Examination of Witnesses (Questions 460-474)
RT HON
MARGARET BECKETT,
MP AND MR
RICHARD BIRD
WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2003
460. Is the Department actively seeking out
evidence of that because it has come up and we have seen evidence
which sometimes suggests that there is a conflict, particularly
with long-term contracts on incineration and things of that sort?
Is the Department looking at that and talking to the LGA about
it?
(Margaret Beckett) Well, (a) we try to keep in touch
with all of these developments, and (b) we talk continually to
the LGA and if you have been given evidence to this effect, we
shall look at it with great interest.
Mr Thomas
461. I have two questions linked to each other
and they both relate to targets. Firstly, can I just ask what
liaison you have with the National Assembly for Wales on targets
because we have been discussing local authority targets which
of course are for England only, and I understand the Assembly
will set its own targets for Wales? They could be very different
targets and that might have an impact, particularly within local
authority communities as to how they are delivering these things,
so what liaison and discussion goes on between yourselves and
the National Assembly for Wales?
(Margaret Beckett) Well, at official level there are
quite close links and we try at the political level to keep each
other informed, but I am always very mindful of the fact that
where this is the responsibility of a devolved body, then it is
for them to have these discussions and come forward with their
proposals.
462. And you are comfortable with their proposals
and they can only be of help to what you are trying to achieve
in England?
(Margaret Beckett) We always try to make sure that
we are all pulling in the same direction.
463. On the other point, again related to targets,
how useful would the recycling bit of the Private Member's Bill
promoted by Joan be? How useful would that be in terms of your
work on this?
(Margaret Beckett) Well, I understand that it might
be quite a specific proposal. We have not seen the detail of what
is going to be proposed and that is something we will have to
assess and we will have to give the Government's response when
the Bill comes forward, but I would have said that if we thought
this was an essential step, we would have made it ourselves.
464. It is in a month's time.
(Margaret Beckett) I wait with bated breath.
Gregory Barker
465. Secretary of State, just to come back to
this issue of leadership again and also how it ties into the perception
or reality of failing to match rhetoric with resources, the Local
Authority Recycling Advisory Committee, to whom you were so scathing
a little while ago, again told us, "Government has not undertaken
a realistic financial assessment of the proposals within the Strategy
or faced up to the bold decisions required to allocate the funding
to deliver the Strategy". What do you say to that? Have you
short-changed the Recycling Strategy?
(Margaret Beckett) I do not agree with that. I did
not think I was scathing about them, but I just ventured to disagree,
which I think I am entitled to do. If we look at the funding stream,
this year it is £1½ billion, we assess, going in as
part of the general pool of funding for local authorities, there
is available something like £475 million over five years
in the PFI, there is the £140 million National Waste Minimisation
and Recycling Fund, which is available over a couple of years,
the Chancellor announced in his Pre-Budget Report some reforms
around the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme and we are talking there
about something in the order of £125 million or so over two
years, and having had quite a substantial increase in the 2000
Spending Review, which had increased the block which includes
this service by just over £1 billion over three years, the
new Spending Review increased it by a further £671 million,
so I am sure they would like more money, everybody always would
and I do not dispute that because I would. It would be nice to
be able to say, "Yes, we can announce more resources",
but I think this claim, with resources of that magnitude having
been made available, "Oh well, it's all because the Government
isn't doing anything. If only they would, we would be able to
do what we hold up our hands and say we can't" is not acceptable.
466. Funding itself and the mechanism for funding
is an interesting point. Surely having all these different pots
can only complicate things. In particular, having it, through
a separate funding stream within the environmental and cultural
services block dedicated to the Strategy would be much more beneficial,
but you rejected that. Why was that?
(Margaret Beckett) I think you will find that the
same local authorities who probably were telling you that there
ought to be more resources might have a view about whether they
would want those resources to be identified under a separate block
because there is a constant and genuine creative tension between
the notion of resources being made available for a particular
purpose, which central government has decided, and local government
autonomy. Yes, I accept that there is a range of different pots,
but that is precisely to try and address different purposes, to
try and give local authorities what, in my book, are quite substantial
resources through their general funding stream and to encourage
them to make sure that through the targets and so on those resources
are properly used, but also to have some things where we can have
a little bit more specificity so that we can be assured that this
is going on the specific kind of projects that we want. It is
not an easy balance to strike, but I think it is worth trying
to strike that balance. Many years ago when you were but a lad,
Mr Barker, if I may say so, I was in charge when we had no specific
grant powers at all and it was a nightmare because you could fight
for resources, but you were always fighting with one hand tied
behind your back because the Treasury of the day said, "We
have no security that any of this will be spent on the purposes
for which you are arguing", so I think it is genuinely not
an easy balance to strike, but we hope that we have got something
broadly of the right kind of balance, but that is why I think
it is worth having some specificity and some generic funding.
467. But given that the waste issue has now
grown in political importance out of all proportion to when I
was a lad—
(Margaret Beckett) It is amazing, is it not, that
it has grown with such importance when there is no leadership
been shown about it?
Gregory Barker: Perhaps that is why.
Chairman: It has got worse!
Gregory Barker
468. It has not been tackled. Do you not think
it would help your job, it would allow you to show greater leadership,
if there was a specified stream for this?
(Margaret Beckett) Mr Barker, if your Committee decides
to argue that there ought to be a specified and identified stream
for waste funding, I shall humbly accept that this is your advice
and mention it to the Deputy Prime Minister and to the local authorities,
but I suspect it will remain an issue of contention.
469. Thank you. 25 % of local authorities are
likely to miss their targets.
(Margaret Beckett) Did you say 25 %?
470. 25 %, that is my understanding. That is
the Best Value performance standard on recycling for 2005-06.
That is the figure from Enviros. I understand that Michael Meacher
has written to several of those authorities likely to miss their
targets?
(Margaret Beckett) Yes, he has.
471. What actually are you proposing to do to
help them to rectify the situation?
(Margaret Beckett) First of all, could I just say
that although I accept that we have got legitimately different
figures, those are not our figures. We do not think it is quite
as bad as that, but we do accept that there are far too many authorities
who are not on course at the moment.
472. What is your working assumption?
(Margaret Beckett) Our working assumption is about
16%. An Enviros Aspinwall study commissioned by DEFRA and published
in 2001 stated that "from our survey results . . . we expect
that only 75% of Waste Disposal Authorities will achieve their
Best Value Targets". Figures from the end of the 2001-02
show that 16% of local authorities are 15 percentage points or
more from their tar gets. Anyway, it is that order of magnitude,
not 25. That is our belief. As you say, Michael has written to
them and has asked them to identify what the plans are that they
are making, to come back on course. Obviously we are awaiting
those replies. We are hoping that they will be full of very positive
information about the steps the local authorities are taking.
With regard to what support we bring to them, we were talking
earlier on about perverse incentives. I do not think we would
be giving the local authorities quite the right kind of incentive
if we said, "Well if you don't do anything we'll come along
and give you more money", even if we had more money to give
them, which we do not at the moment.
473. Do you think that part of the problem they
are having is that there were such long delays in distributing
funds under the National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund?
(Margaret Beckett) I do not think so.
474. The announcement was in June and targets
in 2003.
(Margaret Beckett) Yes, it is a legitimate point to
make. We are conscious of this, and this is a point I made earlier
on when I was talking to Mr Lucas about some delays that were
consequent upon the formation of the Department. I think that
particularly the National Waste Minimisation Fund was probably
in fact a little bit longer than other things, because it was
a completely new concept and proposal and we wanted to try to
get it right, but I do not think one could say that there was
significant delay. I think that if an authority is close to its
target and was hoping to get some funding from that particular
fund, then one might say, "Oh dear, what a pity that that
wasn't as helpful as it might have been." But if somebody
is really a very long way away from their target, I think it is
straining credulity a bit to say that the one thing that they
were waiting for was the assignment of the money from the National
Waste Minimisation Fund. So I think that it is, as I say, a legitimate
point, and I do not dispute the fact that there was more delay
than we would have liked, but we are very much under way now.
Some 254 projects have been successful in two rounds of bidding,
which I think we said in our memorandum to you, and it is very
much something that we think will be beneficial.
Chairman: Thank you, Secretary of State. That
concludes all our questions on waste.
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