Examination of Witnesses (Questions 43
- 59)
TUESDAY 24 OCTOBER 2000
MR PHILLIP
WARD, MR
CHRIS MEGAINEY
AND MS
CATH SHAW
Chairman
43. Can I welcome you to the Committee and ask
you to introduce yourselves for the record?
(Mr Ward) My name is Phillip Ward. I am the Director
for Energy, Environment and Waste in the DETR. On my left is Cath
Shaw who is the head of the team responsible for the Waste Strategy,
and on my right is Mr Chris Megainey, who is the head of the team
responsible for hazardous waste.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mr Olner
44. How do you respond to the criticism that
the Strategy is really an attempt to meet the requirement for
the Landfill Directive?
(Mr Ward) I respond by saying that, of course, that
is one of the important things we had to do in light of the Strategy,
but it was not the only objective.
45. Could you percentagise that? How much of
a percentage of the Strategy is to address itself to the Landfill
Directive?
(Mr Ward) No, I do not think I could, honestly. We
have not approached the writing of it in that sense. Clearly anything
we wrote by way of a strategy would have to be able to put us
in a position where we met the targets required under the Landfill
Directive, but we did not approach it from that point of view.
We certainly did not approach the task of writing the Strategy
from the point of view saying, "Well, 60 per cent of that
has to meet the Landfill Directive." That is not the way
we looked at it at all.
46. How do you think the Government is relying
on Europe to drive this movement forward towards sustainable waste
management? Do you think that we are letting Europe decide these
things and we think, "Oh, yes, that is a good idea to follow",
or are we taking initiatives?
(Mr Ward) We are taking quite a lot of domestic initiatives,
but obviously the European agenda is quite a full one in the waste
area. The European Commission have been very active in putting
forward proposals and a large part of the time we are responding
to that. The other point I would concede straight away is that
the path we have followed in the United Kingdom in relation to
waste management has been significantly different from that adopted
by at least most of the northern European States. So there has
been a certain amount of pressure for us to move away from our
traditional dependence on landfill and towards a mix of disposal
and treatment options, which are perhaps more prevalent in other
European countries.
47. What is the Government's estimate of the
total cost to both the public and private sector of implementing
this strategy?
(Mr Ward) That is not an easy question to give a straight
answer to. The Strategy contains a regulatory impact assessment
of the overall cost, but we are looking at a Strategy which has
targets going out to 2020, and so the overall cost is going to
depend, to a considerable extent, on how successful we are at
reducing the amount of waste coming forward, the extent to which
we are able to shift waste from landfill into the recycling, and
the mix of methods which are chosen to deliver all that.
48. You must have estimated how much it is going
to cost industry to make these changes. If they are costed, will
the Government be contributing towards those changes?
(Mr Ward) As I say, we have produced a regulatory
impact assessment, and that is contained in the Strategy. I could
go through that, but that would include the cost to industry as
well. I make this point: In many cases for industry dealing with
waste it need not be an additional cost. If they are dealing with
waste appropriately there are actually significant cost reductions
for them from that process and there is a good deal of evidence
to support that statement.
Mr Benn
49. By how much do you expect total waste arising
to be reduced as a result of the Waste Strategy?
(Mr Ward) I think I can give you a straighter answer
to the question: How much do we expect to be diverted? We think
that at a maximum the total diversion could be as much as 70 million
tonnes by the time we get to 2020, but that is fairly speculative,
that would be at the top end. The question of how much waste will
not arise is a much more difficult thing to get a handle on to
start with, and I do not have an estimate of that. It is clearly
the big challenge which underlies the Strategy, that is actually
getting it down from the trend line, which is about 3 per cent
annual growth, down to something which is zero or, preferably,
below.
Chairman
50. Do you think that 3 per cent is really an
accurate figure or something plucked out of the air, a good guess?
(Mr Ward) It is not plucked out of the air, but I
would be the first to admit that it is based on four municipal
waste surveys where the 3 per cent figure seems to be holding
up over the four years we have done it. So far as the industrial
commercial waste is concerned, the evidence is even thinner, but
we broadly believe that the total waste arising is running in
line with the growth from GDP. That would be consistent too with
the 3 per cent growth in municipal waste. That is our worst case
scenario.
Mr Benn
51. Do you think that producer responsibility
has potentially the most important contribution to make to changes
in the way that industry uses raw materials?
(Mr Ward) I think it has a big part to play, because
persuading industry to take a different view about the things
they make and the way they make them and their ability to reuse
and recycle them at the end of the process can be a very powerful
driver for innovation and reducing waste. We certainly have a
number of producer responsibility initiatives under way, not all
of which are straight forward or widely welcomed. It is quite
hard work to get them to work properly. We are certainly continuing
to explore the responsibility both on a statutory and voluntary
basis.
52. As you say, there are a number of areas
of production that are currently being considered at European
level. Where else do you think we should be going after that in
terms of types of products?
(Mr Ward) The area where there are real waste issues
that need dealing with is possibly in the agricultural field in
relation to films and plastics. We would ideally want to work
in a voluntary arrangement there. We obviously have a voluntary
arrangement with newspapers, and we would hope that that would
continue to be a voluntary arrangement, but it may need to be
brought into a statutory framework if the agreement is not observed.
We are talking to junk-mail producers.
Chairman
53. You are talking to junk-mail producers.
What are you doing about it though?
(Mr Ward) We are trying to agree with them targets
for them to recover and recycle some of the extraordinary growth
of junk-mail which is going out and seems to be growing—if
my post bag is any judge—exponentially. So we are trying
to reach agreement with them that they will recover a significant
proportion of that and recycle it. We are looking at a voluntary
arrangement for this initiative.
Chairman: I encourage you to do so.
Mr Benn
54. I have visions of a junk-mail tax, which
might be quite popular. Do you think it is fair that by asking
all local authorities to double their performance, in effect,
you are expecting those local authorities with a very good record
to see another big jump, whereas those that have been laggards
are getting away, relatively speaking, slightly easier? How would
you justify that?
(Mr Ward) There are two angles to this. The first
thing I say is, obviously, we think it is a reasonable basis and
we are consulting on it. The consultation finishes at the end
of this week. We would be considering the various representations
and, not surprisingly, those people who have already made progress
are questioning whether they are being asked to do too much, but
in general even those people who have done quite a lot are still
significantly below where we think we need to be in order to achieve
the Strategy. So I do not think we are asking them to do anything
that is outwith the scope of the Strategy, although there is the
question of timing and how fast they can do it.
55. Just on that, could there be a case for
differential progress, acknowledging the point you have just made?
(Mr Ward) Certainly that is one of the points we can
look at as we consider the consultation, but in a sense we are
suggesting differential progress by the way we have formulated
the targets. The other point to make is that not all local authorities
will find it as easy as others to achieve recycling. For example,
the current figures, as we have them, suggest that the urban metropolitan
areas are the ones that have the lowest recycling rate. Whereas
the semi-rural and rural areas seem to be able to achieve higher
recycling rates more easily. It is not difficult to think of high
density areas that have lack of opportunities for home composting
and difficulties, if you are predominantly dealing with tower
blocks or high density estates and so on. The opportunities may
be more difficult. So we are allowing a bit for them, because
there may be some inherent complexities in those areas.
56. In order to support local authorities in
rising to this challenge the Government is making extra money
available. How are you going to ensure the money is actually spent
on the purpose for which it is intended?
(Mr Ward) The money comes in different
chunks. It might be helpful to clarify that. There is a general
chunk of money which is going into the normal local government
finance support arrangements and that will build it up to about
£1.1 billion extra by the end of the current spending period.
That is for a block of local government services, not just for
waste. Clearly the way local authorities decide to spend that
money and the priority they attach to the different things they
have responsibility for is properly a matter for them. There is
not a way in which we can ensure it will be spent on waste. The
fact that they will have the Strategy, I think, will give them
a strong pointer that that will be the sensible thing to do. We
then have a separate stream of money, which is described as being
for a "challenge fund", which builds up at the rate
of nothing next year, £50 million the year after, and £90
million the year after that, and that will be targeted specifically
to help local authorities to put in place the infrastructure they
need to improve their recycling. There are some private finance
initiatives credits amounting to £220 million over the period,
which will be ring-fenced for waste and will be available to support
integrated waste management, which is based on propositions from
individual local authorities. That is one set of money. Then there
is the £30 million which will go to the Waste and Resource
Action Programme, which is about trying to unblock some of the
market problems and getting recycling going. Those are the four
chunks.
57. What is the sanction if the local authority
fails to meet its target?
(Mr Ward) The targets are being addressed under the
Best Value regime, so the range of sanctions available under the
Best Value programmes are all available in relation to this. They
extend from, at the mild end, someone who has just missed the
target, requiring them to carry out a review or employ a consultant
to help them sort their problems out, and going through the full
gamut to, if an authority is judged to have been failed because
of incapacity, ie. that they simply were not capable of organising
it, then taking the service off them and arranging for somebody
else to deliver it. If it looks like a wilful refusal there is
the power to issue directions which will be enforced by the courts.
Chairman
58. What about failing the councils under the
rubbish that they fail to deal with?
(Mr Ward) We had not thought of that one, but we will
give it due consideration, Chairman.
59. Do you think all the technical measures
about Best Value are really going to actually deliver these targets?
(Mr Ward) Yes, we do. Otherwise we would not have
done it.
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