Westminster
DAVID ATKINSON is rightly bringing back to the new Parliament his 10-minute
rule鈥攖hat is to say, 鈥渒ite-flying鈥濃�攂ill, to cope with the dreaded
millennium bug due to hit many computers as the new century comes in. It looks
certain that even the newest systems could suffer. I sat through the committee
stage of Atkinson鈥檚 bill when he introduced it in February, during the final
weeks of the last government.
A survey sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry found that 65 per
cent of senior managers were oblivious to the problem, so the then DTI minister
Ian Taylor wrote to 120 000 chief executives warning them of it. Barbara Roche,
the junior minister in the new government responsible for small businesses, has
asked her officials to explore what more can be done to help these businesses
tackle the problem. And she has issued an information pack with copies of a
pamphlet, Don鈥檛 Let your Business be Eclipsed. She is optimistic that
if the government and the private sector act decisively together 鈥渨e can
overcome many of the problems鈥�.
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From talking with many small companies, though, I fear that the millennium
problem is not fully understood even now. Personally, nothing will induce me to
take an aeroplane at anything approaching the stroke of midnight on New Year鈥檚
Eve 1999.
IF enormous helicopters with gigantic steel lassos were to be used to harvest
forests, yanking out whatever they could encircle, conservationists would be up
in arms, 快猫短视频鈥檚 editorial writer rightly claims
(14 June, p 3).
But that, as Bob Holmes points out on p 4 of the same issue, is pretty much
what happens at the bottom of the sea as trawlers pass overhead, dragging their
vast nets behind them. Nobody sees the damage, so few complain.
I raised the matter with Elliot Morley, the junior fisheries minister. He
pointed out that neither fish nor shellfish are evenly distributed across the
seabed. Some sites are fished continuously鈥攊n some cases more than a
hundred times a year鈥攚hile others are left alone. Fishing boats tend to
return to the same grounds year after year, said Morley, so minimising the area
affected.
On virgin ground, Morley explained, the first passage of fishing gear will
have a greater effect on the benthic community than subsequent passes. However,
he added, as the first tows invariably took place a hundred or more years ago,
and even the 鈥渕odern鈥� beam trawlers have been at work since the late 1950s,
changes now taking place may well be relatively insignificant.
According to research by scientists at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food鈥檚 internationally renowned Centre for Environment, Fisheries and
Aquaculture Science, at Lowestoft, the effect of fishing is very dependent on
locality, commented Morley. 鈥淚n shallow sea areas subject to natural
disturbances by wind, waves and tides, for example, the natural fauna is
dominated by short-lived forms such as worms. These communities are more robust
to any additional disturbance caused by fishing,鈥� he said.
I for one will be most interested to see how the MAFF scientists justify
their stance when it is published.
SAVING our soils, admits David Rimmer, a lecturer at the University of
Newcastle, may not be as appealing a cause as saving the whale or the red
squirrel, but it鈥檚 a vitally important issue
(Forum, 19 July, p 50). So I asked
Jeff Rooker, the agriculture minister, for the current Westminster view. The
government, he says, is in agreement with the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution in its report Sustainable Use of Soils, in which it concludes
that an explicit government strategy would help to protect our soils 鈥渁s a vital
national and international resource鈥�. Currently, the Ministry of Agriculture,
Fisheries and Food is attempting with the Department of Environment, Transport
and the Regions to draw up proposals for such a strategy, and intends also to
consult other government departments, Rooker says.
I believe this is an ideal issue on which the government should declare its
preparedness to consider the long term, and perhaps say: 鈥淲e are initiating an
unglamorous but sustained 10-year programme to inch forward in the process of
soil conservation.鈥� Can there be a better time for a government to take such a
view than when it has just been elected after years in opposition?