Examination of Witness (Questions 300
- 319)
TUESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2000
SALLY CAMPBELL
300. Have you evaluated the impact on sustainable
waste management?
(Ms Campbell) I would actually have to take that question
under advisement and write to you about that, if that would be
possible.
Mrs Ellman: Yes; thank you.
Christine Butler
301. I want just to redefine, for the sake of
the Committee and the people we have here today, what you call
Categories C and CC, which are all to do with the use of more
sustainable waste management activities and finding markets; it
is that, very briefly, there is more to it than that but that
is, very briefly, it. And you complain, do you not, that ENTRUST
maybe is not fulfilling its role here sufficiently well, in that
there might be a duplication of these Category Cs; that was in
your own evidence?
(Ms Campbell) That is right.
302. And you also seemed a bit cross that, although
environmental bodies make a 2 per cent contribution to ENTRUST,
to cover administration, it seems, according to your memorandum,
that nothing is done by ENTRUST to give a qualitative and a quantitative
analysis of these types of projects?
(Ms Campbell) That is absolutely right. I think we
are a bit concerned that there is, and has been, a huge duplication
right across the country in the types of projects in recycling,
for instance in kerbside recycling, that are going on and are
being supported. We know for a fact that kerbside recycling is
going to increase recycling; if you do not have a kerbside system
in your city, you introduce one, your recycling rates are going
to go up. What is not being done is, there is not a detailed analysis
at the amount of waste that is being shifted, whether or not what
is being done is cost-effective, and because environmental bodies
do not always have the money actually to implement those types
of long-term or detailed studies. ENTRUST does have that money.
Now I do not see why it is that ENTRUST could not then turn around
and say, "Alright, you have had £100,000, £200,000,
for this project that has been going on for two years; we will
help you take this raw data, send it out to proper consultants
and actually do a study on it," check to see how effective,
how efficient it is.
303. That is interesting, because you are saying
now, take it out to an outside body; you do not think the Regulator
could work with an environmental body to provide any figures which
we might have confidence in?
(Ms Campbell) No, it is not just that, it is actually
whether or not those bodies have the expertise to do this; doing
an environmental impact study or doing a cost/benefit analysis
can be quite professional, and it needs to have that degree of
professional input. But I do not think necessarily that either
the regulatory body would have that in house or an EB would necessarily
have that in house.
304. Do you not think that would be rather burdensome
on every project?
(Ms Campbell) No, I am not saying that you should
do that on every project.
305. Right; so then how would you suggest that
these problems might be overcome?
(Ms Campbell) If, in fact, you are looking at delivering
sustainable waste management and you want to know whether or not
these projects are actually delivering some degree of sustainable
waste management, whether it is by shifting the material, in whatever
direction it is going, whether it is going to landfill sites,
whether it is going on to recycling, how it is going, you need
to have some data with which to work, you need to know how much
material is being shifted and where it is going in an onward way,
and whether or not that shifting is actually cost-effective. Now,
actually, a Chamber of Commerce can do all of that work.
306. But, surely, the regulatory function of
ENTRUST and the duties on the environmental bodies could provide
the raw data, which could be verified; so you could get the quantitative
bit out of the way, maybe the qualitative bit could be more problematic?
(Ms Campbell) Yes, it would be; but, nevertheless,
there are methodologies that will actually analyse that.
Mr Cummings
307. Do you believe that the Government is being
realistic in expecting that landfill operators will make Landfill
Tax Credit funds available to community recyclers?
(Ms Campbell) Actually, I think that is happening
a lot now, Mr Cummings, I really do. There is a huge range of
community recycling projects, community composting projects, that
are out there, that are being funded. I think the problem is that,
in a geographic sense, they are not being distributed equitably
across the country, and that is a problem within the scheme generally,
because landfill operators have the discretion of where they are
going to actually fund a project, or where that project is going
to be when it is funded.
308. How do you account for the imbalance throughout
the country?
(Ms Campbell) Most of the money is actually channelled
through distributive environmental bodies; that is a body that
has been set up by a landfill company to take all of their Landfill
Tax Credits and then send them outward. Now if that landfill company
does not have a priority to support a project in, say, Bristol,
then Bristol is going to have to look for their Landfill Tax Credits
some place else, if Bristol has a project that it wants funded.
If, however, that particular company has got large operations
in another part of the country, say, up in Manchester, then Manchester
is going to get a larger proportion of Landfill Tax Credits than
other cities, or in, say, Bristol.
309. What suggestions do you have then to overcome
this problem?
(Ms Campbell) I really think that if the Government
is very, very dedicated to delivering, or finding a means to deliver,
the waste strategy they should remove between a half and three-quarters
of the Landfill Tax Credits at source, that is at Customs and
Excise, and then distribute those equally around the regions for
dissemination into projects that can help local authorities deliver.
Now it would be totally naïve to suggest that the Landfill
Tax Credits would do this completely, but it can unlock a huge
amount of other spending, and that is its real strength.
310. You perhaps have half answered the next
question I was going to ask, but what are the advantages and disadvantages
in making tax fund credits available directly to local authorities,
in order for those to achieve their targets under the strategy?
(Ms Campbell) I think that is a very good question.
I think the disadvantages are that some local authorities will
have—I think I would like to write to you on that, if I
could, please; could I think about that?
311. Yes, certainly. Do you have any personal
experience, or indeed anecdotal experience, of local authorities
influencing landfill operators towards diverting Landfill Tax
Credits to fund certain individual environmental bodies, in return
for preferential treatment in the awarding of waste management
contracts?
(Ms Campbell) Absolutely not; but I have had lots
of experience of landfill operators and local authorities working
together to deliver quality projects in their areas.
Mrs Dunwoody
312. But you are actually a broker, so your
money comes from the deals that you do?
(Ms Campbell) Yes, that is one of our accomplishments.
313. You are on the side of the angels, but
you are on the side of the paying angels?
(Ms Campbell) But we are also on the side of the projects
as well.
314. I say this in no pejorative sense. But
what interests me is, do you know of many other firms, in other
regions, that do what you do?
(Ms Campbell) There are a few, yes.
315. But it must be an area that has been identified
by you in the South West as being particularly a paying business,
because of the amount of money that would be available through
the Landfill Tax Credits, yes?
(Ms Campbell) Yes, but that does not mean that we
get that amount of money. We have to scramble for our own money,
like every other environmental body, except for the distributive
ones, yes.
316. How would you think that your work could
be expanded, because, after all, you are the third party in these
arrangements; so how would you normally expect to expand your
work in relation to both sides of the equation?
(Ms Campbell) What we have tried to do, and I think
this is an area of development, is to work very closely with local
authorities to find out what their priorities are and help to
bring those, where possible, under the Landfill Tax regulations,
and then spread them out to as large a number of landfill companies
as we can. But, at the same time, because we really feel that
one of the strengths of the system is it has an ability to unlock
other private funding, also to take that out to venture capitalists,
banks, whatever, to help deliver whatever it is they want to deliver.
317. What sort of response do you get, when
you present yourself at a bank and say, "Hey, we've got a
good scheme here; why aren't you involved in it?"?
(Ms Campbell) It depends on the scheme, but we have
actually had some very, very good response from the Co-operative
Bank, when it came to presenting them with a whole series of options
that we have under one of our market development programmes. In
this particular project, what we are looking to do is help several
of the local authorities within the South West, most of them already
have a recycling infrastructure, in terms of lots of `bring' systems,
civic amenity sites and kerbside recycling. But they do not have
a very good market development structure; so we have sat down
and talked to them and worked out with them where their priorities
are, how we can help to increase the recycling that is already
going on, or the reprocessing that is going on, and then bring
in the banks and the Chambers of Commerce to come along and help
write the business plans, so that the material that is being produced
by the reprocessor will have a very definite market, go on and
talk to the manufacturers and help get them to change their feedstock
and use some of this recycled material.
318. So for how long has this work been going
on?
(Ms Campbell) We have been trying to get sufficient
funding to get it going across two or three material streams for
18 months; we have got enough money together now, we have started
on one material stream and hope to be moving to another.
319. But a lot of your work is being done in
advance, is it not, you are investing a lot?
(Ms Campbell) That is right.
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