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Standing Committee B
Tuesday 29 April 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. David Amess in the Chair]
Clause 26
Penalties under Chapter 1: general
Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 96, in
2.30 pm
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are taking new clause 45—Directions to waste disposal authorities—
'(1) A waste collection authority in England which is not also a waste disposal authority may direct that the waste disposal authority to whom it delivers its waste shall not dispose of that waste by incineration.
(2) Any waste disposal authority which receives such a direction shall take such steps as are necessary to ensure it is complied with within 12 months of the issuing of the direction.
(3) A waste collection authority issuing a direction under subsection (1) above shall pay to a waste disposal authority such amounts as are needed to ensure that the disposal authority is not financially worse off as a result of having to comply with the direction.'.
Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings): It is a great delight, Mr. Amess, to see you in the Chair after your Easter sojourn when we were, happily, able to spend a little time together.
We have been discussing the vital relationship between waste collection authorities and waste disposal authorities, and the need for them to work collaboratively to meet the targets set in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) spoke with his customary eloquence and not a little charm—hon. Members can tell that I have had a good lunch—about the importance of that relationship and the real danger if it breaks down. There may be good collection authorities in areas where disposal authorities are less than up to the mark, and vice versa. Consequently, unless both commit to meeting the targets in a co-operative way, either could fall down through no fault of its own.
The situation is complicated by the fact that within a disposal authority's purview there will be collection authorities with a variety of profiles. My hon. Friend spoke about a typical county council. I accept that not all authorities are two tier; there is a multiplicity of arrangements. However, let us consider a two-tier authority in which a county is working with a variety of districts that are responsibly and sensibly collecting
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waste to meet the Bill's requirements, but in which the disposal authority is not up to speed. There will be a major disincentive for collection authorities and their householders to change their culture to adopt new, healthy practices if they know that the disposal authority will end up burning everything. That could be a problem for collection authorities that do their jobs well and aim to do them even better.
The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) drew attention to innovative and imaginative work that is taking place in some of the best collection authorities. He implied that they would be disincentivised and demoralised if they felt that their work was not matched by the disposal authorities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle said, it works both ways.
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle): I want to expand on the point about disincentives to collecting authorities as a result of incineration by disposal authorities. Cynical voters perennially make the point to collection authorities that it is no good collecting things to recycle if there is no market for them. The market will not develop if recyclables are not properly sorted or are incinerated. Until we get critical mass in the market, we will not see people recycling in the numbers that we would like.
Mr. Hayes: My hon. Friend knows that I am not the greatest enthusiast for market economics, but I am a former business man so I understand the importance of ensuring that there is an economic incentive. If people are to feel that their work is worth while, there has to be a policed approach between the collection and disposal authorities and all others involved in the partnership, which may include the private sector, householders and all those who care about or are involved in dealing with waste.
I was about to speak of the need for the relationship to work both ways, although that is not unrelated to what my hon. Friend said, because there may be recalcitrant collection authorities in a disposal authority area. If the disposal authority is obliged to bring itself up to the standards of the best, it would be awkward if it had to work with collection authorities that were not doing their bit. It is a two-way relationship, and all parties need to be responsible.
My hon. Friend rightly pointed out that duality is recognised in new clause 45 because of the financial link between the collection and disposal authorities, and the obligation for disposal authorities to deal with waste properly once the collection authority has taken the necessary steps to collect it, sort it and pass it on in an acceptable form. That is what underpins the amendment and new clause 45. They are helpful in cementing the relationship between the different elements in the strategy. They are essential to ensuring that everyone who commits to the strategy embodied in the Bill believes that they are being treated with fairness.
My worst-case scenario is of some collection or disposal authorities being committed to implementing the strategy properly while others are not, because the result will be that the activities of the best are diminished or diluted by the standards of the worst.
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The Minister will probably say that the targets that we set for all authorities will mitigate that to some extent, but in the initial stages, while people are finding their feet, it will be necessary to cement those relationships in order to emphasise their importance.
Norman Baker (Lewes): Clause 31 enables disposal authorities to deal with recalcitrant collection authorities; that power is already available. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the amendment would give collection authorities the power to deal with slipshod disposal authorities? That symmetry is currently missing from the Bill.
Mr. Hayes: Yes, and the hon. Gentleman, who has miraculously been transformed from a poodle into a terrier during our proceedings—
Norman Baker: Was I a poodle?
Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman may not be a thoroughbred terrier, but he is a terrier none the less. He made a good point this morning. I make no judgment about this, but it is worth restating that he believes that collection authorities are typically rather more advanced than disposal authorities. I accept that the picture is patchy, and that one should not be too simplistic about it, but it is at the collection end of the process that most advances have been made.
The best collection authorities are already doing things rather well. Unfortunately, they are not to be found everywhere, and they are certainly not the norm, but they do exist and they are leading the way. However, the hon. Gentleman implied, not unreasonably, that we may have dragged our feet a little more over disposal, and the Bill does not give collection authorities that are doing the job well adequate power or legislative influence over disposal authorities.
That is a good point; such a balance is a prerequisite for the partnership that I described. Both kinds of authority must feel that they have teeth; both are answerable for the stiff targets and both will have the Minister looming over them with his typical kindly vehemence. It is therefore only right that they should have at their disposal mechanisms to ensure that an authority that ought to be a partner does not undermine their work. That is the purpose of the amendment, which new clause 45 reinforces in a fuller form. The amendment adds to the Bill in a positive way, and I move it in that spirit.
The Chairman: Order. The amendment has been moved.
Mr. Hayes: On a point of order, Mr. Amess. I did not mean to move the amendment. It has already been moved, but I was so beguiled by the eloquence of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle that I was put off my stride.
The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Michael Meacher): I begin to think of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) as a golden retriever, although we had better get out of the habit of associating each other with categories of dog.
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We return, inevitably, to the issue of incineration, although it now appears in a rather different guise. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle persuasively expressed his concern about constituents whose collection authorities have some influence or control over the destination of collected materials. I understand that point, and the hon. Gentleman was strongly supported by the hon. Members for Lewes and for South Holland and The Deepings. I sympathise with the aim of the amendment, but the question is whether it is the right way to achieve the objective. I do not accept what was said a few moments ago about symmetry because I do not think that the relationship between collection and disposal authorities is symmetrical.
The amendment and new clause 45 seek to give collection authorities a power to direct. The key point is that a disposal authority should not use incineration to dispose of the waste that is delivered. We have dealt with that issue, and I shall not go over it again. We are all agreed that incineration is and should be a long way down the waste hierarchy. Our waste strategy, in which the landscape of waste management is set out, makes it explicit from the first that waste minimisation, reuse, recycling and composting are, in that order, the preferred options for dealing with waste.
We cannot, however, escape the fact that increases in waste minimisation and recycling alone cannot achieve the landfill directive target, no matter how much every member of the Committee, including me, may wish that they could. Giving collection authorities the power to rule out incineration without regard to the adequacy of alternatives is therefore stretching things. Whether we like it or not, some incineration will be necessary. Indeed, some forms of waste incineration can be the best practical and environmental option; for example, burning clinical waste. We have talked about soiled bandages, which are of course not appropriate for composting and need to be destroyed.
As I said, the relationship between collection and disposal authorities is not symmetrical. The Bill gives powers to a disposal authority to direct a collection authority on the form in which waste is delivered so that it can carry out its proper role in meeting the landfill directive. However, there is no reciprocity in that relationship. It would be wrong to give the collection authority as absolute a power as the amendment suggests. That could produce significant difficulties for the disposal authority in carrying out its duties.
However, I am sympathetic to the aim of the amendment. The question is whether giving a power to direct is the right way to proceed. If a collection authority is concerned about sending its waste for incineration, for reasons that I totally understand, the time for it to address the issue with the appropriate disposal authority is when the authorities develop their joint municipal waste management strategy. I appreciate that there is no guarantee that what both parties want will be achieved, and there might be political acrimony between them, but I believe that that occurs only in a minority of cases. We should rely
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on that co-operation in the first instance. The only question, then, is whether there should be a power to enforce an agreement in certain cases, and I do not think that it would be right.
2.45 pm
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