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BILL PRESENTED
School Crossings (Amendment)
Mr. Michael J. Foster presented a Bill to amend the law relating to school crossings: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 7 April, and to be printed [Bill 75].
Telecommunications Masts (Development)
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Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to regulate the development of telecommunications masts in the United Kingdom. [Interruption.]
Mr. Bercow: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Mobile phones are here to stay. There are now 24 million subscribers in the UK, the business turns over £6 billion a year, and more than 20,000 base stations exist across the country, including no fewer than 40 in my Buckingham constituency. Furthermore, the industry confers real benefits in terms of economic efficiency and personal convenience.
Nothing in the Bill that I advance today seeks to hamper the legitimate growth of that industry, or would, in my assessment, be likely to do so. However, the House will recognise that there is widespread concern on both health and environmental grounds about mobile telephones in general, and the frenetic proliferation of masts in particular.
That concern has been reflected in the House, since the general election, in 96 written parliamentary questions, five oral questions, four early-day motions--notably that of the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate), which has so far attracted 168 signatures--and three Adjournment debates, the most recent of which was initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) on 18 January this year in Westminster Hall.
I referred to anxieties about the threat to human health. The Government contend that there is no conclusive proof of a threat to health. Nevertheless, studies undertaken in Australia, Poland, Sweden and the United States have raised the spectre of dizzy spells, fatigue, headaches, memory loss, skin irritation, damage to the immune system, brain damage and cancer.
Anxiety about those conditions is such that, in the United States, no fewer than 39 states have so far decided to prevent any further erection of mobile telecommunications masts pending the generation of greater confidence in the technology, while in Australia a ban has been imposed on the erection of such masts fewer than 500 m from homes, hospitals and schools.
The House will also be conscious of the widespread anxiety about the threat to, above all, children under the age of 12, whose brains are not fully developed, whose skulls are less resistant to radiation, and who are therefore more susceptible to the damage to health that might be entailed.
I hope that hon. Members in all parts of the House will appreciate my legitimate anxiety on behalf of parents--not least Mrs. Lyn Pasqua--of children at the Acorn pre-school nursery in Winslow. It should be noted that there has been a telecommunications base station in an adjoining building for two years.
A distinguished academic, Dr. Gerard Hyland of the physics department of the university of Warwick, maintains that there is a possible threat to human health from the non-thermal impact of radiation.
In the light of those concerns, I make just two requests of the House at this stage. The first is that the National Radiological Protection Board should be instructed to study the possible non-thermal impact on health; the second is that the House should undertake to debate fully, at the appropriate time, the reports that will in due course be forthcoming from the United Kingdom childhood cancer study, from the NRPB's independent expert group on mobile phone technology, from the European Commission's expert group on mobile phones, and from the World Health Organisation's international project on electromagnetic field radiation. These are all important concerns, and we need to consider and respond responsibly to them.
The nub of the problem, however, derives from the planning policies that apply in this country. I make the point on no party-political basis whatever--the matter is far too serious, and we know that hon. Members in all parts of the House are concerned about it--but the fact is that planning policy guidance note 8 contains a presumption in favour of development. Under that note, it is expected that local authorities, in responding to applications from licensed operators, will do so positively and without questioning the need for the erection of new masts.
That difficulty for the environment is compounded by the fact that, under paragraph 24 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order, a general permission is conferred on licensed operators to erect new masts, subject to the caveat that they should be less than 15 m high and should not be situated in areas of outstanding natural beauty, conservation areas, national parks or sites of special scientific interest.
Apart from that, the position for the local community and its elected representatives is very difficult. The councils have only a short period in which to object, meagre grounds on which to do so, and, judging by the record, limited success in the process. The effect of the arrangements, whatever their intention, has been to give a green light to companies such as Orange plc to ride roughshod over the wishes of local residents in the village of Long Crendon in my Buckingham constituency, where the company proposes to erect a new mast a mere 130 m from the boundary of the local school--with scant, if any, serious consultation with the local community that will thereby be affected.
Despite the company's advertising slogan, "Find out what people want: give it to them", and its explicit commitment to open dialogue, I am sorry to say that indifference, disdain and contempt have been the hallmarks of the company's treatment of my constituents. They are fighting back. Mrs. Penny Garrett, Mrs. Jean Gower and Councillor Mrs. Cecile Irving-Swift believe that such behaviour is unacceptable. It will not do, and it needs to change. The only light on the horizon is that a public meeting will take place, courtesy of an agreement with Mr. Richard Rumbelow, the organisation's sensible public affairs manager.
The rules that were appropriate for generating a national network need radical adjustment because such a network now exists. Respect must be shown for the
environment, human safety and the tranquillity of communities. That is why we should amend planning policy guidance note 8 to ensure that proper account is taken of community concerns. Full planning permission for masts on greenbelt land, listed buildings, wildlife sites, and sites near areas already protected by law is urgently needed.
Full planning permission is also needed for sites near homes, schools and hospitals. It should be obligatory for mobile phone operators to provide one or two-year plans to local councils detailing their mast intentions; it would thus be possible for councils to know what was sought and to assess its validity.
More encouragement of mast sharing is required through linking it more integrally with the planning process. We should examine cross-network roaming and the opportunities for greater convenience and ease of use for consumers that that would entail. We need an acceptable method of ensuring that masts are sympathetically blended into the environment in which they are situated.
The proposals that I have outlined are practical, constructive and forward looking. They will enjoy widespread support in the country. Confident in that knowledge, I appeal to the House for its backing for the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Bercow, Mr. David Amess, Mr. Crispin Blunt, Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, Mr. Mark Fisher, Mr. James Gray, Mr. Gerald Howarth, Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith, Mr. Laurence Robertson, Mrs. Marion Roe, Dr. Howard Stoate, Mr. Phil Willis.
Mr. John Bercow accordingly presented a Bill to regulate the development of telecommunications masts: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 7 April, and to be printed [Bill 76].
Motion made, and Question proposed,
Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay):
Thank you, Madam Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to say a few words about the report of the Standards and Privileges Committee. I want to begin by saying how sorry I am that the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) suffered a serious health problem when he collapsed recently. I am happy to say that he is mending. He has been extremely helpful and courteous to me as the events that we are considering have developed.
I want, for my constituents and my friends on both sides of the House, to try to put matters in context because the report is long, complex and often contradictory.
The complaints deal with events from 10 to 15 years ago, before I even entered Parliament. We all lead busy lives in our job, and I had long pushed many of the events that we are considering to the back of my memory. In my initial discussions with the commissioner, I tried to answer her questions about events of long ago from memory. I do not consider that the answers that I gave her were dishonest, but I admit that some were very muddled. My explanation for that is that memory is sometimes mixed and failing after so long a period.
I accept, of course, that, as a Member of the House, I must deal with allegations made by newspapers or members of the public, but I was quite clear in my own mind that these allegations related to my husband's interests and that I had no beneficial interest in them. That is why I had not initially declared them in the Register of Members' Interests. They were originally raised in 1994 and dealt with by the former Committee, which dismissed them. They were then resurrected, in addition to other matters, by The Independent newspaper.
I strongly resent the amount of intrusion on my husband's life. He is not one of us and is--or at least was, once upon a time--a very private person. He is not in the public eye in the way we are here. I cannot find a single example of a Member who recorded a spouse's job, assets or financial affairs in the register. That may change because, in the post-Nolan period, we live in a completely different ambience in relation to the register. Nowadays, one is in danger of being in difficulty if one does not register having a doughnut at some entertainment or other.
The register says that
The report says that I failed to co-operate with the commissioner. That is untrue. I dealt, in great detail, with almost 30 letters from the commissioner--many of them relating to long-forgotten events--until I was forced to take legal advice. At that stage, my solicitors called a halt because they considered by then that the inquiries had little or nothing to do with the original complaints. Far from my failing to co-operate, the commissioner wrote to me on 22 July 1999 to say that
These Benches are littered with barristers and solicitors. Most of them, I am sure, would not approve of the system that we have devised for ourselves. There is no independent judge, no independent jury, no defence counsel and no appeals system. All those are recommended in the Neill committee report for change. I hope that, when the Government introduce the Neill recommendations, colleagues will support them.
In the House, we are here not just to make laws, but to protect the rights of citizens to a fair trial before an independent judicial system. Although I am not criticising the Committee's decision, I believe that, in the long term, it is imperative that we adopt that procedure for our system in the House when we deal with complaints.
I hope, from my experience and from bringing it to the attention of the House, that we will draw some lessons from it. I can see in retrospect that I have handled matters less than satisfactorily. Of course I could have done better, but I draw the line at being called a liar, which the report states. I find that offensive, quite unnecessary and unreasonable.
I quote from an interview in The Daily Telegraph that was given by the commissioner, Ms Filkin, on her appointment to her present role. She said:
That this House
(i) approves the Fifth Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges (HC 260); and
(ii) accordingly suspends Mrs. Teresa Gorman, Member for Billericay, from the service of the House for one month.--[Mr. Clelland.]
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the scope of the Register seeks to balance on the one hand what should be publicly known about Members and on the other, the proper degree of privacy to which they and their families are entitled. They are not required to disclose the interests of spouses or children.
Much of the inquiry, and certainly its length, represents, to some extent, an attempt to link me to my husband's property and therefore to justify a complaint that I failed to declare an interest when I introduced a ten-minute Bill in 1990--10 years ago. If I had thought that I had an interest to declare, why would I not have entered that
interest? If I had something to hide, why would I have presented the Bill in the first place? Clearly, in my own mind I did not have an interest to declare and everyone in the House knows that ten-minute Bills are mainly a way of airing a point of view. In this case, I was airing a point of view that I had formed as a result of being a member of the housing committee of a local council on which I saw the problems of housing through the eyes of those young people who were trying to find accommodation, particularly in the private sector. That was my reason for introducing the Bill.
I do appreciate the effort and time you are putting into answering my inquiries and I very much share your hope that I will be able to conclude them in the near future.
I have never sought to mislead the commissioner. I have admitted that my earlier answers to her may not have reflected a clear picture of the situation as to those properties, which are the focal point of the inquiry, but once I had obtained the advice and help of a solicitor I was able to discover the original documents, which backed my claim that I was not required to enter those assets in the register. I hope that the House will eventually adopt the recommendation of the Neill committee that Members who find themselves in a similar position should be given legal aid or advice to deal with matters in an orderly fashion. I repeat: we live in a completely different world from 10 years ago, before the Nolan report. In today's circumstances, it is imperative that people who are going to be involved in such a situation speak to a lawyer before they speak to anyone else.
I am aware that all of us can make mistakes and look foolish. One can always reflect on how things could have been done better.
I rest my case.
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