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the Environment has used in respect of the proposed Standing Order, which, although it has been moved by the Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means, clearly has the Government's understanding. Secondly, there are questions about the extent to which this measure is good enough and about the terms in which it opts out of the requirement for an environmental assessment.

These matters are not altogether simple, but, had there been environmental assessments for previous Bills, such legislation as the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill, theLyndhurst Bypass Bill, the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill, the River Calder (Welbeck Site) Bill, the Avon Light Rail Transit Bill, the Midland Metro Bill, the Greater Manchester (Light Rail Transport) Bill, and hybrid Bills, such as the Severn Bridges Bill, the Channel Tunnel Bill and the

Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Bill, might have gone a different way. In the future, such Bills--in so far as there will be such Bills--could be affected by this Standing Order. There is, for instance, the expected Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill.

The matter has been somewhat muddied because, to date, the Secretary of State for Transport has announced the scope of the Bills that are expected to be removed from the purview of the House in a Bill which is likely to come before us in the autumn. We have learnt that that measure will include Bills relating to main railways, light railways, waterways, ports and harbours. Thus, a good deal of private legislation will not come before the House and, therefore, will not be subject to an environmental assessment, which, in principle, is accepted by everybody.

At 2.30 pm on 13 March, the First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means moved a clutch of new Standing Orders, including Nos. 204A and 208A, which removed the powers of Members to debate certain amendments tabled by Members of this House or by Members of another place. Unfortunately, we did not have an opportunity to debate those Standing Orders. Perhaps the fault was partly mine. The matters were controversial. On that day I was able to object to this Standing Order but, through inadvertence, did not object to the rest. However, we now have an opportunity to discuss this very important matter of environmental assessment.

I wish to deal first with the procedural background to the Standing Order. Then I shall deal with private Bill procedure and with consultations about the Standing Order. Finally, I shall discuss the amendments, which I commend to the House.

I do not think that anybody objects to the 2.30 pm procedure. Everybody understands it. Indeed, tonight's debate on the London underground was a result of it. However, that changes in Standing Orders could be approved on the nod at 2.30 pm was a surprise to everybody.

I understand that the proposed change is partly the result of an EC environmental directive which requires that all planning inquiries shall have before them an environmental assessment of the planning application. This Standing Order deals with that matter in the context of private Bills. On 26 February, the Department of the Environment sent to interested organisations a letter saying that this was to be done. It asked those organisations to submit their comments by 23 April. Unfortunately, for reasons which are to some extent

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wrapped in mystery, before the end of that consultation period the authorities of the House, or the Department of the Environment--or perhaps both--put down the draft Standing Order on 13 March. But for chance, we might not have been able to debate it at all. It might have gone through on the nod, together with the other Standing Orders, to some of which I have referred.

I hope that the Minister can provide some clarification. Everybody, whatever his political views, agrees that environmental matters are important. It is therefore very unfortunate that such matters should be dealt with in this way. Bodies such as the Nature Conservancy Council, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Countryside Commission were caught a little short, to say the least. One reason is that, although hon. Members who peruse the full vote of the House could have known that the Standing Order would come before us, there was some difficulty as the full vote is a rather expensive item. Hon. Members receive papers from the Vote Office, and are obliged to the Deliverer of the Vote and his staff for their efficiency. Perhaps we are unaware, therefore, of the degree to which official parliamentary documents are not easily available to members of the public. Yet they are public documents. If people are not aware of what Parliament proposes to do, they do not have an opportunity to alert Members to precipitate debates such as this or to inform themselves and participate in the process. That is true not only of individuals but of bodies. The many important bodies which I mentioned were not really aware of that. They told me that they did not take the full vote, despite their intense and proper statutory interests. They have statutory duties in respect of privately promoted legislation.

I took some trouble to find out the position and I understand that, if one orders the vote as a private person or as a body, one cannot do so on a fixed sum but must pay retrospectively for each page. Hansard of 8 May sets out the current cost of that vote in various Sessions. I shall not deal with exceptionally long Sessions, but the cost of that vote in the 1988-89 Session was £4,800. That is disgusting news to many hon. Members and to many long-serving staff members. I asked for an estimate for the current Session, given the size of the order, and was told that it would be £3,800. From 14 April, HMSO has put up the cost of the vote from 13p to 20p, an increase of 7p per page--a 40 per cent. increase. Will the Minister draw that matter of public importance to the attention of the Minister responsible for HMSO and the Leader of the House? I draw the Minister's attention also to the response to the letter dated 26 February signed by Mr. C. L. L. Braun of the planning and development control division of the Department of the Environment. Paragraph 3 of that letter said :

"The Department may wish to make responses to this letter available to Parliament and open for public inspection in the Department's library."

That would not have been much good because the order came to the House before the responses had arrived. I made further inquiries about that and, in a parliamentary answer dated 16 May from the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, it is clear that the Government received

"35 responses to the consultation paper, most of which welcomed, and none of which object to, the principle of requiring environmental assessment for private Bills for

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works projects. A list of responses has been sent to the libraries of both Houses and copies of the responses have been placed in the Department of the Environment library at Marsham Street." Leaving aside the fact that we would not have had the opportunity to see those responses because of the events of 13 March, I would not wish to trail to the library at Marsham street--although it is not far--to read those responses. I should have thought that responses relating to Standing Orders should be placed in the Library, as was envisaged in that helpful letter.

When that possibility was dangled before the respondents, why were those responses not available? They have come to the attention of various Members and some of my hon. Friends have been given documents, although by the respondents and not by the Government, who placed a list in the Library.

Private Bill procedure is highly controversial and will be the subject of a Bill in the autumn, a preview of which was given in a press release today. A joint Select Committee was set up by both Houses of Parliament. It reported in the 1987-88 Session in document HC 625. Paragraph 80 of that report recommended that an environmental assessment should be incorporated in all private Bill procedure. The Committee went on to say that there was some doubt about whether under article 1(5) of the directive.

"the project would be subject to environmental assessment, and if so, what information would be required to be submitted in an environmental statement. The Secretary of State's determination should be required to be deposited and advertised along with the bill, together, where he has determined that the project would otherwise be subject to environmental assessment, with an environmental statement containing the specified information. The documents submitted should be required to be produced to Examiners, and the promoter should be required to show that any environmental statement submitted by him contains the specified information".

As it is not fully clear to me, will the Minister explain why the Government claimed in evidence to the Committee that such a step was necessary? We may need to determine whether it is required by the relevant article of the EC directive, but surely that should be a matter for the House and the Committee. Why should it be a matter for the Minister to decide? Of course, the Government will have a view, which they will make known, as they make their views known under the private Bill procedure--we had an example of that tonight. But why should the Government be the determinant and the adjudicator of what the Committee on the private Bill may or may not do?

I should have thought that, on a matter of pure principle, the House should question whether such action came within the Standing Order. I do not know whether, within its Standing Orders, the House has ever bound itself to statute. The motion states that the Standing Order should contain

"information set out in Schedule 3 of the Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988 (referred to below as Schedule 3')"--

the current statute. If that legislation changed, the Standing Order would also change. Is it right for the Select Committee discussing a private Bill to be tied to the terms of a statute that can be changed at will by a Minister, by a negative order?

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I support what he has

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said. Although he and I disagree on one aspect of the implementation of the motion, does the hon. Gentleman accept that another disadvantage of the proposition is that if, for example, on a European directive such as that relating to Government road-building policy in Twyford Down, Hampshire, the Government believe that they are acting legitimately, but the European Community decides that the Government are not, it is preferable for the House to be able to be a second, internal court of reference? That would prevent us from being hauled up and prosecuted by the European Community. We should not have to rely merely on what is increasingly shown to be a defective check mechanism on Government, the result of which is the prosecution of Britain, because the House of Commons could have protected us from both the prosecution and the bad policy.

Mr. Spearing : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for further underlining my point.

Some of the respondents, including the Council for the Protection of Rural England and the Ramblers Association, have said that the Minister's certification in proposed Standing Order No. 27A(1) (a) and (b) is a determination against which there is no appeal. I should imagine that the Select Committee could not appeal, unless it came back to the House and said that the Standing Order was too tight and it wanted to act outside it.

As written, Standing Order No. 27A(1) (a) permits the Secretary of State to certify that less than the information in schedule 3 of the order can be supplied as part of the environmental assessment. It is a question not just of whether there is to be an environmental assessment but of whether it will be complete. That gives the Secretary of State even greater power. Will the Minister say why that power exists? He managed to persuade the Select Committee, which did not go into it in its report.

Paragraph 80 of the Select Committee report states :

"The Department of Environment, or other appropriate department, should be invited to report on the environmental statement to the committee on the bill in each House, who should take the statement and the report into account in considering the Bill."

That is a good idea, is it not? The Minister would make a statement about the environmental statement, which is produced by the promoter on some sort of quality machinery into which we cannot go tonight. I think that it is being used for planning and it is a bit controversial in itself.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) catches your eye, Sir Paul, because he is an expert on the matter. It was discussed not long ago in the House. It is a good idea for there to be another statement from the Department of the Environment, but despite the recommendation by the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure in paragraph 80 of its report, which mentions the Minister's power, the suggestion is not included in the proposed Standing Order. Although we like the idea in principle--I do not think that any hon. Member would disagree-- we should like the Minister to tell us why the recommendation that there should be a neutral commentary from the Department of the Environment has been excluded from the Standing Order.

We have a not very satisfactory train of events, bearing in mind that green matters and the environment are top of the political agenda--or so we are told. In the new unified Germany, one party has changed the attitude of two or

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three of the major parties in four or five years. That can happen in a democratic state. I am glad to say that all three parties have been moved in that direction too. The summation of that move in terms of private Bills is the proposed Standing Order. However, I hope that I have said enough to show that the way in which there has been half-hearted or mistimed consultation in many respects draws a number of question marks.

I have tabled what appears to be a complicated group of amendments. I have done so because one has to have paving and consequential amendments. They amount to two or three pretty simple amendments. Amendment (a) is a paving amendment for the main amendment (d), which seeks to leave out subsection (1)(b) which deals with ministerial power. If that is agreed, amendments (f), (h), (i), (j) and (k) are consequential. They follow amendment (d) for all practical purposes and we can discount them. I want the Minister to consider the merits of the amendments or at least to tell us why he cannot accept them. If the Minister cannot accept the amendments, will he accept an alternative amendment? I should like to suggest that we include a provision in line 12 that there should be such additional information as the Secretary of State may require. The information should be that required by schedule 3 to the Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988 and there should be additional information if the Secretary of State wishes. That seems to be common sense. It would give the Minister the discretion to give additional information if he thought that it was necessary. If the Minister will not accept that proposal, he should surely give at least the information required in schedule 3. I should prefer there to be more information, as proposed in amendment (c). If the Minister does not like that, the information should be nothing less than that required in schedule 3, as proposed in amendment (b). Neither amendment (b) nor amendment (c) has consequential amendments.

The House wants a conclusion to be reached to this matter, as private Bills will come forward in the next Session. The country also wants a conclusion to be reached so that private Bills, in so far as they exist, deal properly with the environment. It would be a great pity if we proceeded too quickly. In view of the irregularities that have occurred and perhaps one or two thoughts that may occur to the Minister as a result of the debate--the purpose of debates is that angles may occur on which we may all agree--the Minister will agree to consider the matter. I hope that he will come back, if not with a perfect set of Standing Orders, at least with some improvements and allow some time for consultations to take place with outside bodies, as they are clearly interested in the matter.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : Because of the way in which the package was put to the House before Easter and the fact that certain other measures have been approved, I plead with my hon. Friend to allow this environmental assessment matter to be passed on the basis that the House could always further amend it. It would be a pity not to have any environmental assessment in the Standing Orders while we wait for a perfect one. I plead

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with my hon. Friend to allow the matter to proceed. We can then press for a stronger measure to replace it in future.

Mr. Spearing : I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. It highlights the dilemma that I was pointing out. Such dilemmas frequently occur in democratic assemblies. I understand what my hon. Friend means. It would be helpful for the Minister to say that a second bite at the cherry will be available.

I have no wish to prevent environmental assessments from being applied to a private Bill. It would be wrong if they were not. However, it would also be a pity if the rules relating to environmental assessment were not those which environmental bodies that have a statutory responsibility--I have named many of them--and all of us who are concerned with environmental affairs thought were reasonably satisfactory or, still less, that had not had the consideration and discussion that they merit.

I have said enough to show that there have been some procedural hiccups. They could have been mistakes--I am not by any means trying to bounce anybody. They were probably unfortunate timetable misalignments. If that undertaking could be given it would assist hon. Members.

We now have less than three quarters of an hour left. I warn the Minister that, bearing in mind the choices that will come before the nation in the next few weeks or months, we should not have an argument about the Standing Orders. It would be a great pity if the Standing Orders or their imperfections became a matter of public debate on the hustings. Whether they do so depends on the spirit of the Minister's reply.

9.18 pm

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : I shall be relatively brief and follow the tenor of what the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) said. It is clearly to be welcomed that environmental assessment should be applied to private legislation. I was a member of the Committee that dealt two and a half years ago with the environmental assessment proposal in relation to legislation in general. One of the matters on which I commented was that the proposals did not apply to private legislation. Some of the most environmentally controversial proposals that have been debated in the House have been in private legislation.

The hon. Member for Newham, South rightly referred to some such proposals. One year we had a fanatical, although not a partisan, debate about the Okehampton bypass, which intruded into Dartmoor. I dissented from the view of our late and lamented friend David Penhaligon, who had campaigned for the bypass to speed the journey of his constituents and of business travellers to and from Cornwall. I understood his view, but I took a different view, as did others who defended the integrity of that part of Dartmoor.

As the hon. Member for Newham, South mentioned, controversial proposals were also made to develop Felixstowe dock and harbour. The proposal would have destroyed environmental wetlands, breeding and migration grounds and important ecological areas.

Controversial proposals will continue to be made. As long as the House exempts any section of the legislative process from environmental assessment, the application of the objectives of the European Community, which should

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be imposed across all legislative procedures, will be defective because there will be a way through the assessment requirements. The Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill showed that there is often an alternative. It is often open to the Government to introduce a public Bill on a matter which could be the subject of a private Bill, to leave the matter to a private Bill or create a hybrid Bill. If the legislation were a private Bill, it would be exempt from environmental assessment, but if it were a public Bill it would not. The exemption from environmental assessment requirements was foolish and was not helpful environmentally. We are left with the problem, which the hon. Member for Newham, South rightly sought to highlight by tabling his amendments, that certain overriding powers are left in the hands of the Secretary of State. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his adept footwork. When the matter came before the House in March, I was unable to attend because I was committed to be somewhere else that afternoon. When the Order Paper came through my door, I noticed that the matter was due to be discussed and I hoped that someone would object to the motion. It caught me and other hon. Members unawares. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newham, South for objecting and allowing tonight's debate to take place. If we are to allow a second exemption to remain, to allow the Secretary of State effectively to direct that certain matters are not to be covered, we shall again allow the application of the EC objective to suffer the fate of being defective. That would be wrong. I understand the view of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) that it is better to have half an environmental assessment than none at all. None the less, I hope that the House will not leave the matter and fail to deal with it further.

There are questions to be asked about the timetable. It is a pretty rum procedure to announce a consultation period and then to announce before the end of that period what has been decided, let alone without allowing any time to consider the results, whether by publishing them in the House of Commons Library or the Department of the Environment library. I have never believed that the Government were hot on consultation. Indeed, when they proceed with consultation they never seem to take heed of the results. But at least they could have the decency to observe the procedures and make the timetable follow the pattern of consultation, conclusion, publication of results, consideration and then proposition. That would make a courteous change.

I have a few obvious questions which I can put collectively. In my intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Newham, South, I referred to the topical news from Brussels that Britain is likely to be prosecuted by the European Community for failure to apply the European directive on environmental assessment to some of the more controversial aspects--that is putting it mildly--of the Government's road programme.

The most controversial is the proposed bypass around Winchester. The hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne), who is present, has been involved in the matter of the bypass for the M3. I have been to see the site and it seems to be environmental vandalism of the worst order. It is entirely to be objected to.

I hope that even hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Newham, South, who are not great supporters of the legislative ramifications of the European

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Community, will concede that if the European Community is to be the salvation in this case, it is better that it comes to the rescue than that no one does so.

Certainly, residents of Hampshire, the people of Winchester and its surroundings, are looking for any saviour, and the European Community will be a welcome saviour if it saves Twyford Down. Do we not risk the exemption of the Twyford Downs of the future if we accept such a restricted environmental assessment? Can the Minister give us examples of possible exemptions from the list cited by the hon. Member for Newham, South? There is scope for Ministers to decree that certain projects can be exempted, irrespective of their environmental impact. If we are to have an environmental assessment it must be done properly.

Finally--this is an important procedural matter--what guarantee does the House have that sufficient expertise will be available to allow the Committees that scrutinise private Bills to have environmental assessments done properly? Almost since my first months in the House I have argued that all legislation should come here with an environmental assessment in the memorandum. Our procedures are defective in this respect, even though the royal commission on environmental pollution made a similar recommendation in one of its reports some years ago. If the information is to be available to all Members, there must be adequate personnel--a support staff so that the Committee procedures of the House are adequate for the job. We must have the results of proper research into the environmental impact of all proposed legislation, whether primary or secondary.

My fear is that, although the Government are giving a welcome nod in the direction of environmental assessments for private legislation, that is not a sign of a wholesale commitment. The Department of the Environment is aiming more for the veneer of environmental acceptability than for a commitment to that goal. That is sad. I hope that the Government do not think that, having introduced this measure, they will be able to sail swimmingly into the next election and say, "We have made sure that the practices of the House are environmentally sound. We are doing everything to the highest environmental standards." In fact, the measure follows the de minimis principle : it is the least that could have been done. There are two major holes in it. I am unhappy with it, but it is just acceptable, given that the alternative would be nothing at all.

9.28 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tim Yeo) : The Chairman of Ways and Means has done the House a service by tabling new Standing Order No. 27A, requiring environmental assessment of projects which come before this House for approval in works Bills.

A provision of this nature was proposed by the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure and has, I believe, the support of both sides of the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Colchester South, and Maldon (Mr. Wakeham) indicated the Government's support when he was Leader of the House in April 1989. The Standing Order has been drafted in consultation with my Department. We set out the arrangements that we propose

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for considering applications for a direction under paragraph (1)(b) in a consultation paper issued on 26 February.

I am tempted to leave the Government's statement at that. We support the Standing Order ; it is important to introduce it now so that it can apply to next Session's Bills. But that is a matter for the House to decide. However, the intervention of the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) draws me to comment in rather more detail, as do the remarks of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).

I am sorry that the discussion of this serious subject has been somewhat tarnished by ridiculous allegations about procedural issues. Some suggestion that the Department had been at fault was conveyed by the way that the hon. Member for Newham, South went through his list of dates. He made much of the fact that the House authorities tabled the proposed Standing Order on 13 March, well before the end of the consultation period on 23 April. Had he done any homework, and read the consultation paper issued on 26 February, he would have read in the first sentence of the first paragraph :

"An amendment to the Parliamentary Standing Orders for private Bill procedures is expected to be tabled shortly".

That might have prepared even the casual reader for the fact that an amendment was about to appear. If he had taken the trouble to go further through the consultation paper he would have found at annex A the proposed new Standing Order No. 27A. Accompanying the letter from the Department of the Environment sent out on 26 February is the full text of the Standing Order that was subsequently tabled by the House authorities on 13 March.

Mr. Spearing : I was aware of what was in the appendix, but anybody reading that document would have assumed that the order would be tabled but not debated and agreed until after the end of the consultation period. In a sense, tabling is publication and the document was published. Surely that is a common sense interpretation. Even if it is not, it is the interpretation that many people, including the relevant organisations, assumed to be correct.

Mr. Yeo : I am trying to rebut the absurd allegation that my Department has been trying to stifle debate or spring surprises on the House. The consultation paper plainly stated that the Standing Order would shortly be tabled. In addition, the full text of the proposed Standing Order was included with the consultation paper on 26 February. If hon. Members had wished to object, as the hon. Member for Newham, South objected, to this part of the matter in March, it would have been perfectly easy to ensure that a debate took place. No consultee and no hon. Member could possibly have been taken by surprise by the procedural timetable followed by the Department of the Environment in this matter.

The comments by the hon. Member for Newham, South about where the consultation responses were being kept were also rather absurd and belittled the seriousness of the subject. I am sorry that he finds No. 2 Marsham street too far away. My Department used to deposit all responses to our consultation papers in the Libraries of both Houses. That so overburdened the Libraries that we changed the practice and in the past few years we have been depositing a list of responses and did so in this case.

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Proceeding in such a way does not smack of excessive secrecy or of a desire to be obstructive. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to have a copy of any of the responses I shall be happy to send one to him, and by going to the Library he can find out who responded. The cost of the official paper is not a matter for me, but I shall draw it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : On the question of costs, item 31 in the brief from the Council for the Protection of Rural England states :

"Environmental statements should be available free to all interested parties in a Bill. As an absolute minimum, this should include all those who participated in the EA process and preparation of the ES, and petitioners against the Bill."

Hon. Members are not criticising the Department ; at least, I am not. We are appalled at the sheer cost of legitimate objection. Has the Department any constructive views about how those who want to object, not frivolously, can be helped financially? Because of the financial implications, one has to be extremely careful before embarking on an objection.

Mr. Yeo : The issue of the cost of getting copies of papers is more a matter for the House authorities than for the Department of the Environment. An objector will have to weigh up costs, as he would do before objecting to any planning application. If professional advice is taken the cost of that must be borne in mind.

I shall now deal with the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Newham, South. He would claim that they would strengthen the Standing Order requirements by removing the opportunity for promoters to seek the Secretary of State's direction that an environmental statement is not required.

Mr. Spearing : Or less than the order.

Mr. Yeo : We shall come to that later. The amendments would also mean that the information to be provided might be more restricted than that set out in the Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988. The hon. Gentleman has also proposed that the promoters might be required to provide additional information where both Houses of Parliament so resolve.

In the Government's view, these amendments to the Standing Order are misconceived. The scheme proposed by the Standing Order, and the arrangements on which we have consulted, is that projects approved by private Bill require environmental assessment on the same basis as projects requiring planning permission--subject only to differences arising essentially from the different nature of the procedures involved. Under the European directive which the 1988 regulations implement, environmental assessment is required for all projects listed in annex I to the directive, and for any projects listed in annex II which are likely to have significant environmental effects. Under clause 14 of the Planning and Compensation Bill, which is before the House, the Secretary of State will be able to add to the classes of project requiring environmental assessment, but preparing an environmental statement is a costly business and should be required of the promoters of projects only where it is really necessary--that is when the project is likely to have significant environmental effects.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett : The Standing Orders are designed to parallel what is happening on applications that occur under planning legislation. If, at some point,

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planning legislation is improved, to make environmental assessment stronger, would it not be logical for the House then to amend Standing Orders to take those changes into account?

Mr. Yeo : I take the hon. Gentleman's point. However, it will be for the House to decide at that time. As the procedures are starting off in parallel, it would seem to be only sensible to argue that they should continue in parallel if changes are made in the requirements of the planning law.

The decision whether a project falls in that category requires the exercise of judgment. That is why the planning regulations provide for a procedure under which the local planning authority considers the need for environmental assessment, with the Secretary of State having the last word in case of dispute. The fact that a project requires approval through the private Bill procedure does not necessarily mean that it is likely to have significant environmental effects, so that environmental assessment would be appropriate. That is why the Standing Order--in accordance with the Joint Committee's recommendation--enables the promoter to go to the Secretary of State to seek a direction that environmental assessment is not required in particular cases.

Basically, that is the argument for rejecting the main amendment. It is interesting that only one response to the consultation paper proposed to remove the Secretary of State's direction-making function. To do so would significantly alter the scheme of the Standing Order in a manner that has not been considered by the promoters or parliamentary agents. Therefore, I recommend that the House should reject the amendments.

Perhaps I should take this opportunity to report to the House what the consultees have said in reply to the consultation. We received 35 replies. As has been said, a list of them has been placed in the Library of the House. The Welsh Office carried out a parallel consultation exercise, to which five responses were received. The respondents to these consultations include environmental interests--notably the Council for the Protection of Rural England--public and local authorities, professional organisations and a few promoters, notably British Rail. I shall refer briefly to four main areas of comment.

Some respondents suggest that, because of the strict timetable to which private Bills must adhere, the arrangements for environmental assessment should also follow a formalised timetable. In particular, they contend that the annual June deadline for applications for a Secretary of State direction is too late because if he decides that environmental assessment is required there will not be enough time to enable an adequate environmental statement to be prepared and deposited by 4 December. They therefore suggest that promoters should be required to seek a direction much earlier than June.

The Government view is that in most cases promoters of private legislation will know well in advance whether their proposals are likely to require assessment. Environmental statements take time to prepare and it is good practice for work on them to begin at an early stage in the development process. So if it is clear that environmental assessment is needed, the promoter should simply get on with it. Some respondents have contended that promoters should have to seek a direction in every case, but that would be unnecessarily bureaucratic and time consuming.

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Similarly, if it is clear that a project is not likely to have significant effects, there is every reason for the promoter's seeking the Secretary of State's certificate sooner rather than later. If, however, the case is finely balanced, I would hope that the promoter would decide at an early stage that he will provide a statement. I therefore do not expect that cases will often hit the June deadline. Even where they do, and the Secretary of State directs that environmental assessment is not needed, no problem will arise. So the problem will arise only if a direction is refused in a case where the preparation of an adequate environmental statement cannot be completed by 4 December. In such a case, it seems to us that the reasonable effect of the provisions will be to require the promoter to postpone his Bill to the following Session. We shall be preparing guidance which will clarify these points.

This does, of course, raise the question of what is an adequate environmental statement, on which a number of the consultation respondents also commented. They commented that private Bill Committees do not have the necessary expertise to interpret and assess environmental statements, and that such statements should be subject to independent review ; some suggest that the Secretary of State should comment on the quality of the statement as part of his report to Parliament on the Bill.

I acknowledge that the idea of an independent review body is attractive, but there are practical difficulties. What would its relationship to Parliament be? In the last resort it must be for the House to decide whether it can approve a project on the basis of the information in front of it. A private Bill Committee has a great ability to require additional information if it is dissatisfied with what the promoter has provided, and petitioners can also obtain information through the cross-examination process. So I am by no means as despondent as are some of the respondents about the quality control that Parliament can exercise.

The Secretary of State's reports to Parliament will seek to be as helpful to the House as possible. He will certainly check that the statement complies with the terms of schedule 3 to the 1988 regulations, and of any direction that he has given, but I do not agree that he should undertake to say whether he considers the environmental implications of a proposal, as set out in the environmental statement, to be acceptable : that must be for Parliament to decide. The Secretary of State must also avoid taking sides on issues on which he may subsequently have to adjudicate in a quasi- judicial capacity--for instance, on a related planning appeal. I do not dismiss lightly the concerns that have been expressed about the quality of environmental statements. As indicated in last year's environment White Paper, my Department is commissioning research designed to lead to the issue of guidance on good practice in the preparation and evaluation of environmental statements. We are currently considering tenders for the first part of this research, and we shall certainly carefully watch the experience with statements submitted with private Bills.

A third range of comments on the consultation paper urged that there should be wider consultation and involvement of the public in the environmental assessment process. The consultation paper made it clear that, when preparing an environmental statement, promoters should consult specified bodies similar to those that they would be advised to consult under the environmental assessment regulations if they were proceeding by way of a planning

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application. That is to enable those bodies to make available any relevant, non-confidential, information that they possess. The bodies concerned would include the Countryside Commission, English Nature, English Heritage, and such other bodies as the Secretary of State may decide in any particular case.

There is no existing provision that could be used to require promoters to consult any particular bodies, nor to require those bodies to make relevant information available to the promoters. Neither is that something which could be required by means of amendments to Standing Orders. We therefore intend to bring forward appropriate legislation at a suitable opportunity. In the meantime, the Department will expect promoters to consult appropriate bodies, including the local planning authority for the area, on a non-statutory basis. We shall also advise promoters to consider consulting relevant non-statutory bodies and the public in the locality of their projects. A number of respondents urged the need for such consultations.

The fourth area of comment concerns the final paragraph of the consultation paper, in which it was proposed that where a private Bill concerns more than one project it might be appropriate for the Secretary of State to give a direction that environmental assessment was not required for some of those projects only. The comments that have been made reasonably argue that, where projects are related to each other, they should not be considered separately for environmental assessment purposes. I can assure the House that in such cases we would expect promoters to consider the likely environmental effects of all related projects, but where a Bill covers genuinely disparate projects the need for environmental assessment for each will be considered on its merits.

As I said, the responses overall welcomed the proposals. I am satisfied that they will work as set out in the consultation paper. However, I undertake to keep the operation of the Department's functions under review.

Of course, we can expect the demand for works Bills to decline. Last June, the Government put forward proposals in response to the Joint Committee's report under which the approval of railway and light rail projects, and a wider range of harbour measures, would be considered and approved outside Parliament. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced last Friday that the responses to that consultation had been broadly favourable, and that the Government intend to proceed with legislation at the earliest opportunity. The new order-making procedure would include provision for public inquiries and for environmental assessment of schemes likely to have significant environmental effects. If that legislation is enacted, there will be far fewer proposals which need to come before the House in works Bills and to which the new Standing Order 27A will apply. That does not diminish the importance of the proposal before the House. I strongly commend it to the House, and point out that if we do not agree to the Standing Order tonight--and I believe that this point concerns the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett)--there must be a risk that the new arrangements could not be implemented until the 1992-93 Session. So although we disagree with the amendments of the hon. Member for Newham, South, I urge the House to agree to the motion.

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9.46 pm

Mr. Win Griffiths (Bridgend) : We welcome the introduction of environmental assessment into the private Bill procedure, and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) for making possible tonight's debate. He presented his case thoroughly, and if time had allowed he would have described in more detail ways in which the measure could be improved. His amendments would have improved the Standing Order, but as we want its principles adopted, I am sure that my hon. Friend will not seek to press them.

As to the consultation procedure, the comments of the Council for the Protection of Rural England are particularly apposite. There is a strong case for some form of independent agency to undertake environmental assessments. There is bound to be an element of distrust when the developers themselves are responsible for making an assessment.

As to the role of the Secretary of State, in the case of Teesside power station, the CPRE lodged an objection with the Commission over whether or not the works associated with the building of that power station should have formed part of the overall environmental assessment. The Secretary of State chose not to follow that course, and his decision will be challenged. Certainly it seems to me that the associated works form part of the whole scheme--and in any private Bill, priority should be given to consideration of whether the environmental assessment should cover the whole of the works in question.

I hope that the Government will accept that there is a great deal which could be done to improve the Standing Order. I appreciate the Minister's undertaking to keep an eye on the way that the matter develops and to be prepared to give the House an opportunity to improve environmental assessments further. Therefore, taking the Minister at his word, I hope that we shall have an opportunity to reconsider this subject in the not-too -distant future.

9.49 pm

Mr. John Browne (Winchester) : I rise to speak briefly in support of the speeches by the hon. Members for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). I also agree with my hon. Friend the Minister that the Chairman of Ways and Means has done us a great service by tabling this motion, and I strongly support it.

I understand and share the misgivings of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey about exemptions. It worries me, but we must be happy that the order is tabled at all and support it.

It is absolutely right that the same environmental assessment provisions should apply equally to privately financed and to state financed road construction. I noted with interest the reference by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey to the timing of the motion as regards a rumour--I do not know how accurate it is. I noticed an article in The Observer about a European Commission proposal to prosecute the United Kingdom Government over their plans for the M3 at Twyford Down. That prosecution would be because the Government had failed to comply with the 1985 EC directive in a specific area.

The M3 at Winchester has been close to my heart for about 14 years. Many people in my constituency are appalled by the Government's proposals. Many more

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