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Severn Barrage

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, for giving us an opportunity to discuss this important issue. I declare an interest as president of the Welsh Salmon and Trout Angling Association and the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust and as the owner of a small fishery on the upper Wye. My main interest is in fisheries and wildlife generally, especially in Wales, where I live. I have been concerned for a long time about the likely impact on migrating fish of a conventional Severn barrage. In 1986, 21 years ago, I asked in the House whether the Government would satisfy themselves that, if a Severn barrage were to be built, migrating fish would be able to pass through it without excessive loss. A year later, I asked whether the Government were aware of research in the United States suggesting that fish passing through Kaplan turbines, a type then planned for the barrage, had an instantaneous mortality rate of between 11.5 per cent and 80 per cent, and that 43 per cent of salmon smolts passing through such turbines lost 20 to 28 per cent of their scales, while 75 per cent of the survivors had gross or microscopic lesions. In 1992, when moving a Motion on barrages, I said that to the best of my belief scientists had so far found no way in which a yard-long fish, swimming strongly against the flow, but being sucked slowly back through the turbine, could avoid being cut up by rotating turbine blades. Therefore, there could be 100 per cent mortality and the runs of salmon in three famous rivers—the Severn, the Wye and the Usk—could be wiped out. All this is still true not only for salmon but for other species of migratory fish, notably the delicate and vulnerable allis and twaite shad, the endangered species for which the special habitat conditions found only in the Usk, Wye and Severn sustain three of just four viable breeding populations. There are also two species of lampreys. The report from the Sustainable Development Commission and its accompanying research report 3—all 250 pages of it—give us valuable and up-to-date background. Reading these reports, one is left with a conviction that any measures taken to mitigate or to minimise the losses to migrating fish would not be effective. Research report 3 makes it clear that mesh screens across turbine intakes would be unlikely to work. So irreversible damage would lead to the local extinction of all the migratory fish. For wading birds, some have suggested that we merely have to provide an area of mudflats the size of Dorset. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, gave short shrift to that proposal. Still less is creating an alternative habitat for fish a practicable option. We cannot seriously contemplate creating replicas of the Severn, Wye and Usk, nor can we replace the unique genetic make-up of these rivers, which is what brings fish back to the rivers where they were born. The Severn estuary is beautiful and rich in wildlife. It has also unique features such as the Severn bore. It is protected by a whole range of statutory designations, which were described by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey; the marine Bill may provide more. Apart from that, the Wye and the Usk are SACs in their own right. It is the habitats directive that creates problems for the barrage project. The SDC deals carefully, on page 131 of its report, with the argument that EU directives do not take adequate account of the challenge of climate change and the suggestion that there might be a one-off derogation from EU environmental legislation. On page 144, the report concludes, "““that it would be untenable for the Government to take a decision in favour of a Severn barrage unless it is prepared … to demonstrate its commitment to upholding the integrity of the environmental legislation and the processes it has signed up to. Failure to do so would undermine the Directives, set a dangerous precedent to other EU Member States and countries elsewhere in the world, and would not deliver a Severn barrage consistent with the UK’s agreed framework for sustainable development””." It says on page 147 that, "““if compliance with the Directives is found to be scientifically or legally unfeasible, then proposals for a Severn barrage should not be pursued””." So far as migrating fish are concerned, this means that unless a way can be found for them to avoid passing through the turbines, to travel up to the rivers with which they have a genetic link and then to return, a conventional barrage within the Severn estuary should not be built. The environmental downside of the barrage project and its enormous costs were evidently decisive in persuading the Government four years ago that it would not be fruitful to pursue plans for it, as announced in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, on 13 January 2004. We are required to do all that we can to deal with climate change and reduce carbon emissions, but there are many alternatives, not least nuclear power and especially tidal stream technology, as discussed in the SDC report. Those need to be carefully considered. As a nation, we have had a series of disasters, for which the Government have, I am afraid, been responsible: the debacle of our intervention in Iraq, the loss of two disks containing the personal details of 25 million people that were sent out by HM Revenue and Customs, the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease caused by infected drainage at government-controlled institutions at Pirbright, and so on. The Prime Minister promised the Liaison Committee this morning that failure in public service delivery would no longer be tolerated. He added: "““The culture of the second-best is not acceptable to me. It is a culture of excellence that we want to achieve””." That is encouraging, but it seems all too likely that a Severn barrage would fail, most probably on environmental grounds. We do not want another big failure. Let us for once get something right. We should concentrate on some of the other promising technologies now being explored and leave the waters of the Severn, the Wye and the Usk to the birds and the fish.