Clause 1 - Duties of the Secretary of State
Municipal Waste Recycling Bill
2:00 pm
Ms Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford, Labour)
I welcome you to the Chair, Miss Begg, as I am delighted to serve under your direction for the first time.
It may help the Committee if I explain a little of the background to the new clauses. The Bill began as a draft doorstep recycling Bill, promoted by Friends of the Earth, to introduce legislation that would dramatically increase the Government's national percentage recycling target. Clause 1 would increase that target to 10 per cent. by 2010. The only way that such a high target could be reached was to place a duty on local authorities to adopt a waste strategy that enabled all householders to dispose of waste sustainably, with special reference to the provision of services at or near the home—that is, doorstep recycling—and clause 2 covers that.
Despite my best endeavours to persuade my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment that he was being presented with a Bill to his liking, I received little thanks. He helpfully introduced waste strategies and the power of direction for waste disposal authorities in the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill, but left me with a Bill that needed radical amendment.
I begin, therefore, with a proposal to remove clauses 1, 2, 3 and 4—I wonder whether that is a record. There is great merit in the proposals because they will simplify the Bill and makes its purpose even more explicit. New clause 1, which I tabled with the support of hon. Friends and other Committee members, to whom I am most grateful, seeks to amend the Environmental Protection Act 1990. That Act already imposes a duty to collect household waste, and the new clause provides for the collection of four separated waste streams—or three and composting—for the purposes of recycling. The types of waste are defined.
Since publishing the new clause and the amendments, I have had the opportunity to explore their implications in full with my right hon. Friend and his advisers and it may help the Committee if I say that I am minded to withdraw new clause 1 in favour of Government new clauses 2 and 3. However, I shall seek certain assurances and explanations from the Minister. His new clauses do not offer the Rolls-Royce service established in new clause 1, but they would undoubtedly boost household recycling and go some way further to meeting the aspirations of the many thousands of our constituents who have been campaigning on the issue.
My concerns are as follows. First, why is new clause 2(2)(a) necessary? The Environmental Protection Act 1990 includes a provision for exempting local authorities from collections from properties when the cost is unreasonably high. What guarantees can the Minister give that that will not offer local authorities an easy opt-out?
Secondly, under new clause 2(2)(b), how will ''comparable alternative arrangements'' be defined?
Will there be a collection system delivering a similar percentage yield to what would be expected from a doorstep scheme and will a similar quality of materials be recovered? Some forms of recycling would be completely unacceptable as alternatives. The dirty MRF—materials recovering facility—which accepts mixed recyclables and residual waste together is not the way forward, and I hope that the Minister can satisfy me that such a process would not count as a comparable arrangement. He might also like to comment on home composting, which is not easy. Simply giving away a load of bins without follow-up would also not amount to a comparable alternative arrangement.
There are other issues on which I may seek further clarification, but I seek the greatest assurance on the opt-out provisions and look forward to hearing what my right hon. Friend has to say.