New clause 32 - Moratorium on new municipal incinerators
Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Mr David Drew (Stroud, Labour/Co-operative)
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Griffiths. I shall be brief, because my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) summed up neatly most of what I wanted to say.
I should like to add a couple of points about the moratorium on incineration, which is favoured by both Opposition parties. I do not understand the logic of the moratorium. I believe strongly that the move towards incineration is wrong; it arises for two reasons that are outside our control. First, it is the line that most of our fellow EU states have chosen. Being a tinge Eurosceptic, I am uncertain as to whether the desire to prioritise incineration over landfill exists because the majority of states have chosen to go along that route. If they had gone along the landfill route, we would have a different perspective on the most unacceptable way of getting rid of waste. I am sceptical when landfill is portrayed as the worst of all evils—it is an evil, but it is put over as the worst because that is helpful to other EU states, which find that position beneficial in the short run.
If my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) were here, he would be able to comment on the investigation of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, during which Committee members went to Denmark where, pleasingly, they have a differential tax system. They tax landfill most heavily, but they also tax incineration, which is something that we could learn from.