Clause 9 - Duty not to exceed allowances
Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
The amendments return to the issue of moneys, fines, penalties and hypothecation, which has already been mentioned, but it is important to consider where the money that is collected might end up. Anxiety has been expressed that because of the process by which it is collected, money from fines might not find its way back into the system in a form that would help to ease the financial burden that I mentioned earlier. We can debate the scale and size of the burden, but whatever size it may be, it should be dealt with from the money collected in fines. That is the hypothecation issue, which is dealt with in amendment No. 50 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster, and in amendment No. 3, which will no doubt be discussed at length by the hon. Member for Lewes, who said that he decided on it when he was on a train journey. He will probably claim that it was entirely of his own making, although the Conservatives had already decided to support the principle of hypothecation before he invented it on his journey.
It is important for the Committee to debate hypothecation and refunding through local authorities. It is a right and appropriate way to allocate the moneys; we would bitterly resent those moneys being collected and taken away from local government altogether, as there is no guarantee that the money will find its way back to local government, let alone to a particular local authority. The money should find its way specifically back into the process that we are discussing in the Bill, which we support as a matter of principle.
The amendments refer to the level of a penalty not exceeding the amount that the local authority would have spent in order to meet the targets, as the Minister mentioned briefly in a previous debate. It is entirely appropriate that the penalty should be in keeping with the costs associated with the targets. If the penalty were out of tune and disproportionate it would send entirely the wrong message to local authorities and would undermine the sense that this is a fair and reasonable provision. The amendment concerns both that and hypothecation.
It may be worth saying at this stage that there is no disagreement about penalties per se. The Bill should be supported by the right sort of penalty and fine. Our debate on the previous group of amendments was not about a decision that the Opposition had taken in principle that fines or penalties were not a good idea; it was about the scale and nature of those penalties. I welcome the comment by my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster that that was a matter to which we might return. I do not want to cover old ground, but that should be put on the record. We are in favour of penalties, but they must be appropriate.
In addition, the amendments talk about the penalty being specific. It is not simply a matter of ensuring that the money is paid back, or of the level of the fine, but of the targeting of that penalty. We must target the penalty at the waste disposal authority that has committed a specific act and has acted in breach of the requirements of the Bill and the spirit and the principle that lies behind it. The penalty must be
targeted at that waste disposal authority in a particular and specific way.
That is the strength of the amendments. They are important not just in themselves but because once again—I make no apologies for repeating this—they send an important signal to local authorities. No local authority will mind taking on responsibilities that are properly funded, clear, precise and based on good principle and where the associated penalties are seen to be fair, reasonable, proportionate and targeted and there is a sense in which they have a good purpose. Paying back the local authority to help it support the function would be a good purpose.
Good purpose is a principle that will underlie the Bill, particularly its financial aspects, and should inform the collaborative, partnership approach that the Opposition have consistently advocated. In summary, that is precisely what the amendments do. I do not see them as particularly contentious. I anticipate that the Minister will grasp them with both hands as in my judgment they would considerably improve the Bill.