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Paddy Tipping: I am very grateful for that offer of assistance—in fact, I was about to ask for some help from the Minister himself. When he has the chance to look up from his desk, perhaps he will note the £32 million bid for a private finance initiative scheme in Nottinghamshire.
I commend the Select Committee's report, and I firmly draw the Minister's attention to the letter from Nottinghamshire county council.
4.41 pm
Ms Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North): It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping), who has a long record of service to this House on environmental issues. I should perhaps begin by following his example in referring to absent friends. I want to pay tribute to the work of the Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam). He was unable to join us today, so I am deputising for him.
It is important that we debate the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report and the Environmental Audit Committee report, because there is a huge amount of common ground between them. I should of course point out that the Environmental Audit Committee ranges across all Government Departments. In dealing with waste issues, it is important that we have the whole picture, and that we ensure that environmental issues are at the heart of each Department. It is therefore significant that the House is debating the two reports jointly.
Before discussing in detail the points that I wish to make—this is my first opportunity to do so—I want to put on the record my personal thanks, and the thanks of countless others who care about the environment, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), the former Minister for the Environment, who is a very good friend of mine. He showed commitment and dedication, demonstrated a
grasp of the complicated environment agenda, and enjoyed the trust of environmental groups throughout the country. His contribution was second to none, and I hope that he can in some way continue to play a constructive role in environmental policy. I wish him well. I am sure that we will never know the detail of the many battles that he fought on our behalf.I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) to his new role as Minister for the Environment. He, too, is a very good friend, a very old friend and a very green friend. I share the view, publicly expressed, of the former Minister for the Environment that if someone else has to do the job, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe is a good choice. I wish him well.
Mr. Sheerman: As the new Minister is such a good friend of my hon. Friend, perhaps she should check out his health, as we go in for very robust debates on these issues.
Ms Walley: I did begin by pointing out that there is a great deal of commonality in terms of the work of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee. Just because we are in a congratulatory mode, no one should believe that we will do anything other than carry on being the terrier that bites the Government's heels, keeping a close watch on everything that happens.
I do not expect for one moment that the new Minister for the Environment will have had the chance, during the few days that he has been in his post, to be 100 per cent. up to speed on the detail of the estimates. I hope, however, that in his reply today and in his day-to-day work—in the House, in his Department and across Departments—he will grasp the fine detail of his brief. I have to tell him that on this subject the devil is in the detail, and we desperately need him to be a green champion in the Government.
That brings me squarely to this afternoon's debate. Many of us have an overwhelming sense that time is running out: we are up against the clock in respect of the number of hon. Members who want to speak in the debate and in respect of getting the agenda right. We cannot afford to get it wrong. Today, the Select Committee report should make an important contribution to the case for proper funding across the Government for waste management. We may be aware that the Government are listening and making all the right noises about tackling the issue, but when we survey the scale of the problem and the need for urgent action—stressed by just about all the witnesses who gave evidence—we know that time is running out. We have to take the pace of change into account. The most important recommendations are that the Government take urgent action and that our green Minister ensure that all Departments take urgent action.
We assessed the progress made towards achieving sustainable waste management since the launch of the Government's waste strategy in 2000. We audited performance in recycling and recovery, and found that, based on current trends, the UK is not likely to reach the target set in the waste strategy, which is a matter of great concern.
That should be set against the background of why it is so important to deal with waste. In every hour of every day, enough waste is produced in the UK to fill the
Albert hall—and I do not know how many Chambers of the House of Commons could be fitted into that hall. Every year, England and Wales throw away 470 million tonnes of waste—a rate 22 per cent. higher than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. We face the startling fact that the UK's waste mountain, already large, is growing. The annual rise in the amount of municipal waste has been 3.4 per cent. since 1996–97. That provides us with a clear picture of why it is so important that the Government estimates are seen as reflecting the need to act urgently and boldly.We agree with the view stated in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping), that the Government are being too timid. We used the word "timid" in our report, too. The Government have certainly been too timid so far in their combined response to the waste mountain.
I can also tell the House that I am in 100 per cent. agreement with our Prime Minister on the need to be bold in our handling of the public service agenda. Just this week in his speech to the Fabian Society, setting out his reform agenda, the Prime Minister said that public services were just not moving rapidly enough with the times to meet rising expectations in a modern consumer society. In such a society there is so much throw-away and so little consideration of the longer term or the longer lasting. Nowhere more than in respect of waste management has the impact of the legacy of decades of underspending in the Tory years been greater.
Mr. Sheerman: Did my hon. Friend congratulate the Labour Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, on being bold in getting rid of the landfill tax credit scheme? That has meant the end of hundreds of little environmental groups, which did so much good work throughout the country, and led to the unemployment of many working in the environmental sector. Is that boldness at its best?
Ms Walley: My hon. Friend's interventions show how well he understands the waste agenda and the importance of not confusing boldness with the long-term changes that we want. When we act, we must remain consistent with our principles on the environment and remain aware of the importance of employment at a local level. We should ensure that the work carried out under previous arrangements is not just obliterated overnight. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister responds, he will be able to give a little more information about the new guidance that will apply, so that we do not lose all the best practice that has been built up over the years.
We need to be bold, in a way that is sustainable in the long term and environmentally correct. Waste minimisation must be a priority for action. The importance of waste minimisation was one of the key findings of our report. Following the Committee's recommendations, we also want to see the immediate introduction of measures to ensure the delivery of targets on recovery and recycling. We had some reference to those measures earlier in the debate.
However the Government decide to achieve those targets, we have to ensure that we involve and empower local government, as well as provide incentives for it. We
cannot succeed in our agenda without local government playing a key part. An early report mentioned the importance of incineration, but one of the recommendations in our report was a moratorium on incineration plans, at least in the short term, because of concerns about public health. The Treasury review is welcome, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will address it when he winds up.We must also accept that the future of waste management will involve many more smaller, specialist waste disposal facilities and that there will be greater pressure on the waste planning system and the land use planning system. It is important that the Government accept and facilitate that. Many of us who are involved with the detail of policy in our constituencies know only too well how waste disposal licences and planning do not always go hand in hand. We want the Government to get it right.
We shall want a full reply to our report in due course, over and above the Government's response to the waste strategy unit's report, "Waste Not, Want Not", which was published on 6 May. That response will be the real key to how the Government will be able to deliver the means to achieve our recycling targets, reduce volumes of waste, and encourage the starting of new businesses that can use new technologies and innovation to make a real difference. The report makes 34 recommendations for action as part of a waste implementation programme. Those are all well and good, as is the acceptance that more co-ordination within and between Departments and stakeholders is necessary. That makes particular sense to the Environmental Audit Committee, because it is our brief to scrutinise policy across all Departments and view the whole picture.
It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether he intends to focus all waste policy in one Department, which would make sense, but which the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs seemed to rule out when she appeared before our Committee in February. We would be interested in discussing that point with the Minister in the long term. We really need to know details of the Government's response to the strategy unit report, which until now has sidestepped calls for further Government funding. Will the Minister reject the report or will he call for a fundamental shift in strategic direction, including the recommendation for lower VAT rates on recycled products, and for statutory waste reduction targets for councils?
Having concentrated so far on the purpose and findings of our inquiry, I shall now address the issue of how the Committee's report fits into the wider picture. I wish to impress on the Minister why it is so important that we press the Government to use the opportunity of this vote on estimates to do the right thing for next year's funding.
We cannot afford to get this matter wrong, because no elected representative—whether elected to this House, the Welsh Assembly or some local government body—has to deal with bigger issues than fly tipping, rubbish and litter. Constituents care about those problems more than any other. They can see that something needs to be done, and there is a real danger that they will lose trust in public representatives if action is not taken.
We must meet our environmental obligations and responsibilities, and no issues provoke a bigger response, as our mailbags show. We must do something about antisocial behaviour and illegal operations that pollute and foul our countryside and urban spaces. Those actions turn our environment into an eyesore and undermine our quality of life, so it is really important that all Government Departments are involved.
The Committee's report highlights the valid concerns of local councils, such as mine in Stoke-on-Trent. Although the environmental protection and cultural services block in the standard spending assessment has been increased slightly above the rate of inflation, it is by no means enough to enable councils to allocate the amounts that they would like to allocate to deal with this most pressing of problems, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) noted earlier. The increase is above the rate of inflation, but is still not enough, especially given the problem of fridges that has been described already.
The Committee therefore concluded that inadequate funding and a lack of clear Government guidance have made it harder rather than easier for local authorities to reach the targets that they have been set. The measures taken to date do not reflect the urgency of the need for improvement. I recognise that the most recent statistics from the municipal waste management survey showed that the proportion of household waste recycled in England, including composting, rose from 11.2 to 12.4 per cent. between 2000–01 and 2001–02. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will refer to that when he replies to the debate, but the figures are not sufficient cause for celebration, as the overall amount being sent to landfill is still increasing.
There is also the matter of garden waste, on which I sometimes wonder whether the Government's policy is not somewhat perverse. When we talk about recycling, we must make sure that we are talking about additional recycling. We must not talk about what is already happening just because that puts the figures in a more attractive light.
In evidence to the Committee, the Environment Agency said that it had made two proposals to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for additional funding—for a fly tipping abatement taskforce, and for a national waste data centre for England and Wales. The National Audit Office has endorsed the proposals already, so I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to tell me, when he replies to the debate, that both applications will be funded in full. If so, it will be possible to make the necessary changes.
I know a little of the difficulties being experienced by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) in securing support from the Treasury, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and DEFRA for her current private Member's Bill. I therefore want to inform our new Minister that we expect him to overcome any resistance that there might be in the Treasury in respect of funding in full the two Environment Agency applications that I have described. Will he assure the House that, when the estimates are agreed, there will be a clear commitment to funding both the fly tipping taskforce and the data centre? Is the
Treasury on board when it comes to those projects? If not, I hope that he will convey to the Treasury that the Environmental Audit Committee will keep on and on about the matter until we get some progress.Full funding for both projects makes sound economic sense. They go hand in hand with the precautionary principle, which we have been assured underpins the Government's environmental policies these days. I hope that the Treasury will understand that, for the very good reasons that we have heard already.
The Treasury must understand that landfill costs will increase, and that the landfill directive will impact on the banning of certain waste streams to landfill as the ban on co-disposal of hazardous waste comes into play. The producer responsibility regulations will also have a huge impact. We have heard already about how we need to deal with European directives and ensure that they are co-ordinated properly with everything else that the House does.
The Treasury must understand, too, that the European waste catalogue changes the definitions of waste and materials, and that reclassification will have an impact on waste as well. All those pressures will mean more waste, less cheap landfill, higher disposal costs, more illegal activity and organised criminal dumping. If I had time, I could give examples of dumping all round the country for which the clean-up costs far exceed the small amount needed to fund those Environment Agency initiatives.
There are pressures on responsible operators, and we need to make sure that they can flourish. We need to get rid of cowboy operators and others who seek to exploit the situation. We can no longer afford not to fund in full what we need now. The longer we leave it, the more costly it will be in the long term, and we run the risk of further undermining public trust and confidence in our services and our ability to clean up our towns and cities.
I hope that the Minister and the Government appreciate the urgency required. We cannot wait for real action until the next spending round, the effects of which will not show until 2005. Before the House is a catalogue of detailed work by two Select Committees. We want a commitment from the Government to show that they take seriously the work of Back-Bench MPs charged with scrutinising their work.
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