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Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) helped to push up the sales of lead-free petrol from less than 1 or 2 per cent. to 31 or 32 per cent. That was a great achievement, but we must realise that almost three times as many people could use lead-free fuel. I have recently disposed of a 13-year-old Ford Fiesta. The adjustment to lead-free fuel took two minutes at Ryan's Van Hire of Romford. I dropped in without an appointment for 10 minutes on the way to opening a lead-free fuel pump.Mr. Irvine Patnick (Sheffield, Hallam) : By appointment?
Mr. Bottomley : I had an appointment to attend the opening. That old car could use lead-free fuel three times out of four. If that Ford could do so, many other cars, especially new cars, could do so as well. I hope that, when people take their cars in for winter servicing, they will check with the garage, with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which has a help line, with the Royal Automobile Club, with the Automobile Association or with the Department of Transport. They will then find out whether they are wasting 10p a gallon and whether they are contributing to throwing into the air tonnes of unnecessary lead, which falls on our faces, is breathed in, falls on our food and is a potential development hazard, especially to children.
Last night I was privileged to give the St. Andrews lecture at Holy Trinity church in Barnes. I discussed the idea that we could do a great deal more to improve the environment if we halved the distance between our homes and our places of work. That may not be possible for all Members of Parliament but, in time, people who travel for an hour or so by train or car to get to work and back ought to be able to change their jobs or their homes. People would spend less on train fares, cars and petrol and their well-being would be greatly enhanced. They could probably double or treble the amount of spare time that they enjoyed. I think that it is that kind of well-being that my hon. Friend the Member for Romford was anxious to promote in initiating this debate.
We should accept the need for mobility, for improvements in public transport and for some capital investment in public transport, not all of which can be underground. I welcome the large increase in investment in public transport, which has come about largely because of the change in people's travelling habits in and around London. Between 1982 and 1987--a period of unparalleled growth and economic prosperity--the number of people commuting to London by car each day fell from 190,000 to 160,000. That fall should have been noted and welcomed by the environmental campaigning groups, but either they did not know of or they chose not to notice the information being put out by the Department of Transport during my time there.
The number of people commuting by rail increased by 20 per cent. during the same period, and that led to reinvestment and to the further improvement of the service, although it also caused overcrowding. The same applied to London Underground which unfortunately has not yet reached the London borough of Greenwich. We hope that the link to the east of London will come through the Greenwich peninsula, even though that will not directly help my constituents. I hope that massive capital
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investment will continue, especially as the number of journeys on London Underground each day increased by 70 per cent. during the five-year period to which I referred. Again, that development was not noted or welcomed by Transport 2000 or Friends of the Earth. The Rochester way relief road was built because local people wanted it. I cannot say the same about the approach road to the east London river crossing. I think that I was the first person to point out, in 1983, that an approach road through Eltham would only damage local people.The bridge itself may or may not be necessary to those north of the river. I know that Newham is strongly in favour of the bridge and of the construction of a decent road, as well as a rail link, to connect Newham to the channel ports and the rest of Europe. I pay tribute to the way in which Labour Members who represent Newham have argued in favour of that opportunity for economic development. But I want them to know that in Eltham the approach road will do only damage. There is no gain to Eltham. There may be some gain to Thamesmead, which needs jobs and needs to be linked in as far as possible. But in Eltham the approach road would be an environmental disaster, not least because of its potential effect on Oxleas woods. Before I became a Transport Minister, I was a leading member of the campaign to avoid or minimise the damage. While I was a Minister, I continued to convey the representations that I received, although Ministers are not allowed to take decisions about their own constituencies--a necessary and wise protection against corruption and special dealing.
Since I left the Department, I have been able once more to say openly what my constituents have been saying and what I was saying before. I object strongly to the suggestion by some environmental campaign groups that there has been a U-turn in my behaviour. I ask them to stop spreading lies because it does not help.
The person in the best position to help secure protection for Oxleas woods and Eltham is me. I have focused on a matter with which Greenwich council has failed to deal. Incidentally, I should like to tell the House of a coincidence. Greenwich council cut off funding to the objectors at the second inquiry into the bridge. The objectors came to me. I took up the matter with Greenwich council, which decided to spend £67,000 on representations. The announcement was made by Councillor John Austin Walker, who happens to be the prospective Labour candidate standing against the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) and by Councillor Clive Efford, who happens to be the prospective Labour candidate standing against me in Eltham. If we are to take a bipartisan approach to trying to reduce the impact on the woods, the local Labour group had better stop giving the impression that it is spending £67,000 of local residents' money to help its candidates at the forthcoming election.
Mr. Alan Williams : One interpretation is that the prospective candidates will be able to do what the sitting Member of Parliament has failed to do.
Mr. Bottomley : It is true that, as councillors, they can divert £67,000 of local residents' money for purposes that they choose. There is a second coincidence. When Greenwich council last appointed members to the district health authority, it did not just pick Councillor John Austin Walker, the
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prospective Labour candidate for Woolwich, and Councillor Clive Efford, the prospective Labour candidate for Eltham ; it appointed Mr. Nick Raynsford, the prospective Labour candidate for Greenwich. If there is one reason for changing the system of appointments to health authorities, it is Greenwich council's behaviour.In 1982, Greenwich council decided to increase the rate burden on local residents by 59 per cent. in one year. That is the equivalent of a property revaluation of 50 per cent. under the old system, and we saw what damage that did in Scotland.
If we want to protect and improve our environment, we had better start working together. People had better not fall into Greenwich council's habit of turning everything into a party-political issue. The council changed its mind two or three times on the Rochester way relief road and I expect they will do the same with the approach road.
Part of the £67,000 that Greenwich used could better have been spent on an independent analysis of whether the slip roads off the approach road to the east London river crossing--at the Shooters hill interchange--could be dropped. If those slip roads are not needed, the money can be used to cover over the road as it cuts through the woods. If, as was decided at the first inquiry, it is necessary for the road to go through the woods to serve those north of the river--the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) may have a view on that--we ought to cover it over. That will be decided following a decision on whether the slip roads are needed. Department of Transport engineers believe that they are necessary. I ask Greenwich council to switch some of its resources to an independent assessment of whether those slip roads can be dropped.
Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : I did not intervene when the hon. Gentleman was complaining about the appointment of Greenwich councillors, although I could have done, as the Government made great play of appointing the chairmen of the regional health authorities and of ensuring that they were all good loyal Conservatives. That sort of think tends to happen. Having said that, I entirely support the hon. Gentleman's campaign to avoid the destruction or deterioration of Oxleas wood--a very historic part of London.
Mr. Bottomley : In defence of regional health authority chairmen, I should point to the record of the chairman of South-East Thames regional health authority. I am having a dispute with him because of the authority's ludicrous decision to spend £50 million on moving its neuroscience department from Shooters hill to Denmark hill. There will be no economic gain from the move, which is merely intended to tie in neuroscience with psychiatry. However much that may please my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden), it is a ludicrous waste of resources.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, however, the chairman of the regional health authority has no publicly expressed politics. He was a distinguished permanent secretary. He gives much of his time to voluntary groups. He has done much to promote mobility for the disabled and he chairs the authority in a distinctive and distinguished way.
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Mr. Bottomley : I do not think that he is a Tory at all. I give a public warning that that £50 million is not available and will not be spent to maintain hospital services in the south and the east of the borough of Greenwich.I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West. He confirms that, even though people north of the river are desperate to have the bridge and a road to link to the bridge to bring Newham into the road network, there is support north of the river to minimise the impact on Oxleas woods. I hope that Newham would be willing to contribute with Greenwich to the assessment of the slip roads. Normally, covering a road by constructing a tunnel would treble the cost of a road. I suspect that, in the case of Oxleas woods, only an extra £10 million or £12 million would be necessary to cover the road if the slip roads are not necessary. If Greenwich council, with Newham's help, carried out a study which confirmed that the slip roads were necessary, my case would become more difficult to argue. However, so far we do not have any information.
I was shocked and horrified to discover that Greenwich has spent so much money in so many ways, but it has not assessed the slip roads. If we deal with the specifics, we will provide arguments that lead to progress. That is what happened with the Rochester way relief road. I want to consider briefly the conclusions of the independent study on the effects of the Rochester way relief road. As I have said, the road was built for the benefit of local people. I believe that it is the only major trunk road to be opened in inner London, within the old London county council area, in the past 10 years or so. It confirms what I used to say at the Department of Transport--that roads are built only if there are significant advantages for local people. I cannot say that about the approach road to the east London river crossing, but in general that is true.
The conclusion of the independent study entitled "An appraisal of the operational, environmental and economic impacts of the Rochester way relief road" includes the fact that most of the objectives set down in advance were realised in practice. It is interesting that the traffic model did not predict the significant reduction in traffic on Shooters hill road. That unexpected reduction in traffic may influence whether the slip roads are needed in Oxleas woods for the link to the road to the east London river crossing.
The study states that the impact on the urban landscape has been achieved at the cost of
"some disruption during construction and some considerable sacrifice in terms of lost homes and businesses and some loss of open space. Nevertheless, it has been designed and built in such a way that very little additional severance has been created either physically or visually."
In South-east London, far too many people suffer from the effects of traffic and many of us are part of the problem. One of my constituents asked me whether he could help in the campaign about the impact of the road on Oxleas woods. I told him that he could and that he should tell me how many cars were in his road at night and how many in the middle of the day. I was told that nearly all the cars moved. We are all part of the problem and we need to find ways of reducing our impact on the environment.
Part of the solution is to park and ride. Preferably, people should park as far outside London as possible instead of driving in and crowding the roads. It would be
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far better to allow British Rail to carry people as long a distance as possible. Part of the impact of the improvements to the railway station and to the roads in Eltham has been that the commuters' cars are being parked all day in unsuitable residential roads. I hope that in the various transport Bills that are to be introduced this Session we can find ways to enable local authorities to say that, apart from residents, no outsider should be able to park on a residential road near a station for longer than three hours. That would allow plenty of time for shopping and it would be good for local trade. However, it would stop someone coming in selfishly at 7.30 am and avoiding the station car park. It would stop that person leaving his car in that residential road all day, thus making life miserable for local people who have to drive around and then find it difficult to stop to shop or trade.An associated problem is that, unfortunately, there are vandals and delinquents around. Eltham station car park is half empty partly because people can park free--it is free parking to them, but it has an environmental cost to others--in nearby streets and partly because of car break-ins. I shall be asking British Transport police and the Metropolitan police to set up a study group with Greenwich council with a plan for action to cut by two thirds within 12 months the number of break-ins in the Eltham station car park.
We should also spend more time dealing with drug dealers. Whether they peddle hard drugs or soft, they generate crime on an almost unbelievable scale. One drug dealer may have only 20 clients, each of whom may spend £200 a week on his habit. The client will not earn that money, he will have to take about £2,000 worth of goods to the people who handle drugs to get his £200. To get £2,000 worth of goods a week, he will probably have to do £40,000 worth of damage. If we multiply that £40,000 a week of damage caused by people trying to fund their habits, we are talking about more than £750,000 of damage to the community from one drugs dealer.
Anyone in Eltham who notices drug dealing or using should contact the police. That is the way to cut crime and to have confidence in the station car park. It is one way of improving the environment, and it would also cut down the number of juveniles who are led into persistent delinquency and to crime.
The Rochester way relief road study also revealed that the traffic flows have been virtually as expected. No extra traffic has been generated. Many of the arguments about the impact of building roads were wrong and many of the arguments used by people like me have been right. It is possible to design roads to make local improvements without tempting people to throw away their rail season tickets and get back into their cars to commute.
If we can persist in those approaches, we can reduce the number of people commuting long distances by car. However, I call for partnership. I got myself into hot water on the day of the launch of that good magazine Auto Express when I said that I would not spend any money to help people to divert from rail to road. There was an uproar. The British Road Federation and others asked the Prime Minister to sack me. Well, they were successful two or three years after that, but not on that issue. No environmentalist contacted me to say that I said the right thing. I was told, "Don't worry about the car lobby, you're doing the kind of thing that will help protect the local environment." My shoulders are broad enough in that
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case, but we must persist to find the right way of improving the environment with the help of individuals, local councils and Government.I hope that we can continue to work together and that we shall have a debate similar to this in two years in the hope that this debate will have helped to reinforce the good work that many are doing and woken up those who have been apathetic or ignorant about the problems.
11.6 am
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : This is the first specific debate on the environment under the new Administration. I congratulate the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) on choosing this subject and on his motion. I agree with everything he said, but I have one reservation. I am not sure whether his interpretation of the phrase
"and calls on the Government, through the necessary minimum regulation",
would be my interpretation of that phrase. The difference between the rest of the House--and I generalise here--and my colleagues and I is that we believe that there is sometimes a need for local government and authorities to be specific and to intervene to prevent things.
In certain matters, relying on education, encouragement, exhortation and financial incentives is not enough. I am not saying that I assume that the hon. Member for Romford rejects intervention in all cases. I am sure that he does not. However, the difference between us is that there are times when he would say, "No, we must leave that to people's judgment, to education and to the market." I believe that environmental damage is too harmful and we must be far more interventionist in two ways : first, by using economic levers to encourage or discourage, and, secondly by occasionally saying, "I'm sorry, you're not allowed to do that."
I have also a reservation about this week's changes on the Government Benches. I told the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) that, had I been a Tory, I would have voted for him not just because he is a south Londoner and out of geographical loyalty, but because, of all the people standing for leadership of the Tory party, he had a better understanding of the concerns of ordinary people and a greater commitment to social equality and justice. I look forward to that being regarded as a change in his Administration compared with the Administration of his predecessor.
However, there is one respect in which I already have a great reservation about the new Administration. I do not know whether the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment will retain his position after the reshuffle, so I do not impute to him any blame at all. In his pronouncements on the steps of No. 10 Downing street the new Prime Minister said that, among other things, he was committed to an improved quality of life for all our citizens. One word that has disappeared from the Prime Ministerial vocabulary since the handover is "environment". His predecessor's sudden interest in the environment has disappeared. In the priorities that the new Prime Minister has made clear, the word "environment" has not even once passed his lips.
In the Tory party's desperate need to shake off the political albatross of the poll tax--I do not blame the Tory party for wanting to get rid of that legacy of the previous regime--it has chosen somebody to go into the Department of the Environment, not for environmental
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reasons, but to deal with the poll tax. For the foreseeable future, the Department of the Environment is the Department for sorting out the poll tax. That is sad.However hesitant and restricted he was, the previous Secretary of State for the Environment, now the chairman of the Conservative party, at least tried to paint Government policy green and make sure that green issues were more central in all Departments. He was having trouble with the Department of Transport and the Department of Energy, but he was trying. There is a danger that, because of the trouble of the poll tax and because the poll tax is the responsibility of the Department in charge of housing, local government finance and environmental issues, the Tories' green period may already be over. It will have been a very brief green period. That is to be regretted.
I fear that, as we approach the next election, concerns about the global environment--for example, global warming, harmful emissions or nuclear waste--will be further from the front of the new Administration's shop window as other, more domestic and short-term matters are put forward. I am not saying that somebody should not sort out the poll tax and get rid of it before the next election. Everybody seems to offer advice to the new Prime Minister and his Ministers. I join the Leader of the Opposition in offering advice to the Prime Minister. If he decided to abolish the poll tax rather than refine it, he would increase his and his hon. Friend's electoral prospects. Perhaps his hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden), who has a thin majority, would benefit from the abolition of the poll tax like no other now that the former Prime Minister is resident in his constituency and exemplifies its unfairness for every resident of our borough.
Mr. Steen : There is nothing wrong with the community charge ; it is just the amount. What we have to do is get the amount down and it will be a great success. I would not go down the hon. Gentleman's track.
Mr. Hughes : If the hon. Gentleman has survived so far and still has that belief, he is a less intelligent political diviner than I thought. I have not found many people who, even if the poll tax is lower, think that it is wonderful. The only gainers are the people who had a high rates bill and now have a low poll tax bill, and even they, in large measure, say that it is grossly unfair.
Mr. Steen rose --
Mr. Hughes : I shall not give way. Other hon. Members want to speak. It is not a debate about the poll tax.
Mr. Steen : The hon. Gentleman brought it up.
Mr. Hughes : Yes, I did, because it has suddenly appeared on the environmental agenda instead of proper environmental matters. It is in that context that I made the point.
The hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) and I have at least two things in common. First, we are both inner south-east London constituency Members, and, secondly, our constituencies are joined by the A2. It begins in my constituency as it sets off from the old borough of Southwark to London Bridge and on its way down to Dover. I agree with many of the hon. Gentleman's comments. Transport is a crucial local environmental issue. I agree
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that to have improvements in the fuel that we use--for example, much more lead-free petrol--would be greatly beneficial. I agree also that, if we could reduce journey distances between home and work, we would make a great advance in reducing the amount of wasted energy and unnecessarily consumed energy. In planning terms, I hope that we can build our new settlements near to existing rail lines and road networks and will not need to extend roads or build roads for new settlements in greenfield sites.Like the hon. Member for Eltham, I am sympathetic to the idea of electric cars. We must remember that, although there is a benefit in the electric car, it still uses energy which must be provided by plugging in a recharging device. That is part of the use of renewable or non-renewable energy sources. It is not a simple equation : an electric car is not necessarily environmentally better than a car that runs on other types of fuel, although it has many attractions, not least that it does not pollute.
Mr. Peter Bottomley : The hon. Gentleman is right. I suspect that we shall see greater improvements in the fuel efficiency of the initial primary generating plant and of ‡energy transmission. As the hon. Gentleman rightly identified--I give him full credit for it--the key point is that, when those vehicles go through his constituency or through mine, they do not emit exhaust fumes. Carbon monoxide, lead, some of the nitrous oxides and the sulphur oxides, are the worst elements.
Electric cars will not have the boy-racer image. They will travel at a maximum speed of 30 mph in town. I hope that they will not tempt people to race off at the lights. Even with our present petrol engines, if we drive sanely we can use 20 per cent. less fuel and bring an instant benefit to our budgets.
Mr. Hughes : One of the consequences of the debate is that it is important for the consumer to know the balance between environmental interests and options. The hon. Gentleman referred to consumer education. Happily, according to opinion polls, young people say that environmental issues are their most important concern. It is important that people should be able to make proper choices and realise that they have to decide how they can best reduce emissions from vehicles and also make sure that they are consuming least energy. There is a balance, and it is to do with the size of cars, the size of engines and so on.
Mr. Arbuthnot : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hughes : I shall give way once more, but I wish other hon. Members to be able to speak.
Mr. Arbuthnot : One of the most curious cars that I have seen in the Members' car park is an orange and black taxi that belches smoke like no other car that I have ever seen. Is it right that it belongs to the hon. Gentleman? If so, how does he put his money where his mouth is?
Mr. Hughes : I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has asked that question. I do own a black and orange taxi. It is a diesel taxi, which is preferable to a petrol vehicle. The only problem with diesel engines, as the hon. Gentleman may be aware, is that for the first minute after they start from cold they produce a lot of smoke. I was fearful that it might be more environmentally harmful than that.
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The Mail on Sunday carried out an environmental test on my taxi, the car of the former Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Patten), and the car of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), the Labour party shadow spokesman. The hon. Gentleman can check with The Mail on Sunday if he wants --it was about a month ago. My taxi is environmentally far better than either the customised car of the right hon. Member for Bath or the car of the hon. Member for Dagenham. I accept that there is a smoke problem. The taxi is at the garage at the moment having that problem dealt with, but environmentally and otherwise it is far more efficient. I can always give the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot) a free ride in it, which will stop him using his car.If we are really to improve the environment of people in their locality, particularly in urban areas, we must reduce the number of vehicle journeys, the number of vehicle journeys with only one person in a vehicle, the number of vehicle journeys that can be made by other means, and, therefore, the number of environmental disadvantages to people from the number of people who use cars when we should encourage them to use other forms of transport. The problem is not just that people park so that their vehicles cause an eyesore, but that they park on pavements, which has environmental implications because people fall over and local authorities have to spend money on repairing pavements. Horrendous congestion slows down people's movement, and commuters travelling to work from east London and south-east London become frustrated because there are daily traffic jams and journey times are unpredictable. We must be tough. One of my concerns when the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Parkinson) was at the Department of Transport was that the transport lobby was still winning arguments against the environmental lobby. I hope that matters will improve under the new Secretary of State. Unless we reduce the number of cars in urban districts and the number of car journeys, and increase the amount of public and other investment in public transport by fare payers and others, we will not change that balance.
I am sure that the Minister knows that there are many places in the world where public transport works so well that people never need to use private cars. I lived in Strasbourg for a while and the buses always came when they were meant to. I could go to work on public transport. I lived in Brussels for a while when the metro had just been built. I could rely on it for getting to work on time.
Mr. Tony Banks : What about Paris?
Mr. Hughes : I have never lived in Paris, and I have never been to Singapore--
Mr. Banks : The hon. Gentleman will.
Mr. Hughes : I hope that I shall not live in Singapore, although it may be better now that Mr. Lee Kuan Yew is no longer the Prime Minister. I hope that the Department of the Environment will tackle the Department of Transport and make it an environmentally sound Department because as yet it has not been one.
I offer a suggestion that I know has to be passed on ; we must be tough and license urban districts and impose additional costs on people from outside the district if they
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want to use it. I see that the hon. Member for Eltham does not like my idea. He may have thought about it and rejected it. We must say, "We are sorry, but if you do not need to come in, you will have to pay to do so" in much the same way as the old Greater London council lorry ban operated.We can take other steps. The Netherlands and other countries allow people to use bus lanes if their cars are full. We should consider such proposals. There are many ways to ensure that one minimises the number of vehicle journeys.
Mr. Peter Bottomley : The hon. Gentleman has raised a serious point that I should have touched on. The problem with the prosperity that we have had in the past 10 years is that many people can afford money but not time. Any suggestion such as road pricing, which means that all one has to do is have a fistful of fivers to buy one's space, will lead to more traffic, not less, on the roads. Local authority workers and Members of Parliament will have their fares paid, small businesses will want concessions and big businesses will be able to afford the costs. The House should realise the loopiness of believing that road pricing will work ; congestion is far better because those of us whose time is valuable will switch to public transport because it gives us a better option, not because it is cheaper.
Mr. Tony Banks rose--
Mr. Hughes : The hon. Member for Newham, North-West is itching to intervene, but he can have his chance in his speech. If he will excuse me, I shall not give way to him, as I normally do. This is an important debate because urban environment and urban life are afflicted more by traffic and related issues than by anything else. Those issues include safety, accidents, injuries, deaths, damage to buildings, collisions and pollution. I do not want to launch, in extenso, into a debate about the options--road pricing is not the be all and end all. We must have a package, one part of which is to start investing in public transport. People will not move from private to public transport until public transport is of a quality that allows them to use it effectively. London's public transport is sometimes a nightmare, and so people will not change to using it but will prefer to make their journey more quickly in a private vehicle.
We should adopt policies such as encouraging people to use bicycles and not cars. My Liberal Democrat colleagues control the London borough of Sutton which is recognised as having led the way in public transport. Its staff are given an incentive for using bicycles, just as company employees have traditionally been given tax incentives to use company cars. We must end the tax incentive on company cars completely, not just partially. I accept that we need a package of policies, but we must ensure that combating the growth in individual motorised transport, which is the product of an affluent society, is one of our chief political targets.
The hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) has an interest in the issue of empty property and empty land, which constitute an environmental blight in urban districts. Increasingly, the Government have the tools to deal with empty land. During the past 10 years the Government have taken steps to deal with derelictland--
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Mr. Steen : They were not sufficient.
Mr. Hughes : I agree that they were not sufficient and there needs to be a change in the way land is taxed if we are to deal with the problem efficiently. It is no good merely having a register and the Government making orders.
The Environmental Protection Act 1990 allows people to complain about litter where the culpable party is from the private rather than public sector. Therefore, if someone has litter on his land and is not doing anything about it, we can take action--I am grateful for that. That should be the case with empty property. If a private property owner is holding on to property and doing nothing, the Government should be able to intervene or give local authorities the power to intervene.
Various methods could be used to help to solve the problem. I am not a believer in expropriating other people's property, but I believe in saying that if someone is not using it and it is an eyesore, subject to the freehold remaining with the owner, control of that property should be taken away if its owner is not carrying out his duty to society. Empty property which is lying waste in inner cities could often be used for housing people.
I hope that the new team at the Department of the Environment and the Government will be tough in tackling the problem of empty land and property in urban districts because it is a nuisance and the cause of many problems, including environmental blight.
I ask the Minister, in a gentle and encouraging way, to seek to persuade his colleagues and the new Secretary of State to accede to the following, often repeated and uniquely London request. London is the only part of Britain prohibited by law from having parish and community councils. I end my speech where the hon. Member for Romford began : one of the best ways for people to influence their local environment is by coming together in a recognised forum which has status to discuss truly local matters, such as how to clean up the parks, rivers and ponds or where to put street lights and seating. Why is it that in London there can be no proper forum for such discussions, whereas in every other part of the country--England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland--people can have a local parish or community council to deal with such issues?
I hope that the new team at the Department of the Environment will seriously consider legislation. I was the last person to present relevant provisions to the House in the previous Session in the form of the London Local Government Bill, which was printed, and has been approved by the relevant parish and local authority organisations. It has been presented before by other colleagues and parties. I hope that the Government will seriously consider legislation because people are most effective in campaigning about the environment on their own doorstep where they know exactly how they are affected. Today's debate is about the local environment. Global and local environments are interrelated, but most people feel that they can affect most the local environment. If we encourage them to do that, we shall at the same time encourage them to act to help to save the global environment. I hope that the Government will give a positive response to the request that we should give people such encouragement.
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11.28 amMr. Anthony Steen (South Hams) : I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) for providing us with an opportunity to debate such a far-reaching and widely-couched motion. It is the sort of widespread, blanket environmental discussion that this House does not have often enough. It is a pity that some Opposition Members have spoken exclusively about road safety to the exclusion of the issues of the wider environment. The House debated road safety only a fortnight ago, and some of the matters raised by Opposition Members this morning could have been conveniently fitted into that debate. Indeed, their speeches would have been more appropriate to that debate than to this far wider debate about people and their local environment--which, as we would expect, my hon. Friend has couched in broad terms.
Unfortunately, but understandably, the majority of hon. Members in the Chamber today are from the London area. However, the motion goes far wider than London, so I hope that the House will forgive me for introducing a different aspect from an exclusively rural area 250 miles away in the west of the country. I wish also to call on my experience in my youth, many years ago, when I represented the inner city of Liverpool.
Mr. Peter Bottomley : My hon. Friend did it very well.
Mr. Steen : I am grateful for that encouragement.
Concern about the environment is moving further and further up the political agenda. it is becoming quite fashionable, and to talk about green issues is in vogue. People are aware of the problems caused by the hole in the ozone layer, and everyone is talking about global warming and the destruction of the rain forests. They are critical issues and people are right to be concerned about them. The Government are also right to be taking some action--although most of us would agree that it is not enough-- to minimise pollution. However, what affects people most is not global issues but the local environment--the point made in my hon. Friend's motion.
People's own areas, their neighbourhoods, their villages and their towns are all important. All hon. Members know that when we knock on doors, whether in or out of election time, and talk about macro-economic issues, people become boss-eyed and say, "Come and look out the back, we have not had a litter collection for a fortnight." The understandable interests of people relate to their backyards and their immediate environment. Those hon. Members who can say to them, "We will get that litter cleared up", rather than talking about major world issues, can be assured of their votes. The environment is all important, and people are concerned about any changes. All hon. Members receive hundreds of letters when any change is proposed in the immediate environment in which people live. Whether for better or for worse, most people perceive all changes to be for the worse. Bypasses or new housing estates are far more likely to provoke letters than is the hole in the ozone layer. During the past three months, my postbag has contained hundreds of letters about planning and environmental issues and about local life in the villages and towns of Devon, but only half a dozen about the tropical rain forests and the ozone layer. The local environment is immediate and critical to most people.
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The environment must change if it is to survive. It cannot be locked into a time warp. People's needs change, and the environment must change with them. It is easy to say that if the environment is to change to meet changing needs, we must ensure that we have correctly anticipated the needs of tomorrow. That is really the trouble. A few months ago I spent a day at the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, trying to get a grasp of how it forecasts demographic change. I came away unconvinced that anyone really understood where the population would go, why, and when. For example, in the 1970s the OPCS forecast the need for many hundreds of thousands of houses to be built in the south. Of course, such a forecast becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those houses have been built in the south because the county structure plans took account of the forecast that more people would be living in the south. Every time the OPCS forecasts that there will be a growth of population in a particular area, and every time the statisticians in the Department of the Environment say, "Yes, there will be that growth", the planners allow new building and the growth follows it.In 1988, the Government said that 165,000 new units would be needed by the turn of the century in the south-east. They have now decided that demand is declining and that only 40,000 will be needed. I do not think that the OPCS has any more idea than anyone else of how many houses are needed and exactly where. It is an expensive operation. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister could tell us how many hundreds of statisticians are employed by the Department of the Environment to work out population forecasts. The counties all have statisticians working out where populations will live. They get it wrong.
I understand that single flats and small houses are currently being built, on the basis that more old people are living longer and there are more single people and single mothers. That particular boom has passed, yet it is still current policy. In fact, what is now needed are three-bedroomed houses for the babies of the baby boomers. That is the current demand. The system is so slow to respond to current circumstances that builders are still building single flats for the elderly and for single mothers. Not only are the figures wrong, but so is the size of the units.
In 1992, people will be coming to this country from the Community and from eastern Europe, and, a little later, Britain will have some of the Hong Kong Chinese. We cannot consider population trends in a time warp ; we must consider movements in world populations which will affect the lives and the local environment of many people. We do not have either the numbers or the type of buildings right. There is conflicting evidence from academics and statisticians about the demographic and social trends. Dr. Ermisch's report "Fewer babies, longer lives" is an excellent analysis of the probable trend. Having determined that there is great confusion about numbers and movements, we must recognise that there will be changes and that we must deal with the problem of where to put people who want new homes. A former Minister at the Department of the Environment suggested that there should be a free market and that people should be allowed to build wherever they wanted. He forecast that there would be 394,000 more houses in the south and said that if he could possibly allow it, the number should be doubled. He suggested that if buildings could be built wherever people wanted, it would reduce inflation and
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cause the economy to boom because there would be no housing shortage. That would tackle high mortgage repayments, which are the largest single vehicle for inflation. He said that if everybody could buy a house at half the present price, Britain's economy would boom, and that the reason why it was not booming was the housing shortage.Mr. Simon Hughes : One can change the system of house financing to overcome both inflation and shortage by altering mortgage tax relief, without removing all planning controls. The Minister to whom the hon. Gentleman refers can have had no concern for the environment if he suggested that people should be allowed to choose where they build without control. That would impose the biggest blight of all on the environment.
Mr. Steen : That is why I do not agree with the Minister who made that suggestion. Such a policy would have a profound effect not only on environment but on this country's inflationary tendencies and interest rates. I do not go along that line, but it is worth mentioning.
Local plans provide the only opportunity for residents and interested parties to draw up a blueprint for future development that will protect the immediate countryside and locality. I am most encouraged by the view expressed by Ministers over the past few years that if effective and up-to- date local plans exist, the Government will honour them and safeguard the right of local people to enforce them. The introduction of local plans and the provision of new housing within them is an important step in the right direction. Cheap, affordable housing can be built outside the area covered by local plans. Even though the parish, district and county may approve a local plan that regulates development in any particular area, a loophole exists in that low-cost, affordable housing--which we all welcome in rural areas--can be developed outside that plan. Green field sites outside villages and towns will be the subject of planning permission for low-cost, affordable properties of the sort that have become so rare because new council housing has not been built to replace that which has been sold. Villages will be extended, just as they were in the 1950s and 1960s by public housing estates. In my constituency, council housing can be found just outside the villages. In future, villages will be kept sacrosanct, as they should be, by the local plan, with council housing estates located just outside them. Many of those properties will have been sold off or be occupied by a declining number of local people. A new estate will then be built of private housing, in the same way as public housing estates were built in the 1950s and 1960s, for younger people and those who cannot afford to buy property in the villages themselves because second-time buyers and holiday lets have forced up prices. Scarcity, resulting in an inflationary spiral, means that younger people just cannot afford those prices.
Low-cost starter developments should be encouraged, but cheap and affordable housing does not have to be badly designed and constructed from poor quality materials. It is not so much development to which people object, but its design and appearance. Bad design is to be found in estates all over the south and south-west, and that fuels anxiety about the environment. In highlighting that aspect, my hon. Friend the Member for Romford should perhaps also reach a conclusion. The only conclusion that
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