Antarctic Bill

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

I understand what my hon. Friend means. There is always the risk, with any international agreement, that at some point in the future one of the member states will decide that it wants to leave. I can think of a situation closer to home in which one of the parties to an international agreement wants to leave, but we will not go into that.

The Antarctic convention is, in many respects, a model of international co-operation. It is many decades since the signing of the original treaty, and over the ensuing decade the number of contracting parties, which I think was initially 12, has grown considerably. More countries are now interested in protecting the Antarctic environment. I would hope that the cost-benefit analysis would be conducted in the right spirit, and that it would be a question not just of cost, but of the benefit to the world of continuing to protect Antarctica as it is protected at present.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) made an interesting point about the wider obligations of third-party signatories to the Antarctic treaty. We may have rather lost sight of the fact that the Bill rests on treaty obligations created by the UK, and that it imposes obligations on UK signatories only. Is it not a step too far to require the UK Government to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of all the other countries’ obligations under the Bill if they have absolutely no chance of commanding, or persuading, the other legislatures to do anything other than what is provided for in their own legislation? It seems to me that Government expenditure on a cost-benefit analysis relating to matters that the Government cannot control would not be not a good use of taxpayers’ money.

[Mr Nuttall]

I believe that if we conducted a cost-benefit analysis in the right spirit, it might serve as a model for other countries, which could look again at their obligations and decide whether they too could improve their interpretation of what was agreed in annex VI, although of course the matter would have to be dealt with on an international basis. The fundamental question is this: is annex VI working? Are we achieving what we thought we were achieving? That would be the purpose of a cost-benefit analysis.

Let me now turn to amendment 1. For reasons that I hope will become apparent, I think it vital for the Bill to make absolutely clear that clause 15 does not apply only to historic sites and monuments on the British Antarctic territory. The clause seeks to amend section 10 of the Antarctic Act 1994, which is very short. Subsection (1) states:

“No United Kingdom National may damage, destroy or remove any part of a site or monument designated by regulations as an Antarctic Historic Site or Monument.”

Subsection (2) states:

“Any person who contravenes sub-section (1) shall be guilty of an offence.”

That is very straightforward and very clear, but unfortunately it is so straightforward and clear that there are no provisos, and there thus is no possibility of permits for repair and conservation work.

The prohibition is based on the provisions of article 8 of annex V to the protocol on environmental protection to the Antarctic treaty, which deals with sites and monuments. It states:

“Sites or monuments of recognised historic value which have been designated as Antarctic Specially Protected Areas or Antarctic Specially Managed Areas, or which are located within such Areas, shall be listed as Historic Sites and Monuments.”

Any party could propose a site or monument of recognised historic value that had not been designated as an Antarctic specially protected area or Antarctic specially managed area, or which was not located within such an area, for listing as an historic site or monument. The proposal for listing may then be approved by the Antarctic treaty consultative parties, through a measure adopted at an Antarctic treaty consultative meeting. The provisions also state:

“Unless the measure specifies otherwise, the proposal shall be deemed to have been approved 90 days after the close of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting at which it was adopted”.

Over the years a number of countries have proposed their monuments, and there are now several dozen sites protected under this legislation.

Unfortunately, the section 10 prohibition may have had the unintended consequence of preventing the appropriate conservation and effective management of these historic sites. For example, it may be necessary for part of a monument, or an object within a site, to be removed in order for it to be repaired. Clause 15 allows for a new system of permits to be introduced that would facilitate the necessary conservation or repair work.

It may be of use to the House if I give some details of the types of site that the clause would cover. They range from simple rock cairns with plaques attached to what are, perhaps, the most famous sites of all: the huts used by Captain Scott in his expeditions of the early-1900s. Crucially, these huts are located not in the British claim area of the Antarctic territory, but on the north shore of Cape Evans on Ross island, which is in the New Zealand claim area. There is often some confusion between Scott’s hut and the Discovery hut. Scott’s hut at Cape Evans was erected in 1911 by the British Antarctic expedition which took place between 1910 and 1913, which was often referred to as the Terra Nova expedition. When Captain Scott was selecting a base for that expedition, he could have returned to his previous hut erected during the Discovery expedition between 1901 and 1904, but he did not do so, first because it was incredibly cold, and secondly because his ship got stuck. He looked for a different site, and established the second Scott’s hut, which is the one to which I am referring now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend might well be right and I look forward with interest to what the Minister has to say on that point. I do not doubt that the Minister is a good man, and very sensible, and I am sure that there are particularly good reasons why the clause is necessary. I am not saying that the Minister has got this wrong and that we should delete clause 5 as a result. My amendment is a probing amendment, as I suggested at the start of my speech, to identify why we need the clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North is more of an expert on these matters than I am—I am a mere layman, but as a layman it was interesting to me that these provisions already seemed to be in place and it seemed that we were, in effect, double legislating and reinventing the wheel.

The advice on environmental impact assessments that is already on the Foreign Office website states:

“Please note we will not normally authorise activities for non-scientific purposes which are likely to have more than a minor or transitory impact on the Antarctic environment.”

The thrust of my argument is that the measures in clause 5 are perhaps already in place. Let us look at what is already in place. Annex I to the protocol is already in legislation as part of the 1994 Act. It is all about environmental impact assessments. When we talk about how important they are and say that that is why clause 5 is necessary, it seems to me that that argument is based on the fact that we are starting from scratch when we are not.

I do not intend to read out annex I—I am sure, Mr Speaker, that you would neither wish me nor allow me to do so—because it would take an awful lot of time, which I would not want to take. If anyone were to read annex I to the protocol on environmental protection, they would see that it is pretty comprehensive. It states that itself and I am not in a position to doubt it.

[George Hollingbery]

I am not a lawyer, unlike a good many colleagues in the House today. Are the offences specified in clause 5, particularly the penalties detailed in subsections (8) and (9), already specified in a previous Act or are they enactments of punishments that may be used if the Bill is passed that would otherwise not be available?

[Philip Davies]

To be perfectly honest, my hon. Friend has got to the heart of my amendment. That is not particularly clear. The Bill might go further or the provisions might already be covered—I am not entirely clear. That is the purpose of my amendment: I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify what is covered by existing legislation and what, if anything, is new and necessary. It might be the case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North suggested, that what we are putting into legislation today is needed to encourage all the other signatories to catch up with the UK Government. I genuinely do not know, which is why I think that amendment 2 is a useful probing amendment to allow the Minister to make it abundantly clear why we need this clause.

Annex V to the protocol on environmental protection to the Antarctic treaty, which is already in place, is about area protection and management. That seems to me to be covered by clause 5. Annex V contains several definitions, including (a), which is of an appropriate authority, (b), which is of a permit, and (c), which refers to a management plan. That seems to me to encroach totally on the territory of clause 5. Annex V states:

“‘Management Plan’ means a plan to manage the activities and protect the special value or values in an Antarctic Specially Protected Area or an Antarctic Specially Managed Area.”

It seems to me, particularly from what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North was saying, that that is exactly what clause 5 seeks to do, yet the provision is already part of the 1994 Act.

The objectives in annex V—I reassure you, Mr Speaker, that I am only picking out highlighted parts of this, and I do not mean to go through the whole thing, but it is relevant to the point I am trying to make about why we need this clause—