Mistaken, perhaps. I am not sure that she was misled.

In response to the hon. Member for Guildford, I agree about the importance of dealing with batteries. She will know of the leadership that we have offered in Europe in trying to deal with some of these issues. I am a little surprised that she did not refer to the fact that political agreement on a new batteries directive was   reached at the December 2004 meeting of the Environment Council. The directive will make producers responsible for the collecting and recycling of all sorts of batteries. As there are different sorts of batteries, so cases are different, and generalising across the board might be a mistake.

The directive is expected to be adopted in 2006. The problem is that it may undergo tax changes before then—that is a familiar experience—so we cannot be sure at this stage of the requirements that it will impose. It follows that any UK legislation on battery collection and recycling, including the requirements of the proposed new Clause, passed prior to the directive being adopted might then have to be amended soon after it is passed to ensure transposition and consistency with the directive. That problem is compounded by the fact that we do not yet know whether the directive will be transposed by secondary legislation, or whether it will require primary legislation.

Furthermore, the directive will have a much wider scope than that covered by the proposed new clause. As such, introducing new legislation on batteries ahead of transposing the new directive would cause confusion, uncertainty and unnecessary additional burdens to industry.