Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
8 DECEMBER 2003
MR JULIAN
LUCRAFT AND
MS ALICE
ROBERTS
Q160 Mr Mitchell: Is there any information
on what proportion of them are fired? I do not know whether it
happens in the more gentile parts of the country—
Mr Lucraft: It does!
Q161 Mr Mitchell: The fire brigade have
been complaining to me that a lot of them constitute a danger
because they just get ignited, not just smashed up with glass
all over the place but set on fire. Do we know how many are fired,
or what proportion?
Mr Lucraft: Off the top of my
head, I would have to write to you with those details. As an estimate,
I would say approximately 5 to 10% of abandoned vehicles are being
set on fire, but it is a big concern for the fire brigade. Within
West Sussex they are partners to a scheme which brings together
the police, the local authorities and the fire brigade called
"Operation Crackdown", and that essentially can remove
vehicles—because it uses police powers—within however
short you want to make the period really. I have heard that there
are various schemes like this popping up across the country so
vehicles can be removed quickly so they are not set fire to, especially
those within higher risk areas, so you can say, "That is
high risk, we will take that one more or less instantly."
Q162 David Taylor: I am not sure whether
West Sussex is typical of the UK, but do you have any assessment
of what proportion of the abandoned vehicles have been stolen
and what proportion have been abandoned by their legal owners?
Mr Lucraft: I am sorry, I do not
have those figures.
Q163 David Taylor: It seems the sort
of thing which would be a natural requirement, to assess a sample
of vehicles and pursue them rigorously and vigorously to see what
the scale and nature of the problem is. Has it not been done in
West Sussex, not been done nationally?
Mr Lucraft: I would say, yes we
have the statistics, but I cannot quote them to you now.
Q164 David Taylor: Could you let us know
in writing after our meeting?
Mr Lucraft: Yes. Operation Crackdown
actually does compile that sort of statistic, along with average
removal times and various other pieces of data which are useful
to us.
David Taylor: We look forward to that
supplementary evidence.
Q165 Chairman: The ELV Directive has
been delayed, it is not on its time track, and you say in your
evidence this has proved costly. Could you explain that to us?
What do you mean?
Mr Lucraft: Costly in that local
authorities essentially have to dance to this unknown tune. We
do not know how we are going to be able to let our contracts to
be able to deal with abandoned vehicles, so in some areas we are
just extending, extending and extending, and possibly not obtaining
the best value. But we are caught in a Catch-22 scenario whereby
we are not able to let efficient contracts because we do not know
what is required of us, but by the same token we have to have
something in place now, the buck stops with the local authorities,
so what do we do.
Q166 Chairman: What timetable are you
working on? When is it all going to be clear to us all?
Mr Lucraft: I think I should fetch
my crystal ball at some point.
Q167 Chairman: Give it a try! I have
to say mine is remarkably cloudy on this!
Mr Lucraft: I would say that the
whole of the industry is remarkably cloudy on this. We, West Sussex,
were intending letting contracts sometime in November 2004, however
we are now thinking that maybe it is wiser to sit and wait to
see what happens with manufacturers' contracts. The reason why
I comment on that is because we may now let a three or five year
contract to Contractor X and then we find Contractor Y wins the
manufacturer's contract, so we cannot take advantage of free depollution.
So it is unwise for us at the moment to let the contract to this
body when that body may be able to offer free depollution in the
future.
Q168 Chairman: Who is driving this process
forward?
Mr Lucraft: I would have to say
that it is the manufacturers, in that they are determining, or
are likely to determine, who they let their contracts to and therefore
there could be a problem for us as to whom we let our contracts
to. I also feel when it comes to the free take-back system, we
do not know what is going to happen. So all in all I would say
that despite the best efforts of Government to push this forward,
I think it is the manufacturers who are calling the tune.
Q169 Chairman: Should it not be Defra,
the DTI? They are setting the policy, are they not?
Mr Lucraft: Yes, I would agree,
but I suspect there are various elements. If you are the DTI and
you are discussing with manufacturers, then they have such an
enormous power I feel that they are calling the tune.
Q170 Chairman: Who are you talking to
locally and, if at all, nationally as the LGA? This Directive
is coming on, you want to know what is happening, there seem to
be a lot of players here; leaving the manufacturers on one side
within Government there are a lot of players.
Mr Lucraft: Yes.
Q171 Chairman: Who are you talking to?
Mr Lucraft: I am talking to the
DTI, Defra and the EA.
Q172 Chairman: Are they all saying the
same thing to you?
Mr Lucraft: More or less.
Q173 Chairman: What is that?
Mr Lucraft: The DTI were saying
in the lead up to the legislation coming out, "Yes, it is
coming out and Defra will be issuing some guidance as to how to
comply with that legislation." So of course you then ring
up Defra and say, "Where is this guidance?" and they
say, "It is coming." True enough, it came out but after
the legislation came out. So, yes, they are singing from the same
song sheet on guidance.
Q174 Chairman: But not on timetable?
Mr Lucraft: I would say that the
DTI knew that the Defra guidance was going to come out after the
legislation, yes.
Q175 Chairman: Would it have helped if
you, at the sharp end, had been involved in these discussions
earlier on?
Mr Lucraft: Most definitely. We
would have liked to have seen the LGA a lot more involved in setting
the policy steer on this rather than just picking up the details
afterwards. Yes, the LGA has been consulted via public consultations
and what have you, but it would have been useful if the DTI was
not so industry-centric and actually was to consult with us in
greater detail.
Q176 Chairman: Can you remember when
you first became involved in discussions about this?
Mr Lucraft: I would have to say
that that was about a year ago, 18 months ago.
Q177 Chairman: But the run-up to the
Directive was longer ago than that.
Mr Lucraft: Yes, but there are
other circumstances within West Sussex—I have only been
there for the last 18 months, so as soon as I came into play I
started talking to them.
Q178 Chairman: But as a general rule,
you think local councils on waste issues ought to be involved
earlier whilst the Directives were being put together?
Mr Lucraft: I would say so, yes.
Q179 Joan Ruddock: I want to turn to
the WEEE Directive, which I think people acknowledge is a bit
hazy on who is going to pay and how it is all going to be organised,
especially collections from households and civic amenity sites.
You may or may not be surprised to learn that when we heard from
the retailers they were very keen to see local authorities continuing
their very important role in this respect, but your evidence says
that producers should be made responsible for the whole cost of
recovery and there should be no obligation placed on local authorities
for separately collecting WEEE. I want to ask you to what extent
you think local authorities will continue to play a role in collecting
WEEE and who should fund local authorities if indeed you are to
play a continuing role in that collection?
Ms Roberts: We are very clear
that producer responsibility should mean exactly that. That means
producers should be financially responsible, the reason being
if there is any move away from that, that weakens the policy instrument
to the extent that it is not an effective tool at either reducing
waste or encouraging recycling. The issue of local authority infrastructure
is one we wanted to make some points about. There are a lot of
assumptions made about what the existing infrastructure on the
ground can cope with and can do, and this needs to be seen in
the context of not simply the WEEE Directive but various existing
issues, notably things like packaging, separate collection of
organic waste or biodegradable municipal waste to take that away
from landfill, batteries which is an up-coming issue, and that
is probably just the start of it. So if we say that what the future
needs to do is to separate out a very large range of different
materials and all products and we look at the infrastructure we
have and we take an overview of that, then I think we start to
get to what the real issue is. If we go back to something like
WEEE, although there are authorities already separately collecting
at CA sites, there are very large swathes of the country which
do not have them and there are CA sites which are too small or
will not be able to cope with them, so whilst local authorities
are very much on board with the need to recycle and with recycling
and would therefore encourage separate collection, firstly they
need to be funded to do so and secondly thought needs to be given
to the type of infrastructure which might be needed.
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