. [126258]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 19 June 2000]The Hazardous Air Pollutants Programme has no measuring station in East Sussex.
§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton) of 24 May 2000,Official Report, column 539W, on dioxin, what assessment his Department has made of the geographical comprehensiveness of his Department's Hazardous Air Pollutants Programme; and if he will make a statement. [126257]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 19 June 2000]The Hazardous Air Pollutants Programme has made measurements of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), dioxins, furans and polychlorinated biphenyls in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Stevenage, Hazelrigg in Lancashire, High Muffles in the North Yorkshire Moors and Stoke Ferry in East Anglia in various years since 1991. It is making further measurements of PAH at Ashington, Bolsover, Glasgow, Holyhead, Kinlochleven, Lisburn, Newport (Gwent), Port Talbot and Scunthorpe. The first list of sites gives a good indication of levels of hazardous air pollutants across the UK as a whole, while the second list represents sites where levels might be expected to be higher than average.
§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton) of 24 May 2000,Official Report, 197W column 539W, on dioxin, what steps he has taken to publicise the website displaying the results of programmes which monitor dioxin levels; how many hits that website has received for each of the last 12 months for which figures are available; and what is the web address. [126259]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 19 June 2000]The Department's website that contains the results of all the Department's air quality measuring programmes is widely publicised in a variety of media. The number of hits on the pages containing the dioxin measurements were 2,445 in the period 1 June 1999 to 31 May 2000, representing approximately 1,150 users. The website address is http://www.environment.detr.gov.uk/airq/aqinfo.htm, then click on National Air Quality Information Archive and then Monitoring Networks. The dioxin data are collected in the Toxic Organic Micropollutants section.
The Food Standards Agency data are on the website http://www.foodstandards.gov.uk. This site has experienced 612 hits since 3 April 2000 on the pages giving information about dioxins in food.