§ Mrs. DeanTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what estimate she has made of the effect upon the cost of a cremation arising from(a) the cost of installing gas cleaning filtration systems to remove mercury emissions and (b) the need to travel a greater distance to the nearest crematorium if closures take place; [137918]
(2) what representations she has received about the review being undertaken by the Environment Agency's Local Authority Unit into the Best Available Techniques Not Entailing Excessing Costs for crematoria; [137919]
(3) what estimate has been made of the cost of fitting gas cleaning filtration systems into crematoria; [138017]
(4) what estimate has been made of the number of crematoria which would be likely to close if there was a requirement to fit cleaning and filtration systems; [138018]
624W(5)what plans she has to conduct (a) quantified and (b) qualified research into mercury emissions from crematoria prior to reaching a decision on whether gas cleaning filtration systems should be fitted; [138019]
(6) what account she will take on any decision to enforce the fitting of filtration systems into United Kingdom crematoria of trends on levels of mercury emissions; [138020]
(7) what assessment she has made of the content of the Local Authority Unit report into Best Available Techniques Not Entailing Excessive Costs (BATNEEC) for crematoria; and what representations she has received which disagree with the report's recommendations. [138563]
§ Mr. BradshawEstimates of the impacts of controlling mercury from crematoria were contained in a consultation paper the Department issued on 7 May 2003. A summary of the responses to the consultation has been placed on the Defra website at www. defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/crematoria
The main interim conclusions reached from this consultation exercise are as follows:
reducing emissions of mercury from crematoria should aim to be achieved without forcing any crematoria closures due to physical constraints such as insufficiency of space or heritage considerationsa requirement to remove teeth prior to cremation is not acceptablethe next step should be to explore developing a fair mechanism for reducing emissions from only a proportion of existing crematoriaany improvements required for existing crematoria should be spread over a number of yearsdetailed proposals on the basis of the above will be subject to full consultation in due coursenew crematoria should be required to install mercury abatement.