I am not sure the demand would justify making the research available in the Library, but I am happy to send it to my hon. Friend. He can do with it what he wishes. I would not want to trouble the House of Commons Library with it, although it is interesting.
The extremely cold and dry climate does not allow rich vegetation, but some flora exists on the continent, which creates the Antarctic tundra in some parts of the continent, particularly the Antarctic peninsula, which has areas of rocky soil that support plant life.
The protocol on environmental protection to the Antarctic treaty is of great importance to the Bill. A ban on mining was imposed in 1998. The protocol, which was introduced in 1998, will be reviewed in 2048.
Part 1 of the Bill introduces a number of new statutory duties on those operating in Antarctica, relating to appropriate response action, preventive measures and contingency planning and information. It will come into force when it is officially approved by all the consultative parties which signed up to annex VI in 2005. I would imagine that this would be quite a difficult and lengthy process as there are 28 separate signatories and it is hard to envisage that they would all be content with every single part of the Bill. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what progress has been made in getting agreement with all the consultative parties that signed up, because that could be one of the most difficult parts of bringing this into operation. In 2009, the previous Government launched a consultation on a draft Antarctic Bill, and the version that we see today deals with issues raised by that consultation and includes some of the subsequent recommendations.
Clause 1 says that
“the person who organised the activities must take reasonable, prompt and effective response action.”
I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has something precisely in mind on what would constitute such action—whether that would be left for the courts to decide, or whether the Government have formulated any definitions. At the moment, it is not particularly clear. The clause also says that the costs that would have to be incurred
“are the costs that the person would have incurred had the person taken reasonable, prompt and effective response action.”
That seems to be rather difficult to determine, and it would be helpful to know exactly how it would be done. How would we know exactly what the costs would have been if people had taken such action in the event that they are before the courts because they have not done so? I do not know whether my hon. Friend wants to deal with those matters now or in Committee.