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Contaminated Brownfield Sites

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) on securing this important debate. I know that the issue has affected a number of his constituents and he appears to have uncovered a flaw in the system for dealing with contaminated land. It is only right that we should seek to pursue a ““polluter pays”” policy on contaminated land, but in this case the principle appears not to have been enforced in the way that was intended. I want to broaden the discussion slightly and praise the Government for their endeavours in bringing brownfield sites back into use. That is a worthwhile policy and the Government are making some progress. It is clear that there are a large number of reasons why we should not let the kinds of difficulties that we have heard about undermine what my party believes is a crucial aim. Given the finite amount of land resources available to us in Britain, brownfield development is an obvious and correct policy. That is why I am interested to know how seriously the Government take proposals put forward by my party, and supported by a number of respected and independent bodies, to alter the VAT regime so that we can do away with the frankly ludicrous situation in which it is often more expensive to repair an old house than to build a new one. It is still cheaper to build new houses than to convert the estimated 1 million dwellings that could be brought into use which are located above shops, the conversion of which would go a long way towards filling the black hole in housing provision. I would be interested to know whether the Government intend to publish the report by Grant Thornton, which I understand effectively sounded the death knell for revitalising over-the-shop living. It would make interesting reading. It is also my belief that the tax regime does not provide the incentives that we need to encourage development on brownfield sites in the first place. Despite some of the problems that can be encountered when dealing with brownfield sites, we simply cannot ignore the fact that that is the only game in town if we are serious about meeting the housing challenge at the same time as protecting our natural heritage. Are the Government still considering proposals for a planning gain supplement, as proposed by the Barker report, or a planning tariff to encourage brownfield over greenfield development? On development on contaminated land, all the evidence of which I am aware suggests that we are dealing with a hopeless lack of knowledge about the precise location of the land involved. That lack of knowledge has led to the type of unfortunate situation that we heard about this morning. In my constituency, a planning application on the site of a disused landfill site has caused much local controversy. It is my view, and it was the view of my predecessor in Cheadle, that the local authority lacks detailed knowledge of what went into the tip when it was in use. We should not allow a major development on the site without far more details on the level of contamination. Following detailed work at the end of last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) found that local authorities across the country had uncovered only the tip of the iceberg when it came to identifying contaminated land in their localities. The problems can be traced back to the mid-1990s, when a certain Environment Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), cancelled plans to develop a toxic land register. With greater vision from a previous Government, we might have avoided many of the problems that an increasingly large number of hon. Members will face over the coming years. I would be interested to learn of the progress that has been made by local authorities on inspections under part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen). I understand that the first round should be completed by 2006. It would be interesting to hear the latest progress report and to know the scale of the problem. It seems that this is yet another case of extra burdens being placed on councils with a complete lack of resources to back up the requirements. We cannot forget the danger that some of the chemicals we are talking pose to human health. After all, that is the most important aspect of the problem. In many cases, such chemicals can cause terrible damage. In conclusion, a lack of knowledge has caused the problem to arise and it is imperative that we have clarity about its scale so that other residents do not suffer as some already have. More importantly, people need to know more about the location of contaminated sites to protect the health of current and future generations. That does not appear to be happening at present.