| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, having arrived breathless at the last minute, without having realised that this important matter was on the Order Paper, I have been persuaded by my noble friends sitting in array on the Front Bench to say something on it. I am delighted to be able to do so, but I must confess that I have not had the opportunity to undertake the research that clearly the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has done.
Does the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, agree that there is no room for complacency in our discussion of the issue? This country does not have good recycling targets. There are honourable exceptions, but, on average, we are pretty poor at reducing waste. The explanatory note on the order refers to stimulating the recycling market. Can the noble Baroness comment on stimulating the market for products made from recycled materials? I
am aware of London Remade, which does good work but in an inevitably limited fashion. The memorandum also refers to the producer calculating its recovery and recycling obligations; but is the point not to reduce waste before one reaches the stage of reusing and recycling? I hope that, in working towards the targets set in this order and, no doubt, others, we remember not to lose sight of that important point.I have difficulty in understanding the extent to which the order applies to packaging waste discarded by households. Obviously, in this context the term "domestic" refers to the UK rather than households. However, I will not be the only householder sitting in this Chamber who finds the amount of packaging that one inevitably acquires, very often as a result of buying the simplest item, quite offensive. Although one tries, one cannot always leave the shops with a brown paper bag of apples. They are packed on a polystyrene tray, possibly covered with rigid plastic or sealing plastic, for instance.
Noble Lords who have been to the Republic of Ireland recently will have been hugely impressed by the change of culture, almost overnight, as a result of the tax on plastic bags. That means not only that plastic bags no longer hang from hedgerows throughout the country, waving at you, but more importantly, a material is not being used, discarded and then disposed of in landfill sites. Many of us would like to be forced to think about taking a bag with us when we go shopping.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, arrived in time to take part in this short debate. Perhaps the Government, in full consultation with and operation alongside the industry, have got it right. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, implied that we were going too quickly, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that we were going too slowly. As it seems to be a night for declaring age, musical interests and infirmities, I find—and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will find when he reaches my great age—that not only hankering after records of the 1950s but not even being able to open packets of biscuits becomes a problem.
I agree with reusing materials and reducing waste production. We are not gold-plating the directive; we have set business targets in the UK regulations to achieve the directive targets that we must meet in 2008. There may have been a little confusion. The 20th November business targets are different from the directive targets.
The intention of the directive and the regulations in driving recycling is also to promote greater use of recycled materials. The use of these materials by producers will result in lower costs of compliance for the industry—to answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith.
I note the comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about plastic bags. Some supermarkets now discourage the use of bags by offering reusable bags at a reasonable price. I have dealt with the issue of over-packaging. In these strategies, we have set national standards for the recycling and composting of all household waste. Those have been underpinned by challenging statutory performance standards for local authority recycling. More than half the 10 million tonnes or so of packaging waste arises in the household stream, as the noble Baroness recognises. We believe that this work in the industry plays an important role alongside that issue.
I am sorry about the problem referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, about the statutory instrument. The draft statutory instrument was laid on the 19th November and 100 copies were sent to each House. It had to be withdrawn because of a clerical error—I know that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, will remember the problem that we had when cattle and beef got mixed up in an order. In this case, it was necessary to change the word "or" to "and". However, printed copies of the replacement were available on Friday 5th December. Another statutory instrument was actually re-laid the same day that it was withdrawn.
We are aware that reprocessors are falling just below the fee threshold and could be affected, but there are only very few in this category. Recent data supplied by the Environment Agency suggest that there only seven reprocessers issuing between 400 and 500 PRNs.
We have not yet published the responses to the consultation. Our summary of the responses will be placed on the Defra website shortly. In the mean time, we have indicated in the regulatory impact assessments, especially the RIA on other changes, what percentage of responses were in favour of a particular proposal and the types of comments received.
The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, questioned the timing and procedure related to setting out targets. Targets were agreed in the common position reached by member states in September 2002. That was endorsed at second reading in the European Parliament. The targets are now legally agreed. Some other issues have been holding up agreement on the directive, but I am pleased to inform noble Lords that agreement has been formally reached in the past few days. The targets agreed to in the common position are available on the Commission's website. I also stress that we need to plan ahead, because we have to meet a target by 2008.
We expect the new regulations to come into force on 1st January and updated compliance plans will be due on 31st January 2004. Most schemes already know what their membership is likely to be next year. They will be updating an existing three-year plan, not developing a new one.
The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, also raised the issue of the 61 per cent recovery target being changed to a target of 63 per cent for 2004. Since publication of the consultation paper, the data that we used to calculate the targets have changed. Third quarter reprocessor data suggest that the UK is recovering more packaging waste this year than had been expected, although, to quote the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, we are not complacent. That changes
the starting point for the new targets. We have been informed by the industry that the amount of glass, wood and packaging waste in the waste stream is higher than previously thought. That means that a higher target is needed to achieve the required results.I thank noble Lords for taking part in this short debate.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
- House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before ten o'clock.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |