Clause 1 - Duties of the Secretary of State
Municipal Waste Recycling Bill
4:36 pm
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
I concur with the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire. I very much hope that the Minister will consider, before the 2010 deadline, giving statutory force to a requirement for there to be more than two types of recyclable material. Bracknell Forest borough council, for example, found that the number of cans collected increased by 53 per cent. when it started to collect
plastic bottles as well. There is firm evidence to show that, if the variety is increased, the volume increases. However, we will have time aplenty to return to the Bill. The important thing is to get it on to the statute book.
I listened carefully to what the Minister said about resources. Local authorities, especially those in the south-east, will be particularly anxious to know that resources will be spread equally and fairly. I am sure that the Minister will be held to his comment that no new duties will be imposed on local authorities without proper funding.
Although it is not the Bill that we had hoped for, I am pleased to be able to support it. I am grateful to the Minister for dragging a less than enthusiastic Secretary of State and Treasury colleagues into supporting the Bill, which has been so ably championed by the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford. I am pleased, on behalf of the official Opposition, to support it.