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Sustainable Development (EU Report)

Mr. Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the report by the European Parliament on the review of the European Community programme of policy and action in relation to the environment and sustainable development, A4-0300/96 with reference to his Department's policy on sustainable development. [4724]

Mr. Clappison: My Department will be assessing in due course the first reading opinion of the European Parliament on the report, given on 13 November 1996.

Rainforest Conservation

Mr. Dafis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will report on the outcome of the meeting of the conference of the parties to the convention on biological diversity, with particular reference to progress made to the conservation of tropical rainforests. [4507]

Mr. Clappison: This meeting, held in Buenos Aires from 4 to 15 November, successfully reached agreement on continued progress under the convention on a number of fronts. These included commitment to priority work on the assessment and monitoring of biodiversity, including the endorsement of a worldwide initiative for taxonomy developed by the subsidiary body to the convention earlier this year. Work programmes were agreed on agricultural and forest biodiversity. The latter will complement and not duplicate the work of the intergovernmental panel on forests and any successor process.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State attended the ministerial segment on 13 and 14 November and called for greater focus in priority setting under this convention. He also stressed the importance of national target setting and reporting, along the lines already under way in the UK, to enable global assessment of progress and efforts to implement the convention.

Sellafield Nuclear Plant (Discharges)

Mr. Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the permissible limits set for the annual discharge of nitrous oxide from Sellafield; and what quantities of nitrous oxide were emitted by British Nuclear Fuels from Sellafield in each of the past 10 years. [4721]

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Mr. Clappison: The Environment Agency monitors releases of, and set limits for, oxides of nitrogen NOx under the integrated pollution control regime. The description, oxides of nitrogen, includes nitrous oxide N2O as well as nitric oxide NO and nitrogen dioxide NO2.

Oxides of nitrogen were released by the large boilers, which were regulated under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. These have now closed and data are available only for the years 1993 and 1994, as follows:

Year	Annual release limit tonnes per year	Actual release tonnes per year
1993	1,550	177.3
1994	2,132	200

Integrated pollution control authorisations have been issued this year for the Magnox and Thorp processes with the following limits for NOx:

Process	Annual release limit tonnes per year
Magnox	35
Thorp	90

Actual release data will be available from 1997.

Planning Constraints

Mr. Martyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to ensure that planning constraints on agricultural buildings are applied equally to small and large farm holdings; and if he will make a statement. [4923]

Sir Paul Beresford: We have no plans to amend the thresholds for agricultural permitted development rights in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995, under which holdings of less than 5 hectares enjoy more limited rights than larger holdings.

Private Finance Initiative

Mr. Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information is collated centrally on (a) the long-term revenue commitments and (b) any other commitments arising as a result of private finance initiative projects agreed by (i) his Department and (ii) agencies accountable to his Department. [5085]

Sir Paul Beresford: The Government response to the Treasury Committee report on the private finance initiative agreed the importance of collecting and monitoring information on future spending commitment arising from contracts under the private finance initiative. Such information is now being collected. The response stated that aggregate projections of the level of expenditure that is expected to arise from signed contracts under the initiative would be published in the 1997-98 "Financial Statement and Budget Report."

Housing (Population Threshold)

Mr. Morley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out the basis for the proposed

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population threshold to be used as the main criterion in defining a rural area for the purposes of the rural exemption for housing association tenants from the purchase grant scheme; and if he will make a statement. [5010]

Mr. Clappison: The new purchase grant scheme will allow more housing association tenants the choice of buying their own home at a discount funded by a Government grant. Landlords will receive the full market value of any property sold under the scheme, and will have to set aside sale proceeds to provide replacement properties to help other families in need.

We announced in last year's rural White Paper our proposal to exclude small rural villages from the scheme. The aim of the rural exemption is to protect the supply of social housing in small rural villages where there would be a particular difficulty in securing replacement homes. In larger towns there is greater scope for a replacement home to be provided either through development or the purchase of existing properties.

We have consulted on the detailed proposed designations for every county and area of England using a population guideline of 3,000 people. We believe that this identifies those small settlements that need to be protected, and it is consistent with the approach of our rural housing programmes. We indicated that we would consider cases referred to us where a settlement's population exceeded 3,000, but we would want to establish that there was a special reason why the settlement concerned faced similar problems to smaller settlements in replacing homes sold.

We expect to announce the outcome of the consultation exercise shortly.

Mr right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has also consulted on a different approach to be used in Wales.

Pleasure Boats

Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the basis for the decision to remove the requirement for local authority licences for pleasure boats on waters owned or managed by British Waterways and the Environment Agency; and what is the expected saving to (a) the private sector and (b) the public sector from the proposed deregulation order. [4978]

Mr. Robert B. Jones: Powers available to local authorities under the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1907 to license pleasure boats duplicate those available to British Waterways on navigations that it manages. The Government have therefore decided to disapply the local authority powers in those circumstances. Powers available to the Environment Agency are less comprehensive than those of British Waterways. In the light of the recent consultation exercise, the Government are therefore reconsidering the inclusion of the Environment Agency in the proposed deregulation order. It is not possible to estimate the expected savings, but in future hire boat businesses which operate on deregulated waters and which have been subject to local authority licensing will benefit financially by having to pay licence fees to only one licensing authority.

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Bricks

Mr. Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his Department's latest estimate of the number of weeks' supply of bricks held in stock. [5364]

Mr. Clappison: At the end of September, the latest date for which information is available, there were just over one billion bricks in stock, representing some 17½ weeks' deliveries at current rates of delivery.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

Environmental Auditing

Mr. Martyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list the ways in which her Department has (a) demonstrated by example and (b) promoted externally, the ability to improve efficiency and competitiveness through environmental auditing; and if she will make a statement. [4542]

Mr. Robin Squire: We are committed to carrying out the Department's work efficiently, with minimal negative environmental impact. We have undertaken energy audits, and included environmental objectives in the Department's business plan. Our energy consumption continues to fall in line with Government policy. For example, following the connection of the Department's Moorfoot building to the Sheffield combined heat and power station in 1995, 95 per cent. of Moorfoot's heat now comes from a green source.

In October, I launched the schools environmental assessment method which encourages and enables schools to evaluate their environmental impact, and which also includes revised energy targets for new school buildings.

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