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Mr. Davies : My hon. Friend is encouraging us to say more, but I know that some of my hon. Friends wish to make brief speeches of their own and that is why I am anxious to bring my brief contribution to a close.
It is clear that there is enormous doubt about the wisdom of building the barrage purely on the grounds of the quality of the water that will be impounded in the lagoon. We have made it clear beyond any doubt that people will not be able to swim or fish in it. They will not be able to touch it or surf on it. It is doubtful whether the dragon races will be able to be held. For much of the year, rather than being an attraction or a benefit to the city of Cardiff, the lagoon will be a disbenefit. If anything is guaranteed to convince us that the Bill deserves to fail, it is the certain knowledge that if it proceeds we shall be creating a monster that will be very difficult to control.
Mr. Brian Sedgemore (Hackney, South and Shoreditch) : I rise to speak succinctly and in an impassioned fashion. I say that because I am sure that, at this time in the morning, the House is more likely to be moved by the crisp logic of Russell, Wittgenstein and Professor Ayer than by the beautiful language of the romantic poets which I normally use.
My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), who moved the Second Reading of the new clause, spoke lucidly, quietly and in devastating and impressive fashion. At one stage he paused and invited the
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Minister to intervene : he wanted to know whether the Minister, given his specialist knowledge and advice, was prepared to say how much or how little pollution would end up in the lagoon that would be protected by the barrage. The Minister--who, for the purposes of the Bill, is clearly trying to turn silence into an art form--said nothing. I am not sure whether he has been struck dumb, or whether he has been converted to the old German proverb "Schweigen ist geld." I have always believed less that silence is golden than that, all too often, it is a mask for ignorance : certainly that is what Welsh people believe about the Minister, from Cardiff to Tenby and from Haverfordwest to Meinclochog.At another point, one of the Bill's supporters asked my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd whether he could quantify the pollution that would end up in the lagoon. That is taking things a bit too far ; with respect to my hon. Friend, it is a bit cheeky. He is relatively new to the House and may not know much about our procedures, but I am sure that he knows--no doubt he had his tongue in his cheek--that when hon. Members sponsor and speak in support of a Bill with such enormous implications, the burden of proof must be placed on them. It is their responsibility to reveal the damage, or the limits of the damage, that the Bill will cause. It is rather sad that, in this instance, the sponsors have not done their homework and given us that information.
I fear that, if we pass the Bill without the new clause and those grouped with it, rather than champagne dribbling into the valleys because of its economic advantages, poison will dribble into the sea and will then be washed back towards the valleys. I fear that environmental damage will prevent the natural toxic disintegration of nitrates and phosphates that might occur if the barrage were not built.
The sponsors say that the Secretary of State and the National Rivers Authority have all the powers that they need to get rid of the pollution. I must ask them not to allow their enthusiasm to be overrun by their naivety. They must know that, when there are conflicts between commerce and the environment, insidious, unspoken forces often prevent both the NRA and the Secretary of State from doing what they should do--and that is assuming, which I do not, that in this case they have the powers to make effective what they want to do.
Some 20 years ago I worked in what was then the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, where I dealt with planning appeals. Sometimes I passed them on to the Minister, but sometimes I was the last port of call and the writ of Sedgemore would run : I would make the decision. When I see a new clause like this--I do not want to discuss private Bill procedure ; we are using it in any event--I ask myself what I would have done had I been faced with a planning application and one of the objectors had come up with this proposal and wanted to attach it to the application as a condition. I would have said to those who were appealing, "There is no chance on earth that I will grant your application unless the new clauses are included." The sooner that the sponsors say that they are prepared to accept them, the sooner we can move on.
Mr. Alan Williams : I wish to make two comments about the proposed new clauses. I congratulate hon. Members on their lengthy, detailed and expert contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) spoke about all the new clauses in the group and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies)
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concentrated on the one in which he is especially interested, which is new clause 6 on phosphate and nitrate stripping.12.45 am
My first detailed knowledge of the Cardiff barrage came from a film about the proposal made in 1988 or 1989 by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The two main arguments advanced in that film dealt with the proposal's effect on wildlife, the wading birds, and the danger of eutrophication in the new bay from nitrates and phosphates.
My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd estimated that about 500, 000 people live in the Taff and Ely valleys, the valleys of the rivers that feed the Ely and the Rhondda valley. It is the most densely populated area in Wales and, apart from London, one of the most densely populated areas in Great Britain. It is a fact of life that all those people produce sewage which, even when it is properly treated, leaves nitrates and phosphates, and those chemicals are found in the Taff and the Ely. Nitrates and phosphates would be trapped behind the proposed barrage, creating an ideal environment for eutrophication.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) asked for figures and was told that it is up to the Bill's sponsors to produce them. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd spoke about 3 million cu m of rubbish in the Ferry road tip. [Interruption.] I have seen quoted a figure of 3 million tonnes of phosphates. About 1,000 tonnes of phosphates from sewage come down the Taff and Ely every year. There is another 1,000 tonnes from the use of fertilisers and about 500 tonnes from detergents. There is a danger that the bay will have a eutrophied environment, certainly in the summer.
Nitrates and phosphates are fertilisers and, in warm weather, they cause plants to multiply. There is no nitrate or phosphate in the open ocean and there is therefore little plant life there because it has to depend on the availability of other nutrients. In an ideal environment there is always a danger of eutrophication. New clause 6 asks the undertakers to publish a plan showing how they will carry out phosphate and nitrate stripping should that prove necessary. Perhaps in the first three to five years there will be no serious problem, but it is probable rather than possible that in future there will be a serious problem of phosphates and nitrates. What will the undertakers do to remove those chemicals? Their removal calls for expensive technologies, the cost of which I shall deal with later. It has been known for 10 or 20 years, for example, that eutrophication is a serious problem in the Norfolk Broads. The Observer reported last year that the Nature Conservancy Council has found that the Broads had lost their rare plant life because of pollution and that they contained little more than algae and bacteria. When there is an algal bloom, the dead algae use up a great deal of oxygen. That means that the oxygen concentration goes through peaks and troughs in a 24-hour cycle. During the middle of the day there may be plenty of oxygen, but in the middle of the night the dead algae will consume a lot of oxygen. That has a knock-on effect on all animal life and fish in the water. Serious problems that are the result of high phosphate concentrations in Lake Erie have been well documented for the past 20 or 30 years.
It has been suggested on several occasions during the debate that there are solutions to the algae part of the giant hoover effect, as described by my hon. Friend the Member
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for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). It has been said that there may be a technological fix to the problem, but in so many technologies we are a bit too clever by half. For example, the River Colorado is an environmental disaster in many ways. An episode of "Horizon" about 10 or 15 years ago was entitled, "Where did the Colorado go?" I am sure that the House knows that the River Colorado no longer reaches the sea ; it ends in a desert in Mexico. That is because along its length there over 100 reservoirs, the waters of which are used by farmers for irrigation. There is massive evaporation. The spreading of water over large areas of land greatly accelerates natural evaporation, and as the river flows from America into Mexico there is much less water than that which nature intended. It does not reach the--Mr. Michael rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question put, That the Question be now put :--
The House divided : Ayes 97, Noes 15.
Division No. 116] [12.52 am
AYES
Amess, David
Arbuthnot, James
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Arnold, Sir Thomas
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Bevan, David Gilroy
Blackburn, Dr John G.
Boswell, Tim
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Bowis, John
Boyes, Roland
Brazier, Julian
Bright, Graham
Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)
Burt, Alistair
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)
Carrington, Matthew
Cash, William
Chapman, Sydney
Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)
Currie, Mrs Edwina
Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)
Davis, David (Boothferry)
Dixon, Don
Dorrell, Stephen
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Durant, Sir Anthony
Fearn, Ronald
Flynn, Paul
Foster, Derek
Gale, Roger
Garel-Jones, Tristan
Glyn, Dr Sir Alan
Golding, Mrs Llin
Goodlad, Alastair
Grist, Ian
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Hanley, Jeremy
Harris, David
Hawkins, Christopher
Hayes, Jerry
Hind, Kenneth
Home Robertson, John
Howard, Rt Hon Michael
Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)
Howells, Geraint
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)
Hunt, Rt Hon David
Irvine, Michael
Jack, Michael
Jackson, Robert
Jessel, Toby
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)
King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)
Kirkhope, Timothy
Knapman, Roger
Knight, Greg (Derby North)
Lawrence, Ivan
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)
Lightbown, David
MacGregor, Rt Hon John
Mans, Keith
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Moonie, Dr Lewis
Morrison, Sir Charles
Moss, Malcolm
Murphy, Paul
Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Norris, Steve
Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)
Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)
Rowe, Andrew
Ryder, Rt Hon Richard
Shaw, David (Dover)
Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Stern, Michael
Stevens, Lewis
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)
Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Taylor, John M (Solihull)
Thorne, Neil
Thurnham, Peter
Tredinnick, David
Trippier, David
Wakeham, Rt Hon John
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