TUESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2000

MR MICHAEL PASKE, DR DIANE MITCHELL AND MR MICHAEL PAYNE

  260. So just on that, how those barriers could be overcome, what would you do about planning regulations? The second part of the question was how can one overcome these barriers, some of these things that you want the Government to make a decision, presumably, about exemptions?
  (Dr Mitchell) I think the Composting Association also mentioned that we need to talk to local planners, or at a Government level, to sort out the various discrepancies there are between different areas.

  261. You are asking for a sort of policy planning guidance note, that it will produce the detail for this?
  (Mr Paske) That sort of thing is what we are looking for, and obviously we are working together with the appropriate authorities on that and discussing those particular issues at the present moment.

  262. Is there a willingness amongst farmers to use composted municipal waste on their land?
  (Mr Paske) Can I just take a general view on that. One of the biggest problems that we have is that we are now, obviously, as you will appreciate, very concerned about contaminants getting into the food chain, and so we do need to have total traceability of our inputs. And, of course, one of the major problems that we have with composted waste is to know exactly what the origins are; so that is a major concern for us at the present moment. But, again, from the evidence you have already heard this morning, you have been hearing about the different standards and specifications that would be required, and, of course, traceability is one of the major things that we want to see in place.
  (Mr Payne) I have dealings with sewage sludge applications to land, which this Committee has looked at in the past, and we know that the food retailers are very concerned to be able to satisfy their own due diligence tests. And I am sure that this issue would arise very strongly in relation to compost; and it would be a central prerequirement for farmers taking compost that they were able to satisfy their customers that it was a safe and beneficial activity.

  263. Are farmers paid to accept composted municipal waste?
  (Mr Paske) No, they are not; not at the present moment, no.

  264. But if we are actually going to have the amounts of composted material produced that the proposals suggest should be done, that the Composting Association were talking about, it is going to be difficult to get rid of all of that composted material, is it not?
  (Mr Paske) Very much so, yes.

  265. So is there not a chance that farmers are going to be paid to take it?
  (Mr Paske) Again, that is something which, obviously, is under discussion, but at this stage there is no payment made, at the present moment.

  266. There is not, but there may be, and farmers may be paid to take composted material, treated sewage sludge, waste from paper. Could not a farmer actually end up making more money just taking stuff onto his land than growing anything on it?
  (Mr Paske) That would not be difficult under the current circumstances, in any case, Mr Chairman; but you would expect me to say that, I am sure. But, Michael, perhaps you would like to comment on that.
  (Mr Payne) If I could just comment on the sewage sludge position. I think, actually, the reverse is the case, that in the case of basically-treated sewage sludge there is no payment, but well-treated sewage sludge, to a high standard, the farmer actually pays for the material, for the benefits he receives.

  267. Right. So you think the land could actually take all the composted material that was produced, if it were to a suitable standard?
  (Mr Paske) Gosh, that is a very difficult question to answer, if it is to the required standard; what is the required standard. If you are putting it onto grassland where cattle are feeding, you would require one standard; if you are putting it onto intensive vegetable-production land, where you are obviously looking for a totally different set of circumstances, obviously you would look at something different. So it is a very difficult question to answer, that.

  268. And it would apply whether you were paid or not. If you have a task of due diligence, being paid is not going to change the situation, I hope?
  (Mr Paske) That is absolutely right. No, you are absolutely right; thank you for making that point so strongly.

  269. I eat, therefore I am.
  (Mr Payne) Perhaps we could just give a swift regard to the quantities there. Subject to standards, the quantities themselves are relatively small, in relation to the quantities of organic material which currently go to land, and of a similar order of sewage sludge.

  270. You alluded to this issue earlier, perhaps we can have a more detailed answer, as to what problems will the extension of waste management licensing controls to agricultural wastes cause the industry?
  (Mr Payne) I think we are very concerned about this. The waste licensing regime is an extremely heavyweight regime, and, as an example, the Environment Agency's manuals on waste management licensing alone are greater than the manuals for all the other regulations they administer. So farmers are not actually going to be able to handle that kind of regulation, they are not going to be able to engage in licensed activities, it will be simply beyond the means of the normal farmer to cope with the administration and cost of licensing. The only routes for farmers, therefore, will be through exemptions or through exporting wastes off their farms; the exporting of wastes is likely to incur charges, if they go through commercial routes. Farmers in the recent past have suffered a considerable accumulating burden of environmental regulation; most recently, we have had ground-water regulations and we are in the middle of integrated pollution prevention and control. We did have a great deal of difficulty with ground-water regulations, affecting 10,000 to 20,000 farmers, and in the spring the Government waived the charges for four years on that; and they are simple regulations, by comparison with most waste management licensing, they were probably cheaper in terms of the charges the Agency will levy, and the benefits were perhaps more obvious. So I think the difficulty we will face is that we have got a heavyweight regime, imposed probably on every single farm in the country, where the benefits which will arise from these regulations will not be particularly obvious to the individuals who are having to comply. And what I think would be ideal would be if it was possible to present the regulations in a framework where there were routes available to the farmer to dispose of these wastes in ways which improve on the current situation, to raise these wastes further up the waste hierarchy, so instead of disposal we are recovering energy, or recycling, or re-using. And it is beyond the means of the industry to develop these, or to promote the schemes, although we have tried in the past with the recycling of plastic films; but there is a need here to present these regulations in a much more positive context than it appears may be likely.

  271. How much do you think this is going to cost the industry?
  (Mr Paske) I do not know if we have any statistics on that.
  (Mr Payne) There are some draft figures being bandied around plus—

  272. So this bale of hay is just another burden, is it not?
  (Mr Paske) It is certainly going to be another additional cost; this is the thing that we are concerned about. And, of course, as Michael has already told you, if it is not clear to the farmers what the environmental benefits are and they are just going to be looking at the cost thing, it is going to be a very, very difficult thing to get them to comply, they will comply with.

  273. But you said that the Environment Agency had had to waive ground-water charges?
  (Mr Paske) That is right, yes; well, the Government have done that.

  274. The Government chose to do that?
  (Mr Paske) Yes, at the Downing Street Summit.

  275. Can you give us some idea of what scale that would be of cost to an average farmer?
  (Mr Payne) Those charges were of the order of £100 a year for maintaining a ground-water authorisation, and I think we would anticipate that waste management licensing for the mythical average farmer would probably cost a bit more than that, perhaps several hundred pounds a year, but it depends very much on the type of farm and how much waste they have and what facilities are available.

  276. But, the fact is, he has already got a stack of European regulations to understand, and he is now going to be presented with waste management regulations that he is simply never going to read?
  (Mr Paske) Absolutely; and can I just make the point, on your question, this is something which, again, came out in our evidence, that our environmental agency work on a cost recovery basis on their charges, our colleagues in the rest of Europe, they are not in the same situation. So, again, it is of great concern to us about the competitiveness of British farming being affected by those sorts of charges.

  277. But plastic sacks, and things like that, do have to be removed though, do they not, otherwise they get in drainage ditches and they do cause problems; so it is not that you can just leave them lying around the farm for ever, can you?
  (Mr Paske) No; but, again, if I can pick up on that, Chairman, this is quite a major problem, because, you see, at the present moment, most of that material will either have been burned or will have been buried on site. If we are in the situation when these regulations are applied that that material then has to go off farm, then you are in the situation where all that wrap has to be stored for quite some considerable time before it is actually removed from the farm; and that, in itself, makes for additional problems, not only from the point of view of the farmer having to keep things tidy, but, of course, also, the problems that you get with pests and other things.

  278. To what extent has fly-tipping got worse since the Landfill Tax came in and the management of waste has been turned up?
  (Mr Paske) So many thanks for bringing that up, Mr Benn, because this really does cause us a major problem; and, Diane, can you just fill in the details on that, please.
  (Dr Mitchell) In 1998, the Tidy Britain Group carried out a survey to assess the impact of the Landfill Tax on fly-tipping. The NFU also carried out a small survey, as part of that larger survey, amongst its members, I cannot remember the exact figures to hand, and I can pass those on to you perhaps in a written submission later, but most of the farming respondents thought that the fly-tipping had worsened as a result of the introduction of the Landfill Tax. And as the Landfill Tax increases, year on year, then the effects of fly-tipping impact may become greater on farms.

  279. Can you just clarify for us in what circumstances might the local authority be responsible for removing the fly-tipped waste, as opposed to the farmer?
  (Mr Paske) Again, can I pass that on to Diane.
  (Dr Mitchell) The local authority does actually have a duty to remove certainly abandoned cars from any land. In other cases, the local authority or the Environment Agency may have powers to remove fly-tipped wastes but they choose not to exercise those powers, leaving the landowner to deal with the fly-tipped wastes themselves, and it can be very costly for the landowner when he has to pay for the removal and the proper disposal of these wastes.