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Devolution (The North)
6. Mr. Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions whether it remains the policy of the Government to work towards the objective of a democratically elected regional government for the north; and through what stages they intend to reach that objective. [9353]
Mr. Caborn: It remains our aim that the people should be able to decide, region by region, whether they want directly elected regional government, but that is a long-term goal. In the meantime, we are committed to supporting regional chambers established by local authorities.
Mr. Cousins: Does my hon. Friend agree that many of us in the north want to set a course towards democratic regional government and regard the proposed regional development agency as very welcome but only the first step? Does he further agree that there must be a regional representative body to accompany the agency and that
when the Lord Chancellor said at the weekend that there was no evidence of demand in the north for regional government, he was not speaking for the Government as a whole?
Mr. Caborn: Our position on democratic accountability is laid out clearly in the manifesto and we have made it clear that regional chambers, based around local authorities, will be the first step towards that long-term objective. To the best of my knowledge, the Lord Chancellor was not speaking on behalf of the Government when he expressed his personal opinions in a wide-ranging article in the Observer. The manifesto commits us to regional chambers and, in the long term, to elected regional assemblies.
Mr. Forth: As well as considering devolution within England, have the Government given any thought to devolution to England? Is it not time that thought was given to an English Parliament or Assembly to follow the precedent that the Government are setting for Scotland and Wales? When will the people of England have a proper voice in the matter?
Mr. Caborn: The right hon. Gentleman is the last person who should lecture us on democracy. We have to dismantle the wholly undemocratic quangoland that he and his Government set up. We shall address the longer-term issues when we have sorted out all that lot.
North-west England (Environmental Audit)
7. Mr. Jack: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will conduct an environmental audit for the north-west of England; and if he will make a statement. [9354]
The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Michael Meacher): A number of such audits have already been undertaken locally, including those conducted by Lancashire, Cumbria and Cheshire county councils, and the quality of life and sustainability audit recently completed by the north-west region of the Association of Local Authorities.
Mr. Jack: I thank the Minister for that answer. Will he consider again the question of an audit? If he were to carry one out, he would find that, in early July, there was a release to atmosphere of an extremely noxious substance that came in the direction of Fylde and caused great upset to many of my constituents, 300 of whom rang Transco to complain about what they thought was a major gas leak; it turned out that there was a sulphurous release from an oil and gas development operating in Liverpool bay. Will the Minister make early investigations into the matter? What specifically does he intend to do to prevent such noxious substances from reaching the atmosphere again?
Mr. Meacher: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is referring to a release from Broken Hill Proprietary--BHP--and I am certainly concerned about that; we are following it up and considering what action we can take, including prosecution.
I am also concerned about a further incident last Saturday--I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman was also referring to it--and both the Health
and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency have made extensive inquiries of Transco and all the chemical and petrochemical companies along the Mersey estuary, but we have still not been able to discover the cause of the leak. It may have been caused by an offshore facility--we are checking that option--or by a leak from a road tanker, but the police and the HSE have received no official report to that effect.
I am seriously concerned about such incidents, not least because the HSE already has in place a rigorous programme of proactive inspections of gas transporters such as Transco, precisely to ensure that there is compliance with the law and such incidents do not take place.
Mr. Kaufman:
In considering any environmental audit in the north-west, will my right hon. Friend pay special attention to the land known as Kingswater park, which is the only open countryside that my constituents can reach on foot? Will he note that, at a public meeting at Fairfield golf club on Friday evening, hundreds of local residents expressed their total and angry opposition to any attempt by North West Water to ruin the land with its greedy and vandalising fingers?
Mr. Meacher:
I am very concerned about North West Water on a number of counts--not least because the north-west has a far worse record than any other part of the country in adhering to the bathing water directive. I am also concerned about the issue raised by my right hon. Friend; if he would care to give me details, I will take the matter up personally with North West Water and, indeed, call the company in.
Mr. Yeo:
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the process of environmental audit could usefully be extended to enable consideration of how the target of building 60 per cent. of new homes on previously developed land can be achieved? Or do the reported threats of the Minister for London and Construction to cover green-field sites with concrete mean that the Government have abandoned planning policies that protect the countryside and the green belt--notably, in such places as Uxbridge?
Mr. Meacher:
The Green Paper to which the hon. Gentleman refers, which was issued by the former Secretary of State in the last Government--or perhaps I should call it the not-so-green paper--proposed that, initially, 50 per cent. of all houses should be built on green-field or countryside sites. The proposal was subsequently changed to a 60:40 split. That split comes from the last Government; it certainly does not come from us.
We are still considering the responses to the Green Paper and assessing the degree to which housing can be built on previously developed land. That is still the main intention. We are still very concerned about protecting green-field and countryside sites. I certainly will not take any lessons from Conservative Members, because it was they who put us in this position in the first place.
27. Mr. Ottaway:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what steps he intends to take to increase investment in London Underground. [9375]
Mr. Prescott:
We are urgently looking at various options for public-private partnerships to increase
Mr. Prescott:
I must make it clear to the hon. Gentleman that we have inherited an underground system whose investment programme was slashed by the last Administration, along with the overrun of the Jubilee line extension project. Already, there is a shortfall of more than £700 million. The answer to the long-term investment problems of the underground is to appoint the financial advisers whom we have appointed to examine public-private partnerships. We entirely reject the outright privatisation solution of the Conservative Government.
Mrs. Dunwoody:
Anyone using public transport in London will welcome my right hon. Friend's views, but I hope--in fact, I am sure--that he will look carefully at the real costs to the taxpayer of privatisation before there is any suggestion that too much private company money is put in. Does my right hon. Friend agree that--as the privatisation of the railways shows--privatisation is a way of making money for the companies, but certainly not a way of improving services for the consumer?
Mr. Prescott:
My hon. Friend makes a very important point about some of the previous contracts on privatisation. I have been appalled on seeing some of the previous contracts arrived at between the private sector and the Department. We are looking carefully at some of those deals to avoid the mistake of giving over completely to the private sector, at the direct expense of the public sector and a poorer-quality service.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
If I were to tell the Deputy Prime Minister that my Liberal Democrat colleagues, on questioning hundreds of commuters who use the three underground stations serving the people of Uxbridge, found that they were overwhelmingly of the view that London Underground should remain, in the majority, in public ownership, what would he say to them, and will he give an undertaking today that will happen?
Mr. Prescott:
We would obviously say, "Vote Labour," and I hope that people will do so in large numbers to get an underground system that meets their needs and requirements. We are looking at all those options, as we have spelt out in a previous reply to a question in the House.
"to improve the Underground, safeguard its commitment to the public interest and guarantee value for money for taxpayers and passengers".
Mr. Ottaway:
Given the now glaringly obvious success of railway privatisation, and given Labour's willingness to change its mind about projects such as the Birmingham northern relief road, will the right hon. Gentleman now take up one of the options that he left lying around in a "Panorama" studio and admit that privatisation of London Underground is the best way forward?
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