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Smoking

31. Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab): To ask the honourable Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, if the House of Commons Commission will ban smoking in the Members' Tea Room. [175290]

Sir Archy Kirkwood (representing the House of Commons Commission): The Catering Committee makes recommendations on smoking in Refreshment Department outlets, including the Tea Room. I am sure that it would be happy to receive views from hon. Members, particularly the hon. Gentleman. As a good employer, the Commission discourages House staff from smoking, but it is also keen to protect them from the effects of passive smoking.

Mr. Prentice : That is a good reply. I do not consider myself a health fascist in any sense, but the time has come to protect our staff and Members themselves from passive smoking. In addition, there is not a single    sprinkler in the building, so this world heritage site could easily go up in flames. I hope the Catering Committee will turn its attention to this serious matter.

Sir Archy Kirkwood: Most members of staff and most Members are non-smokers, but not all of them, so we must bear that in mind. Many smoking restrictions have been put in place, where practicable, on a case-by-case basis, but the hon. Gentleman's question is timely, and it may well be time for the Commission to look at the question of smoking in the Palace precincts in a fresh light. I am happy to consult colleagues and report progress to the House.

Julie Morgan (Cardiff, North) (Lab): Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the study published by Imperial college last week that showed that every week passive smoking kills about one person working in the hospitality industry? That obviously affects our staff in the Tea Room as well as Members, so does he not agree that now is the time to act?

Sir Archy Kirkwood: Absolutely. We are conscious of that study presented at the Royal College of Physicians,
 
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and it is an important development. Passive smoking is emerging as a new health risk in the workplace more generally, so it is right that the House should recognise that and look at the issue again.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

The Leader of the House was asked—

Select Committees

32. Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) (PC): To ask the Leader of the House, what proposals he has to ensure greater representation of minority parties on departmental Select Committees. [175291]

The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Phil Woolas): My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is aware of the concerns of minority parties about their representation on departmental Select Committees and on other Committees. Progress has been made in addressing their concerns in a number of ways: for example, by accommodating their interests in the nomination for recent Joint Committees for pre-legislative scrutiny, and for Standing Committees on Bills and on Delegated Legislation.

Mr. Llwyd : I thank the Minister for his reply, but it did not address the question that I tabled on departmental Select Committees. At the moment, Labour is over-represented by three Members and the Liberal Democrats by two Members, but Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party are under-represented by two Members, which is not right in any democratic set-up. What progress has been made on giving us a place on the Liaison Committee?

Mr. Woolas: I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I accept that his concern is genuine. I could quibble over his arithmetic, but his general point is a valid one. I urge him to bear in mind the fact that Committees are established at the beginning of a Parliament, and the rules are set out in Standing Orders. I remind the House that the previous arrangement, whereby the minority parties were represented by the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, was changed at their instigation, and that that is now done by the Government Chief Whip, who is involved in discussions on the matter.

33. Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op): To ask the Leader of the House if he will submit proposals to the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons to open the House to visitors on Saturdays. [175292]

The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Peter Hain): The Modernisation Committee has considered the accessibility of the House to visitors as part of its inquiry into connecting Parliament with the public. The question whether the House should be open to visitors on Saturdays is also a matter for the Administration Committee, in the first instance, and for the House of Commons Commission.

Ms Munn: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Although Sheffield is less than 200 miles from
 
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London, the travelling time ranges between three and five hours. Even when the House sits at 2.30 pm, many of my constituents find it difficult to arrive in time for a proper tour around the House. Constituents throughout the United Kingdom, many of whom live much further away than Sheffield, should have more opportunities to visit the House, with or without their MPs.

Mr. Hain: I understand the force of my hon. Friend's argument, because my constituency is a similar distance from Parliament, and visitors travelling by coach have to set off at about 5 am. I am pleased by the way in which
 
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the new visitors' services manager has taken on that question—for example, we have agreed an earlier 9 am start for tours, and Member-guided tours starting at 8 am are being planned. He also ensures that, where possible, priority for tour slots later in the day is given to those travelling from constituencies furthest away from Westminster. Given the security implications, however, whether it would be cost-effective and sensible to open on Saturdays is an issue. Owing to the efforts of the Central Tours Office, numbers on Member-guided tours in the first three months of this year have increased by 9,500 over the equivalent period last year.

 
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Regulation of Hormone Disrupting Chemicals

12.31 pm

Geraint Davies (Croydon, Central) (Lab): I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the regulation of hormone disrupting chemicals; and for connected purposes.

Every year, millions of tonnes of toxic chemicals, which do not break down, which build up in the bodies of people and animals and which disrupt hormone production, are released into the environment, increasing cancers and infertility and causing mental and physical problems in children and adults and contamination across the ecosystem. We may accept the growth in chemical production from 1 million tonnes in 1930 to 400 million tonnes in 2000—the chemicals are used in plastics, toys, computers, food packaging and manufactured products—but the continued use of dangerous or risky chemicals is unacceptable where safe substitutes exist.

The Bill calls for the phasing out of persistent chemicals that do not break down and for the substitution of safer alternatives. Such chemicals are bio-accumulative and build up in the body, and they are also endocrine disrupting and therefore cause hormone imbalance. The Bill precedes the REACH legislation on chemical regulation, which will be proposed in the European Union next year. In our year of EU presidency, I hope that the UK takes a leading role in sharpening up the protection of our environment and in adopting a precautionary approach based on the best scientific evidence in order to eliminate dangerous chemicals from manufacturing.

The scale of the problem is great—300 man-made chemicals are found in the human body. Babies are born with a toxic burden of chemicals inherited from their mother in the womb, and those chemicals affect hormone production in the ovaries, the testes and the thyroid gland, causing cancers and genital deformities and reducing the immune system. Such chemicals are present in polar bears in the Artic, in tree frogs in tropical rain forests and in seals off the coast of the United Kingdom. Unlike drugs, chemical manufacturers do not even have to show that such cocktails of toxic chemicals are safe before marketing them.

Hormone disrupting chemicals are endemic in toys, cabling, food packaging, feeding bottles, tins, cleaning products, food and water. I pay tribute to WWF and the Co-operative bank for bringing the issue up the political agenda, partly through their advertisements, which ask
 
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the simple question, "Why should chemicals usually found in the manufacture of carpets, curtains, sofas and cleaning products turn up in the bodies of polar bears?" The answer is, of course, that such chemicals go through the whole ecosystem and end up causing damage throughout the world.

In recent years, the incidence of testicular cancer has grown—in fact, it has doubled in the past 30 years—and breast cancer has increased by 50 per cent. Research now links hormone disrupting chemicals to some of those problems. Man-made chemicals have been linked to learning disabilities and hyperactivity. Polychlorinated biphenyls—PCBs—in mothers are transferred in pregnancy to babies, giving rise to lower birth weight, poorer reflexes, delayed movement, retarded mental development, and language, verbal and numeracy difficulties. They also give rise to learning and memory problems in adults.

Brominated flame retardants are found in human breast milk. In Britain, we have the sad record of our butter having a higher concentration of brominated flame retardants than any butter in the world. Yet those chemical products can be removed, as they are, in the manufacturing sector by the Swedish company IKEA.

We need to consider the additional cost that not having such a ban imposes on the health service in terms of treating allergies, cancers and skin disease. Professor David Pearce has estimated that that saving could be in the order of £50 billion over the next 17 years or so.

We need to establish which chemicals should be substituted, based on the level of evidence and proof, which will vary from chemical to chemical. In the first instance, we must take a unilateralist approach to listing the harmful chemicals and beginning to eliminate them. That is what has occurred in Denmark, Greece, Germany, France, Finland and Austria. Ultimately, we need to use European Union legislation to phase out completely all persistent and bio-accumulative hormone disrupting chemicals where safer alternatives exist.We owe it to ourselves, our children and our planet to respect the safety of our environment and of future generations.

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