Clause 1 - Target years
Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]
11:15 am
Mr Michael Meacher (Minister of State (the Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Oldham West and Royton, Labour)
That is implicit in the answer that I have already given. There are three points. I have referred to 2006. We shall have to fall back on 2010, yet even that will be quite tough because it will mean changing the dynamics and effecting a significant downturn in a process in which movement goes ever upwards at an uncomfortably fast pace. That will require a huge change of behaviour, the magnitude and force of which local authorities and business still only partly understand, but there is no question but that we shall probably have to use that full derogation in the first period. We might have begun to achieve that reduction and significantly changed behaviour by 2009. I should not like to make a commitment now and would prefer to leave the question open.
I hope that when we come to the third and final stage there will have been a sufficient change in the dynamic of the process in the other direction and that waste will be decoupled from economic growth, so that we might achieve our aims by 2016. I do not want to exclude that possibility. It would be foolish to make any commitment now. All I can do is lean powerfully on the levers to effect the change and see if it is possible not to use the derogation, but I cannot make a prediction or give a promise.