Contaminated Land (England) Regulations 2006

My Lords, the House will no doubt be pleased that I shall be brief. I first came across the regulations as a member of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee. As they passed through our committee, we saw no problem with them. As I understand it, they consolidate several sets of regulations. One of the things the committee has said is that we want more of that because one of our big worries about regulations such as these—in a sense, the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has highlighted this point—is the ability of people outside this place to understand exactly how they work and what they are about. The process of consolidation is an attempt to help that. As I understand it, the regulations make provision for an additional description of contaminated land that is required to be designated as a special site—land that is contaminated as a result of radioactivity in, on or under the land. I also understand that they extend Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and that it has been a long-standing ministerial commitment to extend that part of the Act to apply it to land contaminated by radioactive substances. I also understand that part of the provision is to comply with obligations under directives from the European Union. We on these Benches accept what the Government are trying to do. I understand that the changes in respect of radioactivity do not alter the way in which Part 2A currently works for non-radioactive contamination. I know from studying the regulations as a member of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee that consultation was carried out with local authorities, environmental regulators, industry and many other stakeholders, including radiological specialists and environmental groups. We accept that they felt that this was the right way to go—notwithstanding the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has also considered the matter in great detail. As I said, it is often difficult to get to grips with the legal language and exactly how the regulations will work. Although I am not an expert on legal matters, we have a lot of rather good legal brains on the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee. In this instance, they were not able to point out to us any great difficulty. We support the regulations and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.