New Clause 5 — Environmental impact assessment of incineration

Part of Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords] – in the House of Commons at 4:00 pm on 28 October 2003.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of David Drew David Drew Labour/Co-operative, Stroud 4:00, 28 October 2003

My hon. Friend Dr. Whitehead did some interesting evaluations of local authorities in regard to this issue, and it is fair to say that they are in something of a mess. A meeting will take place this week in Gloucestershire with the county council, the waste disposal authority, at which its waste proposals will be discussed. Its waste plan did not get a very good response. In fact, it was so badly written that the inspector ended up coming in like a deus ex machina and talking about putting back the proposal of a regionally centred incinerator, which has caused an outcry. The one thing that the whole panoply of parties in Gloucestershire can agree on is that incineration is not the right way to go.

In our long discussions in Committee we agreed that incineration would not be on the face of the Bill. That does not mean that we removed incineration, but it is a piece of realpolitik that no one on the Committee saw us going in that direction in the immediate future, so I do not quite understand why hon. Members are now trying to put it back into the Bill.