Examination of Witness (Questions 320
- 338)
TUESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2000
SALLY CAMPBELL
320. So you must want a pretty good rate of
return when you actually get a scheme going?
(Ms Campbell) No; our rate of return is a set 5 per
cent.
Chairman
321. Which is the material that you have got
the scheme going for?
(Ms Campbell) Right now, it is glass, and we are going
to be moving into organics quite soon.
322. Now, glass, is that green glass?
(Ms Campbell) No, this is all colours of glass; we
are going to take it all.
323. And what is it going to become?
(Ms Campbell) It is going to be used in a variety
of different media; it is going to be used as shot-blasting, believe
it or not, and, obviously, it will be used as aggregates, because
these are low returns. There are several niche markets, that are
very high value, that remove very small amounts of glass from
the waste stream, but then there are some very big markets, like
insulation material, that we are hoping ...
Mr Blunt
324. In your written evidence, and you have
alluded to some of it now, you say it is questionable whether
the environmental bodies system itself is the best vehicle for
directing Landfill Tax Credits to the range of implementation
strategy projects. What would be a better system?
(Ms Campbell) What I am talking about there is the
EB system as it is set up now. What I would like to see would
be the removal of the Landfill Tax Credits, or a proportion of
those, at source, leaving the rest to the landfill companies to
spend, on, say, Category D projects, E, that sort of thing.
325. Can you give some indication of what proportion
you want?
(Ms Campbell) Any place between a half and three-quarters.
326. So leaving between a quarter and a half
for the landfill companies?
(Ms Campbell) That is right, yes.
327. I am surprised you are being so generous
to them?
(Ms Campbell) You have to give them something. Then
I think there should be a regional structure that would then help
the local authorities to implement their particular priorities
in delivering the structure, and that regional structure could
use the EB system as it is to deliver the projects. Why I am suggesting
a regional structure is because, if you have got a geographical
inequity that exists, as you do have now, with some parts of the
country not getting as much funding as other parts of the country,
then if you want to have everybody free and able to implement
the waste strategy—
328. Sorry, how bad is that inequity, just so
we know?
(Ms Campbell) I would have to let you know, on that.
If you want to make sure that everybody has an equal chance to
implement the waste strategy then a regional structure, with money
distributed through a regional structure, would enable them to
do this, in a way that they cannot do it in a purely discretionary
system, as it is now.
329. Do you think the Landfill Tax Credit system
should be redesigned so that more of the funding available goes
towards projects furthering sustainable waste management, and
if so how much should be directed towards precisely that purpose?
(Ms Campbell) I think it certainly should be, but
I do not know how you would redesign it that way. I think that
the money, as I am saying, should be taken away at source. If
you just tinker with the regulations as they are written now,
if you just add another category of projects that would qualify,
all you are going to do is just play at really trying to deliver
something that needs a very radical overhaul of the present structure.
And a radical overhaul would be to remove some of the money at
source and distribute that regionally.
Mrs Ellman
330. How would you change ENTRUST, or are you
perfectly satisfied with it?
(Ms Campbell) ENTRUST is a private company that traces
private money and the expenditure of private money, it does not
have any policing powers, and in some ways I am very glad about
that. If actually you were going to remove the money at source
and keep it as public money, that was being spent in a regional
structure to deliver more sustainable waste management practices,
then I would make ENTRUST far more of a quango type of organisation,
bring it closer to Government and then give it greater policing
powers.
331. How would you bring it closer to Government?
(Ms Campbell) I think, possibly, you could do that
by bringing it within the DETR.
Chairman
332. But it ceases to be private expenditure
and becomes public expenditure, does it not; now the whole framework
that ENTRUST was set up on was to try to avoid all of this being
public expenditure?
(Ms Campbell) If you want to keep it that way then
I think ENTRUST needs to stay just as it is. I would not want
to see it have policing powers in its present state.
Christine Butler
333. Why?
(Ms Campbell) I thought somebody would ask me that.
334. I think it is an important question.
(Ms Campbell) Yes, I think it is, mainly because,
right now, there are so many environmental bodies out there that
would require some kind of policing that this would change its
role from being a facilitator to being a policeman, and we really
need to have ENTRUST providing some guidance to environmental
bodies, they should be publishing indicative guidelines to landfill
operators, environmental bodies, projects, and these are not being
produced.
Mrs Ellman
335. Should ENTRUST be involved in evaluating
what is actually happening, in terms of waste management?
(Ms Campbell) I think, very much so, yes. I think
they have the money and I think they could get the resources,
or they could commission the resources, use their resources to
commission a group to evaluate the projects that are out there,
and ask whether or not these types of project are delivering sustainable
waste management or not.
336. How would you improve the Landfill Tax
Credit Scheme?
(Ms Campbell) I think I would improve it by trying
to make it operate more fairly across the country, by removing
some of the money from the discretion of the landfill operators
and putting it into delivering real sustainable waste management
projects, or, at least, unlocking the potential for those projects
to exist; but, right now, this is still very much a lottery. If
you have a distributive environmental body in your area, or that
operates in your area, that wants to support an education project,
and you have an education project, it might get supported; but
if you have got a market development project and it does not interest
them it is not going to get supported.
Chairman
337. What sort of targets do you think we could
get recycling up to, in local authorities, in this country?
(Ms Campbell) Within what timespan?
338. I will leave that to you.
(Ms Campbell) Considering the fact that some of the
projects that we manage are in parts of the country where there
is absolutely nil recycling, nil infrastructure, then if you are
looking at it right across the country it will probably be around
5 or 10 per cent within five years. But if actually you unlock
Landfill Tax Credits to help develop those in a very radical way,
radically rethinking the way the scheme is set up now, then I
think you could probably reach 20 per cent in that time and 25
to 30 per cent later on, in another three years.
Chairman: On that note, thank you very much
for your evidence.
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