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Large Combustion Plant Directive
7. Paddy Tipping (Sherwood): If she will make a statement on the implementation of the large combustion plant directive. [139835]
The Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality (Alun Michael): We expect to make an announcement about our plans shortly.
Paddy Tipping : Does my right hon. Friend accept that if the national plan approach is taken, there will be serious consequences for the British coal industry, as generators will choose to import low-sulphur coal rather than to retrofit power stations? Will he listen to warnings from the coal industry that up to 15,000 jobs could be at risk, at a cost to the economy of £700 million?
Alun Michael: We are well aware of the concerns of the coal industry, which my hon. Friend is right to point out. For that reason, Lord Whitty has been meeting representatives of all parts of the industry. The decision is not an easy one and must be based on a considered assessment of the costs and benefits to the whole of United Kingdom industry—including the interests to which my hon. Friend referred—of the two options between which we must decide.
Norman Baker (Lewes): Notwithstanding the point made by the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping), which I understand, is it not important that this significant environmental objective should not have large loopholes that undermine its very purpose? Will the Minister give an assurance that there will not be wide exemptions for older plants that operate below 40 per cent. load, which is quite common these days? Does he understand the importance of ensuring that there is proper inspection of those plants, now and after the directive's implementation? Will he give an assurance that the Environment Agency will have enough inspectors, as he will be aware of the downward trend in the number of inspections that the agency is carrying out?
Alun Michael: The big question concerns the effectiveness of inspection, and the problem with the directive is that, when costs and environmental impact are considered, there is a fine balance between the two approaches. We need to come to a judgment on a number of competing factors, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are taking all those issues into account in reaching our decision.
Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone): I emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) that
the issue is jobs. As the Minister will be aware, the emission limit value means that there will be a focus on each individual power station, which will then have a stimulus to retrofit, whereas if we go for the national plan, there will be a different approach, and we will find that the generators import low-sulphur coal. The matter is enormously important. Will my right hon. Friend discuss the way forward with his colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry, because it is important that we get this right; otherwise, the indigenous coal industry could be wiped out?
Alun Michael: I can assure my hon. Friend that the matter is being looked at on a cross-government basis. The decision is one in which the different interests that he refers to are reflected. I assure him, too, that we are in touch with the UK coal industry and the electricity generating industry, to make sure that we fully understand the analysis that they have undertaken and the reasoning that underpins the fears that have been expressed. We will give full weight to those submissions in reaching a decision, but as he will appreciate, it would be wrong of me to anticipate that decision.
Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk): Will the Minister tell the House the percentage of UK coal used in generation in 1997 and the percentage used this year?
Alun Michael: I cannot give those precise figures, but I will be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central): I echo the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) and for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham). The Minister will probably realise that Hatfield colliery in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) is, as we speak, under threat of closure, and the Selby collieries have closed this year. If, in implementing the large combustion plant directive, we adopt the national plan, we will see the total eclipse of the British coal industry.
Alun Michael: My hon. Friend refers to the analysis provided to us and the fears that have been expressed, and I repeat to him that the analysis is being fully considered as we reach a decision. We are aware of the difficulty of the decision, finely balanced as it is, and of the need to take into account both industry requirements and environmental considerations in reaching the right conclusion.
Rural White Paper
8. Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield): If she will make a statement on the progress her Department is making in implementing the rural white paper. [139836]
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Margaret Beckett): We have made considerable progress in delivering the commitments set out in the rural White Paper. The latest update on progress, which was provided on 31 August 2003, is
published on DEFRA's website. A review of the rural White Paper is currently under way, and my aim is to publish it shortly.
Sir Nicholas Winterton : Does the right hon. Lady accept that the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs concluded, in its ninth report, that, on education, DEFRA
- "has some way to go before it can be considered an effective department for rural affairs"?
Margaret Beckett: Indeed. As I said, we are reviewing the rural White Paper and the policy information that it gives us. The hon. Gentleman may know that, in addition, we have commissioned and hope shortly to publish some economic analysis from Birkbeck college, and we intend to build on that work. One of the things that was a surprise and a source of some dismay to me when the Department undertook responsibility for these matters was the lack of hard evidence. That is now becoming available; it is highlighting where the greatest difficulties arise and will enable us, we hope, to focus resources and effort on tackling some of those difficulties.
Mr. Ian Davidson (Glasgow, Pollok): Does my right hon. Friend agree that addiction is a major problem in rural areas? What is she doing to end the addiction to subsidy in so many of our farming communities? Does she agree that unless we reform the common agricultural policy to reduce fraud, corruption and incompetence, people in the countryside will never be able to stand on their own two feet?
Margaret Beckett: As my hon. Friend knows, the direction of the reforms of the CAP that we recently secured will do a great deal to reconnect members of the farming community with the marketplace. That, we believe, is in their best interests and in the interests of the wider community.
Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde): Is the Secretary of State aware of the comment on rural policy in Lord Haskins' report, in which he quotes a senior official in her Department as saying:
- "I have some difficulty working out what DEFRA thinks its rural agenda is"?
Margaret Beckett: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to the Chair of the Select Committee. We look forward to working with him. My noble Friend Lord Haskins is a specialist in interesting quotations and quotation-worthy observations. Perhaps there has been a slight misunderstanding. We are not proposing to produce a new White Paper, and the Haskins report is already in the public domain. We are publishing a review of the rural White Paper, which itself is only three years old, and of the economic work to which I referred. We then intend to publish some proposals in the spring, drawing on a refreshed rural strategy. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we shall take careful note of all the different strands of information and advice.
Diana Organ (Forest of Dean): One of the key planks of the Government's rural policy is the regeneration of market towns. Gloucestershire has seven successful market and coastal town initiatives, four of them in the Forest of Dean. Is my right hon. Friend aware of how much work has been done in the first phase, which is the identification and prioritisation of what is needed in those market towns? Unfortunately, little progress can be made because of the lack of clarity from the RDAs and from DEFRA about where the funding is to come from to deliver the projects and programmes identified as necessary in those market towns.
Margaret Beckett: My hon. Friend raises an important point. I thought the market towns initiative and the recognition of the important role of market towns were among the most interesting and worthwhile things to come out of the rural White Paper. I accept that while much was done in the first phase, there is not as much progress as people had hoped in the second. We are pursuing the matter. It is my understanding that the responsibilities identified by my hon. Friend rest with the RDAs, but following the suggestions in Lord Haskins' report about different and more devolved responsibilities, and about working with RDAs and local government, we will all need to look carefully at how those responsibilities can best be exercised in order to ensure better delivery, not worse, for rural areas.
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): The Secretary of State claims considerable progress in achieving the targets in the rural White Paper. No doubt achieving EU beach standards is laudable, but such achievements butter few parsnips in the countryside. Aspects such as rural transport, rural policing, affordable housing, health services, and shops and post offices in village communities are all acknowledged to be getting worse, not better. Central Government spending is lower in the countryside than in towns and cities, and rural council tax is higher for worse services. Does the right hon. Lady agree that if the rural White Paper and the annual updates are to serve any purpose at all, they should demand analysis of the extent to which the Government are achieving what they set out to achieve? If those
documents are merely a spin-doctor's menu of self-congratulatory platitudes, there is precious little purpose in having them.
Margaret Beckett: The rural White Paper is being reviewed by officials in the light of what has been delivered. I am astonished to hear the hon. Gentleman's rant about how terrible everything is in the countryside. I do not know how he has the gall to talk about rural transport when, since my Department was launched, we have spent £25.7 million on rural transport with a further £20 million—[Interruption.] Opposition Members groan because they hate being reminded how much the Government have done for rural areas—including on policing, shops and post offices—and how little they did. Responsibility for the state of the countryside rests on them.
Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney): Is not a key part of implementing the rural White Paper the establishment of a biofuels industry based on crops, not just cooking oil? The Treasury says that a further duty rate reduction would simply suck in imports from countries with established biofuels industries, but as the industry is so important to the economies of rural areas, will the Secretary of State, with her counterpart in the Department of Trade and Industry, come forward with a specific plan to kick-start the biofuels industry, because there is a danger that if more is not done, we may not have one?
Margaret Beckett: I understand my hon. Friend's concern, and I know that he has been a long-standing and strong campaigner on the issue. I can assure him that we discuss with Ministers in other Departments what can be done to help to kick-start the industry. We remain aware of the concerns that he has identified, but he has also rightly identified some of the anxieties about undesirable side effects.
Mr. Archie Norman (Tunbridge Wells): Does the Secretary of State recall that one of the White Paper's key conclusions concerns safer communities and rural policing, yet since its publication, crime in rural areas has risen? Will she undertake to discuss with her colleagues in the Home Office the fact that, despite the rural police fund, every time police budgets are under pressure, or every time there is a shortage of officers, as there is in my area of west Kent, it is rural policing that is cut, with the result that people in many rural communities still feel that they operate in a police-free zone?
Margaret Beckett: I am slightly surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman say that, and it is perhaps something that he should take up with his local authority. There are record numbers of police in Kent, as there are everywhere else: record numbers of police are available to police rural areas. I am not aware of any evidence that they have been removed from rural areas, although I am aware, of course, of the concern about crime.
The hon. Gentleman touched on the provision of housing. Whether it is housing, transport, post offices or schools, this Government have poured resources into the rural areas that lacked those things for 20 years.
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