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Wallace, James
Watts, John
Wheeler, Sir John
Widdecombe, Ann
Wiggin, Jerry
Wood, Timothy
Tellers for the Ayes :
Mr. Alun Michael and
Mr. Gwilym Jones.
NOES
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Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)Cryer, Bob
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)
Evans, John (St Helens N)
Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Marek, Dr John
Morgan, Rhodri
Morley, Elliot
Nellist, Dave
Pike, Peter L.
Rogers, Allan
Salmond, Alex
Skinner, Dennis
Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)
Tellers for the Noes :
Dr. Kim Howells and
Mr. Ted Rowlands.
Whereupon Madam Deputy Speaker-- declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 36 (Majority for Closure).
Question again proposed, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr. Rogers : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Government have lost this vote very heavily--and I use the words "the Government" advisedly. At the beginning of the debate we heard a point of order concerning the Rt. Hon. David Hunt, the Secretary of State for Wales.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Right hon. and hon. Members are not referred to by name ; they are referred to by constituency.
Mr. Rogers : The Secretary of State for Wales wrote to all his Government colleagues, saying :
"Because of the conventions on private Bills"--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I was in the House when this matter was raised some hours ago. I doubt very much whether I can add to what was said by the Chair on that occasion.
Mr. Cryer : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you have received from any member of the Government a request for permission to make a statement to explain the mess. It appears that the Government have collapsed in chaos. As you, Sir, have said, the question of the letter from the Secretary of State for Wales was raised earlier today. In effect, that letter imposed a semi-official Whip. The Government cannot sustain a closure motion, and are clearly in disarray.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I have received no such request.
Mr. Morgan : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that we find ourselves in an unprecedented situation. At least half the payroll vote is unavailable, despite-- Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. We are not in an unprecedented situation at all. We have had a Division, the result of the Division has been announced, and we shall now resume the debate.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is just conceivable that, earlier this evening, you saw the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) explain on television that the Government are in a state of collapse. The right hon. Gentleman has been on the box about three times, pointing out that there are saboteurs in the Tory party. He has taken the rebels home, and has left the Government without the necessary 100 supporters. He has turned them into a rabble.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : That has nothing to do with me.
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Mr. Alan W. Williams : Earlier I was speaking in support of new clause 6 and phosphate and nitrate stripping. Eutrophication may occur a few years after construction of the barrage. If so, the waters that feed it will have to be stripped of nitrates and phosphates.My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) spoke impressively about toxic algae, with which we have had considerable problems in the past two years. There was an incident two years ago at Rutland water, where dogs and sheep died simply from drinking the water. Last year, there were appalling problems along the north-east coast.
Mr. Ron Davies : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise to my hon. Friend for intervening, but some of us have been in the Chamber for--
Mr. Jeremy Hanley (Richmond and Barnes) : Too long.
Mr. Davies : That illustrates the point that I want to make. Some hon. Members have been present since the start of this business. The Bill is of much concern to our constituents. We wish to debate it and listen to other points of view. Will you look at the rabble on the Conservative Benches? They are engaged in a deliberate campaign against my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) of barracking or trying to disrupt his speech. [Interruption.] They are at it again. Will you ensure the same order and good manners that we had before that crowd came into the Chamber.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I am sure that hon. Members heard what the hon. Gentleman said and will respond to it.
Mr. Skinner : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As people are coming in here half-sozzled, would not it be a good idea for you to order the bars to be closed?
Mr. Morgan : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I seek your guidance? I have the distinct impression that this debate is becoming impossible because of the noise that is emanating from the Conservative Benches--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. It seems that the noise is coming equally from both sides of the House, and it is unacceptable from either side. I very much hope that the normal courtesies that are extended to any hon. Member will be observed.
Mr. Williams : I am finding it quite difficult to continue with so many interruptions. The vote was one thing, but the continual chatter makes it difficult to discuss expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds of public money.
Dr. Marek : The vote showed that the House believes that this important Bill should not be hurried and that the new clauses are important. I am not sure that I shall be able to contribute to the debate before the second closure, so will my hon. Friend appeal to the Under- Secretary of State to give us the view of the Welsh Office? The Under- Secretary is shaking his head.
Dr. Marek : It is disgraceful. We have heard of the letter saying that the Welsh Office is behind the Bill. It has instructed all its Ministers to be here, yet those Ministers are not prepared to stand up and say even one sentence
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about whether the clause is right or wrong. Does not my hon. Friend think that that is disgraceful? Will he appeal to the Minister to speak?1.15 am
Mr. Williams : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his worthy contribution. If the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett), the junior Minister, wishes to intervene, I will be willing to give way at any time. We need the view of the Welsh Office and of the Government on the Bill. Since 7 o'clock 90 per cent. of what has been said has been critical of the Bill. We have had two powerful contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) and for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells). I am pleased that as a result of the Division we have been given more time to elaborate the arguments about pollution.
In relation to the problems of phosphates and nitrates that will be trapped, I said a few moments ago that the toxic algae problem appeared in 1989. Last year we had severe problems along the north-east coast from algal blooms. Indeed, the sale of shellfish had to be stopped for several weeks. The livelihood of 3,000 fishermen who collect mussels, prawns, crab and so on was jeopardised when toxins in shellfish were found to be up to 50 times the permitted concentrations.
Inland waters were also affected by algal blooms last year ; 501 reservoirs and inland lakes were affected, including one in my constituency, by problems caused by nitrates and phosphates. What if similar problems emerge in the Cardiff bay barrage? What will be done about nitrate and phosphate stripping? Is the technology available? Will money be available?
In new clause 6 we call on the undertakers to publish a plan for phosphate and nitrate stripping of the waters entering the inland bay if that becomes necessary, and to demonstrate to us that that can be done. We want the undertakers to tell us whether it is technically possible and to explain how it will be done.
It is difficult to remove nitrates and phosphates from water. Water can be denitrified by the use of bacteria, but that cannot be done on a large scale. Ion exchange methods can be used to replace the nitrates by chlorides. Precipitation methods using ferric sulphate can deal with phosphates, but it is very expensive. I have a quote which shows how expensive it is. It was from the former Secretary of State for the Environment--[ Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. There is still an excess of sedentary conversation.
Mr. Williams : The former Secretary of State for the Environment, now the chairman of the Conservative party, estimated last year-- [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I ask members of the Government Front Bench to respect the conventions of the House and allow the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) to make his speech without interruption.
Mr. Williams : The cost of removing phosphates and nitrates from Britain's sewage before it is dumped at sea would involve building secondary sewerage plant at a cost of up to £7 billion. That could become necessary if algal blooms became a recurrent problem in the North sea. For the Taff and Ely, pro rata, the figure would work out at up to £100 million. That is in addition to the costs of building
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the barrage. If we find in a year or two or whenever that there is a serious problem of the eutrophication of toxic algae, it could cost anything up to £100 million to clear.New clause 6 asks simply that the promoters produce a plan of how they would tackle the problem, to show that it can be done and that there will be a commitment that the money will be made available.
Mr. Flynn : In the babble, I think that we have lost some of the subtleties of my hon. Friend's argument. I know that there have been cases of eutrophication in the Yns Y Fro reservoir in my constituency and serious eutrophication of blue-green algae on Rutland water. Those problems have been cleared up and, as far as I know, those and hundreds of other stretches of water are operational again. But is my hon. Friend saying that they have been cleared up at the cost he said, or something similar?
Mr. Williams : No, eutrophication is seasonal--it comes and goes. It comes in warm weather. If the hon. Gentleman had listened intently to the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly he would have realised that eutrophication is temperature dependent. It does not occur in winter, but when there are long days and warm weather algae multiplies rapidly, and then goes away. But let us suppose that it becomes a recurrent problem, and there is every possibility that that could happen, especially in the Rivers Taff and Ely because there is a terrific population of half a million people there, and the sewage effluent is continually fed into the rivers. Therefore, the waters are naturally high in nitrogen phosphate. If there is a regular, recurrent problem, and there are not to be fish deaths year after year--one of the side-effects of algae blooms--one must tackle the problem at source. If one does that, one is talking of costs running up to about £100 million to clear the problem.
Mr. Rogers : The argument of my hon. Friends the Members for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) and for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) is that the construction of the barrage will cause pollution in the lagoon area behind it. There is no doubt about that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly stressed the possible effect on the health of the people living around the district. My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen is now stressing the enormous cost that it might pose to taxpayers in general in order to alleviate problems that could arise. Surely it would be much better if the Bill's promoters accepted that, in order to have development in the Cardiff bay district, there is absolutely no need to have a barrage that does not add a single square foot to the amount of land available for industrial and housing development. The only reason why the barrage is being constructed, which will then create all the pollution problems, is--as the report states--to create a water vista and enhance the prices of houses around it. From the arguments put forward on that issue alone, that seems an enormous price to pay for a water vista.
Mr. Williams : My hon. Friend's contribution summarises very well the strong feeling of the Opposition Members who have contributed most to the debate--the barrage is for purely visual effect and will not create or pull in any jobs. Of course, we want the districts of Cardiff to be developed and maximum industry and jobs pulled into
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them. None of us is against that. We are in the Labour party because we believe that Government and public funds should be used in that way. But, in terms of trapping the water, flooding the mud flats, which are important for wild life and wading birds, and creating a potential environmental disaster, the barrage is an appalling waste of public money. That money could be far better used in the health service, in infrastructure or in a number of other ways.Mr. Rogers : Since I posed those questions I think that I have found the answer in the evidence of Chesterton Professional Services, which were employed by Cardiff Bay development corporation. In its report it says that the full barrage would have a betterment effect on the land in the area, increasing its value from £114 million to £347 million. That is the reason why the barrage is being constructed. It is designed not to add to the economic development of Cardiff but to make money for these people.
Mr. Williams : My hon. Friend makes an excellent case. I cannot understand why, when the economy is in the crisis that it is, we are wasting our money in this way.
New clause 17 concerns eliminating the risks of pollution from leachates, especialy from the Ferry road tip. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd dealt at length with the problems associated with the Ferry road tip, which contains 3 million cu m of rubbish, which is not toxic waste but mainly domestic. Nevertheless, it is an enormous quantity. The onus should be on the undertakers to show that the tip can be sealed off and that there will be no leachate from it. I think that the hon. Member for Pontypridd demonstrated the logical trap that the undertakers are in as regards this tip. First, they have been thinking of moving the whole tip and trying to relocate it, perhaps in Stormy Down--I do not know.
I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is looking at me furiously. I was not suggesting that. I think that the tip should stay exactly where it is.
I read another story, although I do not know whether it is a possibility, saying that all the contents of the tip could be put in trains and carried to Bedfordshire at a cost of £40 million. That was a serious proposal, but I do not know whether it is a runner. Is not it the height of absurdity to be carrying the domestic rubbish of 10, 20 or 30 years ago in trains 200 miles across the country to bury it in Bedfordshire? I wonder what the people of Bedfordshire think about that? The trains would be incredibly smelly because the waste has half-decayed anaerobically. The putrefaction and the smell would be incredible.
Mr. Skinner : Is it going to go by rail?
Mr. Williams : I am not sure whether it will. Given this Government, perhaps it will be taken in lorries along the M4. Imagine being stuck behind one of those lorries on the Severn bridge for half an hour in a traffic jam.
Can the Ferry road tip be sealed? What are the alternatives? Is there a way to seal that sort of tip so that no leachates would reach the barrage? Frankly, I do not think that we can seal tips that effectively, especially as the water table may be raised and that such tips give off methane the whole time. The problem of the tip defeats this proposal.
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I ask hon. Members to support this set of new clauses. In opposing the construction of the barrage, I think that there are strong environmental reasons why the project should not go ahead.Mr. Morgan : While the Government Whips, the promoters and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) are absent from the Chamber, having a confab about what they should do in the circumstances, I wish to raise some additional points, some of which would be better raised in the presence of my hon. Friend. Indeed, I wished to pay him a compliment and to saythat, as far as I am concerned, he is a prominent environmentalist in the Cardiff context. I am sure that he will be willing to concede that I am the same, and that we are both doing the Lord's work--he is doing it in his way, and I am doing it in the Lord's way, but we are nevertheless both doing the Lord's work. I very much admire my hon. Friend's approach, although I believe that our approach, as incorporated in these five new clauses, following the attempt to terminate the debate which, fortunately, fell rather flat because of the Government's disarray--
1.30 am
Mr. Win Griffiths : It would never have happened under the former Prime Minister.
Mr. Morgan : Yes, Tory schism is at work here, as well as dither. One tactic that the Government may adopt--
Mr. Griffiths : They are taking legal advice.
Mr. Morgan : Not only that--they are also trying to gather the duvet vote, but if they look for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I hope that they go to his present residence at No. 11 Downing street and not to his former residence, or they may get a lesson in what goes on at night in London. That tactic should be approached carefully. During the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth made many strong pleas to my hon. Friends, saying that we should not be promoting new clause 5 on leachate ; new clause 6 on phosphate and nitrate stripping ; new clause 8 on sewage removal ; new clause 17 on the future of the Ferry road tip ; and new clause 19 on algal scum disposal--
Mr. Morgan : I can draw it for my hon. Friend, although I am not sure that one can adequately describe it. However, if my hon. Friend were to come down on one of the free trips that the Cardiff Bay development corporation may offer him, I could show him--
Mr. Morgan : Well, it is a case of whatever turns you on, is it not, Mr. Deputy Speaker? If my hon. Friend will not come down to Cardiff, I shall have to do my best later to explain what algal scum is. I am pleased that I shall now have the chance to discuss the five new clauses as I wrote every single word of them myself. It is a sign of the good sense of the House that, being aware that I had not had the chance to speak to provisions that I had drafted late at night in the Library, pity was taken on me. Much as they would like to make
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further progress, hon. Members thought that it was not fair to close the debate until I had had a chance to say a word or two about the new clauses.My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth takes a different approach to the new clauses. He accepts that these five subjects are critical to the acceptability of the Bill. I know that they are critical and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontrypridd, who made his maiden speech on the Bill, also accepted that they are critical. This is one of the most important of our many important debates on the acceptability of the barrage, its side effects and direct and indirect consequences. We must consider whether an amenity lake of the quality about which we are talking will actually be an amenity lake, and if it is not an amenity lake in the normal accepted definition of the phrase in 1995, when it might open for business, or in 2005, when standards will have risen further, there is no point in having it. We should be terribly derelict in our duty if we did not consider whether the barrage will be worth the candle unless by 2005 it can provide the amenities that people will expect at a level appropriate to that year and not to the lower 1985 standards. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said, "All those things are mentioned in the Bill. Phosphate and nitrate stripping, algal scum and the Ferry road tip are all mentioned." We have not invented the subject matter of the new clauses ; we have merely taken it from the existing Bill and incorporated it differently to give greater assurances. We ask that the House does not approve the Bill until the promoters show how they will solve the well- known environmental problems. If my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth were here, he would accept that his position is that the National Rivers Authority, Welsh Water or other appropriate bodies have suitable undertakings and that we should take it on trust that those undertakings will be put into effect in accordance with the standards laid down by those bodies. However, the problem is that the NRA, for example, did not exist on the previous occasion when objections could be made to the Bill, when it came from the other place to this House.
On this Bill, the NRA did not have the chance to formulate the bargaining position that it has on the River Usk Barrage Bill, which has entered the other place. The NRA is objecting strongly to that Bill. According to a conversation that I had with it this morning, there is more than a 50-50 chance that it will be able to maintain that objection throughout the negotiations with the promoters. The NRA came into existence on 1 September 1988. The last day for objecting to this Bill was some six weeks before that, on 26 July. Until 1 September, the Welsh division of the NRA was merely a subsidiary of Welsh Water. If Welsh Water did not want to object to the Bill--and it did not--there was nothing that the people who five weeks later formed the NRA could do. We were told that they did want to object, but we shall never really know the answer to that. By 1 September, when the NRA came into existence, it could not object because the closing date for objections was 26 July. The NRA's bargaining position is therefore extremely weak. It must obtain the best bargain that it can. That is all that it can do. It can say that it wants a fish pass which will use the latest available and best technology. On the Usk barrage it can say that if the promoters do not provide a fish pass that the NRA likes, it will stop the Bill.
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On the Cardiff bay barrage it can try to bargain for an adequate fish pass, but in the end the promoters can say, "This is the best fish pass that we can come up with, but we are going ahead with the Bill because you did not exist as a separate body with a specific duty of conservation of aquatic flora and fauna until it was too late to object." The NRA will not be able to insist on a fish pass, for example.We are not discussing fisheries yet. We are discussing algal scum, phosphates, leachates and water quality in general.
Mr. Win Griffiths : Those matters still have an effect on the fish.
Mr. Morgan : They certainly do. The same principle undoubtedly applies to phosphate and nitrate stripping, the matter dealt with in new clause 6.
I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has come back into the Chamber. I have been speaking about him in glowing and complimentary terms as an environmentalist who approaches the problem from a slightly different angle from me. I am asking how things are to be done before the barrage is built. I am not prepared to take it on trust that the appropriate authorities are happy with the undertakings that they have received. Such authorities are in the weak bargaining position that I have described. They could not object to the Bill because they did not exist when the opportunity was available to do so. I paraphrase briefly for my hon. Friend what I have said in the past few minutes.
Tonight we are trying to decide whether the approach of the new clauses is more relevant for achieving the standards that everyone will seek in the year 2005, or whether the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth is more appropriate. His approach is that the National Rivers Authority says that it has an undertaking which is long and detailed and refers to algal scum, water quality, future water quality standards and what it will have to do to enforce them. But in its present bargaining position, if we do not retrospectively include the provisions for which the NRA would have asked if it had existed on 26 July--the last day for submitting objections to the Bill--
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