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Mr. Wilshire: I would not like it to be thought that the deluge was from all over the country. Quite a few who have contacted me are my constituents. I am quite pleased to have the opportunity to demonstrate what a caring and efficient MP I am and I am glad to be in touch with them.
Mr. Osborne: My hon. Friend demonstrates that all the time and has used the opportunity to do so again.
As I understand it, amendment No. 8 would have a similar effect to new clause 3. The amendment prevents compostable waste from being included under recyclable waste. New clause 3 specifically excludes garden waste. I have listened to the good arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley. My constituency is pretty similar to his constituency in character. I know that because one of my good friends lives in his constituency and I have spent many happy weekends there at a house called Goodman Furze. I think that the Bridges family are
known to my hon. Friend. The collection of garden waste is a real issue both in my constituency and in that of my hon. Friend.Of course, it is far better, as my hon. Friend says, to encourage home composting than to collect garden waste. Indeed, one could argue that a garden waste collection service discourages people struggling with the home composting kit, because they know that they can just put the garden waste in a bag and leave it outside the front door. However, it is worth pointing out, as the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford said, that not everyone is either technically capable of operating the composting kit, or prepared to go to the effort. In an ideal world, they would but that is not the case. Therefore, it may be appropriate in some areas, including areas with small city gardens, to have a collection of garden waste.
There is a general point. Councils are probably best placed to decide these issues for themselves. They are closer to the ground. They understand their area better than we could ever understand it. The decision as to the kind of recyclable waste that should be collected should probably be left to those councils. I would not personally favour us directing from Parliament exactly what kind of waste is collected.
Even if we accepted new clause 3, councils would still have to deal with garden waste. We may end up requiring three separate waste collections from local authorities. In an ideal world, that may perhaps be a good thing, but it may be a bridge too far at this stage for councils in their present state.
I do not want to dwell on amendment No. 7 because my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley has made it clear that it was tabled in error perhaps, but it gives us a chance to discuss the question of what we can expect from councils. As the Minister said, there is a difference in the performance of councils. I understand the argument that, in sparsely populated rural areas, it is expensive to collect waste. Nevertheless, may I blow the trumpet of my own local authority, Macclesfield borough council? My house in Cheshire is in the Peak District national park. It is extremely remote as most houses go. It is at the end of a very long and ill kept path. I am still discussing the matter with my neighbour, who will pay for the upkeep of the road that leads to our houses, but the council sends a rubbish truck down that track every week and collects the bags, so it has not used the unreasonably high get-out clause that is already in the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It is worth asking whether that is a good excuse for councils these days. Since a bit of party politics crept into today's otherwise happy and gentle debate, it is worth pointing out that 80 per cent. of Conservative councils—which tend to cover more rural areas—have separate collections for waste to be recycled, whereas only 50 per cent. of Labour authorities do. Most Labour authorities tend to be metropolitan authorities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne tabled amendment No. 10, which would require authorities to have to collect just one waste. He has not spoken to the amendment and I would not wish it to be passed; he probably would not either if he was being honest.
However, it gives us an opportunity to discuss the costs that this Bill and the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill impose on local authorities.The Minister will be aware that there is already substantial criticism that the Government do not cover the costs that local authorities incur in meeting the targets and obligations that Parliament imposed on them. There has been an increase in the environmental protective and cultural services block of the standard spending assessment, but the Minister will be aware that that does not cover only waste, but matters such as flood defences, libraries and emergency planning, a subject to which over the last year or two councils have devoted much more energy.
Councils are struggling to meet the extra responsibilities and costs caused by a range of environmental obligations such as abandoned cars and fridges. We also have the implications for composting of the animal by-products order, which authorities must take into account. We should pause when considering the amendment and the costs that we impose on councils.
It is unfair that high-performing authorities get a raw deal out of the system. They get much less financial support than low-performing authorities and are set harder and more ambitious targets. They have proved that they can perform well, but the system acts as a curious disincentive to perform well if one gets less support while being urged to go further. We should be focusing our ambitious targets on the poorer-performing authorities.
I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 4, 11, 5, and 12, the contradictory amendments tabled by some of my hon. Friends. I suspect that the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford would be tempted to accept amendment No. 4 if she had a free hand. Friends of the Earth—which has done a great job in helping her prepare the Bill—would have supported the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley, but fears that Government support for the Bill would be withdrawn. We would probably find the Minister giving a lengthy speech and, perhaps, the hon. Member for Hendon doing likewise if we accepted the amendment.
Joan Ruddock: The hon. Gentleman will know that before I adopted this Bill, there was a draft Bill from Friends of the Earth that included the date of 2010. We all have aspirations to do more and faster, but 2010 is realistic.
Mr. George Osborne: I suspect that 2010 is what we will get. I was just pointing out that some of us would be keen to accept amendment No. 4 if we had an assurance that the Government would then support the Bill.
The amendments draw attention to the question of how ambitious the Government are, and whether they can achieve the relatively ambitious targets that they have set themselves. In the original Bill, there was a 50 per cent. target for the recycling of municipal waste by 2010. The Minister's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), said on Second Reading:
- "The Government as a whole are not persuaded of the practicality of delivering a 50 per cent. target, given that resource allocations beyond the spending review of 2002 have not yet been determined."—[Official Report, 14 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 573.]
12.45 pm
In discussing these amendments, it is worth considering whether the Government are capable of meeting their recycling targets. Perhaps they should accept amendment No. 4 if they are to have a realistic prospect of meeting their overall targets.
Sue Doughty : I shall not speak at length as I am aware that there is another Bill to debate, and I should like to reassure the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) that I do understand the purpose of amendments. I support what the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) has said and I congratulate her on her work so far on the Bill. Although, as we all accept, it is not what we wanted, it is much better than nothing. Even though we are talking about collecting two sorts of waste, rather than four, that still constitutes progress. As she pointed out, because of the economics involved in collecting two types of waste, it will hopefully lead to the collection of three, four, five, six or even seven types. The principle of separate collection that she has so strongly established will make a great difference, and she has done a tremendous job in making so much progress. I look forward to the Bill's becoming law.
I have some sympathy with certain of the amendments and new clauses, particularly new clause 3, which deals with garden waste. In a perfect world, all of us would say yes to compost bins and the use of green cones every Saturday; we would do things neatly, turn over our composting heaps and everything would be all right. But the reality is that, despite the extent to which councils have promoted such approaches—Guildford council has promoted them, and it, too, has had its composting champions over the years—a lot of garden waste ends up in dustbins, black plastic bags and landfill. That is unacceptable. If a council chooses to dispose of it in that way, we might say that that is not really what we want, and that we could have different, more imaginative schemes. Such issues are for a particular council to determine. A suburban London borough that has lots of trees and small gardens and generates lots of garden waste, but which has little opportunity to dispose of it, must decide what to do. The council concerned could say, "We will sell you a green bag for £1" and recover the cost; that would be a matter for it. The Guildford pilot examined the question of whether such bags should be provided free, or charged for. It considered the different options and how they would impact on councils.
So, although I have a lot of sympathy for the intention behind new clause 3, I agree with those who have said today that in practice, councils must be able to make up their own minds about how they deal with this problem, which will get worse as the level of building increases across the country, particularly in the south-east. Higher housing densities and smaller gardens will leave less room for this sort of activity. But the most important point is to encourage householders to accept responsibility for the products that they use, to reduce use of products that go for disposal, and to ensure that they are disposed of in the most appropriate way.
We have heard about plastics recycling, which Guildford has been doing for some while. When I visited Delleve Plastics, which was mentioned earlier, I realised that there were major issues about how that industry has priced the cost of the waste streams. Now that he is aware of the issue, I strongly urge the Minister to take it up and examine the underlying factors that affect the plastics recycling market. He could learn why it is cheaper to import from Belgium. It would be better to balance the books by using our own plastics.
The Government need to do much more in respect of a Bill on waste management. The Liberal Democrats have called for a comprehensive waste Bill. We accept that, at this stage, we have the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill and the Household Waste Recycling Bill—
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