I beg leave to present a petition on behalf on the residents of the Uxbridge parliamentary constituency. The petition sheweth

That concern about proposals from the European Commission to allow the export of horses for slaughter after 1992 be brought to the attention of Her Majesty's Government.

Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will urge her Majesty's Government to ensure that the European Commission's proposals for a new regulation covering the welfare of animals during transport permit the United Kingdom to retain minimum value controls, or similar arrangements, on the export of horses and ponies for slaughter, which are embodied in the 1981 Animal Health Act, and calls upon the Government to make sure that our partners in the European Community understand that the United Kingdom's view is based entirely on welfare concerns and not on economic arguments.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Is it a point of order?

Indeed it is, Mr. Speaker. It is normal practice, is it not, that when an honourable colleague in this House is doing what one might call porridge, or has been detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, or for whatever reason, you make a statement to that effect? Has it been communicated to you that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mr. Fields) is in prison? If not, ought you not to send out a rescue party? I understand that he is spending time in prison.

The hon. Gentleman knows that every hon. Member is subject to the law, but I have yet to receive a communication from the court.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would not it be in order for you to point out, just in case it crosses the minds of Conservative Members, that, according to the rules of the House, there is no question of disqualification of a Member who is sentenced to a custodial sentence of less than one year? The last time that that happened was with John Stonehouse. To my recollection, not one Conservative Member called for any action to be taken against any of the Ulster Unionist Members who also served periods in prison—seven of them, I think, for a period of seven days each—for their refusal to pay either the road fund licence or the TV licence, due to their opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

For my part, for that of other hon. Members on this side of the House—though not universally, I accept—and also for my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mr. Fields), who is unable to speak for himself this morning, I would point out that if his action keeps one pensioner out of prison—one pensioner in Preston had a heart attack last month—it will be worth it.

These are not matters for the House, but I can confirm that a sentence of less than a year does not involve expulsion.

I am delighted to have this opportunity to talk about the Government's environmental achievements in this country. The Conservatives have an unparallelled record for radical, environment-improving measures. Every single major piece of environmental legislation this century has been either enacted or initiated by a Conservative Administration.

Just as our economic policy is based on an aversion to wasting taxpayers' money, so our environmental record reflects the even stronger arguments against squandering the world's finite natural resources. Just as this Government have been eager to repay some of the debts accumulated over hundreds of years, so they have been anxious not to bequeath a burden of environmental debts to generations to come.

Our recent record has more more than lived up to past achievements. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 gave Britain the first system of integrated pollution control in Europe. It will control emissions to air, land and water. It is an approach which we in the United Kingdom have pioneered and it means that we have one of the most sophisticated pollution control systems in the world. We are now encouraging the European Community to follow our lead.

Last September we published our environment White Paper. We were the first British Government to publish a comprehensive policy on all aspects of our environment and we are one of the very few Governments anywhere to do so. It is not just words; as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said the other day, it is a foundation on which we are building.

Will the Minister explain what happened in respect of the speeches that he made on the issue last year? He will recall coming to the Dispatch Box during our debates on the Environmental Protection Bill and repeatedly arguing that we had to have a fragmented service. Is it true that the Prime Minister read the hon. Gentleman's speeches, found them totally unconvincing and announced earlier this week that he was opting for an integrated approach rather than the fragmented approach for which the Minister pressed so firmly throughout last year?

What absolute rubbish. If the hon. Gentleman were to take the time and trouble to study the Hansard record of the Standing Committee proceedings on the Environmental Protection Bill he would discover that, with regard to integrated pollution control. I must have mentioned at least a dozen times that I would seriously consider the possibility of an environment agency being set up. I recall that Labour Members on the Standing Committee were very keen that we should more widely separate the poacher and gamekeeper roles by setting up a regional council, presumably of councillors, to act as the regulatory watchdog to supervise waste disposal.

The Minister is proving that he did not listen to what Opposition Members said at that time. He should recall that we did not put forward any suggestion of that kind. All our proposals for an environmental protection executive have completely separated the policing powers from those making political decisions. That was the basis on which we have promoted the idea of an environmental protection executive. I hope that the Minister will explain, especially in view of what the Prime Minister said on Monday, why he and his colleagues in the Standing Committee on the Environmental Protection Bill voted against an environmental protection executive.

The hon. Lady did not listen to what I said a moment ago. I will repeat it, but more slowly. I said that on a number of occasions I drew attention to the fact that the Government were prepared to consider at some stage in the future the establishment of such an agency. Whether it was to be called an environmental protection agency, an environmental enhancement agency or whatever was a matter that we would decide in the future.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) is upset because we have gone further than any commitment that I made at that time. We have given the responsibility for waste regulation to Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution. The Labour party has never advocated that. The Labour party would never take that responsibility out of the hands of local authorities or regional councils.

The Minister will recall that I was not a member of the Standing Committee that considered the Environmental Protection Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) was a member of that Committee. However, I have read the Committee proceedings and I will be more generous than the hon. Members for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) and for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett). I accept that, from the beginning of the debate on that Bill, the Government said that they would consider setting up an integrated environmental protection body. However, is not the reality that everyone else, including the Opposition parties on the Standing Committee and the advisory and informed bodies outside this place, were persuaded of that some years ago? Therefore, the lesson to be learnt is that the Government, whatever their record, which we will debate today, are always slow in reaching conclusions that others arrive at much more speedily.

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's earlier comments. I have never done this before, but I must take this opportunity to say that throughout the Standing Committee proceedings on the Environmental Protection Bill the Liberal party's contribution was extremely positive. Indeed, it was so positive that it nearly damaged the Government's case on occasion. I had to question whether what we were doing was absolutely right.

If the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) read the Hansard record of the Standing Committee's proceedings he will recall that I must have mentioned on at least half a dozen occasions that we were determined to develop and strengthen Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution. I admitted to the Committee, as I admitted on the Floor of the House around the same time about a year ago, that we were under strength in HMIP. I genuinely did not believe that that was the time to introduce an environment agency.

As everyone is leaping on to this particular bandwagon—who proposed it and who did not—may I suggest not on a party political basis, but on an all-party basis, that the first discussion about an environmental protection agency took place in the Select Committee on the Environment? The Opposition parties had not thought about establishing an environmental protection agency until the idea appeared in the preface of the toxic waste report which appeared in February 1989.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No.

I remember discussing the matter with Labour Members on my Committee who had been with us on the previous inquiry—[Interruption.]

The environment is no laughing matter.

I wonder whether I might be allowed to continue with my intervention.

Order. This is not a Committee stage; it is a debate. The hon. Gentleman should intervene briefly and make his point.

I was intervening, but found myself disconcerted because a number of other interventions were taking place at the same time. It will take me longer to make my point if I am interrupted in that way.

The idea of an environmental agency first emerged during the consideration of river and estuary pollution. We recommended the setting up of a national regulatory body. That was the first time that any discussion of that kind had taken place and all the members of my Committee agreed to it. When we found subsequently that the National Rivers Authority's powers were limited to the regulation of water, yet extended to leisure, sea defences and the rest, we criticised that in our toxic waste report—

Order. This is an admirable speech. However, it is rather long for an intervention.

If I catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, I will make a speech on that point later.

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) for that constructive intervention. I first became aware of the idea as a result of the Select Committee's recommendation. Whether or not Opposition Members agree with me, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green will accept that we went further than the Select Committee's recommendations because of the essential difference which the Labour party has not addressed: the responsibility for waste regulation would go to HM IP. The Liberals may find that they can support that.

So would we.

The hon. Lady is misleading the House with that intervention. She should think very carefully about what she has just said. All the Labour Members of the Standing Committee, most of whom were members of the Select Committee on the Environment, made it abundantly clear—particularly the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike)—that they wanted the establishment of a regional regulatory body which would fit in with the Labour party's madcap idea of scrapping county councils and putting regional councils in their place. If the hon. Lady wishes to intervene to deny that, I shall certainly allow her to do so. She cannot intervene, because she cannot deny it. It is a matter of record.

The White Paper contained 350 commitments, more than 100 of which are already being implemented, and it puts in place powerful machinery to maintain the pressure on all Government Departments to set and achieve clear environmental objectives. Around the anniversary of the White Paper, we shall publish an update detailing the significant progress that we are making. The White Paper trailed the idea of introducing the powerful body that we have just been talking about to be responsible for pollution across the board. This week, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced that that agency is, indeed, to be created, bringing together the pollution control functions of HMIP and the NRA, along with waste regulation responsibilities of local authorities. The improved integration that will result will mean more effective pollution control all round and, I suppose most significant of all, a one-stop shop for business men. A consultation document will be published later this year to seek views on how that agency should function.

We have heard through the press comments made by Labour Members that we are stealing their clothes. They are upset and thin-skinned about it. However, the hon. Member for Dewsbury would never convince me or the rest of the House that she was not very miffed that we have made such a dramatic announcement with regard to the changes in waste regulation. I am beginning to think that the Labour party has a secret manifesto pledge to be profligate and ineffective at every possible opportunity. Let us look at what are laughingly called its environmental policies. Labour Members want to renationalise the water industries, at a cost of about £4 billion— £4 billion which could be spent on improving water quality. Not only that, but nationalistation would put a stop to the £28 billion investment programme made possible by the Government's privatisation of water, the biggest-ever investment programme.

Privatisation was right. It has been a success. We now have the biggest-ever investment programme in water quality— £28 billion over 10 years, which is £5,000 for every minute, day in and day out, year in and year out for the next decade. Nationalised water boards could never have done that. What Government in their right mind would throw that away? I suggest that it would be the type of Government such as the previous Labour Administration who cut spending on water by a third.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need only to look to eastern Europe to see what socialism does to the environment?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Beyond the Berlin wall and behind the iron curtain, thousands upon thousands of people have totally rejected socialism, because they were searching for an improvement in their quality of life. They wish to see that improvement in the quality of life which they had not experienced since the war. My hon. Friend is right. If ever there was an indictment of socialism and of how over-regulation can bring about exactly the opposite effect of what is desired, that is it.

Unlike Labour, the Conservative Government are proud of our record. Our success stories extend into every aspect of environmental concern. We have started by putting our own house in order. We have appointed a "green" Minister in every Department who is responsible for considering the environmental implications of its policies, and have required them all to report each year on their success in meeting their environmental goals. Each Department also now has a Minister responsible for integrating energy efficiency into its policies and programmes; that work is co-ordinated by a group chaired by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy.

The Minister claimed that the Government are proud of their record on environmental issues. If that is the case, why have the Government scheduled this important debate on a Friday? The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) and I, members of the shadow Cabinet, are present. Why is no Cabinet Minister present? Why is it that the Secretary of State for the Environment cannot be bothered to be present?

I am most impressed to see the hon. Gentleman in his place. It will add to the great confusion surrounding the division of responsibilities between the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury. I find it very confusing—I do not know whether my hon. Friends do also. Who is speaking on environmental or green issues? Is it the hon. Gentleman or the hon. Lady? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a very important engagement today. The hon. Gentleman is just being a silly, silly boy—very, very silly. I should have thought that he would have something else to do, or does he think that his hon. Friends are not competent enough to handle this debate?

On transport, we have implemented tough new measures to cut pollution. From November this year, all cars, whatever their size, will have a tuning and emissions test in their MOT test. By 1992, all new cars will have to be fitted with catalytic converters. That will cut noxious exhaust fumes by more than 70 per cent.

I am surprised to hear the Minister praising the British Government's record on car emissions. Only this week, in the Moses Room in the other place, representatives of the German automotive parts manufacturer, Bosch, said that British car emission standards are among the lowest in Europe. Were they not telling the truth?

He is right.

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman might like to argue about that later.

The hon. Gentleman really should know by now that legislation on that matter is now dealt with through the European Environment Council. I assure the hon. Gentleman that, on two occasions in the past year, Britain has taken the lead in two directives on vehicle emissions —one on vehicle emissions generally and the other on diesel emissions. That is a matter of record. It is not open to speculation or hypothesis; it is a fact.

I was at that meeting. The Robert Bosch Ltd. representatives were referring to the standards of the MOT test. The Minister was talking about the initiative taken by our Government in setting EEC standards. The Robert Bosch representatives said that there is still some uncertainty, leading up to the introduction of full EEC standards, whether the MOT test should initially be a two-gas or a four-gas test. I shall develop those remarks in my speech.

I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend's speech if he is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. He will know, as the House knows, that sales of unleaded petrol have soared, thanks to successive green Budgets which have given us one of the largest tax differentials in the EC. Unleaded petrol now accounts for a huge percentage compared with five years ago. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has said on more than one occasion, we are continuing to develop new thinking in reconciling our transport policy with the environment.

The Minister says that the proportion of unleaded petrol is a huge percentage of the market. Will he give us figures and compare them with Germany, Holland and other European countries? Is not it a fact of life that the proportion of unleaded petrol in Britain is still well below the European average?

I do not believe that it is below the European average. It is about the European average. I shall certainly check that point. The hon. Gentleman cannot deny that it has been a substantial success.

indicated assent.

I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman agrees.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the proportion of unleaded petrol used in this country is above those in that majority of European countries? Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and France are below our average.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. We shall look again at the figures which, I am sure, will bear out what he has just said.

Although the figures show that there has been a dramatic increase in our use of unleaded fuel and that we are way ahead of some other European countries, is it not a fact that almost twice as many motorists could be using unleaded fuel? Might it not be a good idea to put stickers on four-star pumps, saying, "Half of you who are buying this four-star petrol could be saving yourselves more than 10p a gallon. Perhaps you should consider adjusting your car or using unleaded fuel if your car will take it"? Will my hon. Friend confirm, however, that increased motoring involves environmental costs, one of which is the threat to Oxleas woods in my constituency, to which I imagine that the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) will refer later?

My hon. Friend may have the opportunity to develop his latter argument later if he is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. His first point raised an attractive proposal, which is certainly worth looking at. We need to continue to increase awareness of the importance of using more unleaded petrol.

In the countryside we have recently announced plans for a countryside protection scheme known as countryside stewardship. Under a pilot scheme developed by the Countryside Commission, £13 million has been earmarked to help landowners and farmers throughout England to protect and enhance traditional landscapes and wildlife habitats. In addition, we have already started planting a brand new 150 sq mile forest in the midlands. It will be the first national forest to be planted in England since Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister. I should like to say a few words at this point about the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Last week Sir Fred Holliday, the independent chairman of the JNCC, told me of his concerns about effects of the arrangements for nature conservation in Scotland under the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Bill on the special responsibilities of the JNCC. He suggested that Ministers looked for a successor for him, but then agreed to let that lie on the table until my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I had had a chance to consider with our colleagues in the Scottish and Welsh Offices the points that he had made. We are pursuing these issues urgently and intend to let Sir Fred have a considered statement of our views early next week. Sir Fred is a distinguished scientist and administrator and we greatly value his role in taking forward the new arrangements for nature conservation in Britain made as a result of the recent legislation.

In the Government's view, the decision of Parliament to create an expert advisory committee to give Scottish Natural Heritage advice on disputed cases in no way undermines the role of the JNCC in establishing and upholding United Kingdom-wide standards for the protection of sites of special scientific interest. We would expect the chairman of the JNCC to notify Ministers if the operation of the new Scottish arrangements or, indeed, the conduct of the other two country councils was leading to different scientific standards being applied from those laid down by the JNCC.

In the streets in our towns and cities, we have taken action to arrest the problem of litter—something which affects the quality of people's environment every day.

Before the hon. Gentleman returns to the urban scene from the natural environment and from a consideration of sites of special scientific interest, could he be more forthcoming about a site of special interest in an urban area? I refer to Oxleas woods, to which his hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) has referred. How can the Minister claim concern for sites of special scientific interest in Scotland or anywhere else or for our common heritage of woodland when the Secretary of State has refused to accept the recommendation of the roads inspector for the east crossroute south of the Thames, thus destroying Oxleas woods in Greater London? Does not that make all the Government's claims about being green and being the protectors of our heritage absolutely worthless?

Before the hon. Gentleman gets carried away, this is the opportunity to remind him who introduced the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It was my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I ask him also, who invented the term "sites of special scientific interest"? The Labour party never did anything on this issue. We established the sites of special interest, and a considerable number of sites have been so designated—

The Government are now destroying them.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to think carefully about what he is saying. If one turned a site of special scientific interest into a completely sanitised area, giving it absolute protection, compensation would have to be awarded in some form or other, principally through the courts. The designation of a site of special scientific interest is no more or less than a material planning consideration which has to be taken into account by the planning authority. I have always defended that position and I ask the hon. Gentleman to join me in that, because it would be disastrous to go down any other route—

rose—

rose—

I give way to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey.

I shall allow the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) to intervene first.

rose—

Order. I call Mr. Simon Hughes.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thought that I had the consent of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) to intervene in the Minister's speech.

Order. The Minister clearly said that he was giving way to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker—

Order. The hon. Gentleman must not raise a point of order or anything else when I am on my feet. [Interruption.] Order.

I am not on my feet now, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The hon. Gentleman was obviously at the starting gate. There have been quite a few interventions, some of which have been over-long, but they have all been at the expense of those hon. Members who wish to speak later. May we now get on? I call Mr. Simon Hughes.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There have been some references to Oxleas woods in my constituency. As I have said, I believe that I have the consent of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey to intervene at this point in the Minister's speech. If I am wrong—

Order. We do not have interventions on interventions. Perhaps we should get on. I call Mr. Simon Hughes.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that the hon. Member for Eltham will get his chance later.

I had wanted to ask the Minister a simple question that relates to a similar case. Can he confirm that the Government have received a letter from the European Commission suggesting that the Government may be in breach of European Community directives in connection with the proposed M3 bypass around Winchester? That is another example of road building appearing to trespass against environmental considerations, SSSIs and the rest. It would be helpful if we could have confirmation that that letter has been received and that the Government are considering it.

I am not aware that it has been received, but if I have the permission of the House and am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to reply to the debate, I undertake to come back to the hon. Gentleman on that point.

I think that my hon. Friend will discover that, in the case of Oxleas woods, there has been an inquiry by the European Commission to which the Department of Transport has responded. It might be useful to know whether there has been a further inquiry.

I should like to follow the point raised by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), which I wrongly anticipated that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) would mention. The Departments of the Environment and of Transport are considering the inspector's report on the modifications to the bridge proposals for the east London river crossing. Although there may be reasons for avoiding a judicial review and for the Secretaries of State for Transport and for the Environment not meeting further delegations while they are considering the report, may I ask in public that if the road does eventually have to run through Oxleas woods—although that is opposed by most people because it does not benefit either the woods or the local people —the Government will give serious reconsideration to the inspector's recommendation in the previous inquiry that the road should be covered over, even it that means dropping the slip roads at Shooters Hill?

Yes, I am happy to give my hon. Friend the assurance that I shall draw what he has said to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

You were kind enough to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have taken several interventions. Perhaps I should now press on a little. I want to turn to a subject of great embarrassment to the Labour party. In the streets of our towns and cities, we have taken action to arrest the problem of litter, which affects the quality of people's environment every day. We have more than doubled the top fine for litter louts from £400 to £1,000. We want to ensure that councils fulfil their duties and clear the streets. That is why we have empowered local people to take their councils to court if they do not keep their streets clean. We know which councils they will be. It will be the high-spending, socialist councils, which seem more interested in nuclear-free zones than litter-free zones.

Just look at Liverpool—an inept and inefficient Labour council. When Labour came to power in Liverpool in 1983 the city stood on the edge of a precipice, since when it has taken a giant step forward. The ex-leader of Liverpool council admitted just how inefficient it was. He said:

"it costs four times as much to pick up a piece of litter in Liverpool as it does in other areas"

Now, local residents have had to suffer a strike. As a result, the streets were not cleaned for weeks and the children were forced to play among the rubbish. That is a disgrace. Labour could not even empty the bins. Yet it has the nerve to say that it can run our country.

Will my hon. Friend reflect on what has happened in Liverpool? Will he reflect that Conservative legislation on competitive tendering will clean up the streets of Liverpool and that the Labour-controlled city council is using Conservative legislation which is opposed by the Labour party?

My hon. Friend's intervention must make the Labour Front-Bench spokesmen incredibly embarrassed. It is a matter of record that they attacked that legislation when it was going through Parliament, yet now they are glad of the opportunity to use it.

Recycling rubbish obviously makes sense. It reduces the need for landfill sites and saves on energy. British industry already has a reasonable record on recycling and it will become an increasingly attractive and necessary option. As higher standards are introduced and consumer pressure mounts, it will clearly be in the financial self-interest of companies to minimise waste.

Households, on the other hand, currently recycle 6 per cent. of recyclable household waste. This is not good enough, so the Government have set a clear target: their aim is that half of all recyclable household rubbish should be recycled by the end of the century. To help achieve that goal the Government are introducing a system of recycling credits, details of which were announced by my right hon. Friend on 1 July. That scheme will give waste collectors a financial incentive to promote recycling of household waste, by making it the duty of waste disposal authorities to give credits to collection authorities for waste that is diverted from landfill disposal as a result of recycling.

Opposition Members are also quite keen on recycling. They like nothing better than to recycle outdated, lacklustre and ineffective policies. Their policies are not just ineffective but, in many cases, positively damaging.

Will the Minister give way?

No, not for the moment.

The Opposition plan to phase out nuclear power, which currently provides one fifth of our electricity, in favour of coal-fired generation, despite the fact that coal burning emits pollutants which contribute to acid rain and ozone depletion. That tells me that the Labour party is more committed to a cosy relationship with the trade unions than to the environment.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his Shell lecture, we believe that, far from being a constraint on business, high environmental standards are a stimulus to develop the goods and services that will compete effectively in the increasingly international markets of the future. It is the Government's task to set and enforce those standards. However, state regulation is far from being the only answer. I remind the House of how state regulation worked in central and eastern Europe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sir H. Miller) said earlier. The market can and must play an important part in meeting standards. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly recognised that the principal task of delivering sustainable development will fall to business. The Government can help the markets to work better partly through taxation and financial penalties, such as the petrol and recycling credit examples that I have given today, and partly through mobilising consumer choice. The emergence of the green consumer as a powerful economic force is one of the most hopeful environmental developments of the past decade, but in order that consumers can make those choices effectively they need accurate information.

That is why we must have honesty. There have been too many examples of misleading green claims which go only as deep as the label on the product. That is why Britain has been pressing hard for early agreement on a system of Europeanwide environmental labelling, which would enforce consistent standards. If agreement cannot be reached by the end of the year, the Government will introduce their own system.

Some particularly serious concerns have been brought to our attention in the past couple of years. One of these was the contamination of land, which was brought. to our attention by the Select Committee. In response to the comprehensive Select Committee report, the Government identified three key areas for further action: first, information on the extent and location of contaminated sites; secondly, assessment criteria for the risks posed by the contamination found there, including the water environment; thirdly, technology and funding for clean-up. Progress has been made on all of those areas, as I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green will concede. Mechanisms for the prevention of future contamination have been strengthened in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 through the provision of integrated pollution control.

Another issue raised by the Environment Select Committee was indoor air pollution, including sick-building syndrome, tobacco smoke and radon. The Government are carefully considering the Select Committee's recently published report on this and will be responding to the Committee in the usual way, and as positively as possible.

Pollution of beaches has also been reported on by the Committee. It found that the risks of serious infection from sea bathing were minimal. Several recommendations were made, however, virtually all of which have been accepted by the Government. Indeed, the Committee's main conclusion about the need for sewage to be treated before being discharged into the sea had become Government policy before the Committee reported. The Committee welcomed our response, saying that there was clearly a considerable measure of agreement between the Government, the N RA and itself as to the way forward in bringing beaches up to a proper standard.

Back in February 1989 the Select Committee issued a report on toxic waste. It was a wide-ranging report which included the whole issue of waste regulation and disposal. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green said, the Committee recommended the separation of waste regulation from local authority waste disposal. I have already dealt with that.

We have also closed loopholes on the regulation of waste management and included a duty of care on waste holders in the Environmental Protection Act 1990—both Committee recommendations. In this debate we are asked to consider the Select Committee's report on Northern Ireland containing 29 recommendations, of which 24 are already being met or have been accepted.

This debate focuses on the United Kingdom environment, but many of the environmental issues that affect us cannot be addressed by the United Kingdom alone. In Europe we led the way on negotiating a nitrate directive designed to protect water from nitrate pollution from agricultural sources. The directive strikes a fair balance between improving water quality and maintaining an efficient agriculture. An estimated 2 million hectares might be designated as nitrate-vulnerable zones under this directive. Farmers within vulnerable zones will be subject to compulsory restrictions based on good agricultural practice.

The United Kingdom must recognise that there are plenty of issues that simply cannot be addressed by the United Kingdom Government alone. There are planetary issues which threaten our very existence. Global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain are problems which we must tackle and are tackling on an international scale. There is no point in Britain cutting back its carbon dioxide emissions if other countries carry on increasing theirs. As we all understand only too well since the nuclear accident at Chernobyl underlined the message, the environment of the United Kingdom cannot be protected simply by working in our national territory. The great global issues which will be debated by the G7 leaders here in London next week at which they will discuss the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development meeting next year in Brazil and other matters of national and international importance which affect the environment.

The Government's efforts have been unstinting on UNCED and the preparations leading up to it. We have taken an international lead in the efforts to halt the depletion of the ozone layer. It was a British scientist who played a key role in identifying the true scale of the problem. It was Britain which hosted two rounds of successful talks in London in the past two years that formed the basis for the current agreement to phase out CFCs by the year 2000.

On climate change, we have already set ourselves a demanding target and, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said this week, if we can improve on that target, we will. In due course I shall be interested to listen to the Leader of the Opposition when he finally finds his tongue on the environment. I should like him to explain to his trade union colleagues exactly how the Labour party will cut carbon dioxide emissions.

We are already taking a leading part in the international negotiation on agreements to preserve tropical rain forests, maintain biodiversity and develop a charter on environmental rights and obligations.

The task of protecting, maintaining and enhancing the quality of the United Kingdom's environment is one of the central tasks facing the Government. That task must be carried out at every level from the street corner to the stratosphere. It is a task which the Government are carrying out with determination and vision.

I think that most of us were expecting more from the Minister. We hoped that he would make some announcements. In the past year we have heard little from the Government about environmental protection and one speech from the Prime Minister does not make up for that year of inaction.

I am glad that we are having this debate today, not least because we have waited so long for it. Last year, when the Government published their White Paper, "This Common Inheritance", they promised that we would have a debate on the subject soon after. It has taken us 10 months to get that debate, but I suppose that we should be grateful and say that it is better late than never. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) pointed out, the fact that the debate is taking place on a Friday, when most of our colleagues must be in their constituencies, demonstrates that the Government do not regard environmental protection as a particularly high priority.

I am glad that the Minister of State is with us today, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham said, I am sorry that the Secretary of State did not believe that the debate was of sufficient importance to make it his priority to attend.

The hon. Lady has referred to this debate taking place on a Friday; perhaps she would like to tell the House when the Opposition last used one of their days to debate the environment.

We had a debate that included a discussion of the water environment about two weeks ago.

Today, the Minister gave us his usual mixture of complacency, arrogance and rhetoric. Those involved in environmental protection do not find that a reassuring combination. He claimed that much progress has been made in the past year, but we should consider those problems that are becoming more severe, which cover a range of issues with which the Minister did not deal adequately.

If the hon. Lady is going to continue in this vein, perhaps she will answer a simple question. Why was it that when the Labour Government were last in power they actually cut by one third their contribution to the water authorities?

Those matters have been bandied across the table many times, but let me remind the Minister of the figures. During the period of the Labour Government from 1974 to 1979, the average investment in the water industry was £1,254 million a year. The average investment under the Conservative Government between 1979 and the time of privatisation was £922 million a year. That illustrates the significant difference between the levels of investment. Many people believe that that difference was deliberately manufactured because the Government wanted it to appear that privatisation would be successful. If the Minister had spent as much time helping those in the water industry as he has helping the chairmen and shareholders by subsidising the sale of that industry, the water environment would be in a much healthier state today.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

The hon. Gentleman has already made one long intervention. I have already given way twice and I want to make progress.

I want to suggest to the Minister some of the items that he should have addressed today—I can understand why Conservative Members do not want me to pursue that. In the past year, a number of significant environmental problems have worsened and we should address them.

Energy consumption has increased despite the fact that the gross domestic product has been decreasing. Ministers have pressed ahead with the road building programme regardless of its impact on sites of special scientific interest. Emissions of CO, have increased. We are losing hedgerows at a rate of 4,000 miles a year. In the past year, more than 800 sewage treatment plants have enjoyed immunity from prosecution, despite failing their consents. We must set this debate in its right context. Environmental problems are intensifying and the Minister's self-satisfied complacency is extremely dangerous.

The Minister did not say much about the White Paper "This Common Inheritance", but I am not surprised, given the response to it from the vast majority of environmentalists and the press. The Minister's claims of progress are weak and they do not add up to an environmental protection strategy. They do not suggest that his Department colleagues or senior colleagues at Cabinet level in other Departments are embracing environmental considerations when determining their policies and priorities.

A report entitled "Institutions and Sustainable Development" has been published by the global environment research centre at Imperial college in conjunction with the United Nations Association. That report was sponsored and paid for by the Department of the Environment. It is significant that on the Government's policy of integration the report states:

"it is hard to find evidence that this is happening to any significant extent …Nor could we find any convincing evidence inside departments that giving Ministers or individual officials specific 'green' responsibilities had made any real difference to their perceptions or policies."

That criticism has been frequently levelled by environmental groups and the Minister should take it as a salutary warning. People are studying the policy and are not simply heeding the rhetoric that comes from Ministers.

The Minister briefly mentioned the global environment and climate change. "This Common Inheritance" said that global warming is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the world—no one can doubt that. The White Paper gives a fair analysis of the problem, but politicians should be judged not simply on their analysis of a problem, but on their commitment to action to solve or combat that problem.

It is important that we consider in detail what the Government have done in the past year on that vital issue. After all, we have had plenty of time to assess the Government's attitude because it is so long since the statement on the White Paper. I am sure that Ministers would agree that they have no excuse for inaction, as we have been given a proper assessment of the severity of the problem. Ministers know what needs to be done to tackle it and they have the political power to introduce any programme that might be necessary.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I came here thinking that we would be debating the United Kingdom environment, and there are five reports from the Select Committee to debate. The report on tropical forests is not before us; nor is the subject of international global warming. Do you agree that we should debate the subject in question?

The motion is that the House do now adjourn. I have not heard anything from the hon. Lady that has been out of order.

Either the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) does not agree with the Minister, who raised the issue, or does not understand the problems that exist. It is incredible that some Conservative Members clearly believe that we can opt out of the problem of global environment. All the problems on that front affect all of us, and the Minister acknowledged that the Government have a role to play in tackling them.

We now know the intensity of the problems of climate change and we know that some steps that must be taken quickly. The question is whether there is the political will to tackle the problems in the right way. I must, therefore, examine the issue of climate change, despite the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Langbaurgh, and the stance that the British Government have taken in the negotiations for a framework convention on climate change. Such a convention is the main hope for international agreement for action on a scale adequate to deal with the matter.

The British Government have put forward several papers on the subject. The original document was known as paper No. 9, though I gather that the Minister argues that the intention was to reflect existing consensus rather than to establish new tactics. The Government then tabled a paper entitled "The Draft United Kingdom Paper on Possible Elements for Inclusion in a Framework Convention on Climate Change." That took us little further forward and I was disappointed with the suggestions made in it, because the Government do not appear to be taking the matter seriously enough.

On reflection, the hon. Lady may wish to apologise to me and the House, because she is clearly not aware that 120, possibly more, countries will be discussing the matter at Rio in June of next year and we have immense pride in the fact that the British text has been selected for negotiation in the first instance. What on earth is the hon. Lady talking about?

The Minister's proposal of a low starting point in the discussion has let many other Governments off the hook, and that is the real difficulty which the British Government have created. To show how the latest document reveals a lack of seriousness on the part of the Government, it says, for example:

"In formulating these strategies, developed countries should agree to take as a guideline that the stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions should be achieved by them as soon as possible."

How can progress be made with such meaningless statements? What has happened to the precautionary principle on which I thought it was accepted we should now make progress?

The hon. Lady is on a weak point. The British Government have been praised by all the member states in Europe—

That is not so.

The hon. Lady is not in a position to say that. When I attended the last meeting of UNCED in Nairobi a few weeks ago the paper that was introduced—she is right to say that it represented only the beginning of negotiations—

I gave way to the Minister. What is his point?

The hon. Lady should stop being so unpatriotic. She should not drag the country down. The Labour party delights in dragging the country down and selling it short, and nobody enjoys it more than the hon. Lady.

Order. I hope that the Minister is not dragging me into it, too.

The Minister enjoys winding himself up on these matters. He presents papers and makes statements abroad as though nobody in Britain will check on what he has done. The Government are selling the country short. They are refusing to set the right target and stiff timetable that are needed to benefit everyone, in Britain and the rest of the world.

What is Labour's target?

Yes, we want to know.

If Conservative Members are keen to have that information, I will give it to them. The Minister is arguing as though the Labour party had never published a target. We have said clearly that we want to achieve the sort of target that most other European countries want, and that is stabilisation of CO, emissions by the year 2000. It is incumbent on the Minister to explain why Britain must be in the second division on this issue and why we cannot meet the same targets as other EC countries.

The hon. Lady has talked about working towards the year 2000 for the stabilisation and reduction of CO2 emissions. Has she had the opportunity of checking that with her trade union friends, particularly Mr. Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers? Mr. Scargill envisages the expansion of the coal industry, which would mean fossil fuel being burned. The Labour party insists that nuclear energy shall be phased out and then eliminated. So presumably they are talking about more fossil fuel-powered stations based on coal, in which case the figures that the hon. Lady has given could not be met.

The hon. Gentleman exhibits total ignorance of the subject. I shall explain how our target would be achieved—[Interruption]—and I assure Conservative Members that it remains Labour policy. It is also the policy of most other EC countries. The British Government are lagging behind, admitting by not doing as well as other countries that they deserve to be in the second division on this issue.

rose—

I shall give way to the Minister for the last time.

The hon. Lady cannot be allowed to get away with her last statement. Nobody inside or outside the House can believe what she is saying. The Labour party claims that it could stabilise CO₂ emissions by the year 2000, when it is already committed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) pointed out, to phasing out nuclear power, which makes a 20 per cent. contribution to our energy requirements, and replace that by coal. It would be physically impossible to achieve Labour's aims, because that phasing out would bring about an increase in CO₂ emissions. The hon. Lady is being totally misleading.

The Minister should study some of the research that has been done in this area. He is admitting, from his comments today, that he has not examined the issue in sufficient detail. Otherwise he would know that our policy statements and commitments about stabilising CO2 emissions are realistic and achievable and predate the White Paper.

I appreciate why the Government are trying to wriggle out of making binding commitments on the international scene. What is the Minister's view of the United State's position, and why are the British Government almost helping America to get away from making binding and legal targets and commitments? Many issues must be raised—[Interruption]—and it seems that the British Government are not taking a leading position in dealing with these issues—

Oh dear.

—and that they do not recognise or want to make progress—[Interruption]

Order. I appeal to hon. Members to desist from making sedentary and audible comments, which impede the progress of debate. Other hon. Members are waiting to make speeches. I hope that we shall have better order than we appear to have at the moment.

Thank you for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Because the facts embarrass the Government, Conservative Members would prefer to have them shut out.

I urge the Government to be as candid about targets —and the Minister to be frank when giving his point of view—as the Labour party. Our commitment is clear. Will the Minister clarify further just what is the Government's commitment? The White Paper, "This Common Inheritance", says—the Prime Minister said it again on Monday—that the Government will accept a target for the stabilisation of CO2 emissions by the year 2005 only if other countries do the same. Why does the document say, "only if other countries do the same"? What happens if other countries do not meet that obligation? For example, what happens if the United States lags behind? Does that mean that Britain should also lag behind? If the Minister wishes to intervene to clarify that point, I am happy to give way.

I am happy to clarify that issue. We are already committed to it. As I said in my opening remarks, it would be silly nonsense if all countries did not abide by international agreements. Clearly, it would be nonsense if we alone were to do so. We want everyone else to act in the same way.

The Minister has still not answered the question.

They are doing it.

The Minister is dodging the issue. He has not said what would happen if the United States or any other country lags behind. I should like the Minister to say that, regardless of whether other countries meet the target, this country must meet it, even though the target is inadequate by our standards. Why do the Minister of State and the Prime Minister always have the rider, "if other countries also meet the target"? Why cannot we have the clear commitment that the Labour party has made even on the date, which is not as good as ours?

We cannot opt out of the effects of global warming or our responsibilities to set and meet our own targets. I hope that when the Minister winds up he will explain his attitude on some other suggestions that are being put forward at the climate change convention. For example, I hope that he will tell us that he intends to reject the attitude of the Japanese, who simply say that everyone should do their best. I also hope that he will say that the targets should be confined to CO2 emissions and that the burden should not be spread so that developing countries are faced with difficulties with which they cannot cope.

The hon. Lady suggested that the Government are not taking a leading role in promoting conservation and reducing CO2 emissions. Has she, perchance, seen today's issue of The Timesin which there is an article entitled

"Heseltine attacks Sununu over gases"?

The Secretary of State has written an extremely strong letter to Mr. Sununu saying that he is no longer prepared to accept the lethargy of the United States in its resolve to tackle CO2 emissions, for which the United States accounts for some 23 per cent. Therefore, the Government are taking a leading role even against our closest ally.

I do not wish to intrude into a possible conflict between the hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues. The hon. Gentleman refers to the United States as our closest ally, but some of his colleagues think that our European allies should fill that role. One letter does not excuse the fact that the Government have been covering for the United States at international conferences.

Conservative Members have asked how realistic our targets are and how they could be achieved. They should be well aware of the evidence on energy efficiency submitted to the Select Committee recently. This country's efforts with regard to energy efficiency are extremely poor. Friends of the Earth evidence shows that we could easily achieve our targets on CO2 emissions simply by improving energy efficiency. It is a sad commentary on what has been happening to this country in recent years that there has been such a decline in areas such as double glazing and heating control, which could have done so much. Markets have declined, not least because of the Government's policies and approach.

It is no wonder that Sir Anthony Pilkington, whose group owns an insulation factory, has praised the Labour party and said:

"this country is suffering from a lack of Government policy on energy conservation."

We have suffered time and again from a lack of Government policies. We have seen their priorities, such as the privatisation of electricity. The Government's priority was not to consider the environment or press ahead with flue gas desulphurisation. Rather, it was to sell off, at great cost to the taxpayer, an industry which is now charging high prices, making large profits and paying top management scandalous and outrageous salaries.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No, I must press on, because there will shortly he a statement and I have taken longer than I intended.

It is not only on climate change and energy efficiency that we have not made much progress in the past year. Pollution from vehicles is a major problem, with which the Government still refuse to deal. The problem of sites of special scientific interest was mentioned earlier. The Nature Conservancy Council estimates that 161 SSSIs are affected by the English road programme. The Royal Society for Nature Conservation has said that 372 areas of wildlife interest are affected; 30 National Trust sites are threatened and the M25 is threatening and will affect 37 ancient woodlands. Time and again we see that the Government's priority is not public or rail transport. Because of that, we are all suffering in environmental terms and from a lack of choice about the form of transport that we use.

Is my hon. Friend aware that in paragraph 5.58 of the White Paper the Government agree that in London, rail transport for commuters is the most effective means? However, on the notorious east London river crossing, a six-lane motorway will be the main means by which commuters from north Kent will reach the notorious Canary wharf scheme, where 50,000 jobs are going. They will then go through Newham and add to the exhaust pollution there. Would not it be better to extend the docklands light railway over that bridge to provide the choice of which my hon. Friend speaks?

As ever, my hon. Friend has done his homework on that issue and has not only come up with an idea but knows the feasibility of the project. Therefore, as always, he has a strong case.

If we compare the priority that is given to rail transport in this country with that given elsewhere, we realise why our rail system is so appalling. It is starved of investment. Britain spends 0.12 per cent. of its gross domestic product on support for the railways. The European average is 0.7 per cent., which means that European countries spend on average six times as much supporting their rail service.

Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber mentioned Oxleas woods. I confirm to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) that the EC has sent a formal letter to the British Government because of their failure to implement the environmental impact assessment directive, which includes the problems that have been created at Twyford Down, the east London river crossing and the Hackney Mll link road. The Government are not implementing the directive properly and the EC is about to intervene. If the Minister was monitoring properly what was happening, he should be aware of that fact.

The Minister referred to the following point in two lines and I understand why he did not want to say more. We have seen some remarkable developments in the past few weeks. First, the director of the National Rivers Authority, John Bowman, and then the recently appointed head of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee's most senior conservation adviser in Great Britain, Sir Frederick Holliday, resigned. Sir Frederick resigned because of clear political difficulties that had undermined his position. The saga of the break-up of the Nature Conservancy Council was not a happy one, and the blow to the new structure was serious and should make Ministers understand that they will have to make choices. In this case, they will have to choose between the needs of conservationists and the wishes of the rich land owners, including some of those in another place. It was clear that some Ministers made their choice and, as Sir Frederick said, the implications of the issue go far beyond Scotland to affect nature conservation in Britain.

Sir Frederick Holliday is obviously not a man to resign lightly or without good reason. Clearly, he could not accept that the personal interests of a few Scottish landowners should take precedence over the needs of the environment. The way in which his committee has been bypassed in relation to those vital changes is extremely serious. The Minister said that he was pursuing the matter urgently and would let Sir Frederick have his views next week. From the Minister's comments on SSSIs generally, I do not think that very much that he can say will be reassuring.

During the debate on the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Bill, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) said on 24 June, at column 817 of Hansard, that the Department of the Environment had been consulted. That makes the Department of the Environment party to the decision that was made. Is that true? If so, what did the Minister tell his Scottish colleagues? I am happy to give way if the Minister wishes to clarify the position.

I was consulted.

I am grateful for that clarification. Does that mean that the Department of the Environment has less clout than the Scottish Office? The Minister was overruled and I presume that the Secretary of State backed him up; does that mean that the Scottish Office has more clout than the Department of the Environment? It says little for the much-feted ministerial committee for co-ordinating environment policy. Where was the co-ordination of environment policy on that issue?

It is no wonder that the Council for the Protection of Rural England states:

"The promise of a significant shift in the attitude of the Government Departments has entirely failed to materialise."

The Minister must realise that it is not just other Departments that have reneged on pledges to care for the environment; the record of Ministers at the Department of the Environment is not so bright. Let us consider their policy and record on common land. The 1987 Conservative manifesto gave a clear, specific commitment that the Government would legislate to safeguard common land on the basis of the Common Land Forum. The Minister will be aware that there were questions throughout 1987, 1988 and 1989 on when that legislation would be introduced.

Almost a year ago, at the end of the parliamentary Session last July—I think that it was the day before the House rose for the summer recess—the Minister issued a statement, in reply to what appeared to be a planted question, saying that the Department was reneging on that promise and commitment in the manifesto, and nothing has happened since. All those involved in the Common Land Forum, apart from the landowners, were extremely distressed at what was happening but they tried to be accommodating and see what could be done. They offered to compromise and suggested to the Minister introducing a short Bill to protect existing common land. The Minister refused to do so. I think that when people vote in the next election and look at the environmental commitments in the Conservative manifesto, assuming that there are any, they should measure those promises against the record of what the Government have done in relation to a clear, simple, straightforward commitment given in the 1987 manifesto, on which they have taken no action.

We have proposed an environment protection executive. The Minister will recall that we moved amendments to try to incorporate such an executive and agency into the Environmental Protection Act 1990. As late as 30 January last year, the Minister and his colleagues voted against an independent environment protection executive, which was also ruled out on page 232 of the White Paper, "This Common Inheritance", published last October. The Prime Minister said that there was to be a U-turn and the Government would issue a consultative document later in the year.

I wish that, instead of talking about citizen charters and providing protection for the people, the Government would do something about the fear in my constituency about the level of dioxin in milk. Despite all their blather, the Government refuse to have a public inquiry into the case of two farms where the farmers have been deprived of their livelihoods because they are not allowed to milk their cows any more. There are 25 other sites where there are doubts about safety levels. The standards were changed at the end of 1990 by a factor of 10. If that had not been so, every farm in the district would have been included in the danger zone. The Government talk about a charter, but refuse to have a public inquiry to allay the fears of the people in Bolsover or pay compensation to the farmers. They are all talk and no action.

As my hon. Friend says, the Government are frequently all talk and no action. The case he has highlighted reflects the widespread concern of many people, especially parents, at the deteriorating standards and present contamination.

The Royal Society for Nature Conservation stated that the Government have been dragged kicking and screaming to the policies advocated by some for years. It describes the Prime Minister's speech as

"smacking of piggy bank politics."

We do not mind that; our backs are broad enough to stand it. We welcome the reversal and the fact that the Prime Minister made that speech.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No, because there is to be a statement in a moment.

We are pleased that the Prime Minister made his statement on the same day that the Fabian Society document was released. The document went further than anything the Government have ever published and explains exactly how the environment protection executive would work in practice. It is easy for people to make a comparison between a Government who snatch at ideas when they run out of steam and the Labour party, which is preparing for government and knows how to implement its policies.

However, I am worried that there is to be a long period of consultation, and I hope that the Minister will deal with that issue in his wind-up speech. I am tempted to ask the Minister why we need another consultative document and more time. After all, Ministers are the very last people to be committed to the policy. Everyone else is clear and knows the direction in which they want to move. If the Minister wants there to be a consultative period, I make the offer that I will put in a word for him with the Fabians and the consultations can take place on the basis of that document.

My fear is that, yet again, we shall get too little, too late from the Government. Time and again, we have seen that the Government are not willing to take the actions that are required to give environmental proptection the priority that it deserves. The Government's attempt at integrating environmental policy with other Departments has been a sham and a failure. As was demonstrated by the Minister's speech this morning, the Government have run out of steam. They have no record on which they dare face the electorate. The sooner the election comes and we get a Labour Government committed to giving the right priority to environmental protection, the better. As soon as the election comes, we will be ready for government and we will implement the policies that we have already worked out.

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about commonhold and related matters. My noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor is making a corresponding statement in another place.

Before making the statement, I wish to declare an interest. I have a lease on a flat in my constituency with some 990 years to run.

The Government have decided to introduce for England and Wales a scheme providing for the freehold ownership and communal management of flats and other interdependent buildings with shared facilities. This new scheme, called commonhold, was proposed in 1987 in a report of a working group of officials chaired by Mr. Trevor Aldridge, a law commissioner. After arranging in 1988 for draft legislation to be prepared at the Law Commission to give effect to these proposals, the Government issued a consultation document in November 1990 inviting comments on the draft legislation. The document also raised a number of issues of major principle relating to commonhold and leasehold enfranchisement. More than 1,000 replies were received, and the Government are grateful to all those who commented.

It is proposed that commonhold should be available for all types of land use—whether residential or commercial. Conversion of existing premises to the commonhold system will be optional, although it may be necessary to make provision to override the objections of a small minority of leaseholders.

In addition to providing for the freehold ownership of flats and other relevant properties, the scheme would establish standard democratic management arrangements, though with scope for variations, and that in turn would simplify conveyancing. There would also be a scheme for orderly winding up for use when, for example, the commonhold property is damaged beyond repair or has reached the end of its useful life.

The Government have also decided to give long leaseholders of residential flats collectively the right to buy from the freeholder, at market value, the freehold interest in their block. It is proposed that the right will apply to properties containing two or more flats held by qualifying long leaseholders if at least two thirds of the flats are held by qualifying long leaseholders and if not more than 10 per cent. of the internal floor space, excluding common parts, is used for non-residential purposes.

If at least two thirds of the qualifying long leaseholders vote in favour of purchasing the freehold and the number voting in favour comprises at least two thirds of all householders ordinarily residing in the block, the landlord will be obliged to offer the freehold for sale to them.

In conjunction with the commonhold proposals, the Government have decided to implement, with modifications, the main recommendations in the Law Commission's report on "Transfer of Land—The Law of Positive and Restrictive Covenants" Those recommendations are designed to produce satisfactory arrangements for the imposition on freehold land of positive and negative obligations which can be enforced against successors in title to the original owner of the land.

The changes will benefit at least 1.5 million leaseholders of flats. They underline our commitment to home ownership. They will greatly extend many people's freedom to take responsibility for their own affairs. I am confident that they will be widely welcomed. Legislation to implement the proposals will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time for it can be found.

At long last we have a definition of the Prime Minister's philosophy: Majorism equals plagiarism. I am delighted that the Minister has accepted well over 50 per cent. of the recommendations that I put to the Aldridge committee, and published, some months ago. I am sorry that he could not have gone a little further. If the Government go on stealing our policies, they will be nicked for shoplifting at the next election. Nobody wants to buy a watered-down policy when he can buy the real thing from the Labour party.

I have several specific questions which follow from my statement on the issue many months ago. First, will there be a system of independent valuation to decide the price? Secondly, why not extend the right to buy to all leasehold properties in which there is an independent flat or house? There is little argument against that. The Minister's formula is very limited and the matter needs to be looked at more widely. We should want to extend the provision more widely to leaseholders.

Thirdly, and importantly, because many people will not be able to buy the lease, even as part of a group in some cases, will the Minister give a right to extend the lease? The people most badly hit at present are those who cannot afford to buy, who are near the end of the lease, and whose lease will transfer to an assured tenancy with a market rent. They will lose the capital value of the property when the lease terminates. The right to extend the lease would be much appreciated.

Fourthly, could we have the right to independent audit? I have had literally hundreds of letters about the issue over the months. One of the most important issues for leaseholders is that they feel that they are charged unreasonable fees for work that is often not done, or done badly. I suspect that many Conservative Members who have constituents who are leaseholders have had similar letters. May we give leaseholders the right to an independent audit?

Fifthly, may I ask for an extension of that right? There should be a right for leaseholders to have a say in choosing the new management agent. A freeholder may employ a managing agent who does not do the job properly or who charges unreasonably. Many Conservative Members will be familiar with that problem. The only way in which to deal with that problem is to empower the leaseholders by giving them the right to have the managing agents changed if they fail to do their job.

If the Minister gives me a definitive and positive answer to those questions, he will have taken all our policies and I will congratulate him wholeheartedly.

I am grateful for the enthusiastic endorsement of my announcement. In response to the hon. Gentleman's first question, there will be provision for independent valuation when there is no agreement between the freeholder and the enfranchising leaseholders. I do not accept that the policy is restrictive. As I explained, it will apply to 1.5 million leaseholders, which seems quite a broad base.

We considered the question of extending leases. If one gave a right for a lease to be extended, it would cut across the basic thrust of our policy, which is to give leaseholders collectively the right to buy their freehold. One would then be confronted by the problem of leaseholders having a range of leases of different lengths. It is better to give them the right collectively to buy the freehold and then they can extend their own leases as long as they want. That is the best way to approach the matter.

The hon. Gentleman's final two questions referred to the existing regime. Of course I will consider again the way in which accounts are audited. All audits are meant to be independent of the person or organisation whose accounts are being audited. The hon. Gentleman referred to appointing managing agents. If leaseholders take the opportunities that the Government propose to make available to them, they will appoint the managing agents themselves.

May I remind my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) that it was the Conservative party, then in opposition, which proposed that flats be enfranchised by amendment to the Leasehold Reform Act 1967? The then Government found it impossible to do that because it was too complicated. We returned to the subject between 1974 and 1979, and again the then Government found it impossible to do. I am delighted that, at the 11th hour when it has become practicable following the Law Commission report, the Labour party has been converted to the concept.

There have been reports that there will be no rateable value limit on the right that is to be exercised for flats, and that the provision may then be extended to houses, which cannot be enfranchised under the Leasehold Reform Act because of the rateable value limits that were imposed by the Government of the day but then amended following pressure from Conservative Members just before the 1979 election. There is still a limit.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House that radical proposals on housing stem from the Conservative party and not from Labour. He is right to say that the statement proposes no rateable value ceilings for enfranchisement of flats. That contrasts with the position for houses. The Government have no rooted objection to lifting the rateable value for houses. Parliament will have to take a view on that in debates on the Bill. No doubt we will respond to pressure if strong views are held on the matter.

I welcome the announcement. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) said that the idea had emerged about 25 years ago. Why has an idea that was generally welcomed by the profession taken so long to convince the Government? Many people would have been grateful if the idea had been accepted much earlier. How will the proposals affect long leaseholders whose landlords are individuals, companies or, more importantly, charities where the freeholder is a voluntary body or the Church Commissioners? As the Minister will know, local authorities hold long leases and occupiers have been prevented from acquiring the freehold collectively or individually because of anomalies in Government legislation introduced in the past 10 years.

The exemptions will be the Crown, following precedent, and charitable housing associations. There will not be an exemption for individuals or local authorities, providing the conditions that I outlined in my statement are adhered to.

If you were free to speak, Mr. Speaker, you would remind the House that most of these ideas came from Sir Brandon Rhys Williams and have been pushed forward by his successor, my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Mr. Fishburn). This initiative and others on housing that appear often to have all-party agreement are an important approach to solving housing problems. Although rough justice may not make it possible to exclude the small number of people who have built houses or flats with their own hands for their families, have then let them, and have found that, against their will, enfranchisements have allowed the occupiers to buy them, such people deserve sympathy, even if they cannot be protected by legislation.

My right hon. Friend rightly reminds the House of the campaigning zeal of Sir Brandon Rhys Williams and how it has been continued by his successor, my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Mr. Fishburn), my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend the Member for City and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke). Many other London Members have also campaigned on the matter. An exception will apply where the landlord is a resident in a block of flats that are not purpose built. That is to say, he occupies a flat which is his only or principal residence in, perhaps, a terraced house that he has converted. In such conditions there will be no right to enfranchisement.

A problem arises in London and other cities when some flats in a block are rented and others are owned under lease. When a landlord owns one third or more of the flats in the block, will the Government ensure that the remaining leaseholders in the block who own their properties will be able to enfranchise on commonhold? There is a danger that one leaseholder could prevent the development of a whole block.

The hon. Gentleman raises the problem that may arise in a block of flats in which a fairly large minority of renting tenants may not wish the block to change hands and he owned by their neighbours who are leaseholders. We propose that there should be a clear majority of enfranchising and qualifying leaseholders before a block changes hands so that such tenants can be protected. We can debate the percentage and how people should be protected, but I recognise the problem. There may be a substantial number of renting tenants, and one must try to safeguard their interests.

The statement on this ultimate leasehold reform will be greatly welcomed by Londoners and, indeed, by the 1·5 million people who live in leasehold flats. In the past 10 years leasehold law has fallen down and has caused widespread misery for people in flats. How soon will this lead to legislation on the matter?

I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend. When I was allowed to say what I thought I was one of the sponsors of his ten-minute Bill. That Bill and his speech on its introduction were important elements in shaping the Government's approach to this subject. He rightly says that the present system has an inbuilt conflict of interest between freeholders and leaseholders. The advantage of what we propose is that that conflict would be removed by marrying the two sets of interests.

My hon. Friend asked about the timetable. As I said in the statement, we shall propose legislation as soon as parliamentary time can be found. The Government will listen to pressures in the House. The proposals seem to have all-party support and that will be relevant when considering the timetable.

Does the timing of the announcement mean that we are more likely to have a general election in the autumn rather than next spring?

I welcome the changes for which I have campaigned for many years. From practical experience of the workings of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, I know that there are immense financial and practical problems for a group of leaseholders trying to acquire the freehold of their block. What matters greatly to many leaseholders in London is the ability to extend their leases in the same way as the leaseholder of a house. These welcome reforms, which we certainly support, may not bring the relief that people expect unless they go hand in hand with the inbuilt right to extend the shortening lease of a flat.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need for advisory services for residents who may want to exercise the rights that Parliament proposes to extend to them. I shall consult relevant organisations to try to find a good way of advising residents who wish to enfranchise themselves. Next week we shall publish a document to follow the statement, and that will give more details of our proposals. I agree that professional legal advice is needed.

The hon. Member asked about extending leases. As I said, we looked at that, but it would make more complex the principal objective, which is enfranchisement. if individual tenants are given the right to extend their lease and they try to exercise the right to acquire their freehold, they will be confronted by leaseholders with a wide range of differing interests. It is much better collectively to give leaseholders the right to buy the freehold. When they have done that, they can extend their leases at no cost to themselves for as long as they want. That is a better approach than the individual extension of leases by the landlord.

I declare an interest as an owner of leasehold property.

Very few people object to commonhold in principle, although its merits are greatly exaggerated and its effect on the appearance of central London may be catastrophic. However, many people find the compulsion element objectionable. Because the valuation does not include the full reversionary value, the Government are handing to the tenant large, immediate, and tax-free capital gains at the expense of the freeholder. That may buy votes, but it is not equitable.

I understand my hon. Friend's point. It is important to understand that the values of the transactions are not the confiscatory values that are enshrined in existing legislation. We want to mirror market value. For example, blocks are currently changing hands between willing buyers and willing sellers. Where there is disagreement, we propose to mirror the arrangement that there should not be a confiscatory price but the price that would have been arrived at if both buyer and seller were willing. On that basis there will be slightly less anxiety among the freeholders on whose behalf my hon. Friend has just spoken.

Like others, I welcome the Government's statement, although I am rather surprised that the Minister has chosen to make it on a Friday. There is no great urgency, and I always thought that Mr. Speaker—I cannot speak for him, of course—did not smile benignly on non-urgent statements being made on a Friday when Back Benchers want to make speeches.

The Minister said, and has just underlined it, that leasehold properties will be sold at market values. Why will there be no discount for private sector properties when there was a discount for council properties? Could that have something to do with the Government's approach to publicly owned property, which they see as second rate and to be given away or sold off at a heavy discount. as against their approach to private property, which they see as being sacrosanct? Will the ability to purchase extend to Duchy of Cornwall property?

The answer to the last question is no. As I said, the Crown is exempt.

On the hon. Gentleman's first point, the Government do not have the mandate on private assets that they have on public assets. The hon. Gentleman is wrong to say that, under the arrangements that I have made, there is no discount. The price that the tenants pay will not be the open market value. It will reflect the fact that they are in possession and have long leases. Therefore, I do not accept the validity of the hon. Gentleman's argument.

My hon. Friend's announcement will bring great pleasure to the citizens of Westminster, not least to those in my constituency and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke). It is especially appreciated that he paid a warm tribute to our late friend and colleague Sir Brandon Rhys Williams for his campaign, which has culminated today. The gist of what my hon. Friend has announced must wash over to the comparatively small number of residents of leasehold property where the higher rateable value limit applies in the centre of London. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Bill to be introduced will enable the House to table an amendment to give such residents the right to enfranchise under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 as well?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a long-time campaigner on this matter and who served on the Nugee commitee, which introduced fresh and welcome rights for long leasholders. What I have announced today does not cover highly rated houses, so that will not be covered in the Bill, but if the House so wished to amend the Bill, an amendment would be possible within the long title.

I have heard some hypocrisy in my time, but this beats it. Tory Members have spoken about their late colleague Brandon Rhys Williams. He introduced ten-minute rule Bills on leasehold reform and every member of the Labour party followed him into the Lobby, but when they came up for Second Reading on Fridays at the end of business, what happened? The Government Chief Whip or one of his aides would shout "Object" and stop the hon. Gentleman getting the Bills on the statute book.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) many years ago wrote the part of the Labour party manifesto that deals with leasehold reform. Now, after 12 years of Tory rule, they come along on a Friday just before an election with this announcement. It is an election sprat to catch a mackerel. The chances are that the Bill will not become law, because if there is an election in spring or autumn it will not have passed into law, so that all these wonderful ideas will be cast aside. If the Minister wants to do something decent about housing, why does he not do something for all those in London and elsewhere who are living in cardboard boxes, and give them a roof over their heads?

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's consensus-building remarks. Many of the ideas of Sir Brandon Rhys Williams took time to take root and flourish. He was a far-sighted Member of Parliament with important views on a whole range of social issues, such as family support and housing support, and tribute has rightly been paid to him.

We consulted on this matter last year. We published a document in November. We took the views of the House and of other organisations. Consultation ended, and the Government have announced their conclusions. There is nothing rushed or dramatic about this. It is a sensible evolution of the Government's housing policy, bringing home ownership within the reach of more people, devolving responsibility to people who live in flats so that they can take charge of their own lives. It is wholly with the grain of Government housing policy over the past 12 years.

rose—

Order. The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) drew attention to my views, which I shall not express—

You see!

Order. I shall endeavour to call those hon. Members who have been rising, but I ask them to be brief.

My hon. Friend will already know how widely welcome his statement will be in Dulwich, where many of my constituents are long leaseholders of the estates governors of Alleyn's College of God's Gift. They bought their leases in the 1960s and have seen them diminish to become unmarketable assets. They suffer stress and anxiety in their flats, imprisoned without any escape because they cannot realise the value of their asset and move elsewhere. Today's statement gives them hope of freedom.

I am glad that the announcement will be welcome in Dulwich.

Many freeholders have had a policy of not selling freeholds. I hope that, in the light of today's announcement, they will revise that policy and, in advance of the Bill, start discussions with leaseholders about the transfer of the freehold. My hon. Friend rightly points out the difficulty of marketing flats, and of getting a mortgage on a flat, once the lease goes below a certain number of years. As a result of our announcement, people will be able to enfranchise themselves collectively and extend their leases, thereby making them more marketable and an easier asset against which to borrow money.

My hon. Friend's announcement will be greatly welcome in my constituency because it will right a long-standing wrong about the treatment of leaseholders by increasingly difficult landlords. In particular, they will be pleased about the right to an enfranchisement and the right to force landlords to sell the freehold.

I associate myself with the congratulations extended to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Mr. Fishburn) and to Sir Brandon Rhys Williams. However, the House should not leave out from its congratulations my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, who has guided us through the legal minefield of legislation on this matter that caused considerable delays in implementing the ideas of Sir Brandon Rhys Williams. Will my hon. Friend consider carefully introducing the Bill as soon as possible, preferably before the next election, because of the urgent need of leaseholders all over London?

The last plea will have fallen on the ears of those far more important than I as they plan the management of the business of the House.

My hon. Friend rightly draws the attention of the House to the fact that the Lord Chancellor is the sponsor of Bills on leasehold reform, and I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for the key part that he has played in this. Although the majority of freeholders are responsible people, a minority of unscrupulous freeholders make life a misery for tenants; they harass them and are incompetent. Today's announcement will be particularly welcomed by leaseholders who live in blocks of flats controlled by such freeholders.

Despite the almost universal welcome this morning, no doubt this was not an easy decision to reach, particularly on compulsion, and the absolute right to buy from unwilling freeholders. I congratulate my hon. Friend on grasping that nettle. Will he clarify an answer that he gave earlier which suggested that, if the freeholder or landlord has his principal residence in a block, he would have the right to veto and to override the desire of other tenants to buy? That would cause considerable difficulties, so I should be grateful if my hon. Friend will explain the meaning of his earlier answer.

That exemption will not apply to purpose-built blocks of flats. As I tried to explain earlier, the exemption will apply where, for example, the owner of a terraced house converts it into three self-contained flats and continues to occupy one of them. In those circumstance, it is not proposed at this stage that the other people who live in the building should have the right collectively to buy him out. If the House has strong views to the contrary, we shall look at the matter as the Bill progresses.

I begin with a confession: I have not spent the last decade lobbying for this measure. However, it will greatly benefit people who live in central London. Housing policy has been bedevilled in recent years by highly partisan approaches to it. At last we have a measure that commands widespread support in the House. I shall do all I can to help my hon. Friend to nudge the powers-that-be to his immediate right to give this thoroughly sensible and worthwhile measure considerable priority.

The last exhortation needed no intermediary assistance from me. My hon. Friend's remarks will have been heard by those who sit on the Treasury Bench. My hon. Friend's energies have been applied elsewhere with equal effect. The fact that the proposals seem to command all-party support is good news in terms of their prospects for legislative passage through the House.

In this Session?

I have nothing to add about the specific timetable.

I agree that now that the announcement has been made the expectations of many people, particularly Londoners, will have been raised.

It would be proper for me to declare an interest as a freehold owner.

Is my hon. Friend aware how very welcome his statement will be in my constituency of Walthamstow, particularly to the residents of Fernhill Court? The leases are well under 50 years and the freeholder does not look after their best interests. Will my hon. Friend at least consider devising a scheme whereby such people can be helped—perhaps in the form of a deemed commonhold —to get out of the grasp of the freeholder, with compensation being paid to the freeholder in due course when the deemed commonholder either dies or moves away from the flats?

I hope that the advice that we intend to publish next week, combined with improved advisory services for associations that look after the interests of residents, will be particularly relevant. In the short term, the best advice that I can give to my hon. Friend is that those who live in that block of flats should seek legal advice to find out what protection they have under existing legislation, as their problem seems to be a fairly immediate one.

This announcement will be warmly welcomed by many of my constituents and by hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country. It will bring an end to fear and uncertainty. Does my hon. Friend agree that bipartisan support for the proposals is also to be warmly welcomed? Does he also agree that the claim to authorship by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) is about as convincing as his claim to have invented the right to buy? It is yet another example of being able to steal a slogan, but we cannot steal ideas that would never have occurred to us.

I agree with my hon. Friend. I am glad that the proposals will be warmly welcomed in west London.

I am delighted that you are in the Chair, Mr. Speaker, while this welcome statement on housing is being made, since I understand that in your attic has been discovered space for 25 homeless Members of Parliament. Let us hope that they do not attract your ear rather than your eye, once they move in.

May I ask the Minister to consider the problems faced by those who live in tied houses? At a meeting of our Back Benchers committee the Minister referred to the Conservative party's policies on housing. This statement is all of a piece; it is far-ranging and very farsighted. These policies will empower many more people to enjoy comfortable and safe housing.

Given the long ancestry, in Conservative terms, of this statement, will the Minister remind Opposition Members that, as they have degenerated into used policy dealers, I hope that they will find a ready home for second-hand CND membership cards in the front office of the new general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her kind words. Of course we shall look at the tied housing issue. I hope that my hon. Friend will write to me about it. Lest there be any misunderstanding, I do not believe that the 25 Members of Parliament who will be living above Mr. Speaker will have any right, under the announcement that I have just made, to acquire the property. Therefore, they pose no threat to you, Mr. Speaker.

I hope that the atmosphere of general goodwill and accord will continue and that we can deal with the question of the environment on an all-party basis, not on the partisan and biased political basis that was a feature of the debate earlier this morning.

On behalf of the Select Committee on the Environment, I warmly welcome the statement made by the Prime Minister on 8 July that it is the Government's intention to set up an environmental protection agency which

"will bring together Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution and related functions of the National Rivers Authority."

The idea was first launched in the Environment Committee's second report on toxic waste, ordered to be printed by the House on 22 February 1989. The preface to that document refers to how that concept or idea emerged.

The hon. Gentleman made that point earlier this morning, but I checked the details a few minutes ago and found that as early as 1987 the Labour party made a specific commitment in its policy document to introduce legislation as a matter of urgency when a Labour Government came to office.

If the hon. Gentleman wants to go back into history, I too, can do so. I did not want to mention this matter, but the germ of the idea first grew out of our report on the pollution of rivers and estuaries, published just before the general election in 1987. The Committee proposed that a National Rivers Authority should be established as a national regulatory authority.

I remember discussing the matter with the late Allan Roberts who was a member of my Committee. I expressed the wish that this could become all-party policy. I said that I would do my best to persuade the Government. He said that he would do his best to persuade the Labour party to accept this as official policy. At that time Allan Roberts was having discussions with the then Opposition spokesman on the environment, the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). The message that came back to me was that the idea commended itself to the Labour party. It matters not how a good idea emerges. What is important is that it is adopted. Nothing delights me more than that this policy has been adopted by the Opposition, the Government and also, I understand, by the minority parties. Therefore we have consensus. Everybody agrees that the nation requires such a policy.

I am delighted that the Select Committee's hard work, over many years, has been recognised and adopted. The concept was generated by an all-party Committee of the House after many inquiries, over many years. It concluded that a national regulatory body of this sort was necessary. That justified the many hours of hard work of Select Committee members in studying and collating evidence from all quarters so that recommendations could be made that would be universally accepted. All the recommendations were agreed unanimously by the Committee. The environmental protection agency emerged out of Parliament's traditional role of examining the work of the Executive. There will be a general election soon and each side will try to prove to the electorate that it is greener than the others and that it thought of the idea first. However, the record is plain for everyone to see. It is not simply what is written that matters, but the informal discussions that take place between hon. Members so that ideas like this emerge.

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has accepted the idea, although it required a great deal of consideration by the Government, having set up the NRA as a residual authority with responsibility for leisure pursuits on water, for sea defences and land drainage which the Select Committee felt was a distraction from what should be the agency's core purpose.

If the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) were to read the preface to the toxic waste report, and consider it in conjunction with what I have said about the history of the matter, he would learn that we said:

"we are attracted by the concept of replacing all the existing Waste Disposal Authorities with about ten new authorities in England and Wales, regulated by a national body … We had hoped that this national body might be the same national body which we had previously recommended be created to regulate river pollution."

That is how the idea emerged and was accepted.

We then proposed the shape and form that the "Environmental Protection Commission," as we called it in paragraph 12 of the preface to the toxic waste report, should take. We said that it would be

"charged with an overall responsibility for safeguarding environmental quality in the United Kingdom. This responsibility would include:

a. monitoring environmental quality and publishing appropriate statistics;

b. control of all discharges to the external environment;

c. raising environmental standards and the status and professionalism of environmental control through provision of advice and guidance, commissioning research, developing standards and expertise on the impacts of pollution, and promoting clean technology;

d. keeping under review the adequacy of existing arrangements for environmental protection and submitting to the Government proposals for new primary legislation, regulations and codes of practice as appropriate; and

e. supporting the United Kingdom's role in international environmental affairs."

I submit that that is a blueprint for the environmental protection agency.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did not spell out the form or shape of the new agency. However, he said that there would be consultations on the matter. I am sure that my Select Committee will want to take part in that process, examine the proposals further and present our considerations in the light of other experiences and evidence that we have obtained since we published the toxic waste report two years ago.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's statement raised some items for further discussion and I am sure that my Committee will return to them in a more considered fashion later. However, I want to put my hon. Friend the Minister on notice in respect of those matters and if he can respond to them this morning, I shall be more than grateful.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that the Secretary of State for Scotland would announce his own proposal shortly. However, there was no mention of Northern Ireland. Last November we recommended an environmental protection agency for Northern Ireland, but that was not accepted. What will be the future direction for environmental policy in the Province? Given the relatively small area and population of the Province, it could be argued that Northern Ireland has the strongest case for the establishment of an EPA as quickly as possible.

We recognise the conflict between the need for national standards and the need for rapid local response to pollution incidents. The Prime Minister's announcement says nothing about structure. Will the new agency work through a regional structure, as the NRA already does? In our previous reports, we have shown how, with regard to water and waste regulation, the river basin concept—the river catchment area being identical to the responsible authority's area—commends itself much more than the historic and artificial boundaries between local authorities. The river basin concept is more closely related to the way in which water flows, how contaminated land pollutes that water, and other such matters. I hope that that point will be given serious consideration.

Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution has suffered from staff shortages and low morale. It seemed to us that the regionalisation of Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution did not meet with universal approval. How will the creation of the new agency affect the work of the existing inspectorates? That is a matter of supreme importance. If the concept does not operate on the ground, we may have a grandiose bureaucratic structure, but that will not help to deal with the problems about which we are all concerned.

According to the Prime Minister's speech, the Government are clearly undecided about taking waste regulation into the new agency. In the toxic waste report to which I have referred, the Select Committee expressed concern about the low standards of some local authority regulators and we recommended a system of about 10 waste regulation authorities for England and Wales based on the London regulatory authority.

Our initial reaction is that waste regulation should be part of the agency's remit and we should like the Government to re-evaluate our original recommendation, especially in the light of the present review of local government and the implications for local authorities' waste regulation and disposal functions. All those matters arise directly from the Prime Minister's statement and this has been our first opportunity to raise questions about them and to debate them.

More generally, the Prime Minister's speech highlighted the fact that in one sense it is impossible to talk about "The United Kingdom's Environment". On issues such as global warming, degradation of the ozone layer, the maintenance of bio-diversity and marine pollution, the United Kingdom must be considered as part of a global environmental system. That brings me closer to home. We are experiencing being part of the European environment as the Commission's role in the formulation of environmental policies grows ever stronger. I do not know whether the House is aware of this, but the European Court of Justice recently issued a ruling in the titanium dioxide case from which it appears likely that in future that EEC directives will be agreed only by a qualified majority vote. That is important and significant for us in this Parliament.

It may be very difficult for us to scrutinise legislation early enough in order to ensure that the United Kingdom's interests are properly protected. The Select Committee had difficulty in having discussions with the European Commission on some of its proposals. That is regrettable because it means that we do not have an early opportunity during the formulation of policy to say to the Commission, "Yes, that's a very good idea, but it won't really work in the United Kingdom because our geography or geology is different." We had such a difficulty with the landfill proposals that are coming out of Brussels at the moment. Originally, it was proposed not to allow the co-disposal of industrial and domestic waste, by which method 80 per cent. of our waste in this country today is disposed.

It is important that, when Europe considers legislation that will be of universal blanket application, this House, through its representatives—it does not matter whether it be a Select Committee or a Standing Committee—has an early opportunity to consider those matters before the proposal is written on tablets of stone. It is of increasing anxiety and concern for the Select Committee that we are not adequately putting across the United Kingdom case. In that respect, the Government can help. We feel that, perhaps, the team that the Department of the Environment sends to discuss such matters with DG XI should be strengthened by the use of outside experts and consultants. That does not seem to be the case at the moment. My hon. Friend knows my views on this matter; they are reflected in our reports. However, I welcome the opportunity to state my view more publicly on the Floor of the House.

The Committee is concerned—it has mentioned it in report after report and found it in inquiry after inquiry —that we are lagging behind in our research into these matters in the United Kingdom. Far more emphasis must be put into environmental research. The science budget of the Natural Environment Research Council is presently forecast to decline in real value by 10 per cent. over the five year period 1990–91 to 1994–95.

There is much emotion in environmental issues. It is more than important to ensure that whatever action we take and whatever resources we make available are directed at the real problem in respect of which action should be taken, and there should be priorities in such issues. That cannot be done if we are allowed to push, or allow ourselves to be pushed, one way or the other in policy making by pure emotive reactions. We need a sound science base for decisions. The Government cannot have a sound science base unless they are prepared to make resources available to people whose lives are dedicated to carrying out research into these matters.

I should like, for example, the proposed environmental protection agency to make full use of the services offered by the Warren Spring laboratories the hydrological research people, and all the other arms of research that have recently been hived off. For that purpose, the agency will need not only the staff but the resources to be able to commission that important research. It will also need resources if it is to carry out proper monitoring and police work, to have its own scientific laboratories, or to be able to commission scientific laboratories in the various regions that I have indicated to my hon. Friend the Minister as a pattern for control by the EPA. The agency needs to be able to draw upon the best available scientific advice.

I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Minister several questions concerning my Committee's recommendations which are still outstanding. On toxic waste, the Government promised to take steps to facilitate the production of more comprehensive and usable data on waste arisings and disposal. We have revealed that there is still a lack of centralised statistics in our current inquiry into landfill waste. We regret that, having come back to the same subject through another inquiry, we find that that recommendation has not been fulfilled in accordance with the Government's promises to our Committee.

The Government also did not accept our recommendation for the regulation of the dumping of colliery waste at sea or on the foreshore and that such regulation should be transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to HMIP. I ask that that question be addressed once again. Our recommendation for strict liability for waste producers was also rejected. The principles governing United Kingdom law on civil liability in respect of waste are still unclear, notwithstanding the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The proposed directives on landfill waste and on civil liability could overturn the legislation that we have tentatively proposed in this Parliament. Therefore, I again ask the Government to consider strict liability on the part of waste producers.

With regard to contaminated land, it has been a matter of great regret for the Committee that the caveat emptor rule on sales of land remains. We feel that the registers that have been proposed, in accepting our recommendation that local authorities prepare registers of potentially contaminated land, and inquiries by professional advisers are not sufficient to protect the public. An owner of land normally has a good idea of what he has done with that land and what lies under it. There is no reason why he should be allowed to conceal what he knows. Therefore, there should be a machinery in law requiring him to make full disclosure when he places his property on the market in those circumstances.

Our recommendation that the interdepartmental committee on the redevelopment of contaminated land be abolished and a contaminated land unit be set up within HMIP was also rejected. Now that a full-blown agency or commission is being proposed, I ask the Government to reconsider the proposal in the light of the new structure.

On pollution of beaches, we described the position of the Department of the Environment on eutrophication of coastal and fresh waters as complacent. We recommended greater consideration of the impact of phosphorus and other nutrients and, where appropriate, nutrient removal at sewage treatment works, such as we saw when we were in Northern Ireland. The Government thought that our criticism was unfair, but the NRA has accepted the need to review arrangements for collecting and analysing data relating to coastal eutrophication.

The Government also rejected our recommendation for a full technical and economic evaluation of technologies for disposing of sewage sludge and for more support for and R and D on alternative uses. The Government said that it was a matter for the water industry. From my continuing discussions with local authorities, water companies and the waste disposal industry, I know that there is a crying need for central guidance in such matters. A range of technologies are being offered on the market, whether they be the composting of waste, the incineration of waste, the spreading of waste on agricultural land or a variety of other methods such as biodegradation, farming with bugs and so on. Most people have no idea how to select or whether they are selecting the right method. Is it beyond the resources of Government to have a central research unit that can test various technologies and issue papers giving guidance to those who must buy them in the marketplace? After all, if we are dealing with the scientific treatment of certain unwelcome pollutants, the laws of nature are such that after proper research and investigation, it should be relatively easy to choose the best method of treatment because it is no longer a matter of opinion, but of scientific assessment.

Who is best placed to do that? I suggest that it is not the various water companies. I am certain that my hon. Friend will find a great willingness in our universities to help, on a contractual basis, with the research that is needed in so many areas. Perhaps the Department of the Environment officials in Marsham street felt that that was outside their remit as administrators, but if we are to have an environment protection agency to advise on the regulations that are to be made, that agency should be able to commission research such as I have described.

I realise the difficulties that particular Departments encounter. I am sending my hon. Friend the Minister away to talk to his Secretary of State, who will then have to go into Cabinet and argue with his colleagues who have equal demands for increased expenditure on education and social security and on all the other things that are desirable and that the people of this country want. It is difficult to have everything that one wants immediately, but my Committee would welcome a statement from the Government that they are sympathetically considering the ideas that we have put forward and that, as resources become available, they will progress towards them in an orderly and structured fashion. I am sure that if we could do that we would elevate environmental policy and remove it from the party political hull ring—

We shall never do that.

My hon. Friend says that we will never do that, but the Select Committee has been able to do it. The important thing is the right idea and, if we have the right idea and people of good will on all sides, I am sure that it will be accepted and acted upon. I do not mind where the idea comes from—the important thing is that it is accepted.

I have given my hon. Friend the Minister a certain amount of stick, but he has broad shoulders and can accept it. I know that he is personally sympathetic and wishes to progress as far as he can and to be of as much assistance as he can in these matters.

Finally, therefore, I should like to show my even-handedness and to return to a question that the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) refused to allow me to ask her when she was talking about the last Labour Administration's expenditure on water. She said that the figure was about three times as much as had been spent previously. My question is, do the figures that the hon. Lady consistently quotes include the costs of the development of the Keilder dam and of the reservoir in Ditchley, outside Heathrow? That policy was laid down by the 1970–74 Conservative Administration and contracts were let and, given that contracts had been let, the Labour Government were bound to spend that money, which was on an increasingly rising graph. However, because they were forced to spend the money in that direction, they then lamentably failed to maintain the necessary investment in sewage treatment plants. That was the reason for the situation that my Committee discovered when it inquired into the pollution of rivers and estuaries—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady's hon. Friends who serve on the Committee accepted that that was the scenario. If she reads our report more carefully, she will find that it states in terms that the condition of our rivers and estuaries in 1987 was due in no small part to the lack of investment between 1974 and 1979, and to the long lead time that was necessary to recoup that loss of investment.

I hope that I have been even-handed in my censures of both parties. I hope also that the positive suggestions that I have outlined on behalf of the Select Committee on the Environment will be taken forward seriously.

Before I start my speech, I ask the House to accept that I shall have to leave immediately after it because I have to attend the funeral of a constituent whose family I have known for many years and who was murdered some weeks ago. The funeral is this afternoon in south London.

I shall follow in one respect the speech of the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi). The hon. Gentleman, who is Chairman of the Select Committee on the Environment, said that there appeared to be agreement among the three main parties represented in the House on the need to set up an environmental protection agency. He described me as the representative of the minority parties. As far as the public are concerned, we are all minority parties. None of us commands majority support. Only this place distorts that picture. We should remember that fact in environmental policy, as in everything else.

The hon. Gentleman called for cross-party agreement. That is a desirable objective, but I am sure that he does not expect that any Government should be immune from criticism from the parties that are not in government if they fail to live up to the best standards or to move as quickly as others think they should.

I welcome the debate and the fact that we are at last debating the environment in Government time. However, I share the view that we are making an anomalous distinction if we try to debate the environment by subdividing it into the United Kingdom environment and the rest. That is a failure. This first attempt is welcome but botched in one respect in terms of trying to reform the procedures of the House. The Government have been put under pressure by myself and others to provide an annual occasion for debating the problems of the environment. We should follow the example of the United States Congress and hold a debate following the presentation of a report. Such a report could be presented by the Select Committee on the Environment or by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution which could have an extended remit, subject to later cross-examination by the Select Committee. The report could then come before the House as part of an ordered timetable of Government and parliamentary business. That debate should be long enough to allow us to discuss British, European and global environmental matters. I hope that that will happen.

Although I welcome today's debate, it is unfortunate that it is being held on a Friday. Although it is better held on a Friday than never, it is a fact that our Friday business is not held to be as important as our Monday to Thursday business, for reasons of which we are all aware. I hope that this debate will not preclude us from having a debate in the proper cycle. I understand from Government announcements that, following the publication of the environment White Paper last year, the new Secretary of State has said that a follow-up document will be produced this autumn and will examine the Government's record on implementing some of the proposals that were contained in the White Paper and the Government's environmental record over the past year. I welcome that.

The sequence of events ought to be that we have a Government annual report, which I presume that we shall receive in September and, if Parliament is continuing, we debate it as the Government's contribution to the debate thereafter. I hope that we shall get into a habit of doing things in that order in Parliament. The Government and outside bodies should make an annual commentary on what progress they believe has been made which can then be debated in the House.

I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does he agree that one of the fundamental things that we must establish to ensure that the debate takes place in the right context and with the right degree of openness is proper freedom of access to environmental information? Otherwise, statistics will be bandied about meaninglessly.

I entirely agree. Freedom of information, and especially of environmental information, is important. When I hear cross-party dispute about facts and figures, I often reflect that it would be wonderful, if it were possible, to have machinery which made a loud noise whenever anyone mentioned a statistic or fact that was clearly untrue. I wonder how often Members' speeches would be precluded from being heard by the truth buzzer when environmental or policy porkies were shouted across the Floor of the House.

One of the problems about debates such as this is that they suffer from allegation and counter-allegation. The figures on the water industry are a good example of that. It is certainly true that investment by the Labour party when it was in government was higher than the average investment in the Tory years. Yet it is also true that the investments fell from 1974 to 1979 as a result of the intervention of the International Monetary Fund. The total Labour investment ended up being lower than the Tory average. Both of those sets of statistics are true, but we must ensure that people outside understand how they are interpreted.

We can say about environmental politics in Britain in the past decade that all political parties represented in the House are much more conscious of and committed to reforms to support protection of the environment than they were a decade ago. I welcome the fact that the Government have moved a considerable way. Inevitably, my view is that they have not moved far enough. There are substantial issues on which they could have moved further. There are fundamental flaws in the philosophy and politics of the present Tory party which have prevented the environment from being the priority that it should have been, but I welcome what movement there has been.

I welcome the fact that the Labour party has moved, too. The Labour party's record in government was not good. Since then, many things have happened and it has been persuaded. There are still obvious defects in its policies. One which is often pointed out by Conservative Back-Bench Members is that Labour is tied to certain interest groups who influence its policies in certain areas. It has made that judgment, which has resulted in certain weaknesses. The Labour party has had a commitment over the years to the nuclear industry, the coal industry and so on.

It is a weakness in my case that I cannot point to what Liberal Democrats or Liberals have done in government and say that they are wonderful environmentalists. However, I can point to our record in local government. We have a good record. I pray that in aid of our commitment to the environment over many years. Objective analysts will say that in policy commitment we have been more advanced, progressive and committed. I leave that for others to judge.

We should all recognise that the advancement of environmental politics and commitment owes a great deal to people who are not represented in this House. It owes a great deal to the Green party, which has had its heyday and has subsequently declined. It pushed us. Certainly the Euro-elections gave the three largest parties in the House a shock. It also owes a great deal to environmental pressures groups such as Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature, Friends of the Earth and so on. They have made sure that we are up to the mark. Bodies such as the Council for the Protection of Rural England and the Council for the Protection of Rural Wales and statutory bodies such as the Countryside Commission and the Nature Conservancy Council have all kept on the pressure. We welcome that and we have all benefited from their efforts. I hope that in the future we shall see slightly less aggressive counter-reaction from the Government to proposals and criticisms from, say, Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. The Minister sometimes gets excitable when Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth or the World Wide Fund for Nature make allegations about Government policy and its effectiveness. Such organisations have done a good service in arguing the case on environmental issues, and we should recognise that.

The other test is how well we are doing in relation to our European colleagues. We are improving, and in some areas we have led the way. But in many areas we have not led the way. The European Community has often been the motor in making us substantially improve our policies. Without pressure from the European Commission, we would not have moved nearly as quickly as we have done on the bathing beaches directive or water pollution standards.

It was not accidental that we were called the dirty man of Europe in the 1980s. In many ways, we were. That does not mean that all European countries were better at everything. Some countries were better in theory, but less good in practice because they commit themselves in theory but do not deliver the goods. The European Commissioner, Carlo Ripa di Meana, and other Commissioners and directors-general have also done a service. The commitment of the Commissioner and his predecessor have pushed us much further.

If people ask me for a justification for our increasing involvement in and adherence to the EC, I cite environmental policy. It has served us and the country well and pushed the Government further and faster than they would otherwise have moved.

My last point about the structural aspect of the debate is that we are beginning the sequence of debates which will lead up to the Brazil conference in June next year to which the Prime Minister referred in his speech on Monday and to which hon. Members have referred in the House. I hope that we can have proper and careful consideration of the line that Britain should take before the conference in June. If there is not an election in autumn, it will probably be in the spring. We cannot be certain which Ministers will go to Brazil. I hope that I shall be there myself in an official capacity. That possibility should not be excluded. According to the latest opinion polls, no overall control is a high possibility.

Whichever Ministers attend the conference, we do not know now who they will be. Therefore, it is important that we do what the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green wants, which is to seek as much agreement as possible about what the Government's policy should be at the conference on behalf of the people of Britain. I hope that that is possible and that the Minister and his colleagues will respond. I hope that we can have a debate in the House and in another place soon after the summer to decide what our policy should be at the United Nations conference on the environment and development in Brazil next June.

One thing that was welcome about the Prime Minister's speech on Monday was that he made it. He did not take as long to make a speech on the environment as his predecessor took. It was a welcome acknowledgement that the Government give importance to the issue. However, I have to say that there were weaknesses in it. The fundamental weakness was that he accepted only conditionally that the Government should make commitments, and only where others did as well as we did. The obvious example is carbon dioxide emissions. The Prime Minister said:

"The United Kingdom has committed itself to act. We have said that if others do their part, we shall return emissions of CO, to 1990 levels by 2005."

The Minister knows that I and my colleagues believe that the commitment should not be conditional on others playing their part, although I accept that the United States has a far greater part to play, and that to return to the present level in 15 years is not nearly a sufficiently tough target.

Until we came to this part, I thought that the hon. Gentleman was making a fair and reasoned speech. I am anxious to know precisely the Liberal position on CO, emissions as a matter of record. I am more interested in knowing the Labour position because I might take that a little more seriously. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) would pipe down a little, we might get the matter off our chests.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said at a conference that I attended with him on Saturday that, of course, the Liberal party is committed to phasing out nuclear power. I think that I am right in saying that its manifesto proposes to do so by the year 2020. I and my hon. Friends believe that to go for a faster target by the year 2000 on stabilisation and reduction does not stack up. I will obtain a more decent reply on that than I obtained from the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor). What is the answer?

Energy efficiency.

Energy efficiency.

I have a backing group. With the chorus behind me, it is rather like appearing on "Top of the Pops". I shall answer the Minister's question in a moment.

In the past year there have been various occasions when the Government have not done what they said they would. I want to list those things on which the Government did not live up to their promises. Their rejection of the hedgerow amendment to the Planning and Compensation Bill was a failure to honour a previous commitment. That was a black mark against the Government. Their refusal to accept the principle of sustainable development in the Planning and Compensation Bill showed that when it comes to including environmentally sound principles in legislation the Government have failed to deliver. That is especially true in that case, as the Government said that that principle was something with which everyone would agree. The publication in May of the mineral forecasts that predict an increase in demand of 60 per cent. until the year 2011 shows that that industry is unconstrained by environmental criteria, despite the recognition by Government and others of the environmental costs of mineral extraction.

Some issues are still to be addressed including, for example, the problem of a potential shortage of water. I accept that we have plenty of it coming down, but the problem is what we do with it after that. There have been problems with over-extraction and drought is bound to occur in certain parts of the country. Hosepipe bans are already in operation.

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I am sorry, but I shall not give way. As I have already explained, I have a funeral to attend and I do not want to speak for much longer.

There are also associated problems concerned with water leakage. We have not properly grasped the environmental assessment principle that was included in the White Paper. We have not resolved the conflict between the environment and agriculture, as was demonstrated by reaction of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to the common agricultural policy reforms proposed by the Agriculture Commissioner.

I understand that the "green" Ministers have met only once this year. I also understand that the Cabinet sub-committee—MICS. 141—has met only once in the past year. That suggests that the Government's structural commitment to pull environmental issues together is not strong.

I have tabled many questions to each Department to discover how they have implemented the White Paper, and some of their responses have been feeble. The Government must be honest about where they have failed.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) referred to a report recently published by the global environment research centre at Imperial college entitled "Institutions and Sustainable Development". The Minister should read that report as it makes fundamental criticisms of the structure of government and their inability to co-ordinate environmental policy. At present it is in a terrible muddle and has not been combined in a functionally effective manner. The Minister should read the summary of that report as well as the report itself so that he can deal with the problems identified.

My party believes that there should be a major structural reform of the Department, but, above all, the Treasury is central to environmental sustainable development. We must stop relying on the GDP and GNP indicators as measures of success. We must use a much more environmentally accountable set of indices. David Pearce made that clear in his report. Unless the Treasury policy reflects sustainable environmental principles, everything else will be second rate. In passing, the Government should set much tougher targets on many emissions, not just CO₂ emissions.

The Minister asked me about energy and energy policy. We had a spat about that in environment questions earlier this week. I was disappointed with the Minister's reply as it was not an accurate description of my party's policy; nor did it take into account what should have been the obvious answer. I asked why so little importance had been attached to the Select Committee reports of this House and the other place on energy conservation and efficiency. The Minister said that it was no good for me to argue about that when my party wanted to scrap the nuclear programme and increase the dependence on coal.

I accept that my party is committed to scrapping the nuclear programme by 2020 or earlier—whether that appears in the manifesto is another matter. However, we have never stated that we are committed to an increased dependence on coal—that is wrong. I should be happy for the Minister to study all our policy announcements; he will see no evidence of that commitment.

The dilemma is how to reduce emissions, achieve tougher targets, and still provide the energy the country needs. Energy policy is one of the crucial tests of Government environmental policy. The answer, as the hon. Members for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) and for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) rightly said, is energy efficiency. I would add energy conservation. I want to cite the evidence that backs that, as I wish to persuade the Minister.

Dr. Barry Dale, the chief scientist of the energy technology support unit, which is sponsored by the Department of Energy, has said that a threefold increase in nuclear power—12 more nuclear power stations— could, at most, provide 11 per cent. of the necessary reduction in CO₂ emissions. He described that percentage as an "economically feasible" reduction. If we had 20 more nuclear power stations, that would still mean that, at best, CO₂ emissions would be reduced by 11 per cent. However, energy conservation and efficiency could reduce CO₂ emissions by 40 per cent.

I gather that the House of Lords Select Committee on Energy report has not been formally published, but it states that the structure of the industry created since privatisation makes it much more difficult for us to meet our targets. Under the new system a generator does not have a financial interest in reducing consumer demand. That committee also argues that market forces need a fiscal boost from the Government to aid energy efficiency. We have proposed that in our alternative budget, but amendments to that effect to the Finance Bill were resisted. The report also says:

"Market forces alone will not produce a level of investment in energy efficiency sufficient to meet the Community's stated objective."

That objective is a further 20 per cent. reduction in emissions.

What is the effect of high energy prices? If the hon. Gentleman visited a Rover plant in my constituency, he would discover that people are for ever complaining about the high price of energy. There already exists a drive to reduce the cost of energy by being ever more efficient. There is little need for extra motivation.

All the experts argue that there is a need for extra incentives and motivation. Prices are, of course, important. The supply industry must decide whether to spend money on advertising—an unnecessary cost—or on encouraging conservation. The hon. Gentleman must accept that the supply industry is subject to different motivations.

The budget of the Energy Efficiency Office is half the level of five years ago. The Select Committee says that the Government were wrong to cut its budget. The office needs more money to respond effectively and I appreciate that the sums involved have risen recently simply because of the switching of the home energy efficiency scheme from the Department of Social Security to the Department of Energy. It will be the second report in three months to criticise the Government and I hope that the Government take that seriously, remembering that the Select Committee on Energy in this House made the same criticism. It said that energy efficiency responsibility should be transferred away from the Energy Department to elsewhere in government.

I am happy to go through our figures. I have heard Department of Energy officials say in public that we could manage as a country to be dependent within 50 years on only renewable resources if we sufficiently prioritised energy efficiency and conservation, and that is without nuclear power.

I do not dispute the fact that we must go for energy efficiency, and the Government are committed to that, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware from the White Paper. Indeed, nothing can be achieved by way of stabilising CO₂ emissions unless we go down that road. The trouble is that the hon. Gentleman's figures do not stand up. It is not a case of simply improving efficiency from the existing base. To replace the present 20 per cent. nuclear contribution would require action within a short time scale.

Had the hon. Gentleman said—because he is stuck with his party's target of the year 2000—that, even if we lived in a mad world and the Liberals were to get power, they would not start to wind down the nuclear industry until the year 2000, that would have been more credible, because the figures might begin to add up. But he and his party would start to wind it down immediately.

I shall deal briefly with the Minister's intervention and then, if I may, come and see him to discuss it because I am anxious to persuade him that our figures add up. Nor would it be a mad world if we had a Liberal Government. It would be a saner world.

Our policy on CO₂ is for a 30 per cent. cut by the year 2005, compared with the Labour party's commitment of stabilisation by the year 2000. The Minister is right to say that our commitment on the nuclear industry must be dovetailed into that. It is about not building any more nuclear stations, including Sizewell B and so on. The Minister is right to say that one must marry together the timetable pre and post 2005 with the next deadline of 2020. A substantial reduction in nuclear capacity would have to come between 2005 and 2020, when some of the present power stations come off stream.

I shall be delighted at any time to go through the figures with the Minister. Our advice is that they add up and that what we wish to achieve is possible—that is, if the Government are persuaded, as I think they may be, of the less important use of nuclear power when, in 1994, that subject is reviewed by the Department of Energy.

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I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for not giving way. I shall, as the Minister would say, answer any of their queries in writing if they care to put them to me.

The next priority for the Government should be transport. Many actions could be taken by them to make the nation's transport policies more compatible and environmentally sustainable. Some obvious ones include removing the remaining advantages applying to company cars, graduating vehicle excise duty to provide an incentive to vehicles which are most environmentally beneficial, introducing an energy tax, and examining Department of Health research into the link between health or poor health and pollution by vehicles. The Government could then take action to reduce traffic congestion in urban areas.

Many of those matters are already on the Government's agenda, but they involve road pricing policy, more pedestrianisation, more investment in public transport, and a reduction in the road building programme. The crucial test after that would affect areas such as Oxleas wood, parts of the M3 and not ploughing up some of the most important areas of the countryside for roads that could be constructed differently.

The Minister referred to recycling, in many areas of which we lag far behind the European Community average. We are not good on paper and cardboard, although we are better than some on recycling cans and other objects. On glass we are among the worst in Europe. There are many ways in which we could improve our recycling record. The Government have the target of 50 per cent. of materials recycled by the end of the decade, but we are not on target to achieve that. We must do more if that target is to be achieved.

As a country we have made a start to being environmentally more responsible, and the Government have made their contribution to that. They could have achieved much more, more quickly and more effectively. I hope that today's debate will help to encourage a speedier and tougher response in the years ahead by this Government or whichever Government follow them.

We are fortunate to have this valuable debate today. I am glad to have been able to hear my hon. Friend the Minister's speech, and especially glad to have heard the powerful speech of the Chairman of the all-party Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), whose knowledge is profound and probably unequalled by any of us other than the Minister.

The problem with debating the environment is that it really concerns quality of life. We must be careful not to identify it as a new religion, because it is nothing but an uprush of fear designed to dragoon people into following causes, sometimes for monetary reasons. After all, we are simply discussing the proper and wholesome care for the world in which we live. There is no need for it to become a turquoise vision, such as Mr. Icke claiming that he is the son of God. Neither is there a need to join some of the pressure groups that make unsustainable claims about concerns that are not real.

When I was a child I remember an elderly lady saying that the advance of television aerials would deplete the world of oxygen. She was very old when the television was invented. None the less, her claim was similar to the claim that was made by the Parents for Safe Food Campaign —a body of well known, publicly spirited women such as actresses and other public figures—that apples treated with a preservative called Alar will cause cancer. There is no causal link whatever, yet that pressurised campaign misled many housewives into not buying that invaluable food—the apple—for many months. The campaign has now moved on to pounding other foodstuffs. The campaign's success demonstrates the growing membership of quality of life organisations. I call that "greenness in a non-politicised arena". There are great health consequences from some of their actions.

The biggest industry in Devon, in which my constituency lies, is tourism. People come to us because they enjoy the quality of life that we offer—a true greenness. We have many sites of special scientific interest, for example the trail of Tarka the otter. The river and riverside walks around which the "Tarka the Otter" book was written have been identified as SSSIs and cleaned up. We also have the North Wyke Agricultural Research centre, which is carrying out serious and well-funded scientific research into low input grasslands. That is a good example of research which the Chairman of the all-party Select Committee identified as a long-term investment with no immediate return but with highly beneficial consequences to us all if the research proves positive. Indeed, it is already proving positive because low input grasslands research means high output in terms of more sheepmeat and higher quality lambs with the minimum input of potentially toxic substances.

It is worthwhile reminding hon. Members that farmers are the stewards of the countryside and the natural guardians of our common heritage. Today's great green movements build on what farmers have achieved for centuries. Many other hon. Members who are fortunate enough to represent rural constituencies see the fears and worries of those who come to live in our areas. For example, they want wind farms. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) spoke of sustainable forms of energy and wind farms are one such possibility. However, in a densely populated island such as the United Kingdom, wind farms are enormously noisy and visually intrusive. In Scandinavia there are beautiful, sparsely architecturally designed modern windmills in profusion. They make a noise like a tractor farming and harvesting a field all day. It is an intense, tractor engine-like noise, which people do not like.

There are also worries about incinerators, particularly those to incinerate carcasses infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. At Whiddon Down there is enormous concern that such an incinerator may have to be built

I received a letter from some people who moved into a beautiful village and bought a house overlooking a green field. The farmer ploughed it up and planted rape, and the newcomers wrote to me to complain that their view was now yellow, not green.

Such small factors that matter so much locally identify the natural conflict that exists between greenery and growth. That conflict can be seen in this week's announcement that car production is currently depressed due to economic factors in the United Kingdom. We should want fewer cars if we truly support the environment because cars cannot help but pollute, even when they use lead-free petrol, and they force us to create more roads.

It is difficult to get the priorities right, which is perhaps why the British electorate have now turned their attention away from Green party politics. The electorate have noticed that if the Green party had its way politically, there would be no electorate as that party's underlying ethos is that people pollute. Therefore, the logical conclusion must be that there should be no human reproduction, hence no electorate. Having identified its policy and seen the reaction of the electorate who, if the Green party had its way, would disappear, the Green party realised the logical conclusion of its policy and rapidly withdrew it from its manifesto.

Poverty, dirt and squalor are inescapable partners, so the first commitment to the environment has to be economic growth. The country has to be well off for us to be able to clean up after ourselves. I am delighted that the Conservative party committed itself first to economic growth and then, a little later as the economic growth started to boom in the 1980s, decided to dedicate itself to the environment.

However, we still have to answer the question as to who pays. The central tenet of Conservative policy is that the polluter pays. I have always been concerned that roads in the United Kingdom have traditionally been a free resource. When other countries began to introduce toll motorways, we did not. I am glad that Transport Ministers are now committing themselves, however gently—it is traumatic and difficult—to the prospect of private toll roads, and to debating whether we could charge people for coming into the most crowded districts, including central London.

I was fortunate to be present when various pieces of water legislation were discussed. I learnt of the Government's fine track record. Britain's water prices are among the lowest in Europe, and likely to remain so. All the water that an average United Kingdom citizen needs for drinking, cleaning, cooking, washing and gardening still costs only 15p a day. That makes nonsense of so many of the speeches of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), who has now left the Chamber—I am sure temporarily—during the passage of the Water Bill. She made claims about the degradation of our water supplies and the extra costs that consumers would have to bear.

Water privatisation has brought vast benefits to the environment and the consumer. As a result, the record £28 billion, to which the Minister referred and which is to be spent over the next decade on water infrastructure, will be critical to ensure that the cleanliness of our water supply remains the best possible and at the upper end of the scale of water available in Europe. In my constituency, we have a long history of underinvestment. Major investment is now being made, especially in the Bideford area, where there are some remarkably beautiful estuarial waters which have been allowed to degrade because of underinvestment.

I am sorry that the Labour party has committed itself to renationalisation of the water industry. There is hypocrisy in its saying that it would do that at lower prices to shareholders at a time when it claims to be the party of the City and the party which backs the free market. It is not even able to say that it is offering renationalisation at a cost of £3 billion and would remove the £28 billion privately funded investment programme over 10 years. It would leave all those who have invested in the water industry with a pay-out of a lower value than that at which they bought their shares.

The hon. Lady has repeated what her hon. Friends have said. She has talked about the nationalised water industry and the renationalisation of the water industry. The water industry was never nationalised. It was run by municipalities or by statutory water companies acting as public utilities. We do not intend to turn the water industry into a national industry. It is well known that we intend initially to improve the regulatory aspects of the Government and of the environment protection executive towards the water industry and ultimately, water and sewerage services will be provided through the regional authorities that we plan to introduce. That will be at a far later stage. The change will be similar to the changes that we propose for transport, which will allow private investment to continue.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for attempting to clarify the murky policies of his party. I remind him that the Labour party halved investment in sewerage and sewage disposal. I have little belief that any clear thinking on the matter will come from Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen. There are vast difficulties. The Opposition want to support the free market because they see the benefits that the Conservative party has introduced, but they have to go back to the trade union movement and to central control.

I do not see any real difference between saying that one will renationalise something and control it by public expenditure rounds and saying that one will bring it under public expenditure control, but run it through the regions. Surely that is merely another layering of major responsibilities. I say that with feeling because the proposals for women, with which I will not bother the House this morning, involve layer on layer of interference in private lives and in the way in which we all wish to work.

Only the Conservative party can genuinely privatise and pull back state control. The result of privatisation is readily visible to all of us in terms of private investment. We have taken investment out of the milk round and away from the Treasury which faces pressures over hip replacements, hospitals, pensioners and all the rest of it. We have created genuine private investment. I can see no way in which the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) can claim that he would allow private investment in view of the huge overseeing structure that the Labour party would create. It is nationalisation, although Labour does not wish to use that word because it is so unpopular with the electorate.

Labour is not a green party committed to green policies. Its environmental policies are shallow, like weeds with shallow roots which are easily plucked and wither and die. Jonathon Porritt, that noted environmentalist, said on 23 March about the Labour party and environmental issues:

"Most Labour candidates will sound more than a little stilted on environmental issues for the greenery still does not come naturally—and it certainly does not come coherently." As we have heard in the debate, that is true.

According to another Labour party Front-Bench spokesman a Labour Government would take action to regulate the water industry. That would reduce the profitability of the privatised water companies and would therefore be likely to depress the share price. Investors should take account of that. It is a different proposal from that of the Conservative party. Labour's environmental spokesman has said:

"We are traditionally seen as a producerist party, always giving priority to jobs and to pay packets rather than to environmental concerns."

The Times said:

"The Labour party document 'an Earthly Chance' is disfigured by Labour's own bugbears—bureaucracy and union power. Enacted in its entirety, Labour's policy would do little for the environment at great cost."

I am delighted that the Minister has put so much before the House. I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister's speech last week because it showed that the United Kingdom leads the way in making further great moves in the European and international context of the quality of life. I support the environmental agency and look forward to further moves by the Conservative Government.

rose—

Order. Before we make further progress, I must repeat that which the House already knows, that the Chair has no authority to control the length of speeches. So far this morning Front-Bench Members have taken not less than 40 minutes and, with the exception of the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson), Back-Bench Members have taken no less than 30 minutes. If everyone who wishes to speak is to be called in the debate hon. Members should remember that they are stewards of their own destiny and should act accordingly.

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. It is a pity that it is the only such debate in this Session and that it is being held on a Friday rather than on a day earlier in the week. I was pleased at the Prime Minister's announcement on Monday about setting up an environmental protection agency. The need for such an independent agency was put by the Select Committee on the Environment, the Labour party and the minority parties. The argument was also advanced last year in the Standing Committee on the Environmental Protection Bill and it has also been put time and again in the House. Such an agency was not proposed in the White Paper in September, but people are delighted that at the last minute, as a kind of death-bed conversion, the Government have decided to set up such an agency.

The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that. The White Paper said that it would be considered. Would he mind apologising?

I meant that there was no commitment in the White Paper or at any stage last year or over the years by the Government. However, as we prepare for a general election the Government have found that their green cupboard is relatively bare and have plucked a proposal from our manifesto and now try to dress it up as an environmental protection agency. We welcome the Government's commitment—if they are returned to office which I doubt—to set up an environmental protection body. What role will the National Rivers Authority play in the new body? There is serious concern that the NRA will be split up and that only the part responsible for pollution control will be transferred into the environmental protection agency. The Labour party is pleased that, since its establishment, the NRA has shown itself to be a watchdog with real teeth. It is a success story for the Government and we want it to be transferred lock, stock and barrel, into the agency. Will the NRA be transferred in full or fragmented? If it is fragmented, it will be weakened, which will have an effect on what would otherwise be the strongest EPA in Europe.

I hope that when the EPA is set up—I trust that that will be done by a Labour Government—it will take responsibility for all solid waste disposal, particularly toxic waste. Solid, liquid and gaseous effluents would then be under its control. I should like it to take over the responsibilities of the Countryside Commission and some responsibility for agriculture, because that involves environmental protection. I should like it to go further and take over energy efficiency which is a critical part of environmental protection. There may even be some elements of transport policy into which the EPA should have a strong input.

We want a robust, independent and well-financed EPA. To help to finance it, we could have green taxes—riot just charges as in integrated pollution control. We want more than the charges for monitoring. We want pollution taxes, to give companies an incentive to pump out less effluent. We could also have landfill taxes. When companies or individuals are prosecuted for pollution, any fines levied could be payable to the EPA. That would give the agency an incentive to prosecute more. We want more vigorous law enforcement.

A critical part of the new agency is its independence from the Government. Here, there is a marked difference between our proposals and those of the Government. We propose a two-tier structure—an executive and a commission. The executive will be responsible for day-to-day policing, monitoring and prosecution of polluters, while the commission will be accountable to the Government. In that way, environmental protection will be at arm's length from the Government. That independence from Governments is important if the agency is to prove effective.

The danger with the Government's proposals is that the EPA will be part of the Department of the Environment and therefore subject to ministerial interference. The day after the Prime Minister made his speech, we saw the result of such interference. Our foremost nature conservationist, Sir Frederick Holliday, resigned as chairman of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is clear from the press reports and his comments yesterday on "The World at One" why he resigned. He was unhappy about clause 11 of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Bill and the fact that he was not brought into the consultations on the moves to undermine the power of the new body that the Bill sets up. We do not want such interference in the EPA when it is set up. That is why the Labour party's proposals of a commission and an executive will ensure a more effective protection body and a better guarantee of its independence.

In our debate today, all hon. Members are aware of the Government's White Paper published in September last year. After months of publicity, we looked forward to something robust and meaningful. Instead, we got 300 pages of glossy pictures, with lots of exhortation and encouragement but very little by way of firm action. That applies to the Government's record throughout the last 10 to 12 years. Their only major environmental measure was last year's green Bill.

I was a member of the Standing Committee that considered the Bill. I enjoyed its proceedings, but throughout I realised that the Bill was pretty small beer. It deals with important matters such as integrated pollution control, litter, waste collection, recycling and so on, but the financial provision for the implementation of those measures is only £30 million. That was the value placed by the Government on cleaning up the environment.

That figure must be compared with what is done in the United States. On 8 March 1991 Science carried an article on the costs of cleaning up the environment. It says:

"The United States spent $115 billion in current dollars on cleaning up pollution in 1990. That's about 40% of the defense budget and just over 2% of the gross national product. And if a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report is correct, by the year 2000 the total will climb to $171 billion to $185 billion."

That is about 2·7 per cent. of the United States gross domestic product. Compared with the $115 billion spent last year by the United States, our little green Bill commitment amounted to only £30 million—a factor difference of 1,000. That is a measure of the priority given by this Government to cleaning up the environment.

When the Government eventually pluck up the courage to face the electorate—let us hope later this year—they will be judged not on today's debate, or on the Prime Minister's speech last Monday, or even on last year's White Paper, but on their record over the last 12 years. Their record does not stand up to scrutiny.

The water industry has been mentioned several times. The Government regularly under-invested in water during the 1980s. Their only policy was to privatise. Privatisation has led to higher bills and much greater salaries for the chairmen of the water companies. However, the quality of our drinking water is lower now than it was in 1979. The pollution of beaches by sewage effluent is worse now than it was 10 or 12 years ago. We await the benefits of any environmental improvements that the Government have set in hand.

As for agriculture, this is a critical year for the future of the common agricultural policy. It has caused extreme destruction of the environment. Hedgerows have been dug up. Farmers have engaged in intensive agricultural methods and used more fertilisers, pesticides and chemicals, which cause pollution.

The MacSharry proposals for the reform of the common agricultural policy mean that when the deep cuts come the big farmers will suffer. They enjoy 80 per cent. of the benefits of the CAP. What do the Government say about the proposals? They are hostile to them, simply because they will hit the big farmers. I agree with MacSharry that small farmers should be protected for both social and environmental reasons. Their style of farming is much more environmentally friendly. However, the Government are very much in the pockets of the big farmers—the agri-business lobby.

The Labour party wants the small farmers to survive and much more emphasis to be placed on environmental protection. Instead of the CAP supporting increased agricultural production, leading to massive surpluses of food, it should concentrate on environmental protection —the green premium, as we describe it.

The Government's record on transport is clear. They have projected an increase of 142 per cent. in traffic over the next 35 years. That increase is ludicrous. The Government are clearly the big car party. They invest £500 million a year in British Rail and public transport, compared with £3 billion a year in France and Italy and £4,000 million in Germany. The Government's emphasis is completely wrong.

The Government's record on energy is wide open to attack. I was a member of the Standing Committee which considered the Electricity Bill two years ago. We were completely hostile to its main proposal to privatise electricity. At every stage during the Bill's passage, we tried to move amendments to introduce energy efficiency. Our main proposal was for least-cost planning.

Least-cost planning is followed in the United States. The regulators of American power utilities must demonstrate to the regulator when they propose to build a new power station that the power station is necessary and that the money could not be better invested in home insulation. Instead of building a new power station for £1,000 million, it would be better to invest that money in home insulation and district heating schemes. About seven times as much energy would be saved pro rata as would be generated with the same amount of money. The Government turned down all our amendments about least-cost planning.

Great savings can be made with energy efficiency. The Minister had great difficulty earlier with my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) and the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) in accepting that major savings are possible through energy efficiency. An article appeared in the New Scientist a couple of years ago which referred to the record in the United States from 1973—the onset of the oil crisis—to 1986. It stated:

"In the United States … the annual demand for energy is still below that of 1973 even though the country's gross domestic product … is up by 40 per cent."

Over that 13-year period there was a 40 per cent. growth in GDP and a cut in energy demand. The article continued:

"Japan has gone one better. The country used 6 per cent. less energy in 1986 than it did in 1973 even though its GDP grew by 46 per cent. over the 15 years."

It used 6 per cent. less energy while its GDP grew by 46 per cent. That is a 50 per cent. increase in energy efficiency over the period. Those are not the findings of an abstract scientist or the results of a feasibility study; that is the record achieved by advanced countries comparable to ours. Compared to them, we are at the bottom of the league.

That article in the New Scientist also stated:

"The International Energy Agency estimates that if energy conservation measures that are now economically viable were fully implemented by the year 2000, energy efficiency would be more than 30 per cent. higher than current levels."

This Government have cut the Energy Efficiency Office's budget. There has been much exhortation, but the Government have not got their hands dirty in terms of doing anything.

There is quite a lot of opencast coal mining in my constituency. That is wildly and widely unpopular. Under this Government, opencast coal production has increased from 12·9 million tonnes in 1979 to 18·9 million tonnes in 1989. That is a 50 per cent. increase in production. Nothing can he more environmentally destructive than opencast mining. There is a presumption in favour of such development in the mineral planning guidance notes. Labour will reverse that when we are in government.

Coal as a source of energy is much discredited, because it is dirty and sooty. However, clean coal combustion is now possible. The Government are aware of that, but they do not believe in investing in it. In the 1970s, in Grimethorpe, Yorkshire, fluidised bed combustion was developed. It was possible to remove all sulphur in that way, but scientists working at Grimethorpe are now going overseas because that British technology is being developed overseas.

Last Monday, at The Sunday. Times exhibition at Olympia, I talked to someone involved in research into the topping cycle. He explained the background in some detail and spoke of his personal frustration in not getting sufficient support from the Department of Energy. That technology will be the main method of electricity production in the next century. The biggest resource is coal —not nuclear power, oil or gas. In the next century, electricity will be made from clean coal combustion, despite the carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, we are in that no-win situation. It will be clean coal combustion.

Acid rain is no longer one of the environmental glamour issues, but it is a serious problem. In my constituency, thin soils cannot buffer acidity in the rainfall. In Wales, the Lake District, Scotland, and Scandinavia there are serious problems of acid rain poisoning our rivers, leaching aluminium into our rivers and drinking waters, with its relationship to Alzheimer's disease and so on.

Belatedly, in 1987, the Government recognised that acid rain was a problem. They undertook to agree to the European Community's directive to introduce cuts in sulphur dioxide emissions, but, when faced with the privatisation of the electricity industry, what did they do? They reneged on those commitments and cut by a third the number of power stations to be installed with flue gas desulphurisation equipment. The awful fact is that when the Government leave office, not one of our power stations will have FGD equipment. We must compare that with Germany, Holland, Austria and Sweden, where virtually all power stations have FGD equipment. When the election comes, the "dirty man of Europe" tag will fit the Government.

The parrot cries of energy efficiency from the Opposition Benches remind me irresistibly of the war cry of the Wilson Government—the white heat of technical revolution that was going to save their bacon in 1969 and 1970. It creates a wonderful picture of the Labour party being as credible as double-glazing salesmen.

I refer to the contribution that the motor industry wishes to make to the improvement of the environment. I pause only to note the deep-seated hostility of the Labour and Liberal parties to the motor car and the motorist, despite the fact that 30 million people hold driving licences and there are 22 million cars on the road. I have no doubt of the consequences of that if it were followed to its logical conclusion.

I welcome the initiative of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at the start of this week, following the Department of Transport paper on the environment. My right hon. Friend set out clearly some of the major considerations: that climate change is a global problem, but that the United Kingdom is responsible for only 3 per cent. of global emissions of carbon dioxide; that road transport in the United Kingdom is responsible for less than a fifth of that 3 per cent; the largest polluters are the power stations that are so beloved of the Labour party; and that businesses, industries, the motor car and other road transport are hotly pursued by domestic central heating as a source of carbon dioxide emissions. We need to get the matter into perspective.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will chair the strategy committee. He also pointed out that one of our main aims must be to work with the market and to awaken individuals to their responsibilities in improving the environment. My right hon. Friend mentioned four subjects. I welcome the fact that two of them were energy saving and transport, about which I wish to speak. In his paper, my right hon and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport referred to the need to give market signals and to provide information, to the role of regulation and to the provision of infrastructure.

There is a balance to be struck in all these matters. If we are considering emissions from motor vehicles, it is important to note that there is a difference between a cleaner engine and a cooler engine—the cooler engine being the one that gives off less CO₂ and contributes less to global warming. The catalyst helps to clean up other emissions, but leads to further emissions of CO₂ and thus militates against efforts to reduce global warming. As I have said, there is a balance to be struck. We are trying to achieve a cleaner, cooler, quieter and safer vehicle. For the cleaner vehicle, which cleans up emissions other than CO₂ great progress has already been made with unleaded petrol, the fitting of catalytic converters and by doing away with the use of chlorofluorocarbons in motor vehicles. However, further progress could be made with the greater use of diesel engines, which are more economical, more energy efficient and give off less CO₂. They could therefore make an important contribution to reducing global warming.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) and I have been going around Government Departments for nearly two years outlining a programme whereby the motor industry would contribute towards the achievement of the stated target of my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) of maintaining CO₂ emissions at their current level until 2005. It is a matter of regret that in the Budget the Government did not pursue the advantages of the proposals that my hon. Friend sought to introduce as amendments to the Finance Bill. 1 hope that our further amendment may be selected for consideration next week.

I much admired, as well as enjoyed, the speech of my hon. Friend the Minister, but must advise him that the motor industry wants identified targets towards which it can work. If we have targets for energy efficiency and for emissions—as are being introduced in the EEC—and for noise and for safety, a programme of manufacture can be developed so that we can work towards those ends. My hon. Friend the Member for Northfield and I would argue that we should go down the route of market signal and incentive, as we did so successfully for unleaded petrol. We have been urging similar incentives for diesel, which would not only reduce its price in this country and bring it closer to the price elsewhere on the continent where the advantages of economy are already well understood, but would help our hard-pressed industry in this time of recession.

There have been some cheap jibes, notably in the literature of the green parties, about company cars, which have been mentioned this morning. I regretted to note a similar reference in the Department of Transport's White Paper. If we examine the facts, we find that the measures that were introduced in the Budget have increased the tax for employees while leaving their bosses with a lower level of tax. According to the Inland Revenue's own figures, more company cars are owned by people on schedule D than are used by those on schedule E. So once more the employees are paying higher tax than those who employ them.

There is also an argument about the arm's-length cost of the company car, as established by the contract hire rate. We also ignore the fact that company cars are newer and better maintained. The quickest way to make improvements is to bring new vehicles into the vehicle park. Otherwise, it will take at least 10 years to work through the 22 million vehicles which are currently on the road and ensure that they are all fitted with a catalyst to achieve the improvements that we all want. One way of helping to speed up that process is to encourage a greater turnover of vehicles and get new vehicles on the road. We must get rid of the 2 million unlicensed vehicles and the innumerable badly maintained vehicles which are the greatest polluters, as well as the noisiest and unsafest vehicles of the lot.

I hope that a stricter MOT standard will be introduced. I hope that we shall not only move immediately to four gas testing, which I was discussing with the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) earlier, but introduce calibration of equipment and standard of workshop and additional safety and noise requirements.

Noise is an important polluter. I have a warning for my hon. Friend the Minister from a constituency factory which is interested in the production of axle load indicators. It has advised me this week that the EEC legislation is moving towards adopting overall payload rather than axle weight. Yet we have always been given to understand that it is axle weight which is so damaging to our road structure and so influential on noise levels.

Time does not permit me to make all the remarks that I had prepared, so I must come to a conclusion to allow my colleagues to take part in the debate. The quality of the environment is an important freedom for us all. When I took my young son swimming in the river two summers ago, I suddenly realised that it was an unusual experience for him, whereas I was taught to swim in the river. Both the schools that I attended took us swimming in the river. I hope that my son and my grandchildren will also in due course be able to swim safely in the river.

The motor industry is anxious and willing to make its contribution to improving the environment for all of us, as well as giving us the advantages of mobility and security. Security is important for mothers on the school run or women travelling late at night who do not feel safe on public transport. It is an important issue. We are willing to make that contribution. We ask that targets be set and that research should be conducted into new technologies, including alternative fuels. What is the point of concentrating all our attention on what comes out of the exhaust instead of what goes into the engine in the first place? We welcome the White Paper and the fact that there will be a report, and we look forward to making our contribution.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss green issues, but I regret that this has been such a wide-ranging debate, because it is not easy to comment on some of the issues raised.

In the past three months, I have been fortunate enough to visit the constituencies of Stroud, Salisbury, Exeter, Falmouth and Camborne, Teignbridge, Suffolk, Coastal and Waveney at the invitation of prospective Labour candidates. I have spoken to the various environmental groups in those areas as well as to footpath officers, conservationists, representatives of the National Farmers Union, the Country Landowners Association and others about the Labour party policies contained in our document, "Earthly Chance". We discussed problems such as access to the countryside and how we can maintain the quality of the countryside. Those meetings were constructive and useful and I was pleased at the number of people who were excited by the proposals in the Labour party document.

The consensus that emerged from those meetings was one of concern about farm incomes and the difficulty that is placed on those who are required to maintain our countryside in the neatly farmed way which we have come to accept and enjoy. People were extremely interested in the Labour party's policy of green premiums.

During my campaign I was pleased to note that the Government announced their country stewardship scheme, because it looks as though the Government are following the Labour party. They have now recognised that we must find ways in which we can assist farmers to protect and maintain the countryside. We should not pay farmers just to undertake more and more food production.

I am concerned, however, that the Government are putting up only £13 million for the country stewardship scheme. On Wednesday, I gathered from the Secretary of State for the Environment that the money will be spread over three years and that it will be administered by the Countryside Commission.

I am pleased that the DOE has taken an initiative on the countryside, but it is important to compare it with the negative response to the set-aside scheme, which was proposed by the European Community and is administered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Have we got the balance right? I plead with the Government to expand the country stewardship scheme. Perhaps they should hand it over to MAFF to administer, but the principles set by the DOE should be retained so that we can do much more to protect the incomes of those in the countryside. We are talking not just about farmers' income, but about that of farmworkers and those in the neighbourhood who provide support services. I urge the Minister to consider the scheme to see how some of the money from the EC for the set-aside scheme can be used in a more positive way to develop and protect the countryside.

We must do much more positive work to protect the hedgerows. I am delighted that the Government have stopped giving grants to people to tear up the hedgerows, but I still regret that too many hedgerows are disappearing through neglect. They must be properly maintained and, after 30 years, they need to be properly layed. Throughout my visits, it became the exception rather than the rule to see a well-layed hedge.

I am absolutely appalled at the amount of litter we see. It is not a question whether an authority is Labour controlled, because most authorities have an appalling litter problem. I welcome the Environmental Protection Act 1990 although I am not certain whether the Government have got it right. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will tell us when the provisions on litter contained in that Act will come into operation. When will on-the-spot fines be introduced? When will individuals be able to take local authorities to court if they fail to deliver the goods?

I do not blame local authorities entirely for the litter problem. The fact is that people still drop too much litter. Unfortunately, people are schizophrenic in their attitude to litter. When I visit schools, the pupils are terribly enthusiastic about green issues. The are concerned not just about the rain forests and the whale, but about the problems of littter. There may be huge posters about litter, but when I leave those schools I often see a trail of sweet papers and ice-cream wrappers.

We must convince people that litter is everybody's problem.

I am concerned about the problems in the Tameside and Stockport areas of my constituency, where the litter collection service is a disgrace. Tameside has continually said that it does not have the money to do it and is looking for ways to improve the service. I fear that, so far, it has not succeeded in achieving any improvement.

On the other hand, Stockport fully embraced the Government approach and privatised its refuse and litter collection services. It worked on the basis that, as the Government had claimed, if it privatised the services, the work would be done more cheaply and with better quality. Despite what the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said about the great Liberal green policies, the response of the Liberals in Stockport, where they comprise the largest party on the council, has been a disaster.

The Government's policy was followed, the services were put out to tender and a bid was accepted from Focsa, a Spanish company, which was to carry out the refuse and litter services. Leaflets were distributed to all households stating that there would be a better service. In the event, the service has been far worse, and I have had to contact chief officers about sites not being cleaned up properly.

The local authority discovered that it had made a mess by letting the tender to Focsa because some streets had not even been included in the tender. The company had put in a low bid simply to get the business, hoping that in the future it could put the price up. The authority is now faced with having to decide whether to withdraw the contract from the company and, if so, whether it would then be possible to find another company to provide a service at the right price. At present, litter collection there is a disgrace and it is time that the Liberal-dominated council sorted the matter out.

The Minister referred briefly to the issue of green labels, but I was disappointed with what he said. He repeated the promise that we have often heard in the House—it was stated in an Adjournment debate of mine last March—that it was hoped to have a scheme in place by 1 January.

I had to cover many subjects in my speech and could not spend long on that one. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am satisfied, having attended the last meeting of the Environment Council in Europe, that the eco-labelling directive will come out of the next Council meeting in October or, at the latest, in December of this year.

The Minister promised that a scheme would be in operation by January. If that is to happen, manufacturers must be told in September or October what to state on the packets, depending on the products and how long it takes to produce them and get them to the shops. I hope that the scheme will be in operation quickly. The longer the delay, the more people are conned, as he suggested, by buying products that are claimed to be environmentally friendly when they are not. Much good will is lost in that way.

I like the idea of waste disposal credits. It makes sense to encourage people to recycle material rather than use it to fill up holes in the ground. But a problem exists between the collection and disposal authorities. If credits are given to collection authorities, they remove various items, but the disposal authorities take out the same items, so the two are working in opposition directions.

Greater Manchester waste disposal authority is working hard to extract tin cans, but becomes concerned when the volume of cans in the refuse falls below a certain level because it is then not worth while to run all the refuse through the magnets and so on to remove the cans.

North West Water plc and Tameside local authority —two totally different organisations—have great charters about green issues. North West Water says how environmentally friendly it is, and explains how it has tackled certain problems and how it wants to encourage access to the countryside. The trouble is that trees are cut down to produce those documents on green issues, but when it comes to specific cases neither the local authority nor the water company takes a blind bit of notice.

I am delighted that the Secretary of State has called for an inquiry into the Kingswater development. I hope that the inspector will find in favour of the local residents, who do not want one of the nicest areas of open space between Manchester and Tameside to be destroyed by a business park. A problem has developed in the past couple of weeks. The local authority considered the planning application in the autumn and in January the Secretary of State called for an inquiry—it is now set for 12 September. The local authority's Queen's Counsel has now told the local authority that it is in a mess, because it has no concrete proposals for road access to the site and he has recommended that North West Water should ask for the inquiry to be delayed for six months. The Tameside officials do not want such a delay and are now trying to rush through a road proposal, which was due to be announced yesterday or today. People will have 28 days to object to it, and a local authority meeting will be held to discuss it sometime towards the end of August. The local authority could then simply tell the inspector on 12 September that there is a concrete road proposal. The road proposal reverses a decision made by the inspector on the proposals for a motorway in my constituency. I hope that the Minister will consider the matter carefully and tell Tameside that it is not good enough to try to rush the road access proposal through in two months at the most, in preparation for the public inquiry. If local people are to be consulted effectively, the public inquiry on the Kingswater development should be postponed for six months. The road issue and the subject of the inquiry could then be properly considered so that proper local debate on the issue could take place. I shall write to the Minister in a little more detail on that subject.

The Government must get on with turning some of their rhetoric on green issues into practice. They must set out to make the country stewardship scheme work so that much more money is spent on conservation rather than merely on food production. We must have effective action on litter, because it is an absolute disgrace. A working system of green labelling should be in place by 1 January. Finally, we must do much more to ensure that we do not continue to tip natural resources into holes in the ground, because we may have to dig them out in the future. I welcome the opportunity for a debate on green issues, but I wish that the House had more time to discuss them today and more opportunities to return to them.

About five years ago, having spent almost a lifetime in personnel work, I put my name forward to become a member of the Employment Select Committee. For some reason I was overlooked, so I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Sir M. Fox) why. He told me not to worry because there was a vacancy on the Environment Committee—which also begins with an E. My membership of that Committee was my introduction to the subject. The past five years have been thoroughly exciting and interesting, and I pay tribute to the Chairman of the Committee for the work that he has done in those five years to bring so many issues to the public's attention. Many of them are commonplace today, but were then rare and novel—for example, acid rain and other subjects that we were supposed to have debated this morning but which have not been mentioned. I can understand why as it is difficult to isolate the environment in the United Kingdom from that in the rest of the world. That is one fact that we have discovered from our work on the Select Committee during the past five years or more.

The reports before us have some element of criticism of the Government, some suggestions and some positive points that may be controversial. But every one of our reports has come out with the unanimous support for the composition of the Committees. The manpower changes in those Committees has been quite high, particularly among Labour Members, as more and more of them are promoted to become Opposition spokesmen and women. None of the reports has come out with a minority view. That means that we have sought to put the environment above party politics, and we must continue to do so.

Therefore, I was disappointed—although perhaps I should not have been surprised—by the speech of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), which was nothing more than a catalogue of carping comments, with selective statistics, and which did nothing to elevate the debate or introduce any constructive proposals. That is not the way that we try to do things on the Select Committees.

I always make a wry note of the fact that, because of the way this place works, the Liberal party, from which there is never anyone present at Select Committee meetings, is always offered an early and long bite of the cherry in debates in the Chamber, despite the fact that Liberal Members show no interest in the subject in the House. If someone has to go to a funeral, it is not beyond the wit of man to find someone else to sit in and participate in a debate. However, Liberal Members do not do so, and there is a void in the Chamber and on the Select Committee. That may not be entirely the fault of the Liberal party; it may be partly due to the way in which Select Committees are chosen. The Select Committee on the Environment is a public Committee to which anyone can come, but, to my knowledge, during the five years in which I have served the Committee, not once has a Liberal party observer been present or taken any interest in anything that we have done.

May I set the record absolutely straight? There was a Liberal Member on the Select Committee of the Environment until 1985, when he was made Liberal Chief Whip and had to resign from the Committee. I asked for that place on the Committee to be kept open for the whole of one Parliament so that the Liberals could replace him, but no one could be found from among their ranks who was willing to serve. At the general election, the Labour party asked for and obtained that place.

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Committee, whose experience goes back even further than mine, for explaining the correct position.

We have heard talk about the terrible pollution on beaches, but it was not mentioned that the Select Committee has found that measuring equipment used today to determine whether the water contains pollutants is superior to that available 30 or 40 years ago. There is no doubt that, if today's equipment had been available then, we would have found that the beaches were worse in those days than they are today, but we have no way of recording that.

Last week we heard that the east Germans reckon that it will be 10 years before raw sewage is no longer spread around their beaches. We are a long way from that, and a long way ahead of the east Germans, but we still have more work to do.

Chlorofluorocarbons present a huge international problem. I asked an Indian Government official how the Indian Government would deal with the problem of refrigeration and CFCs in the Indian sub-continent, as more refrigerators were used there and as the people turned more to western standards. He said, "I challenge you to go up to an Indian peasant woman who has lived all her life with the wish to have a refrigerator and to tell her that she cannot have it because it will increase the CFCs in the atmosphere, although people in the west want to keep their refrigerators." When we spoke to the Brazilians about the tropical forests, they said that they did not have a problem of cutting down the forests. They said that the west had the problem of too many cars. They said that if we cut out our cars, they would not have a problem with the forests. Trying to introduce some rationale takes the whole debate on the environment outside normal party politics. We should consider the matter more objectively and constructively.

For the first time, we have a Government who have listened to what we have said and who have introduced some of the measures that we have proposed. It was interesting to note that, when we first said that we would investigate indoor pollution, the following week the Department of the Environment, for the first time, issued a circular on indoor pollution. That was a coincidence par excellence. It shows that the Department listened and it shows the value of the Select Committee and its reports.

I endorse the remark made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) about the Minister not mentioning Northern Ireland in his speech. It is an area of particular beauty and, as we saw when we went there, there are pollution problems that we should take on board.

I represent the chemical heart of England on Teesside. There are problems there of toxic waste and cleaning up. We have the new power station from Enron and gases come ashore there to create power. Close by, there is the Hartlepool nuclear power station. We are aware of all the pollution problems, and we are also aware that one cannot turn the clock back. We cannot say to people that they must not have this or that, because they have been used to turning on the switch to get electric light, and to having electricity for cooking and for all the other things that we take for granted. It all has a price which has to be paid in environmental and in financial terms. Getting the balance right is the most important job that the Government must tackle.

I listened to Opposition Members talking about polluted beaches. We have them in Durham. Why? We have coalfields there. Until this Government came to power, no Government had done anything about that. The problem has been recognised, time limits have been set, and something will be done. The churlishness of the Opposition in failing to give the Government recognition for that does their cause no good.

There is no doubt that the water industry was starved of cash under the 1974–79 Labour Government. I was a member of the Thames water board at the time and I know how difficult it was for us as a water authority to keep up with basic maintenance, let alone to carry out replacement and renovation. Everything in the ground was getting older, but could not be replaced or repaired.

It is a shame that we have had this debate on a Friday. It would have been a better debate if more Back-Bench Members had been able to make contributions. They would have been better than the nonsense that we heard from the hon. Member for Dewsbury. Some of her remarks do not deserve comment, but I want to mention Friends of the the Earth. They are an irritant to many people, but they sometimes make good points. If we did not have them, we should have to invent them. Why not recognise that we have pressure groups? All of them have axes to grind and much of the time what they say will be of little consequence. However, occasionally they get it right. It would be good if the Government could occasionally say that the Opposition have a good point and that they accept it. It would be even better if the Opposition would occasionally say that they support the Government on an issue and that they understand the Government's problems. They should say that they understand that the problem of pollution has developed over decades and centuries. We should approach in a far less partisan way matters such as contaminated land for which no records exist.

I warn the Government not to place too much hope on Europe, because it will clearly make the wrong moves on eco labelling. European countries do not know what they want and are pulling in different directions. Consequently, we shall have to take matters into our own hands. I am sure that the Select Committee on the Environment will make recommendations on that important subject. Members on both Front Benches should agree on eco labelling, and we should not play party politics about whether a label will contain too little or too much. The public will have to trust such a label and we should agree on what it should contain.

The environment is and will continue to be a major issue. In a party speech my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) said that we have only a leasehold on this earth. She was absolutely right. It is the Government's responsibility to make sure that environmental issues are properly treated, and it is the responsibility of Back Benchers to make sure that the Government do that. I look forward to another five years' service on the Select Committee, which is carrying out precisely that task.

Not long ago, my journey from Birmingham to London took two and a half hours and the fuel consumption of the car that I then had was about six gallons. Now, the same journey takes just under two hours and my present car's fuel consumption is no more than two and a half gallons. The difference is due to the fact that the Government have completed the M40 motorway which has relieved congestion along an arduous and outdated route through Banbury and Oxford, causing pollution, congestion and heavy fuel consumption.

New roads and those that are being built have freed up traffic which is therefore not consuming as much fuel and, obviously, not causing as much pollution. The other significant reason for decreased fuel consumption is that I have changed my car. I now drive a diesel vehicle and I am reaping the benefits of a superior form of internal combustion engine which is more energy efficient and which provides the power and performance that I want.

Some differences between petrol and diesel cars are quite staggering. The touring economy of a car is obtained by taking the calculations of fuel consumption for the urban cycle, at 56 mph and at 75 mph and weighting them. Under that formula a car such as the Montego powered by a two-litre petrol engine has a fuel consumption of 35.4 miles per gallon. The diesel equivalent will accomplish 55.8 miles per gallon. That is an enormous increase and it is due to the ability of the diesel engine to squeeze extra energy out of every litre of fuel.

A bigger executive car such as the Rover 827 will deliver 26–6 miles to a gallon of petrol. Its diesel equivalent, the Rover 825, will cover 40.7 miles to the gallon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sir H. Miller) said some months ago, an alternative form of engine would enable us to make enormous strides in saving fuel and in reducing the output of carbon dioxide, which is a difficult gas to control. Of course there are other pollutants, but, because a diesel car can travel further on a gallon of fuel, it will cause much less pollution than its petrol equivalent.

The introduction of catalysts to solve the problem of exhaust emissions from petrol cars may be a good and sensible idea, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove pointed out, catalysts actually exacerbate the problem because those dangerous pollutants are turned to CO₂. Therefore, the vehicle not only goes less far on a gallon of fuel but emits further carbon dioxide.

It has been said that the wider use of diesel vehicles will lead to an increase in other forms of pollution—black smoke, soot on buildings, health hazards, particulate emissions—and that that is a further reason for not embracing the diesel car. However, despite long-standing research into the consequencies of diesel exhaust, there is no evidence that it is in any way carcinogenic. Although German and United States agencies, which are generally in the lead in research on exhaust emissions, have done an enormous amount of testing, no hidden problems have been discerned. I understand that a committee has been set up in this country, but I have been unable to ascertain w ho belongs to it or what findings it is establishing. Presumably, it is either duplicating experiments conducted elsewhere or developing new experiements.

Particulate emissions are a result of the sulphur content of the fuel used. The European Commission has announced that, by 1996, the sulphur content of fuel should be reduced to a low level. However, there is no national standard for sulphur contents in diesel fuel. The oil companies try to keep it to a reasonable level, but it tends to go up and down according to the refining process. The Government have encouraged the use of unleaded fuel, so it would be easy for them to impose a reduction of the sulphur content of diesel fuel at a far quicker rate. We should be moving as a European group of nations.

There is strong evidence that unleaded fuel, which is more accurately and highly refined than leaded fuel, contains more benzine than leaded fuel. Experiments in the United States have shown that this seems to have carcinogenic side effects on those who inhale the fumes when filling up their cars. Therefore, it is not the case that unleaded petrol has no side effects on health. There is some linkage there, although there is not on diesel fuel.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove and I have had similar problems in our attempts to encourage the Government to introduce an incentive for the buying of diesel cars, along the line of the fiscal incentive to use unleaded fuel. If people were encouraged to buy diesel cars, it is possible that we would reduce CO₂ emissions by the year 2005, or even halt them at the present level. Unless we adopt a policy of incentives, there is little chance of the motor industry and the car user being able to play a part in reducing CO₂ emissions.

The Government have many arguments about why no incentives should be offered. We have written to the Department of the Environment and the Department of Transport—and to the Treasury, because it decides on tax concessions. I imagine that the Departments have consulted each other, so we end up with responses similar to the one from my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury. She said in a letter to me:

"Diesel fuel, derv, contains roughly 14 per cent. more carbon per litre of fuel than petrol does, and thus generates correspondingly more carbon dioxide per litre consumed."

That is true, but it overlooks the fact that, for the same amount of fuel, a diesel car will go a lot further.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders—I assume that the House understands that it is well versed in these matters—says:

"Allowing for relative carbon content by volume of fuel, the fuel economy advantage of the diesel, up to 30 per cent. per litre per 100 kilometre term, translates into a CO, advantage in grams per kilometre of up to a 20 per cent. saving over a petrol equivalent."

Although the Treasury and Government Departments say that there is more carbon in diesel, the fact that the car travels further on diesel fuel wipes out the discrepancy and provides a 20 per cent. benefit. Diesel cars are more expensive to manufacture because they are more complex and robust. If, however, we can reduce both the price of diesel cars and the price of diesel fuel, the Government will be able to meet its road transport target by 2005.

If our amendment is selected on the Report stage of the Finance Bill, we hope to introduce a clause that will provide some latitude as regards the 10 per cent. special car tax. We shall concentrate on banding cars, based on their touring fuel consumption. I hope that the Government will consider carefully that interesting concept. Unless they encourage people to purchase fuel-efficient cars—and the only way to do that is through the wallet—they will never meet the target they have set themselves. As soon as the Government appreciate that fact and introduce financial incentives, the target will be met. The car industry will manufacture the products that it knows that it can make and that it wants to make, and that will be good for everyone.

Both Opposition parties have a hang up about nuclear power. They always find a way round admitting that it is a very efficient means of generating electricity. However good our energy conservation measures may be, nuclear energy produces less carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide than power generated by fossil fuels. The sooner we get that message over, the better it will be for our energy policy.

I welcome the debate. I have always believed that we need to keep environmental issues at the forefront of political discussion. I shall concentrate on how local communities can improve their environment. Environmental improvement is not just a matter of the Government telling people what to do. It is up to individuals and organisations to get on with it themselves. That requires a considerable amount of explanation and objectivity on the part of local pressure groups and councillors.

I intend to give an example from my area to demonstrate how things can go right. It might provide a few lessons for the future. It will not be a complete surprise to hon. Members to hear that the coastline around Blackpool, near my constituency, needs to be cleaned up. Neglect over decades by North West Water was largely the result of lack of Government funding, particularly during the period when the Labour Government were in power between 1974 and 1979. In real terms, the amount spent on cleaning up the sewage around our coasts was reduced from £900 million in 1974 to £400 million in 1979.

It should also be noted that the local Labour party first became involved in environmental matters when the Labour-controlled Lancashire county council opposed a scheme to improve the quality of sewage disposal along the Fylde coast. The method suggested by North West Water was old-fashioned and inadequate, in my opinion, but I suspect that the county's opposition to it had much more to do with the imminent privatisation of the water industry than with any long-term concern for the environment.

I shall not detain hon. Members by describing the subsequent events, apart from saying that the Government rightly decided that the scheme was not good enough and asked North West Water to think again. In the intervening period, environmental awareness locally has increased tremendously, partly as a result of the environment becoming an important issue nationally, but also because local people began to discuss in detail the best way that the coastline could be cleaned up.

Over the past two years the political climate on the Fylde coast has also changed. We now have a Labour-controlled borough council in Blackpool and greater representation by the Labour party in Fleetwood. It will not surprise my colleagues to learn that Labour's view on environmental improvement matters has, as a result of those political changes, also changed. We now hear less about Blackpool's dirty beaches, and although Labour councillors in Fleetwood were largely elected on the basis of their opposition to the pipeline, they now face the possibility of the construction of a sewage works and a pipeline beside the town, both of which seem to have the approval of their Labour colleagues at county hall.

Therefore, it is not surprising that many people in Fleetwood feel betrayed by the Labour party which gave the distinct impression that it supported the town against organisations like North West Water which wanted to treat all Fylde's sewage by way of a long sea outfall or by a sewage plant near Fleetwood.

It is interesting to note that the county council now supports the present scheme. It would be no exaggeration to say that the Labour party locally is hopelessly split on the issue. County politicians want the sewage works to be built so that they can support their Labour colleagues in Blackpool borough. In doing that, they have ditched Fleetwood.

I make that point because it shows the difficulty with local environmental issues if they become bogged down in local politics. That is certainly what has happened in this case. We must ensure that in future environmental matters are dealt with on a slightly higher plain so that we can move forward and find the best solution from an environmental point of view.

The scheme on the Fylde coast needs further improvement. We must find ways to dispose of the sludge effectively. The Select Committee on the Environment—of which I was a member for many years—has said that incineration rather than landfill is the way forward. It is also worth stating that landfill has problems because of the need to comply with the EEC directive on landfill sites that will come into force in 1997.

I very much support what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said recently about the creation of a new environmental protection agency. I should like it to be called the environmental improvement agency, because that it is what it is all about. It is important for the Government to create targets, for outside agencies to regulate and for everyone else, in the best way possible, to try to improve the environment individually as well as in groups.

We have had a long and interesting debate in which, unfortunately, because it has been so wide-ranging, we have not been able to consider in depth some very important subjects. It is also a pity that we could not have this debate until almost a year after the White Paper was published.

Perhaps the delay was due to the fact that the Government did not want to be reminded of the reaction of the press to the White Paper. Although most papers normally support the Government, the response of the press to the White Paper was lukewarm, to say the least. For example, one paper said that the White Paper contained 350 proposals with more conditions and caveats than an insurance policy. The Times described the White Paper as "a white flag" rather than a White Paper. The Times editorial stated that

"pressure for further improvements is more likely to come from Brussels than from Whitehall, a sad comment on the efficiency of National Sovereignty."

We were told also that it was a

"compendium of muted declarations of hesitant intent";

and that it set

"a floor below which it would be disastrous to sink."

Another paper said that it was

"as feeble as it is lengthy."

It described it not as an action programme but as a discussion paper, and that is after 11 years of Conservative government.

The immediate response to the White Paper was not very promising. Just about everybody in the press, whatever their political complexion, felt that the Government could have done far better.

Several hon. Members have referred to an environmental protection agency to deal with all environmental protection matters, and some hon. Members have queried the birth of the idea. The idea was probably born in one of the fine pressure groups such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, the Marine Conservation Society or the Council for the Protection of Rural England. A host of bodies are doing fine work and are acting as an irritant, as the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) described it, provoking us to improve our environment.

The Labour party's proposal for an environmental protection service under one roof was first made in a statement to the Labour party conference in 1986. It was included as a manifesto commitment in 1987. I have been looking at the White Paper, because the Minister said that it intimated that the Government would consider an environmental protection agency. All that I have been able to find in the White Paper are some references to it on page 232. When describing the medium-term options, the Government said:

"The disbenefits of administrative change will diminish over time, and experience with the new systems may add to the case for some further rationalisation of these structures. One option which the Government will wish to consider in due course would be to create a new umbrella body responsible for overseeing the pollution control work of the NRA and HMIP. Under such an arrangement these bodies would keep their separate identity and independence, but the new umbrella body would oversee their implementation of pollution control and work for greater consistency of approach."

That is the medium-term option, which still does not envisage a single body. Nevertheless, I would be quite happy for the Minister to direct me to the spot in the White Paper at which there is eminent consideration of introducing a single environmental protection agency. Of course, that is only to be lauded. The Prime Minister made a statement earlier this week, and I hope that, as a result, we will develop a coherent position on an environmental protection agency.

The National Society for Clean Air believes that there are many undecided questions about how the agency will work. Reading between the lines of its brief, it suspects that that idea has not properly been worked out and that it has yet to be considered properly by all Departments. Perhaps the Minister could tell me how many times the ministerial committee for co-ordinating environment policy has met since the publication of the White Paper. I have been given to understand that it has met just once, which hardly seems a good record for a Government who are supposed to be concerned about our environment.

The truth is that the Government are reluctant participants in the effort to clean up our environment. They have been forced to act. Let us not forget that they have been in power since 1979. The White Paper, "This Common Inheritance", was produced only after the Government had been shocked out of their wits by the performance of the Green party in the European elections in areas that are normally thought of as Conservative strongholds. That is why the Government were pushed and prompted into action. However, our policies were already well developed. In 1979, after the European elections, the British Labour group, of which I used to be a member, provided the first chairman of the European Parliament's environment policy committee in Mr. Ken Collins, who is a very good friend of mine. He was the first chairman; he was then vice-chairman for a brief period and is now once again the chairman of that committee. That shows the priority that the Labour Members of the European Parliament attached to participating in environmental policy making.

In virtually every policy area, the Government have been dragged along by European legislation. Let us take water quality as an example. The directive on beaches, about which we have heard a lot this morning, was supposed to have been implemented in full by 1986, but the Government will be lucky if they can implement it by 1996. Although the target date in most cases is 1995, there already seems to be some slippage in the programme. It does not look as if those dates will be achieved. Although, as I have said, the directive was supposed to be fully implemented by 1986, it was not until that year, after seven years of Conservative government, that the number of British beaches falling under the terms of the directive was increased from 27 to the top 300. As was revealed by my own questions in the European Parliament, the Government decided to act only after they had been threatened with action in the European Court of Justice.

Although the privatisation of the water industry resulted in the plus of a separate National Rivers Authority to supervise and to try to control the activities of the errant water companies, sewage works were given derogations that allowed them to pollute the water. Despite having those derogations, there have still been instances of privatised water companies polluting water and being threatened with prosecution or prosecuted by the NRA.

On top of that, the chairmen of the water companies have been giving themselves huge pay rises. The chairman of Welsh Water has had an 88 per cent. rise while that company's workers have received about 8 per cent. The water company increased its charges by 16.5 per cent. In the same year its chairman received a massive pay rise, supposedly to reflect the improved performance of the company. It is true that the company made a huge profit, but the chairman was in charge of a company in which the number of pollution incidents for which it was responsible doubled.

The Government should do something serious about such massive pay increases, which the Minister condemned at environment questions last Wednesday. He should consider introducing a fine scheme. A modest £10 reduction for each pollution incident could be knocked off the salary of the chairmen of water companies. In the case of the Welsh chairman, who is one of my constituents, that would result in a cut of more than £7,000.

The chairman of Welsh Water had the cheek and the humbug to be quoted in a long interview which appeared in yesterday's issue of the Western Mail. He said:

"What bothers me more and upsets me greatly is when my boys, the workers who provide the water and clean up our mess, get the flak as well. People just do not realise the value of what we at Welsh Water provide—and all for about 25p a day."

Those workers were not valued sufficiently for the chairman of Welsh water to give them a similar increase to that which his board gave him. That was at a time when pollution incidents doubled.

The Government have hamstrung the National Rivers Authority in taking water companies to court when they pollute. An unpleasant incident has been the result of some correspondence between the Minister and me. It involved the pollution of Eaglie brook with PCBs. In a reply dated 27 June the Minister said that the Germans had been allowed two years to meet the pollution emission standards. Yet a letter was sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) from the free university of Berlin. It arrived with us the day before the letter from the Minister. It says:

"Concerning your question whether in Germany the textile industry was given a two-year permit to fulful the PCP directive of the European Community, I have asked the German environmental agency Mr. Neihardt, who is responsible for PCP. He told me that the PCP regulation and the regulation for dangerous materials in 1989–90 came into force and that PCP for textiles was forbidden immediately in Germany."

That means that the textile industry had no transitional period. There seems to be a conflict between what the Minister understands about the position in Germany and what the Germans understand.

Across the board the Government have been dragging their feet. For example, for the sake of energy efficiency, how do we cut CO₂ emissions? Simply by following the recommendations in the House of Lords report which was leaked this week—undoubtedly we shall have the benefit of it shortly—we could make a 10 per cent. reduction in our energy use. We could do that if only, instead of cutting the money available for the Energy Efficiency Office, the Government increased it and made a serious effort to deal with energy efficiency problems. That is one simple way in which the Government could take some immediate action.

The Planning and Compensation Bill does not contain a single measure sponsored by the Government which has anything to do with improving our environment.

Does the hon. Gentleman intend to allow me to reply to the debate?

The Minister will realise that the informal agreement made behind the Chair has not been honoured. I can see no reason why I should not complete the points that I want to make and leave the Minister whatever time is left at the end. Even if I do that, I believe that every Conservative Member has spoken longer than me. I shall complete my remarks and in the time left the Minister can reply to the debate.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

If I give way, that would take time out of the Minister's speech.

The Government have dragged their feet on air pollution, because they have not honoured their commitment to clean up power stations.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not.

The Government have not honoured their commitments on flue gas desulphurisation which were made when the directive on emission standards was discussed in Europe.

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) claims that his speech will be shorter than that of any Conservative Member. I ask him to withdraw that inaccurate claim.

That is an interesting point, but it is not one that the Chair can resolve.