Clause 1 - Duties of the Secretary of State
Municipal Waste Recycling Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Michael Meacher (Minister of State (the Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Oldham West and Royton, Labour)
I take that point. The hon. Gentleman is right that it is not acceptable that one of the recyclates should be composting. We want to encourage home composting because it is a good way for households to deal with a lot of household waste, but it would be wrong to export that compost out of the home and then count it as one of the two recyclates. I accept that we must issue guidance that makes it clear that that is not acceptable.
Having detailed my reservations, I want to be more positive. We recognise the benefits of doorstep collection as a source of recyclate, and I should go further to say that it is already happening and must happen more if local authorities are going to meet their targets. The Bill is pushing at an open door. It is important to get householders to participate because, as I have often said, we have a huge waste problem because of the throwaway culture in society in both industry and households. Getting people to change and to realise that obsolescence is not built into our lives is important, and the Bill is a good lever in effecting that change of culture, getting householders to participate even when they are not mobile and engaging the local community in sustainable waste management.
As I said, we recognise that doorstep collection is increasing. It may surprise some hon. Members to know that 58 per cent. of homes already have some
sort of doorstep collection and, off the top of my head, I think that that figure increased last year by about 7 per cent. It is increasing quickly and will need to continue to do so for the local authorities to meet the statutory targets. I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford that it is unacceptable to leave the provision for only one recyclate, because that would allow councils merely to recycle paper, the rates for which are already above 90 per cent. and almost up to 100 per cent., and leave aside other waste streams. I want to emphasise not just two but at least two types of recyclate.
We think that the right answer is balance between my hon. Friend's new clause, which for reasons I have explained we think goes too far, and the current position of no prescription of collections, which hon. Members do not believe will give enough opportunity for householders to participate in recycling.
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle asked about resources, which I was rather surprised to hear. I have repeatedly stated that the Government have a good record. First, in the current five-year period, which is covered by two spending reviews of which the third year of the first is the first year of the second, we have increased the environmental protection and cultural services element of the revenue support grant by £1.8 billion. That is a very large increase in a five-year period. It is not all for waste management, but I expect that a substantial portion will be spent on that.
Secondly, we have provided the £140 million ring-fenced challenge fund to promote recycling, which we believe is increasing local authority recycling rates by about 4 per cent. across the country. Thirdly, we have just increased the private finance initiative moneys by 60 per cent. to £355 million for infrastructure projects. By any standards, those are sizeable sums of money, and I do not think that we can be accused of not providing adequate resources.
Given the consensus in the Committee, I do not want to play party politics, but the hon. Gentleman is skating on thin ice on this topic. Hon. Members will remember that the last Conservative Government added many new burdens for local authorities, but told them to pay for them out of efficiency savings. We are not doing that, as we are providing extra money for the new responsibilities. That is the right way to do it.
Mr. Sayeed rose—