Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-32)
11 NOVEMBER 2003
MR PAUL
EVERITT AND
MR STEVE
FRANKLIN
Q20 David Drew: I think we subtitled
this inquiry, "Not The Fridge Problem Again Inquiry"
because some of us went through that and it did not do an awful
lot for Michael Meacher when he was the Minister responsible.
I want to look at the preparation and planning to make sure that
this does not happen again. Just before I get on to that, looking
at your evidence, I see that you already recycle 80% by weight
and I want you to explain what that actually means. Also in order
to get to 85%, let alone to 95%, it seems to be quite a steep
step change. From 80 to 85% to most lay people does not sound
like an enormous increase and yet you are going to take a good
number of years to do that, let alone to get to 95% which of course
is still not 100%, so there is the issue of what happens to the
other 5%, so can you just fill me in on this a little bit?
Mr Franklin: I will try. The figure
you quoted, 80%, will probably be disputed by other people in
the room. It never was disputed previously but as we are getting
close to the legislation and potentially uneconomic recycling
has a cost attached to it then clearly the numbers are more important.
The Commission has still yet to decide how the recycling protocols
will work, so once that is in the public arena and it has been
decided we will at least have a calculation method to work out
how we are going to calculate recycling amounts. Yes, are you
right, I think going from let us say 78-80% up to 85% is difficult
but we will be in a much more controlled environment and there
will be people in there who will be able to leverage certain things.
We are not particularly interested in tyres at the moment because
tyres are now banned from landfill but there is an opportunity
for them to be used for energy in cement kilns, etc. Now that
the motor industry has to get involved in that and see these targets
moved then they are going to have to start leveraging these products.
Equally there has been a lot of work done on plastics, the methodology
is proven, the economics are slightly uncertain and what we have
to do is trim the economics. I believe we can get to the 85% target
by fairly conventional methods, I do believe that the 95% target
is going to be extremely difficult. I think the Commission recognises
they may have to look at energy recovery and feedstock recycling
because I do not think conventional methods are going to get us
there. This is the subject on a thematic strategy on waste they
have launched and I think it is going to go down that road.
Q21 Mr Drew: What is it that you
cannot easily recycle, what is in the 5 to 15%?
Mr Franklin: It is not so much
that you cannot recycle, you can almost recycle anything at a
cost. We are looking at recycling economically. We have conflicting
interests in the motor manufacturing field, we tried to lighten
weight to get fuel consumption reductions so we would get less
CO2 emissions, that might mean using carbon fibre or glass fibre,
these products are less easy to recycle. We have done university
work and we do know how to recycle these, they can be done. What
we have to do is find markets for them and once we find markets
for them it then starts becoming a more economic process. It is
not that we cannot recycle anything, we can recycle it, it is
the economics that are involved, that is the thing that has to
be opened up. Markets have to be found and developed.
Q22 Mr Drew: You have already touched
on the need for this detailed information on how the Directive
can be implemented, according to the evidence you have given you
say that you expect that virtually any time now, what do you mean
by that? Has it been promised and not delivered or is there no
definite date?
Mr Franklin: It should have been
delivered back in October last year.
Q23 Mr Drew: You were given that
clear assurance, were you?
Mr Franklin: There are four drafts
from the Technical Adaption Committee on Waste, the people who
have discussed this. The DTI and Defra go to this meeting and
they will input what they think the suggestions may be but we
anticipate this and very much want to see this clearly set down
by the end of the year.
Q24 Mr Drew: What is the latest the
publications of that can be delayed before you really start bringing
into question the 2006 target? I know this is all risk analysis,
but when does it start to seriously impede your ability to deliver
the first of those targets?
Mr Franklin: It would have been
highly desirable to have it six months ago. We know we have to
get to 85%, it is really the method of calculation and demonstrating
how we are going to do it. A suggestion from Germany is that we
take a given number of say 70%, we do not try and track that because
we will say, "70% metallic fraction is a given now we have
to concentrate on the 15% of the other fractions". We discussed
this in the Accord meeting last week and we will probably set
up the shedder trials to determine the metal content in the United
Kingdom, we hope that it will be higher than 70, somewhere round
75%, so then we are looking at a 10% fraction. It is more the
calculation rather than the recycling, we know we have to do the
recycling, 3% rubber up to 9% plastic would get us there, rubber
is probably an easier target than plastic, and there is the fluids.
I think we can get there by conventional methods but we would
like to see the calculation of how we get there.
Q25 Mr Drew: How much of a problem
is it that you are dealing with three different bodies, you are
dealing with DTI, Defra and the Environment Agency, is there a
commonality of purpose from those three organisations? Clearly
they are implementing the EU Directive, does this cause you any
particular problem or is there a uniformity of voice except that
they are not yet quite there in terms of publishing the document?
Mr Everitt: First of all we will
have to take a step back and say we have a complex Directive which
because of its scope involves not just a number of departments
but a number of agencies beyond the Environment Agency, DVLA and
others as well as the devolved administrations. It would be misleading
to say that has all been smooth and marvellous, clearly there
have been difficulties along the way. I would like to think that
many of those difficulties are born of the fact that this is one
of the first pieces of producer responsibility legislation that
has had to be dealt with and therefore there is no proven method
that you can go back to and say, "this is the way that we
do it" and it is a nice easy flow. Everyone from the industry
side and from the various Government agencies and the Commission
are having to come to terms with issues and deal with issues they
had not anticipated they would have to deal with. That is always
going to be a confused and difficult scenario. Clearly timing
and ensuring that things are done in a helpful order so that topics
can be dealt with consequently, if that is the right phrase, is
difficult and there have been hitches all of the way along, some
of those are due to the fact that decisions have not been made
at Commission level. Everyone is having to move along to meet
a timetable, however key bits of information are always missing
so you can only go so far, you find out something and you have
to go back. It has been a difficult process, I do not think it
was from a want and a will, if you like, just the fact that the
complexity and the novelness of this type of legislation.
Q26 Paddy Tipping: Tell us about
the process, do you all sit round the table and chat about this?
Mr Everitt: No, we do not shout.
Q27 Paddy Tipping: I said chat, not
shout.
Mr Everitt: Sorry. There have
been a number of fora that have been in operation for a number
of years, both as a formal part of the consultation process and
implementation process but also, as Steve mentioned, the Accord
Group which brings together all of the industry players along
with the various departments and agencies, and that has been in
existence since the early 1990s, so there has been a lot of sharing
of information and a lot of close working. I think with those
partners and participants there has always been a degree of anxiety
about various issues. In the early days before the legislation
and before there was a full understanding of all of the implications
of the legislation the working relationship was that bit closer,
as the legislation has moved forward and the commercial implications
have become clear clearly tensions begin to rise between the various
industry partners and as a consequence between them and government
departments.
Q28 Paddy Tipping: You mentioned
Germany earlier on, most of these cars are now standard across
Europe, there is no difference in the vehicles, are people doing
same thing in Germany as in the United Kingdom or in France? Are
you all adopting a similar approach or are there differences amongst
partners?
Mr Everitt: I think are. One of
the lessons, if you like, from environmental legislation is it
does give individual Member States the opportunity to implement
with a degree of licence and as a consequence we have sought,
and I think that the United Kingdom has taken on board, the need
to try and ensure that there is a level playing field. If the
industry in the United Kingdom is faced with different implementation
or more stringent implementation than somewhere else that creates
a problem. Similarly we are hopeful that other countries are pushing
for them to adopt as similar an approach as possible because clearly
it is the same product. That is not always the case. I think going
back to some of the delays that have crept into the system, they
are because everybody has taken the cautious approach, a number
of Member States have pushed forward and implemented and they
now find themselves in infringement proceedings from the Commission.
Q29 Paddy Tipping: Who?
Mr Everitt: Germany has legislation
and as a consequence the Commission has taken exception to a number
of items within it and it is now subject to infringement. Members
States have taken the view and the United Kingdom has that it
is better to do it right, even if that means some delay, and I
think from the vehicle manufacturing perspective we supported
them in that in that we do not want them to rush into something
and find it does not work. All of the discussions have featured
very strongly the fridge scenario and in some cases the parallels
are not necessarily as close as people would like to believe inasmuch
as this is a product that has already been recycled to a very
significant degree, there is an infrastructure out there, there
is a group of people in vehicle manufactures who have assigned
and have been prepared to take up their responsibility, unlike
in the fridge scenario, some of the concerns about fridges have
built in some of the delay.
Q30 Mr Mitchell: You surprise me
because the usual tendency in this country when it comes to matters
European is to gold-plate, to demand a more heavy-handed implementation.
If you are saying that has not occurred in this particular instance,
I will ask you if are you saying that, it will be one in a row.
Mr Everitt: I would say as we
stand at the moment we do not feel this is something that has
been gold-plated. In the very beginning of the implementation
process there were concerns about that and in fairness the Secretary
of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt and the Prime
Minister gave a very strong indication to the relevant Government
departments that the aim was to implement the Directive in an
appropriate manner with a light regulatory touch.
Q31 Mr Mitchell: Another try for
New Labour! Were you consulted in the process of negotiating the
Directive? What part did you play there?
Mr Everitt: I think we would say
that some of the difficulties that all Member States have had
to deal with are as a consequence of what is a difficult piece
of legislation. I have to say that Steve and I have only been
dealing with this since the beginning of 2000 so our involvement
in the early stages of European discussions were limited, but
my impression is there was not a great deal of weight given to
industry's views in the Commission's deliberations on what would
or would not be appropriate, and that was reflected in the fact
that the Directive had to go to conciliation and in one of the
rarest examples I can remember the European Parliament was seeking
to make it less strict and a lighter regulatory touch and it is
not often that the European Parliament takes that particular line.
I think we would take the view that many of the problems we faced
are because of a lack of engagement and a lack of consultation
during the formative stages of this piece of legislation.
Q32 Paddy Tipping: That is extremely
helpful. Can I thank you both very much. That has got us off to
a good start. If there are things when you get out of the door
you think you should have told us can you drop us a note.
Mr Everitt: I will do, indeed.
Similarly if issues come up during the course of your investigation
that you would like clarification on we would be happy to answer.
Paddy Tipping: Thank you very much.
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