| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Meacher: I am glad to do so. The Minister would not wish to impute to me something that I certainly did not say.
Mr. Jones: We always welcome conversions on the road to Damascus.
For all those reasons, we believe that the costs of the UK approach will be substantially below those of any of our major competitors. We estimate that by 2001, if collective business schemes are successful, annual costs will be at the low end of the range set out in the cost compliance assessment--that is, around £270 million. Furthermore, we believe that those costs should be viewed essentially as transitional costs, necessary to provide improved recycling infrastructure which, as it becomes available, will be readily deployed by industry. Rising landfill costs and greater use of secondary raw materials, with their long-term advantages to the UK economy, mean that, in the long run, costs will fall. A sustainable approach to packaging waste is, in competitiveness terms, a real plus.
Even putting to one side the UK's policy in that respect, I remind hon. Members that doing nothing is not an option. This is an issue of grave concern to UK packaging manufacturers and exporters seeking to trade with member states that have adopted barriers to trade under the guise of environmental protection. It was for that reason that many in the industry pressed us to negotiate a directive that provided a clear single market framework for the free circulation of packaging, while ensuring that each member state met certain minimum recycling and recovery objectives.
We are now using the directive to safeguard UK interests. We and others have formally challenged the Danish can ban, which restricts the sale of beverages to refillable containers--for a local brewery based in Copenhagen, that requirement is easy to meet, but it is a substantial barrier to any UK exporter. We are urgently considering the latest German proposals on refillable containers, which raise similar issues. The notification procedure that the directive requires gives us a real opportunity to challenge such barriers to trade, and it is encouraging that several member states have already withdrawn or modified their proposals as a result of that procedure, or in anticipation of it. However, for the directive to work effectively, we must be confident that we in the UK can achieve the recycling and recovery targets that it sets.
The regulations now before the House are, as I said, based on a number of principles established in negotiation with industry, starting with the producer responsibility group and continuing with other bodies. There are few trade associations with a substantial interest in packaging that have not played a part in putting together that approach. Even more important, many business leaders have given up substantial management time to develop proposals that will make this a success.
Businesses as diverse as Procter and Gamble, Courtaulds, David S. Smith, Tesco, British Glass, British Polythene Industries, Marks and Spencer, Guinness, Coca-Cola and Carnaud Metal Box have given substantial management time and effort. The business leaders who are members of the advisory committee are continuing to help devise solutions to the difficult issues that we have encountered.
Inevitably with such a process, rapid progress was made early on in agreeing the broad approach, but there has been difficulty in the detail and in finding a solution to issues where sectoral interests differ. In that context, I pay special tribute to Sir Peter Parker who, as president of the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment, chaired a
critical meeting on 15 December 1995, which agreed a formula for the shared obligation and the principles on which the current regulations are based.
However, in a process that involves so many sectors of business, it would be wrong not to acknowledge that there are issues of importance to specific sectors, which remain outstanding concerns. As with any new system, there are fears of the future. Will there be adequate recycling capacity? Will some businesses have to pay much more than others to obtain waste for recycling? Will the ones that hold waste co-operate, or do we need a separate waste holder obligation?
Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire):
I entirely agree that it is an important process and that we are still in the early stages, dealing with global and strategic issues, but I have a direct constituency interest--250 jobs hanging, if I may put it that way, on coat-hangers and the production thereof. Can the Minister say yet whether, as in other European countries, fabricated plastic coat-hangers will be exempt from that process, at least at this stage?
Mr. Jones:
The regulations do not lay down that degree of detail. They are broad definitions, and it will be for industry, working with the Environment Agency, to ensure that what happens in practice reflects the spirit of the measures that we are placing before the House. I can give the hon. Gentleman what I regard as a commonsense view on that, but I would not necessarily regard it as a definitive view, because plastic coat-hangers can exist for any of several different purposes. They might be sold and therefore be ordinary products, or they might be given away free with dry cleaning or be included with the suit or shirt that one buys in a shop, in which case they are packaging, as cardboard stiffening, pins and so on would be.
As I said, it will be important to answer several questions. One of those is: will all the parties play an equitable part in accessing waste from the domestic waste stream? Another might be: do the activity percentages in the regulations fairly reflect what each part of the packaging chain actually does?
Many of those concerns can be answered only when there are better data and when the system has begun to function. I assure the House that we shall keep a careful watch on the way in which the regulations work in practice and will keep them under careful review, to ensure that nonsenses do not occur. The staged build-up to the directive targets should ensure that no one's burden is unreasonable in the early years. I know that there are some fears, but I hope to reassure hon. Members that some of them are unreasonable.
Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton):
I join the Minister in paying tribute to Sir Peter Parker for the work that he has done in bringing us to this stage.
Does the Minister envisage a conflict with the advisory council or within the industry? He mentioned shared responsibility, but he also mentioned the market. It is difficult to see how we can have shared responsibility in a market scenario. Is the Minister aware of any anomalies or problems in such a situation?
Mr. Jones:
I believe that, in the various parts of the chain, the shares have been sorted out very much along
It is important to reassure those who have expressed some of the more unreasonable fears. One of them relates to the relative size of the retailer obligation, and to whether retailers will be able to meet their obligations from their own waste. Let us consider a large household name retailer. The obligation laid down by the regulations for such a business is likely to be for between 100,000 and 200,000 tonnes--in other words, between 3 and 5 per cent. of the entire United Kingdom recycling and recovery obligation will have to be met by that one business. It will have access to waste in its own back yard, but that source is unlikely to supply much more than half its needs. It will have very little of some of the materials that it needs, such as glass, aluminium and steel. In short, the largest players in the retail and pack filler sectors have large obligations, and will have no alternative but to co-operate with others, either in a scheme or in some other way, to satisfy the obligation.
As I said, ensuring that the regulations generate a successful UK initiative on packaging waste will be a process of dialogue for the Government, the agencies and business. There will inevitably be issues that need to be reassessed in the light of experience. That is why the Government have given a clear commitment to supporting the work of the advisory committee in carrying out a thorough review of the system once it is in operation, and to considering any recommendations that it makes. The work load of the committee for the review is already being mapped out. We are happy that it should look at issues of perceived inequity, such as the situation in the construction industry, and the proposal that all business users of packaging should be required to sort and separate waste.
"And this too shall change."
Nothing is set in stone; nor should it be.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |