Offshore Chemicals (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Lord Grantchester Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his robust explanation of these regulations which are clearly important in terms of environmental sustainability in the north-east Atlantic area. I want to explore the Ospar agreement a little. It is very important to us and will be critical in carbon capture and storage, which I shall not go into this afternoon. I am interested to understand how we are doing this to comply with a decision by Ospar. Do decisions by contracting parties to Ospar have to be unanimous or are they by qualified majority voting? What incident brought to the attention of the Government the fact that the previous legislation was defective in some way? Listening to the Minister’s explanation, I was surprised that there has to be this difference between a discharge, and I have already forgotten what the other noun was, but never mind. Will the Minister confirm that other contracting parties to the Ospar agreement—the Explanatory Notes mention the harmonised mandatory control system—are fully complying with that decision, as we are attempting to do?

[Lord Grantchester]

I thank the Minister for introducing these offshore activities regulations. It is obviously eminently sensible that the pollution prevention and control regulations be updated to correct a deficiency, simplify and create more consistency across the two regimes and make compliance with regulatory requirements easier to understand. In addition, information-gathering powers have been strengthened so that information can be obtained from a wider range of persons in relation to a wider range of incidents capable of affecting the environment.

It must be correct that all unauthorised emissions—discharges and releases—are liable to enforcement action, including prosecution. It must also be correct to allow inspectors to require preventive action to stop spills occurring in the first place. When these regulations were debated in the other place on 1 March, the Minister gave the context of spills recorded over recent years. Between 2005 and 2009, chemical spills averaged 157 notifications per year, totalling 735 tonnes, none of which posed an environmental threat, with chemicals being defined in their broadest sense and including substances such as brine. Between 2005 and 2009, oil spills averaged 283 notifications per year, totalling 51 tonnes, 6 tonnes of which were crude oil, with the remainder being diesel and hydraulic fluid, none of which posed an environmental threat. The Minister added that if the chemical releases deficiency had not existed, another three incidents would have been liable to enforcement action, although it is tempting to ask whether the department can be sure that that is all there would have been if by the new definition a release was not then notifiable. Is the department confident that its knowledge of operations is exhaustive in this respect?

What does this figure of spills mean? Does it include only unauthorised emissions, or does it also include permit releases by agreement, which therefore do not result in an offence? If it is only the former, will the Minister give us the comparable figures on emissions that have occurred through permits? This will allow us to appreciate the balance between authorised discharges and unintended releases and the totality of all emissions. I also understand that permit applications are not granted where it is thought that operators should be able to operate without an emission. In other words, permits should not be applied for to cover possible discharges. Have there been such occasions? If a permit application was refused, has there subsequently been a release?

Will the Minister give us an understanding of how the enforcement agency—presumably the Environment Agency, but perhaps also the Health and Safety Executive—goes about its enforcement role? With the number of notifications of spills of chemicals and from the oil industry, not all spills would have resulted in a prosecution. In notification, what is the typical response? The numbers seem to suggest that this is a frequent, almost daily, occurrence. Does this lead to an element of complacency? Are these spills analysed to see whether action could be taken to reduce the amount? I am sure the industry is tireless in its pursuit of perfection, but an understanding of the interplay between the regulators and the relevant industries might be enlightening.

These regulations are brought forward with the recent events in the Gulf of Mexico fresh in our minds. We debated this situation on 16 December when the differences between the two regulatory regimes were explored and noted. The Minister rightly praised the UK industry for its high safety standards. In response to the gulf disaster, the industry set up the oil spill prevention and response advisory group, OSPRAG. Will the Minister update us on any developments that have occurred in its deliberations following various reports on the disaster by the congressional inquiries?