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Irish Sea (Pollution)
Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the cost of monitoring pollution levels in the Irish Sea in each of the past 10 years. [47739]
Angela Eagle: A number of agencies collaborate under the National Marine Monitoring Plan in monitoring pollution in the seas around the United Kingdom. It is not possible to disaggregate the activities in respect of any particular area of the sea.
Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the total tonnage of sewage sludge dumping in Liverpool Bay in each of the past 10 years; and if he will make a statement. [47740]
Angela Eagle: These figures are set out in the Reports of the Group Coordinating Sea Disposal Monitoring, published by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) in their Aquatic Environment Monitoring Report series, copies of which are in the Library.
Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the level of algal blooms in Liverpool Bay. [47743]
Angela Eagle: There is a high level of nutrient input into Liverpool Bay. This supports the growth of algal and the development of intense and regular algal blooms. The occurrence of these blooms in Liverpool Bay has been known for sometime and is reported in a variety of Environment Agency publications. Some of these bloom can cause a nuisance through foam formation on beaches but blooms of harmful algal which produce toxins do not occur.
Mr. Ruane:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the (a) statutory and (b) non-statutory bodies that have monitored pollution levels in the Irish Sea in each of the past 10 years. [47744]
29 Jun 1998 : Column: 97
Angela Eagle:
A number of monitoring reports covering the Irish Sea have been produced over the past 10 years. The information contained in these are drawn from different Government Departments, Agencies and other organisations who carry out monitoring under the UK National Monitoring Plan. The main reports are as follows:
Mr. Ruane:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on co-operation between the United Kingdom Government and the Irish Government on monitoring pollution in the Irish Sea. [47742]
Angela Eagle:
My Department has been working with the Department of the Environment and the Department of the Marine of the Republic of Ireland for a number of years. These Departments, together with the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland and the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland, funded a three-year project to review research and monitoring in the Irish Sea, under an Irish Sea Science Co-ordinator. His third report was published in 1995 and identified gaps in research on the Irish Sea. These conclusions have informed my Department's decisions on funding research in this area.
In addition, the relevant Government Departments in the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, and in the Republic of Ireland are jointly taking the lead in the production of a Regional Quality Status Report on the Celtic Seas, including the Irish Sea. This report is one of the five regional reports on which the Quality Status Report of the North East Atlantic, which is being prepared by the OSPAR Commission, will be based.
Mr. Ruane:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the Jonus programme; and what are the future funding levels for the programme over the next five years. [47791]
Angela Eagle:
The Jonus I research programme, which ended in December 1995, has led to a better understanding of the flux of nutrients (particularly nitrogen) from the land, through the Humber and Wash, to the North Sea, especially in relation to the nitrification/denitrification processes in estuaries. The work has indicated that algal blooms of phytoplankton only occur when tidal energy is below a certain level and light levels are sufficiently high.
29 Jun 1998 : Column: 98
The data collected from Jonus I, together with data collected from similar work conducted under the Southern Nutrient Study (Sonus), has also been analysed under a modelling contract which ended on 31 October 1997. A follow-on Jonus/Sonus modelling contract was let in early 1998 and is scheduled to end on 31 March 1999. In addition, the Jonus II programme, which ends on 28 February 1999, aims to quantify the impact of nutrients discharged from land-based sources on the Irish Sea and from the Thames.
The estimated funding, supported by a number of agencies, is £148,000 for the follow-on Jonus/Sonus modelling contract and £487,955 for Jonus II.
Decisions remain to be taken on what further work would be justified in this field.
Mr. Ruane:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if information on marine pollution collected by (a) the Environment Agency, (b) the MAFF and (c) local authorities is collected on a central database. [47741]
Angela Eagle:
Under the UK National Marine Monitoring Plan, a central data base is being set up by the Environment Agency, with the support of My Department. This holds all the relevant data collected under the plan from 1993.
Mr. Ruane:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the international 60-year programme of continuous plankton recording around the British Isles. [47736]
Angela Eagle:
The continuous Plankton Recorder Survey was started by Sir Alister Hardy in the North Sea in 1931. It is now operated by the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science in Plymouth. The survey is funded by an international consortium. My Department and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food are long-term supporters of this work. They met approximately 40 per cent. of the costs of the core survey in 1997. The survey is one of the most important sources of information about long-term trends in the marine environment. Recent work suggests that changes in plankton frequency over recent decades may be linked to changes in the temperature of the North Atlantic.
Mr. Ruane:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the locations of algal blooms in United Kingdom waters ranked in order of severity. [47792]
Angela Eagle:
Regular monitoring of coastal waters for the presence of potentially harmful algae is carried out under the EU Shellfish Hygiene Directive by the three UK Fisheries Laboratories. Reports of the results from each monitoring site, including the absence or concentration of toxic algae when present, are published annually and are available from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS).
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Mrs. Shephard:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he plans to apply the rural sparsity criteria used to allocate the £50 million rural transport grant to the calculation of standard spending assessments. [47571]
Ms Armstrong:
Standard spending assessments (SSAs) take account of the population living in wards and enumeration districts in which the density is between 0.5 and 4 persons per hectare, and those in which the density is less than 0.5 per hectare, with the latter being given a double weight. The support for rural public transport takes account of the population living outside built-up areas of 3,000 or more people.
We have no plans to change the measure used in the calculation of SSAs.
Mrs. Shephard:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what criteria were used to define rural sparsity in the allocation of the £50 million rural transport grant. [47572]
Ms Glenda Jackson:
In this year's Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced additional spending of £50 million a year for rural public transport in the UK. England's share (under the well- established Barnett formula) is £41.7 million. Of that amount, £4.2 million will be devoted to rural community- based transport schemes, £5 million to a rural bus challenge competition for local authorities later this year, and £32.5 million to local authorities for the subsidy of rural bus services.
1) Irish Sea status report produced by the Marine Pollution Monitoring Management Group (MPMMG) in 1987 (R. R. Dixon Lowestoft);
2) A review of radioactivity in the Irish Sea (Kershaw et al Lowestoft 1992);
3) Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) Aquatic Environment Monitoring Report No. 32.
In addition, a new Irish Sea Quality Status report is being developed by both the UK and Irish Governments for incorporation within the Oslo and Paris Commission's (OSPAR) Quality Status Report 2000. This will be the first overall assessment of the marine environment in the North East Atlantic area since the 1992 OSPAR Convention came into force.
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