Examination of Witnesses (Questions 326-339)
WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2003
MR STEVE
LEE, DR
PAUL LEINSTER
AND DR
MARTIN BIGG
Chairman
326. Gentlemen, welcome. I am sorry that you
have had a rather agitated day but I am afraid that cannot be
helped. We hope that it does not become more agitated than it
is but, if it does, then we will have to see what we can work
out to complete the evidence because clearly we cannot have interruptions
every 20 minutes because we lose continuity. Here today are Mr
Steve Lee who is Head of Waste, Dr Paul Leinster, who is Director
of Environmental Protection, and Dr Martin Bigg who is Head of
Process Industries Regulation at the Environment Agency. You are
one of our regular customers, if you see what I mean! May I just
begin by quoting a remark made by the previous group of witnesses.
One of their remarks was that the Regulator is frustrated at the
Government's inability to give timely guidance. Your comments,
please.
(Mr Lee) We recognise that the Government,
be they DTI or DEFRA or any other part of industry, have a huge
job at the minute in faithfully transposing quite a rapid succession
of European directives and regulations that bear directly or indirectly
on this business, the management of waste or raw materials and,
looking at DEFRA in particular, we can see that they are very
stretched. They rely on quite regular and strong input from the
Regulator, us, the Environment Agency; they depend on regular
input from the waste management industry and other players like
the Local Government Association and I think that increasingly
we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that regulations
will look like the directives themselves, they will be a very
simple write-across from the directive, and that we cannot always
depend on there being full and very clear and even simple guidance
from Government. It just cannot happen. There is so much going
on. Government cannot give us all the guidance that we or the
industries that we regulate would like to see. That leaves the
Environment Agency in the position of having to produce a great
deal of guidance, which we do and we work very closely with the
waste management industry to do that. I think we have to come
to terms with the fact that that is the shape of waste management
legislation to come.
Mr Drew
327. If we could just move on and I am sure
you will appreciate that this is going to have to be fairly rapid
now! You probably picked up some of the questions that I asked
about waste minimisation and whether it should be by weight or
by other means. Can I be even more brutal, if you like, and ask,
is waste minimisation really this impossible? I am sorry to come
in towards the end of your comments, Mr Lee, but you are saying
that Government have so many things that they have to deal with
in this area. Are we realistic to set waste minimisation as the
Land of Nirvana out there?
(Dr Leinster) I do not think that waste minimisation
is the land of Nirvana. It is a practical proposition. If you
are dealing with identified waste streams, if you are dealing
with industry, where you have an economic connection between the
waste you produce and what you can then do with it, then there
are lots of examples, either from ourselves, or through Envirowise
which demonstrates that waste minimisation happens in practice.
What is important to drive waste minimisation is that you have
a clearly segregated waste and that you are then able to do something
with it. Under PPC, Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations,
the Environment Agency, through its permitting process, will require
individual sites to introduce waste minimisation plans and that
will become a permit requirement.
328. The degree to which Government are getting
nervous about targeting came up in the Bill on Friday. Should
local authorities be forced to meet waste minimisation targets?
It is not like recycling which clearly is both measurable and,
in a sense, it is public good. Can local authorities have power
to meet those targets?
(Dr Leinster) I think it is very difficult for local
authorities but we need to understand the different waste streams.
If we are talking about household waste or municipal waste, municipal
waste comprises about 30 million tonnes out of the total of over
400 million tonnes of waste that have to be dealt with. If we
are looking at municipal waste, the difficulty with municipal
waste is that it is a very complex mix of different streams and,
in order to set minimisation targets, I think you need to differentiate
individual streams that you are trying to deal with. For example,
biodegradable waste, green waste, would be a particular stream
that you could look at, you could set minimisation targets and
you would have a targeted approach to deal with it. I think that,
in terms of municipal waste, setting an over-arching reduction
target would be a non-achievable thing but setting a reduction
target for individual segments within municipal waste would be
achievable.
Chairman: The indications are that we are likely
to have four votes at 5.00, so we will do whatever we can now
and ask everybody to be as concise as they can and then we will
have to look at how we can complete our questioning on another
occasion because it is not fair to keep you sitting here for three-quarters
of an hour or 50 minutes when even we are not quite certain how
it will work out. I am sorry about that.
Alan Simpson
329. It is all right having minimisation targets,
but the real questions we have thrown back at us is, what do we
deliver? I think that is what I want to throw to you in terms
of the Environment Agency. The criticism is that you do not have
the resources, you do not have the clout and, as far as the public
are concerned, you do not deliver. So, what is the role the Environment
Agency has to play in this?
(Dr Leinster) In terms of minimisation targets?
330. And delivering on those targets.
(Dr Leinster) In terms of the minimisation targets,
I think that is a role for Government, it is not a role for the
Environment Agency. We can advise local authorities in their strategic
planning but, when it comes to targets, that is a Government role
and not an Agency role.
331. So you do not see yourself as having any
particular enforcement responsibilities in this?
(Dr Leinster) If there is a target, then we will enforce
the target, but the setting of the target has to be for Government.
For example, under the diversion targets of the landfill directive
and the biodegradable waste diversion targets, then the Environment
Agency will have the role of making sure that local authorities
meet those targets.
332. Perhaps I need to be clear on this. I was
not suggesting that you had the responsibility for setting the
targets, my questions were about delivery and I am not sure whether,
from where you are now, you feel that you have the clout or the
resources to actually oversee the delivery on meeting those targets.
(Dr Leinster) In terms of the biodegradable waste
diversion targets, which are the targets which are there, then
we do believe that we will have the resources to enable us to
monitor those targets.
333. To monitor and enforce compliance?
(Dr Leinster) And enforce compliance because there
will be a tradable permit system established. The individual authorities
will have to supply us with the information to demonstrate that
they have met them and there will be within the system which is
established penalties if local authorities do not meet those targets.
334. So you are confident that you have the
resources to be able to oversee that delivery of enforcement?
(Dr Leinster) Yes.
Diana Organ
335. Regarding your role, if we are interested
in your policy and your delivery, the other part is your regulatory
role. The Environmental Services Association in its report has
made it clear that they are thrilled that you are now going to
focus on that part of your role and they feel that there has never
been a more pressing need for a clearer focused regulator. "The
most effective contribution the Agency" that is your Agency
"can make towards the promotion of sustainable development
is through delivering high quality regulatory services."
What is your response to that? How much of Agency staff are on
policy work and delivery and how much are you actually putting
into regulatory work and monitoring and the penalty side of your
work? Do you see a change in the emphasis of your staffing and
your resources between those two arms, if you like, of the Agency?
My next question goes back to Mr Simpson's question which is,
do you have the clout and do you have the resources to do everything
that we are asking of you, which is delivery, policy and being
the regulatory body, when really what possibly others want you
to do is just be the focused regulator?
(Dr Leinster) In terms of numbers—and then Steve
can pick up in terms of our recent enforcement and prosecution
delivery—we have about 30 people who work on waste policy,
we have about 60 people who work on process management in waste
and that is delivering consistent approaches to the way that we
permit and our compliance assessment approach and we have about
1,800 people who are out in the field delivering day-to-day regulation.
336. Do you see any change to that in the future?
(Dr Leinster) We recently went through a re-organisation
and established that as the most recent resource allocation. However,
we have Section 4 guidance which was recently given to us by Government
and Section 4 guidance is the guidance Government gives to the
Agency in describing the roles and responsibilities that they
want the Agency to take. And it states within that Section 4 guidance
that we have a regulatory role and we also have a data role to
provide comprehensive monitoring data to enable the amounts of
waste and the disposal of waste to be tracked and also advice
in terms of assisting the regional bodies and local government
in developing waste plans and waste strategies. We have three
business cases in just now, post the Strategy Unit report, which
are with DEFRA just about to be submitted to the Treasury to provide
additional resource for the Agency specifically on data, the data
role, specifically on the advice to local authorities' role to
strengthen both of those and we also have one in to strengthen
our role in fly-tipping.
Mr Lazarowicz
337. Can I pursue the question on the sharp
end of enforcement, namely the question of prosecution and that
is the question of how many serious pollution-related incidents
involving waste companies there have been over the most recent
period and how many of these resulted in prosecution and what
is the average level of fine? You may not be able to provide this
today in which case you could provide a note.
(Mr Lee) With nine minutes to go, I think we ought
to offer you a separate report on that. In terms of the average
fine for a waste-related offence, it tends to hover somewhere
between £2,000 and £3,000 per case, nowhere near as
high as the Agency would like to see. One of our great objectives
is to make sure that the penalties at least match the potential
gains through illegal waste management and, when we get to that
sort of level, then we will find that the penalty is a deterrent
in its own right. We are a long way from that.
338. How many times have incinerators been involved
in pollution in the last five years and, if you can give that
on a year-by-year basis, that would obviously be better, and again
how many of these instances of excess pollution have led to prosecution
and what is the level of fine or penalty imposed?
(Dr Bigg) Although we can give you a complete breakdown
in writing, in terms of pollution incidents over the past five
years from the municipal waste incinerators that we regulate,
there were a substantial reduction in the number of incidents
such that, in the past year, there have been approximately 100
exceedences of our limits whereas, two or three years ago, it
would have been two or three times that. We take prosecutions
where necessary and, since 1998 have undertaken three prosecutions
against municipal waste incinerator operators.
Chairman
339. We visited Ketton in Leicestershire and
then we pursued this inquiry in Denmark and, with regard to business
complaints, it takes the Environment Agency (a) much longer than
equivalent organisations on the continent to authorise processes
and (b) where the identical process has been sought in different
parts of Britain, then they have to reinvent the wheel with each
application. Can you comment on that.
(Dr Leinster) I will take it first and then Martin
can pick up. The approach that we take is that we use best available
techniques and we judge the plant against best available techniques
and increasingly that is becoming a European-wide standard. Individual
plants in different parts of the country are not identical and
what we need to do is to ensure that plants are operated in a
way that will minimise the environmental impact and to ensure
that the environmental impact is adequately controlled. So, we
need to be assured that the particular plant will meet those requirements
and that the management systems of a particular plant are sufficient
for those standards to be met on an ongoing basis and that requires
a site-by-site determination. Where we can, we are increasingly
using standard template permits, so there are standard conditions
which all sites have to meet, and we are trying to streamline
the system through that, but there will be differences in location,
differences in detailed design and differences in management systems,
all of which need to be taken into account when you determine
a licence.
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