Tyne River (Pollution)

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) on securing the debate. I was interested to hear about his long-standing connection with the plant, and his negotiation of the redundancy deal for former workers.

As the right hon. Gentleman explained, land contamination is a complex area. The issue of the St Anthony’s former tar works and the pollution of the River Tyne shows that. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency are aware of the site and the agency has been in regular contact for several years with Newcastle city council, which owns the site and is designated the “appropriate person” under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. We continue to offer advice and guidance.

I acknowledge the council’s work to deal with the site. DEFRA recognises that it initiated work in 2000 to try to prevent the flow of hydrocarbons into the river. Unfortunately, that system failed shortly after installation. Following that, further investigation was funded through the contaminated land capital grants scheme at a cost of £240,000, and that led to the site being determined under the legislation in 2007. The council was successful in securing further funding of £189,000, resulting in a detailed design for remediation of the site. DEFRA has therefore already provided more than £400,000 in capital funding to support the council in dealing with the site.

As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, however, the budget for the grants scheme has undergone significant cuts in line with the economic downturn, and since 2010 no further funding could be made available for the site following the assessment and prioritisation of all applications for funding. Other bids, such as those to do with landfill gas entering residential properties, would be considered a higher priority, given the greater risk to public health on the measures that we use to assess such projects. Vapour monitoring at St Anthony’s established that there was no health risk to users of the walkway on the river bank, and there is currently no evidence that the site is causing a breach of the status of the Tyne estuary for the purposes of the water framework directive.

The phasing out of the grant scheme is regrettable, but it reflects a necessary change of approach following a review of departmental priorities and expenditure. DEFRA and the Environment Agency are not immune from the necessary funding constraints that all Departments are under. Government can continue to support only those projects that are considered to be the highest priority, and absolute emergency cases, until the scheme ends in 2017.

I want to explain how contaminated land is dealt with in England, and the additional work that has been undertaken by DEFRA to support local authorities so that they can direct resources to the highest-priority sites. The contaminated land regime, as set out in part IIA of the 1990 Act, provides a risk-based approach to the identification and remediation of land where contamination poses an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.

Responsibility for identifying such contaminated land is a local authority obligation under part IIA, and, since 2000, financial support has been and will continue to be provided through the revenue support grant provided by the Department for Communities and Local Government. That is exactly the answer that the right hon. Gentleman predicted. The revenue support grant is not ring-fenced, and it is up to local authorities to decide where to allocate the money according to their individual priorities.

Changes made to the part IIA statutory guidance in April 2012 have resulted in a more stringent, risk-based approach to identifying and remediating contaminated land, meaning that more resources can be directed to those sites most in need. It is a simple fact that with far fewer resources, we must prioritise where spending goes first.

We are now in the final stages of DEFRA-funded research to develop new screening levels that will screen out low-risk land from the need for further investigation, thus saving money for local authorities. Once published, the screening values will sit alongside DEFRA research published in 2012 on the normal background concentrations of contaminants to help inform decisions. Case studies are also being published from the work of the contaminated land national experts panel, which is a free resource available to support local authorities that face the more difficult, borderline decisions so that they can understand what would or would not be required. It is important to note that the environmental permitting regime for current activities, particularly on redeveloping sites where there is potential to cause contamination, ensures that no new part IIA contaminated sites should be being created.

There has been a broader analysis of the health impacts. DEFRA-funded research on the current state of scientific knowledge on the health effects of contaminated land found little direct evidence of serious health effects from the types and levels of land contamination found in England today. We are not complacent, however. Such effects cannot be ruled out in all cases because it is sometimes difficult to prove causality, and there are reasons to be concerned that some sites might pose significant risks from longer-term exposure. We therefore take a precautionary approach to the identification and remediation of contaminated land, which is reflected in the development of the new screening levels for contaminants in soil.

The right hon. Gentleman stated that, in this era of lower public spending, we have to consider how to put right historical contamination. An estimated 90% of contaminated land in England and Wales is cleaned up through the planning system under the national planning policy framework, which has played an important part in making the planning system less complex and easier to understand, thereby encouraging sustainable development and the effective use of brownfield land where appropriate. The key for many sites is to redevelop them and, as part of that redevelopment, to have an agreement with the developer that they will put right the contamination, as they have the proceeds of the redevelopment to invest.

[Mr Nicholas Brown]

I am open to exploring with the Minister any practical way forward that will address the problem, and I know that he proposes that idea constructively, but I cannot see it working with the site in question. The difficulty would be in finding some way either to prevent the tar from leaching into the river, or to clear the tar off the site altogether. The capital cost of a protective measure, let alone a complete clearance, is likely to be several million pounds, which must be far more than any possible planning gain that could be made on the site.

[George Eustice]

I am not sure. One estimate I heard is that it would cost somewhere between £1.2 million and £1.5 million to put the site right. I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, and he understands the site better than I do, as he is the constituency MP. There are possibilities in many instances. Local authorities across the country hold toxic assets that are something of a liability. We have many such sites in Cornwall. I grew up in a mining area, and we have our share of arsenic and contaminated land. Deals can often be reached in which the local authority effectively gives the land to a developer in return for the developer putting right the contamination. I have seen that work in my part of the country—the opposite end of the country from his constituency—where we also have contamination caused by tin mining. We need to explore such things, otherwise we go full circle and come back to the question of whether using public money is justified. We have introduced a new screening process for prioritising sites that are a direct threat to health in residential areas, and we have been frank and honest that we cannot justify the expenditure at this stage. I hope it will be possible to explore the approach I have outlined.

Also, land remediation relief will support developers. The Government are encouraging a market-based approach to dealing with contaminated land, as much as possible. One financial incentive that the Government have provided to encourage the redevelopment of contaminated land is land remediation relief, which allows companies to claim back corporation tax on 150% of the costs of dealing with contaminated land, and which is intended to influence developers’ decisions positively by increasing the profitability of redevelopment projects. The Treasury estimates that the value of land remediation relief is around £30 million per annum, suggesting that the private sector is spending approximately £100 million on land remediation relief-compliant voluntary remediation each year.

The Government are also trying to encourage local authorities, LEPs and enterprise zones to find solutions to toxic sites that have not so far been suitable for redevelopment. Furthermore, DEFRA is working with the Environment Agency and the Coal Authority to address water pollution from abandoned metal mines. DEFRA has agreed to a modest and targeted approach, initiating one to two new remediation schemes each year, subject to funding. I appreciate that that particular fund is of little use in relation to the former tar works at St Anthony’s, but it is nevertheless indicative of the fact that we continue to do what we can on the issue with the resources we have.

I mentioned earlier that emergency cases will still be funded. As part of the announcement on the future of the grants scheme, my noble Friend Lord de Mauley made it clear that, subject to capital funding allocations, a contingency fund of £500,000 each year will continue to be available until the scheme ends in 2017. DEFRA is working with the Environment Agency to agree how the contingency fund will be administered; that will enable the fulfilment of ongoing projects as far as possible, and provide funding in case of emergencies. An announcement on that will be made soon, and will include details of the qualifying criteria for such cases.

To conclude, DEFRA will review the impact of the changes to the grants scheme for local authorities 12 months after the changes are introduced in April 2014. In addition, it has commissioned a new state of contaminated land survey, which will collect information on part IIA regulatory activity, the apportioning of liability, and the funding mechanisms used for dealing with contaminated land. The report will be produced by the Environment Agency before the end of 2014 and will provide information that can be used when reviewing the impact of the changes to the grants scheme.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman again for bringing this debate before the House. I am sorry that I have not been able to give him any more reassurance than the Environment Agency has, but I hope that he will appreciate the difficult constraints that we face and the need for us to prioritise our spending.

[Mr Nicholas Brown]

Dr McCrea, like me, you represent a constituency with a rich industrial heritage that no doubt has similar problems, albeit perhaps not exactly of the nature we have been discussing. I am very disappointed by what the Minister has said. He has, however, offered one constructive suggestion, which I note would not cost the Government any money. Nevertheless, it is a constructive suggestion and I will take it up with the local authority and others locally.

I agree with the Minister that the possibility of a commercial way forward for the site is worth exploring. The figures he cited are the same as my own—a cost of roughly £1.2 million to £2 million for the council’s preferred scheme to try to contain the tars and prevent them from leaching into the river, but it would contain them on site. I do not know how commercially attractive that would be to a developer. My preferred option would be a one-off capital clearance of the whole site to clear it up completely and bring it back to a more pristine standard, certainly than it has known since 1920. However, my suspicion is that that would cost more money.

I rather thought that the Minister would turn me down on the money, and that he would refer to the Department for Communities and Local Government grant arrangements—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brown]

My final sentence—there may be a few commas and semicolons—is this: will the Minister, or another Minister from the Department, agree to meet me to have a continuing dialogue on a way forward for the site, with a view to finding a conclusion?

[George Eustice]

I omitted to deal with that point, which the right hon. Gentleman raised. I am more than happy to go back and raise that point with Lord De Mauley. He is responsible for the matter because it is in his portfolio, even though I handle it in the Commons, and I am sure that he will be willing to meet and discuss it further. I have been as honest and frank as I can with the right hon. Gentleman about the constraints that we have. As I have said, a large sum of money is required to put the site right. We have made it clear that we have only about £500,000 a year for the whole country, so he can appreciate that it would overwhelm us. I will nevertheless take that point back and ask Lord De Mauley if he will have a meeting.

[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

I thank the Minister and the right hon. Gentleman for the debate. It was less contentious than some of the debates that we have had today, but it was no less important.

Question put and agreed to.