I shall touch on a few points that have been raised in the debate. The Opposition give their broad support to the principles put forward by the Liberal Democrats. We are concerned about one or two matters, such as the time-scale laid down for the phasing out of sea dumping.

It is fair to say, as did the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), that a time-scale focuses the mind towards working towards the set date. It is also fair to say that the Government have given commitments that they will work to dates, but they have then reneged on them. Those commitments should have been given on the understanding that the Government would honour them, not renege on by them extending the deadlines beyond those previously given at North sea conferences.

There is no doubt that our record on sea dumping is one of the worst in Europe. There have been 10 years of inaction on dealing with raw sewage going into our seas from pipelines and sewage sludge. I take up the point made by the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin). One cannot simply switch off industrial effluent tomorrow because of the impact it would have on the industries involved and jobs. However, we should work towards that. ICI has said that if it had been given a tighter programme by the Government, it would have adjusted its capital investment programme to meet the deadlines and that it could have phased out the dumping of industrial effluent earlier if the Government had laid on the line more clearly what was expected. The Department of Trade and Industry seems inactive when it comes to working with industry and trying to assist it in finding alternatives such as recycling effluent and reducing the amount of effluent that goes into our water courses and sea.

Some of the deadlines in the Liberal Democrat new clause are more easily met than others. There is no doubt that there are quick alternatives to dumping fly ash in the North sea. Apart from the points that have rightly been made about its effect on sterilising the sea bed, it also tends to solidify into large lumps and causes enormous damage to fishermen's gear when they catch their trawls in the lumps of fly ash. They have had no financial compensation from the people dumping fly ash in the sea and damaging their gear, and I believe that the people responsible should be liable for that.

It is, at the very least, most unpleasant for those catching fish in our seas to trawl up filth from raw sewage because of the sewage dumping that takes place. Fish is one of the few foods that, without doubt, is healthy and good for people. The Government should give greater priority to ensuring that the quality of that product is maintained at its present high standards.

We support the concept of marine conservation zones. We are sorry that there is only one designated marine nature reserve. The problem seems to be the tortuous consultation procedure that must be carried out. That is why we are not meeting our EC commitments to protect important sea bed sites.

In Committee I moved an amendment on behalf of the Opposition calling for a national environmental audit to include the whole of the coastline to look at the organic matter that goes into our coast and the parts of our coastline that need particular support and attention because they are under threat. I was sorry that the Liberal Democrat spokesman voted with the Government against that amendment, because I felt that that was a poor position to adopt—