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Mr. Tim Smith (Beaconsfield): I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General on the way in which he has handled the landfill tax. I fully support the principle of a landfill tax, but it is important that, at the margin, we should get its scope right.
Concern was expressed in Committee on behalf of several industries that felt that they would be placed at a competitive disadvantage or had other genuine reasons for exemption, and my right hon. Friend tabled the new clauses, especially new clause 8. It is always difficult to decide whether it is right to give the Government more order-making powers, but in this case it is sensible, because we may want to vary the scope of the tax, and contaminated land probably will not be the last example of where that would be necessary.
The CBI minerals committee welcomed new clause 6, on mining and quarrying, but asked for some reassurance on two matters. The first is straightforward. It seeks confirmation that the exemption provided by new clause 6 embraces the naturally occurring materials that result from the processing of a mineral as part of the normal mining or quarrying operation. I thought that that was clear. Secondly, it seeks reassurance that new clause 6 covers processes which are an essential part of the operation, but which take place at a different location. It would be helpful if my right hon. Friend could deal with those two points in his reply.
The hon. Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo) mentioned salt. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) has tabled amendment No. 70. As she is not here, I should mention it because I am not sure that the new clauses cover it. It would be helpful if my right hon. Friend could respond on that. The underground cavities in the Cheshire plain where the material is disposed of after processing are in my hon. Friend's constituency--which explains why she has tabled the amendment--and it would be helpful if my right hon. Friend could address that issue. I believe that his handling of the matter has been exemplary.
Mrs. Helen Jackson (Sheffield, Hillsborough):
I am pleased that, following our discussions in Committee, several new clauses have been introduced on Report. Although the Opposition's preferred option was to spend more time considering the various issues raised by different industries and local authorities, I accept that the new clauses go a long way towards addressing some of their queries.
I should like to ask the Paymaster General to respond to a few points that I have raised with him in the interim. The first involves the continuing discussion about the problems that certain industries will have defining and accepting the various classifications of waste. The Secondary Metals Association--which is the trade association for the scrap metal industry and is obviously important to steel producers in South Yorkshire--remains concerned about how to address the classification issue. How will scrap metal merchants know whether the materials they receive qualify for the £2 levy or the £7 levy?
The second point was raised by the Environmental Services Association, and I do not think that the Paymaster General has responded to it. How will waste be weighed at landfill sites so that landfill tax may be levied accurately to ensure that all operators are competing on a level playing field. In its briefing--with which we all agree--the Environmental Services Association says:
It does not aim to subsidise some businesses, which might be able to get around the landfill tax, at the expense of others. The association is concerned--as am I--that, if waste is not weighed on weighbridges in every case, there could be discrepancies and unfairness.
Many of the arguments about mining and quarrying were reasonable and well founded. I listened carefully to
what the Minister said: that waste in mining and quarrying operations would not be exempt--if I understood him correctly--if the operation was separate from the mining operation or if the composition of the waste was altered. I should like some assurances that opencast operators will not have significant gains out of new clause 6. There are huge areas in Yorkshire and the north-east that would be particularly concerned if it was seen as a ghetto for opencast operators.
My fourth point relates to new clause 8--an open-ended clause that could mean everything, nothing, half, quarter, three quarters and could be said to accommodate most of the concerns that were raised in Committee. It leaves loopholes. We want further clarification about when the loopholes will be closed if new clause 8 is seen to offer too much flexibility to Ministers, to operators or to waste disposal people.
The Minister will be aware that I raised a number of concerns of the British Iron and Steel Producers Association in Committee because it wanted dispensation to clear and develop its contaminated land for clean uses such as housing. We were supportive of the association's representations. I am happy because its representations have been addressed by new clause 8, but it seems to me that the dispensation could go much wider and that, perhaps, we do not want it to go too much wider.
It is extremely important--as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo) said--that the widening of the exemption to include all contaminated land is not jumped on by waste operators as a way of avoiding the pressures that the landfill tax is supposed to put on them to look for ways of recycling waste, cleaning up waste or using waste for new productive purposes through the environmental technologies that have been mentioned by the Environmental Industries Commission.
I urge the Minister to take seriously the commission's recommendations that, in every case, Ministers and Members of Parliament ought to be assured that the best environmental option that achieves a sustainable waste management strategy is being pursued and that we do not simply respond to pressure from this or that waste disposal operator who is using the term "contaminated land" to avoid landfill tax payments.
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield):
I welcome the landfill tax and regard this as an exciting new era in terms of how we deal with much of the waste that we produce. I intend to refer not to animal cemeteries--unfortunate as that may be--but to mining and quarrying and the exemptions that have been suggested under new clauses 5 and 6. The exemptions are important--we all know that mining and quarrying produce more waste than any other source.
We have a highly reputable, efficient and competitive waste disposal industry that does a good job on well-administered sites, but there is the other world of cowboy operators--sometimes the small operators--that regulations do not seem to reach. My only concern is that there are certain elements in the exemptions that seem to cater to the fly-by-night cowboy operators. One worries that there will be tax evasion and more inefficient and rather dodgy sites. We do not want a proliferation of fly tipping across the countryside. It is already a real problem and some attention has to be directed to it.
I welcome the fact that there is an exemption. All hon. Members have been lobbied by an efficient and welcome lobby--not all lobbies are welcome. A number of waterway and canal societies, including the Huddersfield narrow canal society, have lobbied me. I am glad that the Government have been able to respond with an exemption.
Some would say that we do not want exemptions for one part of an industry when similar exemptions are not available for another part of it. I refer to the chemical industry and the production of salt. There is concern about competitiveness. That sector of the industry believes that it is being hard done by and that further consideration should be given to its special case. I do not know the pros and cons of the case, only what my postbag looks like and the arguments that have passed across my desk. The issue needs further attention.
The Government need flexibility to deal with poisoned land. The issue must be dealt with sensitively. Technology is changing quickly in this area--indeed, the tax is producing new technologies. The energy from waste movement is producing new technologies. We already know that operators in the waste world are looking at totally different technologies because they know that the landfill tax is coming in on 1 October. That is all very good, but we must have a system that is sensitive enough to react quickly if my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo) is right and we experience evasion of the tax and movement towards a less good disposal of polluted land.
Sir James Molyneaux:
I join those who have welcomed the exemptions, because they are a move in the right direction. We pay tribute to the Treasury Ministers and all who served on the Committee for starting to move in the right direction. The exemptions will be of great benefit to small local authorities and we have--with only one exception--small local authorities in Northern Ireland.
We also welcome the flexibility conferred by new clause 8 and the powers to vary by order. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) and others asked whether there would be a general welcome for the powers for central Government to take certain action by order. In Northern Ireland, we can hardly object to the phrase "made by order", because the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has no other option. He must govern Northern Ireland "by order" in nearly all respects, so we do not quibble with that one.
I want to ask the Paymaster General for an assurance that the commissioners will consult district councils meaningfully, because they have two interests in this area. First, they are bound to be affected directly because they will run some of the sites. Secondly, councils are regarded--I think that this is the case throughout the United Kingdom--as the link, even the go-between, between central Government and the average citizen. For that reason, it would be useful if district councils, as the recognised authorities, had effective lines of communication and consultation with the commissioners.
"the aim of the tax is to encourage the movement of waste up the hierarchy by increasing landfill charges".
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