Part of Clause 50 – in the House of Commons at 5:45 pm on 14 June 1988.
The derelict land in my constituency results from the massive steelworks closures brought about by the Government. The local authority has not been able to tackle the problem because, when the land was in private ownership, there was unrestricted dumping of poisonous chemicals of all kinds on the site. No local authority has the money to tackle that scale of pollution. It requires Government money, although in fact it is the responsibility of the private company which polluted the site and then, having taken its profit, left the problem to the local authority.