Clause 12 - Powers in relation to waste disposal authorities
Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]
3:30 pm
Ms Sue Doughty (Guildford, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 14, in
clause 12, page 9, line 19, at end insert
'equivalent to that specified in section 9'.
I welcome you back to the Committee, Mr. Amess. This morning, we had an interesting and lively debate about how, and at what level, the penalties associated with clause 9 would be set to ensure that a disposal authority was not tempted to pay the fine, rather than investing in appropriate technologies to meet its obligations. Clause 12 relates to the other side of that activity. What are the records? How do we know what people are doing? How can we audit the information that they have?
Another query is about the penalty if people fail to keep accurate records. We are concerned about that. On the face of it, one might think that keeping records might be like filling in a VAT return: if someone does not fill in their return properly, they might receive a small fine the first time and a bigger fine the next time. However, I suspect that that is not the case in this respect. I am interested to hear what penalties the Minister has in mind.
Of course, one way in which people can avoid the discovery of things that they have failed to do is by failing to keep accurate records. Records should be auditable. It should be possible to prove that someone has been working correctly within the scheme and that the records that they produce are accurate. It should be possible to measure their performance using open and transparent information, to ascertain whether they have exceeded the allowances.
One might find, however, that operators have a little deal going on the side and that things are not audited correctly. Someone may attempt to cover something up in association with a landfill operator or someone else. Clearly, a local authority that failed to keep records might be unable to identify where it was failing in its duty, and what it was doing on landfill.
We are particularly concerned about any cooking of the books, as opposed to people just being uncertain about what box to fill in, which should be perfectly easy to do. Where people are prepared to commit fraud to cover up the fact that they have failed to meet their obligations, the penalty should reflect the penalties that would apply under clause 9. It should be a hefty penalty. If someone covers up the fact that a disposal authority has failed, the penalty should reflect that.