§ Mr. LlwydTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many petrol retailers have been prosecuted in each of the past five years for not reporting leakages from underground storage tanks. [1588]
§ Mr. MeacherThe Environment Agency's prosecution database runs only from January 1999 and does not provide narrative in respect of prosecutions. The failure to report leakage from a storage tank would not therefore be specifically identified and case-by-case information would be disproportionately expensive to obtain. If leakage from a petrol tank occurred, a prosecution would be likely to be based on the leakage itself and the resulting pollution or a breach of a licence condition.