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Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire): Would it help if our unemployment statistics had not been produced by the fiddled method that the previous Government introduced? They altered the collection of unemployment figures 30 times. Presumably it would be helpful to have the correct figures. The Government have a problem because, if they correct the figures in one fell swoop, it will look as if we have massively increased unemployment. At least for a period, two sets of figures could be produced, one under the current method and the other under the method that should be used with the corrected figures that we think should be taken into account.
Mr. Griffiths: I agree with my hon. Friend that the issue is not about figures: it is about millions of unemployed people. We need Europewide figures that will accurately reflect that. We agree that the present figures do not accurately reflect the criteria that are needed to assess regional aid and regional aid policy. We are considering other possibilities that more accurately reflect the realities of unemployment. I assure my hon. Friends that we are discussing those with the Commission and with other member states. One suggestion is that receipts and eligibility should be related to national GDP,
with each member state or region deciding which sub-regional areas would be eligible within a centrally determined total.
Mr. Watts: Would my hon. Friend be prepared to meet an alliance delegation which might be able to help him come up with a better formula than the one that is currently used?
Mr. Griffiths: As my hon. Friend knows, I do not have direct responsibility for this matter, but I shall certainly communicate his request to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, if only to prove that although the Conservative Benches are empty there are at least some opposition Members in the House. Will he assure the House that he will argue for fairness in a European context and in the national context so that all regions have an equal ability to access funds? In previous years, the DTI has been a barrier rather than a help to some regions' attempts to access funds. There should be subsidiarity in this matter as in others.
Mr. Griffiths: That point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough. The Conservative Benches are still empty, as they have been throughout the debate.
The Commission has proposed reducing the number of objectives from seven to three so that each area of the European Union is covered by one of them. In terms of eligibility for the three objectives, the Commission has proposed that objective 1--the most generous--should be based on regional per capita GDP.
For the new objective 2, the Commission is slightly less clear about eligibility criteria. That objective will cover industrial, urban, rural and fishing areas, and it is a matter of deciding which areas would benefit most from such support. Relatively few local area statistics are available at the European level; many more are available nationally. In our informal discussions with the Commission, we are suggesting that determining eligibility at national or regional level would improve the effective targeting of the funds.
The Commission also proposes that the population coverage of the two geographically targeted objectives should represent only 35 to 40 per cent. of the EU population. This compares with 51 per cent. currently covered by geographical targeting. The consequence will be that many European areas currently benefiting from objective 2 or objective 5b will lose such eligibility. Some of them will be in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Rowlands:
My hon. Friend has spoken many times about informal discussions. Do the Government intend to table a proper paper on these issues? If they do, will he make it available to the House?
Mr. Griffiths:
I think that I have referred only once to informal discussions. There have been other discussions. My hon. Friend has fought tirelessly to bring employment to his constituency and to south Wales. I know that he will support our aim of ensuring that the UK as a whole is treated fairly.
We hope to obtain a reasonable transition period for areas that eventually lose eligibility. In negotiations on the future of the funds, the Government aim to protect everybody in the United Kingdom and will seek to ensure that the needs of individual regions are taken into account.
For the first six months of next year, the UK will hold the presidency of the European Union Council of Ministers. We expect the Commission to present detailed legislative proposals on the funds during the spring. We will then push forward the detailed negotiations, although we would expect them not to be completed until the Austrian presidency. They will also need to be approved by the European Parliament. At some stage, possibly in early 1999, we will know how eligibility under the three objectives will be determined and individual areas' eligibility can be confirmed and financial allocations made. After that, regional plans can be drawn up, negotiated and adopted. The European Commission must aim to complete that in time for the new programmes to start in the year 2000 and the funds must be able to continue their work. However, that is a matter for negotiation.
I repeat: we will seek to ensure that the needs of individual regions are taken into account. We have already started lobbying. We need the UK to speak with one voice, whether it is the national Government, local authorities or campaigning groups of the type that have been mentioned. We need to draw on one another's knowledge, skills and argument.
The House has listened to the points of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough with interest. I am sorry that no Conservative Member has listened. It would help us to argue our case in Europe for each UK region if we spoke as a whole House and if Conservative Members took an interest in the matter. I welcome the opportunity that my hon. Friend has given us to consider some of the crucial economic issues involved.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy):
I am pleased to have secured time for this important matter. Although it might at first appear to be a typical Back-Bench debate, dealing with a specified area and of limited interest outside that area, it has universal application.
Within the past 12 months, my constituency has witnessed two serious pollution incidents as a result of petrol tank leakage. One incident occurred at Bontddu near Dolgellau, the other at Llanrwst. Broadly speaking, there are some stark lessons to be learned and conclusions to be drawn.
The person on the street might be forgiven for believing that the sale of petroleum is highly regulated. A considerable body of law applies to the sector. We have, for example, the Petroleum Spirit (Motor Vehicles etc.) Regulations 1929, the Petroleum (Mixtures) Order 1929, the Petroleum (Compressed Gases) Order 1930, the Petroleum (Liquid Methane) Order 1957, the Highly Flammable Liquids and Liquified Petroleum Gases Regulations 1972, the Petroleum (Regulation) Acts 1928, the Petroleum (Consolidation) Act 1928, the Petroleum Spirit (Plastic Containers) Regulations 1982 and many others. Despite that, after 13 months, the incident at Bontddu is still unresolved.
Details of a pollution incident were received by the Environment Agency locally on 19 September 1996. Some of the villagers at Bontddu had complained of petroleum odours to Gwynedd council's trading standards officers in the previous week. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that both are linked and that the discharge had begun several days before 19 September.
It was found that there had been leakage from underground tanks at Bontddu service station into a stream that flows into the Mawddach river, one of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the whole of Wales. The quality of the stream was severely impaired, and there were high fish mortalities. Some estuary invertebrates were also affected.
During the initial investigation, the Environment Agency ascertained that a volume in excess of 30,000 litres of petrol had leaked from the underground tanks and drained from the immediate vicinity of the site. A meeting was convened on 27 September 1996 between Environment Agency staff, the garage proprietor, Liquid Cargo Management--an oil recovery specialist--and officers of Gwynedd trading standards and environmental health departments. Certain remedial works were agreed--for example, booming off the river, excavation of the tank in question and flushing the contamination from the ground. By now, the leaked volume was estimated to be in excess of 60,000 litres--twice the original estimate.
Families were meantime evacuated because the concentrated petroleum smell was at times almost unbearable and routinely gave villagers severe headaches. There was also the obvious possibility of an explosive mixture being created at some point.
Things appeared to be proceeding slowly. The county council and the Environment Agency were involved, but there was no official involvement by the Health and
Safety Executive. A public meeting that I chaired was arranged in November, calling together representatives of all agencies and the specialist firm that had been retained to rectify the pollution. At that meeting, an HSE representative said that that body would not become involved unless there was a risk to public safety.
With a spillage of 60,000 litres--13,000 gallons--of the most flammable products known to man, one would conclude that a danger would at some point arise. Not so, the experts told us--despite the pollution and the obvious health problems being caused, including headaches and worse. The public were safe, they said. Those who attended the public meeting were incredulous, but the experts said that there was no danger. Our arguments did not change their minds. The HSE said that it was perfectly okay and that there were no problems.
A few weeks later, not surprisingly, there was an explosion in one of the houses near the polluted site--a build-up of gases, and bang. It was safe to assume now that there was a danger to the public. Even the HSE took that view at that late stage.
The village school was evacuated. The children were bussed each day to Dolgellau to receive their education in a sports and leisure complex. That unhappy situation lasted until September. Homes continue to be evacuated. Several families have been moved from one address to another, in some cases from mobile home to mobile home. One family even camped out for a while. Incredibly, the remedial work has not been completed.
The explosion occurred in the early part of this year. Naturally, the villagers became increasingly concerned at the lack of progress and were alarmed at the fact that, despite asking several months previously for air and monitoring systems, these were not installed in the affected areas until spring 1997. Similarly, monitoring equipment was promised for the school building, so that an informed judgment could be made as to when it would be safe for pupils to return to it. That was supplied late as well.
To bring some pressure to bear, a further public meeting, which I chaired, took place in April. By now, it was a question of trying to ascertain who was responsible for clearing up the pollution and bringing Bontddu back to normality. Incidentally, the village has many times won the title of the prettiest village in Meirionnydd. That is some honour when one looks at the constituency that I am privileged to represent.
It was hoped that this would not become a buck-passing exercise. In the event, assurances were given at the meeting about monitoring equipment and so on. One of the villagers' greatest concerns was the closure of the village school. Naturally, as parents, they wanted the school to thrive and to continue providing first-class education. Their fear was that children might be placed in other schools and their previous one closed permanently. In the event, I am pleased to say that the children returned to school in September.
Somewhat incredibly, the pollution incident has yet to be dealt with. Homes remain evacuated. Naturally, there is considerable anger and resentment about the way in which this intolerable situation has been allowed to drift on and on, almost aimlessly.
Let us consider the main players. We have the loss adjusters, who act for the garage proprietor. They engaged two specialist clearing-up firms, one of which caused an explosion, although the other fortunately did not. The Environment Agency, which was in at the beginning, has done nothing about the fish kill. The HSE, in its infinite wisdom, declined to act because there was no perceived risk to public safety. Needless to say, the explosion changed that. Those incidents should be the subject of a full public inquiry. I am adamant that lessons can be learned from our experiences.
Many serious questions need to be answered. Why was it that the spillage was assessed at 30,000 litres for some time, but then that assessment was varied to 60,000 litres? How long will it take to clear the petrol from the ground and the atmosphere? Why were read-out machines placed so far away as to be of no evidential use? Why was the school closed but the garage allowed to continue trading? Why did it take so long to install benzene tubes in the houses most affected? What about the dozens of other houses in the area that were not supplied with them?
Why, when it was patently obvious that there was a safety risk, did the HSE, although knowing all the facts in October 1996, decline to become involved until March 1997, after the explosion--some might say, the expected explosion. Why are four families still evacuated from their homes almost 14 months after the incident? Why did it take six months to issue an improvement notice on the garage proprietor? Who is in overall charge of the operation, and therefore, who should be charged with answering those important questions and more?
This morning, I spoke to a responsible officer of Conwy borough council, who took charge of another incident at Llanrwst. He was this morning taking part in a debriefing exercise with representatives of all north Wales unitary authorities to compare the Bontddu incident with the one at Llanrwst and to see what lessons might be learnt. I welcome that. Unfortunately, I believe that such incidents will occur with increasing frequency over the next months and years.
In Bontddu, the situation was muddled when one authority passed the ball to another and no one wished to run with the ball or to accept ultimate responsibility. It is an absolute and unmitigated nightmare for many of my constituents. Surely a public inquiry is necessary. We cannot allow matters to be left without proper expert examination and analysis.
I have asked 10 basic questions which remain unanswered. I am sure that there are another 10 or 20 that should be asked. A public inquiry is the only vehicle for doing that. It is the only way that we can ensure that such incidents do not happen again.
In a written answer that I received yesterday from the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, I was told:
There are 900 service stations in Wales, about half of which are independently operated. I do not want to place additional burdens on retailers because we have already lost dozens of them over the years. Rural areas, such as the area in which I live, depend on them, so it is not a part of my brief to place financial commitments on retailers. However, an answer must somehow be found. Compulsory insurance for retailers is probably the most obvious and will have to come in.
I am aware of the new draft regulations that have been formulated by the HSE, but I do not think that they will greatly assist matters. They will codify the myriad pieces of legislation--a move that I welcome. They will place on local authorities virtually all the responsibility for licensing--as is the case now--but also risk assessment and enforcement. That is fine if local authorities are given the resources to train staff and to obtain expensive equipment. They need those resources if they are effectively to undertake risk assessments. If they do not get them, the regulations will contain only empty words. They will do nothing to address the problem.
1 pm
"In the period since January 1995 the Environment Agency recorded 55 incidents of water pollution from underground petrol storage at filling stations in England and six such incidents in Wales."--[Official Report, 18 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 125.]
By contrast, in a recent article in The Guardian, the London Fire Brigade said that it registers 70 to 80 seepages a year. Three years ago, Shell UK suggested that up to one third of all underground tanks--as many as 10,000--may be faulty. Perhaps we are seeing the tip of a very nasty iceberg.
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