Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

(1) who is on the Task Force looking at soil guideline values; how often it has met; what its main priorities are; and what the timetable is for publication of the values for substances being reviewed;

(2) what steps have been taken to ensure that soil guideline values are an effective way of measuring significant possibility of significant harm under part 2 (a) section 78(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990;

(3) what definition the Task Force looking at soil guidance values is using of the term significant possibility of significant harm set out in section 78(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Barry Gardiner (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Brent North, Labour)

The Soil Guideline Values (SGVs) Task Force was set up by the Government in 2003. It was expanded in 2004 through involving representative bodies in the contaminated land field, relevant Departments and agencies. The Task Force met on 16 occasions.

The Task Force was established to look at issues around the production and usefulness of SGVs and related technical materials. These are non-statutory guidelines and information which can help with risk assessments of land affected by contamination, and establishing the need for any remedial action.

At the end of 2005, the chair of the Task Force indicated that a number of issues needed to be resolved by my Department. Further work has been taken forward with her assistance and that of the Task Force, particularly through the paper "Soil Guideline Values: The Way Forward". This paper outlines a number of issues and emerging conclusions relating to the production of SGVs, although it is not a review of individual substances. It also envisages a number of updates and improvements that respond to and build on the Task Force work. The term "significant possibility of significant harm" is elaborated in the statutory guidance issued by the Secretary of State under section 78A(5) of the 1990 Act, and the words dealing with human health effects arising from intake or exposure to contaminants have underpinned the development work of the paper.

I have arranged for a copy of the paper to be placed in the Library of the House. Task Force organisations are now considering it, although the Task Force itself has now been wound up. The paper indicates that our aim is to have completed improvements to current technical guidance by the end of 2007, with some key changes being available well before then.