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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 103-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE (ENVIRONMENTAL DIRECTIVES SUB-COMMITTEE)
Monday 8 December 2003 MS ALICE ROBERTS and MR JULIAN LUCRAFT DR PAUL LEINSTER, MS LIZ PARKES and MR JEFF COOPER Evidence heard in Public Questions 137 - 255
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Sub-Committee on Environmental Directives on Monday 8 December 2003 Members present Paddy Tipping, in the Chair Mr David Drew Mr Austin Mitchell Joan Ruddock David Taylor ________________ Memorandum submitted by Local Government Association Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: MR JULIAN LUCRAFT, Abandoned Vehicles Project Co-ordinator, West Sussex Council and MS ALICE ROBERTS, Executive Manager, Waste & Environmental Management, Local Government Associated, examined. Chairman: Can I welcome Julian Lucraft, Abandoned Vehicles Project Co-ordinator at West Sussex Council and Alice Roberts, the Executive Manager of the Waste and Environmental Management at the LGA. Thank you for coming. We want to talk to you about two topics, the two directives, End of Life Vehicle Directive and the WEEE Directive, but we will try and keep them separate. There are common themes which run across them but we will keep them separate to begin with. We will start with the End of Life Vehicle Directive. David? Q137 David Taylor: Thank you very much, Chairman. I, like many MPs who have substantial areas of semi-derelict land in their constituency close to highly built-up areas, am suffering from the scourge of abandoned vehicles. I think this question is probably to be addressed to Mr Lucraft. In the evidence which the LGA submitted, paragraph 10, it says, "... there remains considerable concern that the scale of vehicles being abandoned will be higher than expected ... due to the rising costs of disposal." What evidence is there to bear that out? It seems an assertion rather than a conclusion. Do you think it will lead to an explosion of illegally abandoned vehicles? Mr Lucraft: Quite possibly, yes. Essentially if the cost of depollution is greater than the revenue which a dismantler can receive from scrap metal, or whatever parts he can get out of a vehicle, then what will happen is you will find this vehicle is abandoned rather than taken to a dismantler, so it is quite possible we could see a large increase in the number of abandoned vehicles. Q138 David Taylor: Is there some hard evidence which shows some correlation between the increasing cost of disposal and the level of abandoned vehicles? Mr Lucraft: To a certain extent, yes, in that over the past few years with the increasing amount of environmental legislation and the reduction in the price of scrap metal, we have seen an increase in the number of abandoned vehicles, so there does tend to be a direct correlation between scrap metal, environmental legislation and the number of abandoned cars. Q139 David Taylor: What proportion of vehicles at the end of their lives do you think are illegally abandoned in this way? Approximately. There must have been an assessment made. Mr Lucraft: There is. I will use some West Sussex figures, if I may. We deal with essentially about 30,000 vehicles per year, which are vehicles which have reached the end of their life. Those which come through the Council system as abandoned are approximately 5,000. What could happen is that with the spare 25,000, if the cost of depollution goes up, we could see an awful lot of those transferring into the abandoned vehicle route. Q140 David Taylor: If this predicted explosion does in fact take place in terms of the number of illegally abandoned vehicles, speaking now for the LGA rather than your own local authority, do the local authorities have the capacity and the resources, both financial and otherwise, to handle these sorts of numbers? Mr Lucraft: Certainly not financially. If the explosion comes, then they will not be able to cope with it, I would say. With regard to resources on the ground, for instance industry capacity, there may be, but it depends on how quickly contractors bring themselves up to speed and how quickly local authorities are able to let contracts to responsible contractors, those who have become authorised treatment facilities. Q141 David Taylor: Where do the LGA think the cost of all of this should lie? It is going to be more costly, is it not, and there are substantial problems with that? If you believe it should lie more with the last registered owner of the vehicle, how are you going to enforce that? Mr Lucraft: I do not think we would say that the cost should lie with the last owner. I think we would say it lies with the manufacturers. That is the purpose of this ---- Q142 David Taylor: Pre-2007? Mr Lucraft: Pre-2007, I do not think there is any other way apart from asking the local authority to pay for an abandoned vehicle. Therefore the money needs to come from Government. Q143 David Taylor: You are making that point quite vigorously, are you? Mr Lucraft: I think so, yes. Local authorities are unlikely to have the money to be able to deal with the number of abandoned vehicles. Q144 David Taylor: Have you been specific on behalf of your members with the scale of extra finance needed from the centre? Mr Lucraft: I will switch over now because I believe some calculations have been done at the LGA. Ms Roberts: I am not aware of central figures for abandoned vehicles, although clearly there is already some provision which has been made. I suppose the question is whether this should be financed through new burdens, and also the question of how we maintain a knowledge of how many vehicles are being abandoned and how it is increasing and how those costs are met as that happens. One of the things we will be doing is to survey local authorities initially to try and keep track of that ourselves, so we can make that case centrally. Q145 David Taylor: There are actual dangers, are there not, with the increasing number of abandoned vehicles, which I am sure are leading you and your members into discussion with the Environment Agency, DVLA and others. What is the nature of any discussion you have had? Do you believe they are up to the job of dealing with the problems you identify and what measures have they taken? Mr Lucraft: Are you saying are the DVLA up to the job? Q146 David Taylor: First of all, what type of discussions, if any, have you had between the LGA, DVLA, Environment Agency and others about the physical dangers of the greatly increased numbers of abandoned vehicles? Mr Lucraft: At a lower level there have been several discussions. At a higher policy level, I am unsure. Q147 David Taylor: Is that an answer on behalf of the LGA as well? Mr Lucraft: I am not sure, I am sorry I cannot answer for the higher echelons of LGA whether they have had discussions with the DVLA. Q148 David Taylor: So individual authorities talk to their regional offices, or whatever it might be? Mr Lucraft: Yes, most definitely. Q149 David Taylor: You are not aware of discussions at a higher level. Ms Roberts, are you aware? Ms Roberts: I am afraid I am not aware at the moment but I can certainly report back. Q150 David Taylor: How confident are either or both of you that this serious problem of illegal abandonment will cease in 2007? Mr Lucraft: I do not think it will cease. I think the system of continuous registration that the DVLA are proposing has a potential flaw, and it is possible to circumvent it, let's put it that way. I do not think in the public circumstances I am in now I should tell you how, but essentially it is possible to circumvent the continuous registration. Q151 Chairman: You will write to us on that point, if you do not want it on the record? Mr Lucraft: Yes, certainly. Q152 Chairman: Can we go back to the cost question. I think you are both saying to us fairly clearly there is going to be an extra cost on local government, local councils for doing this. Clearly there needs to be some discussion with Government about it, but I am surprised there is not a figure around the table today. Have West Sussex done some calculations? What do you think your costs are going to be? Mr Lucraft: They could be anywhere between half a million and £5 million. Q153 Chairman: A year or in total? Mr Lucraft: A year. We just do not know. First of all, we cannot say with any great accuracy what the number of abandoned vehicles is going to be. We cannot say with any accuracy what the cost of depollution is likely to be. So if we have a cost of anywhere between £50 and £150 for depollution, depending who you speak to in the industry, we would have a real problem there in that we cannot budget for a 200 per cent variance. Q154 Chairman: What are you carrying in your budget for the current year? Mr Lucraft: For the current year we are carrying £1 million. Q155 Chairman: Just going back in time, has that built up to £1 million and from what? Mr Lucraft: I am not aware of the past historical figures, I am afraid, but, yes, it has been ramped up quite significantly in order to be able to deal with it. Q156 Chairman: Has the LGA been talking to the Government about the cost? Ms Roberts: I am aware we have a figure in the settlement for last year, but I would have to write to you on the discussions we had before then. Q157 Chairman: Is this seen as a tough issue for local councils? Are you lobbying on this? Ms Roberts: It is seen as one amongst a very large number of very, very difficult issues. If you set it alongside the rising costs of collection and disposal and the funding gap which is there, then we have a huge concern about funding in the next spending period. Q158 Mr Mitchell: That cost seems a bit conservative to me actually, I am not sure how you arrived at it. The costs of reporting them, which needs some council official or local official it can be reported to, the cost of towing them away and then the cost of putting in pounds and the cost of dealing with them at a time when scrap metal prices are fairly low, have you arrived at that figure on the basis of what is happening now? Mr Lucraft: The £50 to £150 is purely for depollution. The actual cost to West Sussex can be in the region of £360 per car. That takes into account your complete scope of cost with regard to officer time, the fire brigade turning out, the police turning out, repeated reports of an abandoned vehicle and its moves, so you can make two or three visits to a car. On average the cost to West Sussex as a whole, as a county and as a waste collection authority, can be about £362. Q159 Mr Mitchell: How many local authorities have pounds where they take them? I remember there was an experiment in Lancashire where they were taken off the streets in two days, as opposed to letting them sit around for a week, and put in a pound. When I tried to get such a thing in North East Lincolnshire the local authority said it did not have the money for a pound. Mr Lucraft: A lot of local authorities have difficulties with finding land to use for storing cars. If they can, they prefer to use a brownfield site but then you have issues with security, making sure the vehicles cannot be pinched and what have you, so there tends to be a general reluctance with regard to providing a pound when it may not be necessary. You can put a notice on a vehicle and then return to that vehicle, take it away and take it straight to the contractor's compound for destruction. 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 per cent 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. Q180 Joan Ruddock: Can I stop you there and try and separate out whether you think there is potential for collection from the household, where collection is either being done in boxes at the individual door or larger containers at the bottom of groups of flats which I define as household collection. First of all is there potential for continuing to do that or making it possible to do it where it is not currently being done, or, are you going to rule that out? Then we could look separately perhaps at CA sites. Ms Roberts: I do not think our members would rule that out. What they would like to see is flexibility, and what they would like a recognition of is the fact that the existing infrastructure will not cope with what is coming. Local authority infrastructure alone will not cope with what is coming in terms of future directives and the future way of dealing with waste, once we start to think about hazardous waste and potentially thinking about separating out household hazardous waste, then we are looking at a very different infrastructure. If you start to look at the way other countries collect or work then you are looking at retailer take-back, collection of batteries in shops for instance, and that is completely out of the question now because of the need for a hazardous waste licence, and we need flexibility to create smaller sites which perhaps do not have a full CA site service, and I think the service issues are extremely important here. If you live in Hackney you have no CA site and may not even be looking at a kerbside collection and, in terms of service, you are not going to get a service from the existing infrastructure. I do not think we would rule out household collection or kerbside collection and some authorities are doing that - batteries at CA sites and batteries at kerbside - but what we are saying is that that will not work throughout the country. The Waste Executive at the LGA have said fairly clearly they would not wish to come down on the side of specifically household collection or kerbside collection for things like batteries. Q181 Joan Ruddock: Would you accept perhaps you are better placed than the small shop is? When you talk about retailer take-back, we as a committee would consider if we are dealing with the big stores that is probably possible, but if you are dealing with small individual shops would you accept their position might be rather worse even than the local authority position in terms of take-back? Ms Roberts: I would have to give you a personal view on that rather than one which comes from the Executive. Quite probably that would be very difficult, particularly if you had to apply for a hazardous waste licence. In terms of profile and what larger retail outlets or chains could bring to the profile and to the awareness issues - and that is another key issue - it is probably more likely and more helpful that those places were involved. Indeed some of them are already doing things and having collection days, bring back days and things like that. So there is an acceptance but there is also a very clear feeling out there still that local authority infrastructure will and can cope with what is needed. The clear message we want to give today is that is not something we feel is the case. Q182 Joan Ruddock: You are quite clear that the producers should pay, so how would payment be organised? What would be the funding flow from producers to local authorities? Ms Roberts: As I understand it, the proposed mechanism is something like a compliance scheme. Q183 Chairman: You had better explain that to us. Ms Roberts: A compliance scheme - well, essentially in the same way that the packages system works which is that obligated companies would have to pay somehow to a central pot of funding which could then be accessed for, for example, upgrades to civic amenity sites, and then they would be required to collect from those sites for free. That linkage is quite important, I think, because if a local authority is to begin to collect separately then it needs to be linked to the collection from there to another point. Q184 Joan Ruddock: Are discussions going on about funding mechanisms? Ms Roberts: There is a proposal in the regulation consultation which came out in November to do that, and we have indicated to Defra that we would be keen to be involved in those discussions and to perhaps be involved in facilitating a day with local authorities and retailers and/or industry to think through how to do that. I suppose the issue for the LGA is that we rely upon people with day jobs and local politicians and myself as the policy officer and so we would need perhaps some help to do that, but we would be very keen to be involved in something like that. Q185 Joan Ruddock: Can we just look then at the civic amenity sites? To what extent do you think they will play a central role in the successful execution of the WEEE Directive? Ms Roberts: The household waste site network can play a role in helping to deliver the United Kingdom's obligations, but considerable investment is needed to realise that potential and the standards of service offered will be extremely variable. We believe that the household waste site network alone will not deliver the United Kingdom's obligations for avoiding co-disposal of WEEE with domestic waste, and that other options such as install take-back and return systems should be central to the delivery. Q186 Joan Ruddock: And what the ESA told us was that it would be easier, quicker and more effective to develop such sites rather than to develop a completely new infrastructure. Do you agree with them? Ms Roberts: I think that that is firstly not the case, hence the statement that I just made, and also it ignores the vision that we need for perhaps the next ten or twenty years where we see not simply WEEE and batteries but we move into various other issues such as fluorescent tubes or empty bleach bottles, and perhaps we need to be a bit more visionary about the infrastructure that we need, a bit more imaginative, and to stop saying that the local authority, civic amenity, bulky and kerbside collections will cope with everything. The clear message is that we do not believe they will, even with extra funding. We would need more sites and smaller sites and, as you know, acquiring sites and developing them takes a long time. Q187 Joan Ruddock: But you would see it being a local authority function, or are you requiring new partners or new infrastructure? I understand the new infrastructure of which you have just spoken is just in addition to the same function, is it not? It is extending the same functions that you have at the present time? Ms Roberts: One could either extend a local authority function to create new sites or start to use retailers or other sites perhaps more and be a bit more innovative about doing that. Q188 Joan Ruddock: What about waste management licences and planning constraints? Do you see necessary changes there for this new vision or future vision that you may have? Ms Roberts: The permitting review is clearly important to this also, and the issue of proportionality in risk, and so where we find that the battery collection in Bristol was not able to go forward in a retailer take-back way because of the need for hazardous waste licence in a shop, that meant that they collected at kerbside and it ruled out other options, and that cut out a lot of flexibility essentially so yes, certainly licensing is going to be critical to the future of the infrastructure. I think that there is an understanding both within Defra and the Agency that proportionality and permitting is going to be crucial in the future, and that is broadly being dealt with, as I understand it. Q189 Joan Ruddock: When you look at that considerable picture that you have just drawn, do you see that producers are or should be the sole funders of that whole operation, or do you think that government has to be involved in the funding, or some burden placed on local authorities? Ms Roberts: Local authorities have a responsibility. If that is to change then that is a slightly different issue, I suppose. Certainly we think that producer responsibility has a major role across the waste streams, and that if producer responsibility is to work then financially the burden must be placed with the producer, or that instrument is no longer a producer responsibility instrument, and I suppose that is one of the things we would say about that packaging - that although it is not strictly a PR regulation, local authorities do bear the costs of collection of those materials and that perhaps weakens that instrument. Q190 Joan Ruddock: Do you think that you have been adequately consulted by government, or had adequate consultation with government? Has the consultation been adequate, do you think, for this process of implementing the WEEE Directive? Ms Roberts: My understanding is that we have been involved right from the outset and also we are very pleased to see the proposal that a compliance fund would be producer money rather than new burdens funding, and so we do feel that in this case government has responded to our issues, although we are still at consultation stage so I do not think this has completely bottomed-out yet. One thing that we were keen to see was more perhaps facilitation between the different groups, so consultation of a rather different sort, instead of perhaps bilaterals and responses in writing to particular questions, and perhaps if we could have some facilitation earlier that might be an interesting new way of resolving issues earlier on. For instance, the LGA executive is very keen to start taking a much more frontfoot position on up-coming Directives - for instance, the Batteries Directive. We are keen to start talking to industry right now to talk about what hurdles might need to be jumped over in order to smooth the path. Q191 Chairman: Just help me with a little point: you are very clear that the civic amenity network cannot cope by itself and the producer has a responsibility but by definition, perhaps even more so it should be the case, local authorities do their own thing in their own patches. But we need a kind of strategic view on this. Who do you think is responsible for that strategic view? You said that there was a dearth of civic amenity sites in Hackney, understandably. Who is going to produce that kind of "map of the world"? Ms Roberts: With the WEEE Directive in particular what we need to see is local authorities grouped together subregionally perhaps in order to get some economies of scale working with retailers and industry - and when I say "industry" that is not just waste managers but also those doing the take-back. I think there are wider issues around the co-ordination of very many of these issues. It is not easy when you are trying to co-ordinate something like that with no capacity, and local authorities do not have a bulked-up capacity to deal with that. You need a top slice to deal with that sort of issue, but nonetheless probably in groups it would be something that could be done. Mr Lucraft: Yes. Q192 Chairman: A sort of wider, workshop discussion than the bits of paper that you were talking about earlier on? Ms Roberts: The bits of paper? Q193 Chairman: You said there had been a lot of bilateral discussion, a lot of forms to be filled in. What you are saying is it should be something to get people on a regional or subregional basis to sit down together and say "What are the possibilities?" Ms Roberts: Yes. The key issue is the need for clarity about where responsibility lies and our officers have found that, when they are in a room with industry representatives, when there remains a lack of clarity about where the responsibility is going to lie it becomes very difficult to work through the practicalities, and what we need is a very clear steer early on about where responsibility will lie and how, and perhaps one of the issues which we can see throughout the implementation of waste directives is a reluctance to fall down on one side or the other at an early stage, which creates the uncertainty and the risk, which means that actually knuckling down and getting on with the delivery is difficult. Perhaps if a year ago it was made clear that civic amenity site infrastructure would not, or could not, deal with everything, then we could have just sat down and started to deal with it. Q194 Chairman: In your evidence to us you say that it is important that Defra has appropriate internal support to provide guidance on legal issues. Are there shortcomings with Defra? In your discussions with Defra, do you feel you are not getting the help and responses you need, both on ELV and on WEEE? Ms Roberts: There has been a long-term issue around the capacity within Defra, and perhaps government more widely, to respond to a complex set of directives. I am not sure that I can go much further than that, although my understanding was that one of those particular issues was around legal advice. Mr Lucraft: I will jump in there, if I may. One of the things we have spotted, and I think it was raised by Biffa at the last meeting, essentially was that there seems to be a regular turnover of staff at Defra, which makes the acquiring of expertise difficult. It is notable that sometimes we are seeing different people handling the matter at different times and therefore the message becomes unclear, I feel. Q195 Chairman: Finally, I think you have told us this but as a kind of exit line there are a lot of environmental directives coming along, and you are at the sharp end of this. What is the key lesson to be learned from this? What is your parting shot, as it were, to make it all better? Mr Lucraft: If I had the magic wand? . Q196 Chairman: We will give you that when you go out! Mr Lucraft: I would have to say we need the specification first. Whatever you want to do to the product let us have that first, give it to industry, and then tell industry it has a year, maybe two, to bring itself up to speed to deal with it and then bring in the legislation data saying, "As of two years' time you will have to do this to your toaster", or your car, or whatever, and that gives the industry two years to ramp up to that. What we are seeing at the moment is we have the cart before the horse in that we have, particularly with ELV, the legislation and then we get the guidance afterwards. Q197 Chairman: Alice, what is your "get-out" line, as it were? Ms Roberts: We would like to see the leadership being bold and visionary -- Q198 Chairman: We would certainly like the Prime Minister to be so! Ms Roberts: We would like to see recognition of the funding needs around this issue since it is really the bottom line for local authorities if we want to see this delivered, and we would like to feel that we are being listened to perhaps more than we do at the moment, although in fairness we do have a very good dialogue with government on this. Particularly we would like to see a power to charge households. Chairman: Thank you both very much indeed. You have promised us a long list of extra material so maybe we will just give you a ring to make sure we are both working off the same list. Thank you for coming. Memorandum submitted by the Environment Agency Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: DR PAUL LEINSTER, Director of Environmental Protection; MS LIZ PARKES, Head of Waste Regulation, and MR JEFF COOPER, Producer Responsibility Policy Manager, Environment Agency, examined. Q199 Chairman: Can we welcome friends from the Environment Agency here again. Some are old -- or familiar -- faces, Paul Leinster, director of Environmental Protection; Liz Parkes, head of Waste Regulation and Jeff Cooper who is the producer responsibility policy manager. When we have been taking evidence on both these Directives it has become quite clear that the role of the EA is crucial, and perhaps we ought to go back to the report that Lord Haskins has recently written, the difference between policy and delivery. Some people are not entirely clear what your role is, whether you are policy people or regulatory people. On these two Directives, are the lines clear to you? Dr Leinster: Yes, I think they are. We are, in Lord Haskins' terminology, a delivery body, but of course we need to inform the policy development because we can give practical examples of the implications of deciding policy one way or the other as it is being developed. Q200 Chairman: And then, if you were a regulator, you have to do the job properly and have the resources to do it. I am not asking you to make a pitch for resources - you may choose to do that - but both these Directives are big pieces of work. Dr Leinster: Yes. I think there are three aspects to the resources. As you say, these are new regimes; they will have with them associated charging regimes, and that will enable us to deal with licensed sites, so as soon as a site applies for a licence they will pay us an application fee and we will then have the money to be able to deal with that. There is an issue about funding during the development phase - that is always an issue - and there is also an issue to do with funding as we go through the early stages of implementation because, when the regulations come in, we have to make sure that we have adequate numbers of fully trained people to work on it, but the funding is not yet available because the funding comes in as the applications come in. So we have been discussing with government, with Defra, and we will be highlighting this as an issue through our Spending Review 2004 submission, how we ramp up during early stages of a regime. There is then a third area, and that is how do you deal with those sites which operate illegally, because we get money to deal with legal sites but our grant in aid is continually under pressure and is non-inflated, and therefore as new duties come along they have to be funded out of money which was already there for existing activities, so there is a real pressure on how we are able to deal with illegal activities, including sites which are dealing illegally and also fly-tipping activities. Q201 Chairman: Just help me because - and I have to be careful how I say this - I have recently been to look at some vehicle dismantlers and a lot of them are not going to make the grade, are they? Ms Parkes: Most of the vehicle dismantlers that you, I suspect, have visited will be ones either already licensed by the Agency or may be registered as exempt. Now there is a raising of standards to meet the ELV Directive and one would expect that to happen. We do not consider that to be a huge increase in the standards the sites need to meet, and that view is derived after lengthy discussion with the industry. Q202 Chairman: But they have to have concrete bases and covered areas, and for some it is going to be a big step change? Ms Parkes: For some it will be a step change. Most of the sites that are taking any significant number of vehicles will already have that infrastructure in place. They will have concreted areas. They may not have roofed areas but most of the types of sites we are talking about already have concrete areas in place. They may need to expand the area to deal with the capacity. Q203 Chairman: But there will be a cost for them as well? Ms Parkes: Inevitably, if you are talking about raising standards, then there is a cost and we have been working very closely with the industry to make sure that the Directive standards can be met without disproportionate cost. Q204 Chairman: Are you confident that is going to be the case? Ms Parkes: I do not think it is an industry that is shy of coming back with comment if they feel we are imposing an unjustifiable burden. As I say we are satisfied and we work very closely with sector, particularly when it comes to looking at licensing costs, and have had regard to the fact that there are increased costs to be met in terms of infrastructure. It is important sites are spending the money on that improved infrastructure and not paying for additional regulatory costs if those are not justified. Q205 Chairman: Certainly they are not slow in coming forward - that is why I have been having a wander around listening to people - but one of the concerns is there is still a lack of clarity on the timetable. Let us stick with ELV for the moment. What do you think the timetable is? Ms Parkes: The regulations are now in force. If we are talking about permitting of authorised treatment facilities, those regulations came into force on 3 November. All existing exempt sites that want to continue taking undepolluted vehicles need to apply for a waste management licence. They have until 31 January to apply for a licence, and we have written to those operators to advise them of that requirement. For all those that already have a licence in place, and we are talking about 900 sites, the heightened technical standards take effect directly through the regulations, so I think there has been some confusion over the requirements, but since the regulations have been drafted and are now in place that clarity has now be delivered for the industry. Q206 Chairman: I think, Paul, earlier on you told us about this kind of circular notion, that you are a regulator, you are a deliverer, but your experience has to inform policy as well. Dr Leinster: Yes, it has. Q207 Chairman: Are you confident that is happening? How often do you talk to Defra and to the DTI? And who do you talk to? Mr Cooper: The meetings that we have with both Defra and the DTI are very regular meetings. What we have is a situation with the End of Life Vehicle Directive where there have been periods over the last three years where there has been a protracted absence of discussion - that is while discussions were taking place internally within government to deal with various issues which no doubt you will be probing next week - but on the whole, with the WEEE Directive implementation, we have got a project management system which operates there and we have been working very closely with colleagues both in Defra and DTI to ensure that we are dealing with the issues and we are dealing with them to a timetable that to date we have stuck to. Q208 Chairman: Let's just go back a little bit further because I know there is a strong feeling in the EA that when directives are being discussed in the early days, when they are still in people's minds, you would like to be involved in helping the policy formation. Where has that discussion got to? It was in the Better Regulation Task Force. Dr Leinster: Yes, it was. What we have now agreed is a concordat with Defra on the Agency's involvement in discussions in Europe, and we are now working through that. We have identified ten priority areas to work on with them in a structured way influencing into Europe, and we have already had good experience on issues like Environmental Liability Directive, the Waste Incineration Directive, and we are also working closely with them on Water Framework Directive, and we are trying to build on that good experience of early engagement, the Agency to be there to provide technical support to the policy discussions, to use our experience of practical implementation to highlight when something is workable and when something is not workable. One of the other areas we are working together on is the regulatory impact assessments, using regulatory impact assessments to inform the discussions within Europe. What is happening now within Europe is that they are doing things called enhanced impact assessments which are regulatory impact assessments, looking at the use of those within a number of environment directives coming through, and being able to inform those European impact assessments on the basis of impact assessments already looked at within the United Kingdom is a very powerful way of being able to influence the discussions and inform the discussions, so you are able to inform discussions with facts and data rather than just with assertions, so that has been very positive. The reason for the concordat is that, although previously we had good experience in a number of areas, we did not have a structured way which ensured that the Agency was involved, and I think now we are getting that framework. I would not say it was all in place but at least we now have the framework and going forward into the new year we believe we will have a structured way forward. Q209 Chairman: So you are telling us that environmental directives are going to be much more practically orientated and the back-end consequences are going to be much more thought out and, in a sense, we are going to improve the way we deliver environmental legislation. This is an aspiration, is it? Dr Leinster: It is, because there are two challenges within that. The agreement we have just now is with Defra and we need to work up a similar agreement with DTI because it is DTI that leads on these producer responsibilities, so that is clearly an area we need to work on. The other is we are only one voice amongst 15 - soon one voice amongst 25 - and so what we are also doing is working with Impel which is the network of environmental regulators in Europe to see how we can inform discussions there so that at an early stage in Directive development we get a voice from the regulators also informing the development process. Q210 Chairman: And where is the decision with the DTI? The concordat? Is it still in early discussions? Dr Leinster: Early discussions. Q211 Chairman: Do you want to spell that out a bit more? Dr Leinster: Well, it is so early that -- Q212 Chairman: It has not started! Dr Leinster: No, it has started but what we want to do is get the Defra one bedded in to learn from that to see how that works, and then take that learning into discussions with DTI. Q213 Chairman: And you think there is a willingness? Dr Leinster: I think so, yes. Q214 David Taylor: You say that the transposition and implementation of the ELV Directive has been delayed. What do you think are the key reasons for that, or reason? Mr Cooper: I think there have been very considerable problems associated with some fairly high level issues to do with, for example, the place of motor manufacturing in the United Kingdom. It is those very high level things that have been an influence at one end. Q215 David Taylor: Can you give a specific example? Mr Cooper: Well, there would be for example some difficulties associated with financing of the take-back provisions for some of the companies that are operating within the United Kingdom at the present time, depending on how those financial contributions are to be made for the future, for instance. But there is also one other thing that is quite significant here which is that quite often we see directives being agreed to and signed off at a European level where there is quite a lot of fine-tuning that is left then to technical assessment committees, and quite often we find that those technical assessment committees do not deal with the issues very quickly, so we have certainly experienced that as far as the End of Life Vehicle Directive is concerned and there are still some issues that need to be resolved with regard to the WEEE Directive as well. Q216 David Taylor: Your evidence also talks about the significant difficulties that you have experienced in the planning and preparation process for the "permitting and other workloads associated with this legislation". Could you tell us why and how? Ms Parkes: Those discussions have been on-going with the ELV Directive for probably three years. It would be fair to say it has been commented today that Defra have not had the resources they might have liked. We are very confident that that position has been recognised and resolved and we are seeing the approach for WEEE implementation being much more project-based which is good news to make sure there is early engagement; that parties know what is involved and we have plans in place to deliver and implement on time. It is very important for us as a regulatory body that we can plan because there are other issues associated with implementation of the Directive - not just the regulations but matters such as guidance, charging schemes and we have to have the staff in place, so we really need to be working on this project planning basis to make sure both us and industry have sufficient lead time to deliver what is needed on the ground. Q217 David Taylor: You are not very impressed with DTI and Defra in this area of ELV? Ms Parkes: I did not make that comment; I said what is good news is that WEEE implementation is looking to be much better, and certainly the permitting review, which is something we have encouraged Defra to put in place, is a fundamental review of the regime to make sure what is coming forward is not just proportionate but integrated to deal with a whole host of new duties to make sure that we put our resources collectively into that working on something that will deliver a single solution to a number of these pressures. Q218 David Taylor: I did not mean you individually; I meant the Agency is clearly unhappy with the understanding of DTI and Defra of the role they should be playing. You believe there is a lack of clarity in terms of overall lead, co-ordination and individual work terms. Is that some code for saying that these departments ought to get their act together? Ms Parkes: We would obviously work with greater forward planning to enable us and the industry to prepare. Q219 David Taylor: Are there any observations from your two colleagues? Dr Leinster: I think, as Liz has said, what we have done is learned from the ELV experience and translated that into the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment experience, so if we are to be learning organisations, which I hope we are, then that learning has gone forward and now I know Defra colleagues certainly are looking at how to take a project and programme approach to the development of all new regulatory regimes in this waste area. That is to be welcomed and we will provide support for it. Q220 David Taylor: Are you impressed by the work of Defra and DTI in the ELV area? Dr Leinster: I am not sure that I would express it in terms of being impressed or not impressed. These issues are difficult issues to deal with. Q221 David Taylor: Do you think they have handled them well? Dr Leinster: I think that they have handled some difficult issues but if you are asking whether I think they might have done better at some stages of the development if they had taken a project or programme approach to it then yes, I do. We have shared that with them and we also at one stage provided assistance to DTI by providing a senior project manager to assist in the process. Q222 David Taylor: Let us move from your unstated assessment of their performance to the performance of your own Agency. You are to be responsible for permitting authorised treatment facilities for ELVs, and the first tranche of these regulations was due to be in place by the end of October that has just gone, and that envisaged by 31 March 1500 existing exempt sites having had the appropriate permission. Is that correct? Ms Parkes: That is the broad assumption. The regulations came on 3 November, and we anticipate something like up to 1500 existing exempt sites making new applications. Q223 David Taylor: So you have had five and a half weeks of the five months. Simplistically that would suggest that perhaps three or four hundred of these sites have been permitted. How many have you permitted? Ms Parkes: We have not received any applications that I am aware of yet. A typical means of implementing a Directive is one would have transitional provisions in the regulations allowing industry a period of time to make an application. It is fairly inevitable that, just as with tax returns, we put it off to the last possible date, so we anticipate the applications coming in quite close to the closure of the window, ie 31 January. Q224 David Taylor: Do you see it as an entirely reactive process? Ms Parkes: There has been extensive debate between the Agency and the trade bodies nationally, and we are also working with them to make sure there is adequate publicity and support provided to the industry on the ground to make these applications in as timely a way as possible. With the best will in the world we anticipate the applications will come in at the end of January, and what the regulations then provide is a four-month period for us to determine the applications and during that period, and until the application is determined, the operator can continue to operate quite lawfully, so they are not at any loss by not having the application determined. Obviously we will look to process those as quickly as possible to provide the maximum certainty, but that is a fairly typical implementation - particularly where we are talking about existing sites needing to obtain a new permit. Q225 David Taylor: Whose target and deadline is this? I do not mean where did it originate, but whose responsibility is it to deliver the target to the deadline? Ms Parkes: Industry will obviously need to make the applications and we will need to determine them. In terms of where the deadline comes from, it is a DTI imposed deadline to allow these sites to issue certificates of destruction, which is another key component of the Directive. Q226 David Taylor: Do you feel any nervousness that some weeks into the process not a single application has been received? You have said that they will flood in in January, but are you in a position to be able to handle them speedily and accurately? Ms Parkes: We will not be looking to turn all those around within a matter of days or weeks; that is why we have provided a four-month determination period. It is far from ideal to have all applications coming in by one date, and certainly with something like Landfill Directive implementation we have put in place a programme to stage those to give us a realistic workload. Now, we hope these are very much simpler permits, and we have been working with the industry to put in place standard templates and provide guidance to simplify the process as much as possible, so we are confident these can be turned around much more quickly than other more site-specific waste management licence applications. Q227 David Taylor: So your strategic plan envisaged a peak of applications in the new year, and you are resourced to cater for that? There are not going to be other operational responsibilities of the Department that are going to have to go on to the back burner, are there? Dr Leinster: Yes, there are. As Liz says, in an ideal world you would phase these in over a period of time. There would be dates where you could stage different facilities in so we did not have this very intensive, very short workload that has come towards us. Because, again, the regulations only came into place within the year and we did not have a clear indication of the implementation date for those, and also we did not have a clear indication at the beginning of the year when we were planning of the need for certificates of destruction to be issued against this sort of deadline, that has caused pressure for us, so what we are having to do is to take folks from other activities to carry out this work so, yes, it will have an impact. What we will then do is look at how we then recruit other people into the Agency using that level of resource and train them up to other tasks, including inspection of treatment facilities. Q228 David Taylor: Titanic was on Channel 5 last night and there were people on that as the ship that went down who were scurrying round doing relatively irrelevant tasks. Do you sense a problem occurring here through an iceberg that is heading your way in relation to the ELV Directive, and the peak of applications you are not going to be able to handle and other things are going to have to be cast aside? Ms Parkes: I think it is important we keep this in perspective. These sites are already authorised, they can take the vehicles that can continue, and obviously we will be looking to our resources where they can have maximum effect to protect the environment. I am not decrying the fact that there is not a peak of work to do but I think it is important to keep this in perspective. There are sites out there; we have assessed and already advised that we think most of these are capable physically of taking these vehicles; we do not anticipate there is a shortfall in capacity because there are already 900 licensed sites, and we believe the distribution and capacity of those sites is sufficient to take the types of vehicles we are talking about. So I am not underestimating the work involved but I do think it is important we keep this in perspective. Q229 David Taylor: So you are ultra confident about hitting the targets? Dr Leinster: We are not ultra confident and we are not underestimating task. There is a task which comes to us; it is a challenge; and we will rise to meet the challenge - just as I am sure, if you were given a challenge, you would rise to meet it. Q230 David Taylor: You are also responsible for permitting so-called other facilities. Do you sense there will be any like difficulties in meeting that responsibility? Ms Parkes: We do face a considerable challenge in repermitting new and existing sites. That is one of the reasons why we have been calling for a fundamental review of the permitting regime, and we are very pleased that Defra is working on that with our support because we think we need a more responsive regime than the current waste management licensing and exemption regime, particularly if we are going to cope with the new facilities that are required because of the Waste Strategy and diversion away from Landfill Directive, so we are in no way complacent about the challenges that face us and the industry in meeting that. Ultimately we obviously want to be focusing our resources where they can have maximum environmental impact and that means sending people out there to do the somewhat tougher job of compliance and enforcement, so we do not want to just be looking at permitting targets and pushing bits of paper: we are interested in how we get out there and deliver WEEE environmental outcomes. Q231 Chairman: We would like to move on and talk fly-tipping. What is going to happen up to 2007? What is your best information? Mr Cooper: We have done some work within the Agency with regard to this issue and we are talking here just of End of Life Vehicles. At the present time there are around 300,000 vehicles that are abandoned and then go back through the system -- Q232 Chairman: Yearly? Mr Cooper: Yes, each year, but it is over the last two to three years that the problem has become so bad. Clearly there is the danger that, once the cost for devolution is added to any other costs associated with disassembling, there is going to be a temptation for people to abandon vehicles, particularly as last owners quite often are the most marginal motorists on the road anyway, so we do envisage there being an increase. It is difficult to judge what that increase is going to be but clearly also there are some measures that have been taken by government to ameliorate that particular danger, but we envisage there being an increase before those measures start to bite. Q233 Chairman: You say it is difficult to put a number on it. We have heard different estimates. 600,000? Mr Cooper: That would be double the current rate. That, to me, would be the outside estimate. I would say it would be lower than that. Q234 David Taylor: And the number of vehicles being disposed of properly each year at the moment is what? Mr Cooper: If you take 300,000 out of the two million being disposed of each year it means 1.7 million are being disposed of properly, and that is quite often these days with some local authorities providing some assistance, for example, subsidised collection for disposal through the proper routes. Q235 Chairman: But if you stick at two million and say 500,000, that is 25 per cent. Mr Cooper: Yes. Q236 Chairman: And this is very cost sensitive, I guess. A figure of £60 is being quoted. What do you think of that? Mr Cooper: I would say it would be lower. I would say the additional costs are going to be less than £50, but they are going to be at least £40 so we are talking about, depending on which part of the country it is, either a doubling in the south or a substantial increase in the north, where costs tend to be lower. Q237 Chairman: So there is some regional sensitivity? Mr Cooper: Yes. Q238 Chairman: What discussions are you having with local authorities about this? Mr Cooper: We have a formal mechanism through the Local Government Association, and we are taking every advantage we can to deal with this issue formally through the Local Government Association, and there are meetings between our colleagues that work at a regional level and local authorities, and I have had quite a few meetings with individual local authorities dealing with these issues at a personal level. Dr Leinster: Coming out of the Antisocial Behaviour Bill there was a requirement on the Agency and the Local Government Association to meet to discuss further the protocol that we have between the Local Government Association and the Agency on roles and responsibilities associated with fly-tipping and to clarify who does what within fly-tipping, and in terms of abandoned vehicles we believe, and I think the Local Government Association believes, that abandoned vehicles should be dealt with by local authorities. The Agency will be responsible for the more hazardous waste end and also the more organised activity, so if people are deliberately trying to circumvent the law by disposing of construction and demolition waste by landscaping activities or those sorts of activities then we will deal with those and the more hazardous, but we believe it is for local authorities to deal with abandoned vehicles. Q239 Joan Ruddock: In some of the remarks that all of you have made you have already indicated that you think lessons have been learned from ELV and you rather indicate that WEEE is going better. Is there anything more you would like to put on the record, very specifically, about what precise lessons were learned that are now being applied? Ms Parkes: One of the particular areas is this issue of stakeholder consultation. That has gone fairly well from my perspective on ELV and WEEE. With the waste permitting review we have looked to build on that and what is happening is there is on-going stakeholder engagement through a series of informal consultations going on the Defra website; there is a steering group within Defra on which industry is represented; and we have certainly been making noises to make sure the right sectors of industries are represented so we are not just talking about the traditional waste industry but retailers, manufacturers, those that are impacted by WEEE and Hazardous Waste Directives, and we have also mentioned the work we are doing on regulatory impact assessments and that is another example where we are leading on that work with Defra and engaging with stakeholders now to say, "If the regulation comes out looking something like this it would have this type of regulatory impact", and making sure we have some real data in there rather than just an agency or government assessment of what it would cost industry. This is where the Agency plays a key role. We cannot just look at the cost of regulation on industry; we need to look at the combined cost of regulations and how the Agency applies those, how would we interpret those and apply them and what would that mean for industry, so we are very supportive of the fact that work is going very well, and we are getting good feedback from a variety of industry groups that they are feeling much more engaged in the process, rather than just having a formal consultation at the end of six months. Dr Leinster: DTI, as project lead in this, has also established a formal project which involves itself, Defra and the Agency, and through that all of the joint working and all the different aspects of work on implementing WEEE is being co-ordinated; there are clear milestones which are being met; and one of the things about meeting milestones is that it then gives confidence to everybody looking in on the process to say yes, this is a process under control and we as an industry can then make decisions based upon that confidence that we have seen in the process. So I think that has been very positive. Q240 Joan Ruddock: On the review of the waste permitting arrangements, you said it would deliver a more responsive and proportionate permitting regime. What do you mean by that? Ms Parkes: The waste management licensing regime went on the statute books in 1990. There have been a lot of changes since then and one area is on the definition of waste, for instance, so we now see more activities coming within the scope of regulatory control than one might have previously thought. We have a series of exemptions made by government that deal with the lighter touch, lower risk activities which are much easier for industry to register. It does not cost anything to register most of the exemptions and we think that is a very proportionate and sensible way of dealing with low risk activities. We know where they are but we do not need to actively regulate them unless they become a problem. But again that system has been around since 1994 and we think it is timely now for a fundamental review of that, not looking backwards but looking forward to the challenges we all face and to look at the combined impacts of the Hazardous Waste Directive, End of Life Vehicle, WEEE Directive, the changes in the definition of waste and the new treatment facilities. We need to say, "What do we need for the future?", and rather than exemptions that take four years to review let us have something that is much more responsive to the needs of industry, the Agency and the environment, that actually allows novel treatment and technologies to come forward, and not have those barriers of regulation put in the way. That is what I meant by something more responsive. Q241 Joan Ruddock: Can you illustrate that specifically for the WEEE Directive? Ms Parkes: Certainly. Mention was made earlier of the need to have a waste management licence or a permit if you are dealing with hazardous waste. That is the current situation. You can have an exemption for hazardous waste but only if it has been agreed with the Commission and has been the subject of discussion with other Member States. We think that issue needs to be looked at generically to say, "Well, if you are wanting want to take back photographic chemicals, for instance, or fluorescent light tubes or cars even and these are going to be hazardous waste, can we not still have a proportionate risk-based regime for regulating?" If we need to get the prior consent of the Commission then that needs to happen and we need to look at what light touch appropriate regulatory mechanisms we need so that we are not putting barriers in the way of important developments, particularly on recovery and take-back schemes. So it can be done but we need to be planning for the future in putting those mechanisms in place. Q242 Joan Ruddock: There has been, as you have given evidence, some mention of discussions between government and yourselves but can you just specifically talk about the role you have played in the discussion between government and the distributors and the producers, about how to collect and dispose of WEEE? Mr Cooper: There have been a whole series of different stakeholder groups that have come together to discuss various issues, and there have been two meetings where local authorities have met jointly with retailers which has been quite helpful in at least providing some understanding of each other's perspectives. Q243 Joan Ruddock: Did you know that the evidence we have is obviously quite contradictory, with each body wanting the other to take the responsibility? Mr Cooper: Yes. I understand that each of the groups will wish to place the burden - particularly the financial responsibility - on the other but I think there has been more of a mutual understanding of the difficulties that each of the parties has with regard to those sorts of issues. Clearly at the moment there are local authorities who have the responsibility for disposing of WEEE through the normal refuse collection system and also through civic amenity sites, and there will be a change coming about from this Directive with encouragement for segregation of waste, and I think the consultation paper now provides a mechanism for a certain amount of support from producers towards local authorities. This is probably inadequate as far as the local authorities are concerned, but if we look at this at an international level there is probably a clearer set of partnerships that establish themselves over time as these pieces of, in this case, national legislation associated with WEEE come together, and a mutual understanding and commitment towards working towards better environmental outcomes. We have seen in the Nordic countries, for example, a range of slightly different solutions, all of which have led to a better management of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, and I hope that we are moving in the same direction as far as the United Kingdom is concerned. Q244 Joan Ruddock: Does the Environment Agency have a particular prescription for how that mix should come out based on experience, for example, in other countries? Mr Cooper: There is not an ideal solution. There are so many different parameters that you have to take into account that obviously one should build upon the practice that exists at the present time and so one should try to strengthen existing good practice with regard to how Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment is being dealt with. For example, there are quite a lot of schemes for retailers to take large items back from households and one needs to strengthen that and not see, as we saw with fridges, that that system was totally disrupted and led then to a whole series of further problems when it went. Q245 Joan Ruddock: Specifically on civic amenity sites, where do you see the responsibility there? We had a discussion earlier about who might pay, who might organise what extensions are needed. Do you have any views? Mr Cooper: I think it is not really for the Agency to comment in depth on this but, as far as the civic amenity sites are concerned, quite a lot of people would naturally take very large items of equipment back there: there is segregation taking place at the moment with regard to large white goods which are segregated to go into shredders so that there would be some continuity there: many civic amenity sites already offer facilities for people to segregate large amounts of waste, and increasingly there are more of these facilities being offered so it is a natural move as far as local authorities and their civic amenity sites are concerned, but producers will have a responsibility and I think it is for the producers - both the manufacturers and the retailers - to provide mechanisms of support if that is the direction in which they move, so they should be, for example, providing containers and, as is proposed in the consultation paper, support for additional infrastructure where that is required. Q246 Joan Ruddock: If I might just press any of you on what the ESA told us, they thought existing civic amenity sites were the best way forward, better than to go in for new infrastructure. Do you agree or disagree with that? Dr Leinster: I think civic amenity sites do have a role to play but not everybody lives close to a civic amenity site. There are also issues, as you were discussing with the previous witnesses, that not everybody takes advantage of collection of bulky items. There are certain sectors of society who buy secondhand, so I think at one level they will have a role to play, but we do have to think what is going to happen in certain neighbourhoods where segregated collection is not happening, they do not take advantage of collection of bulky items, they still want to get rid of their items but they do not happen to live close to or cannot transport to a civic amenity site. There is this assumption that you can take a bulky item to a civic amenity site but not everybody has the means to do that, so I think they will have a role to play but certainly when you look at facilities able to deal with the whole population, they are not the only answer. Q247 Joan Ruddock: What do we need in addition? Dr Leinster: It is going to be a mix. Retailers will have a role to play, and collection and how you encourage people to phone up for bulky items is also going to be a real challenge but I do not think it comes down to just facilities. There is a bigger, more difficult societal issue underlying this. Q248 Joan Ruddock: And in expanding the civic amenity sites, which I think everyone is agreeing is going to be necessary, albeit not the whole of the answer, have you any advice on what could make their expansion more straightforward? Ms Parkes: I guess they would experience problems with gaining planning permission like one does for any waste facility. This is where local authorities and RDAs are going to need to be identifying not just broad areas for research but actual sites. Historically civic amenity sites have been located on or near old landfills in the days when these facilities were owned and operated by local government, so we have a changing picture now. Not too many local authorities will have identified new sites in their waste local plans, and we do need to look at what an adequate network of facilities would look like, both regionally and locally. Q249 Joan Ruddock: I represent an inner city seat and we all know the difficulties in inner London particularly, and it is the same for every city. Dr Leinster: And there is this continuing disconnect that we have discussed before here and in other Select Committees between strategic waste planning and local locational planning decisions. Just now they do not tie up. Chairman: We do not want to get on to local government structure! Q250 Mr Drew: I apologise for not being here earlier; I have been having a very interesting conversation with the Leader of the House and you will be pleased to know that waste did come up! By coincidence I have been on a couple of occasions in the last fortnight working with the reclamation industry, and the gist of the question I am going to ask really comes directly from conversations with that industry. They would say that the problem with what we are trying to do at the moment is it looks very negative; it looks as though we are going to penalise people and we are going to try and see these materials as a complete chore, yet they would argue that most materials can be reclaimed. Obviously they are working at the top end of the market but they are adamant that every area like mine, like Stroud, should have a centre whereby any building is stripped and all its materials, including the bricks the building is made of, are taken to a central place and re-used. Is this a dream or is this something we can begin to approach? What is the attitude you see government having towards that? Is it one that means you can turn this real problem into an opportunity, or is it too difficult to handle - "Let's incinerate it all"? Dr Leinster: It plays into a number of areas that the government is looking at and certainly we within the Agency are looking at on, for example, sustainable communities, and the major new housebuilding that has to go on, and the consequential construction and demolition waste that will arise from that. One of the things we have been pushing for within that whole area is that developers should come forward with a waste management plan of how they are going to deal with all the materials, and that should also include how they are going to ensure better use of the virgin material which goes on to the site, because a staggering proportion of material that goes on to a site then subsequently never gets used and gets disposed of. So I think that there needs to be that strategic waste management which takes into account how you are going to deal with all construction and demolition waste; that it gets sorted and as much as possible gets re-claimed. Waste has to be seen as a resource; we need to be thinking again about things like the sustainable consumption strategy that is also being looked at and how resource flows go through different sectors. There are bigger opportunities in this: I do not think it has to be a pipedream, but it will require co-ordination and some work on the definition of waste, so that you do not have the stigma of the waste word being associated with some of these materials, or we must find some way of overcoming that stigma. We have with recycled paper but not with some of the other recycled materials, so people should be saying, "How much recycled content can I get into this new product?", rather than, "How much can I keep out of it because it is clearly second class?" Also there is a role for government and local authority public sector procurement, where they should be requiring minimum recycling content within purchased goods, so I think there are a whole lot of opportunities here: it will require bringing a whole lot of strands together but with the required attention it can be delivered. Q251 Mr Drew: Obviously what they say to me is "Give us a few tax credits and we will do this even more effectively" - that may have come up earlier in discussions - but I suppose the question would be whether the two Directives we are looking at in this inquiry are moving in the right direction? Presumably you would say they are, but what lessons can we learn from those in the sense that we are looking to move the agenda positively in a direction whereby the various different consumers, including the public sector, actually ask for re-used or reclaimed materials to be included within their purchases rather than see it as something rather inferior. As you say quite rightly, we have got to a stage with newspaper but is that something these Directives are moving us towards, or is it a sideshow, or what? Ms Parkes: What is helpful about both of these Directives is that they start to look at manufacture of these products - not just at take-back and recycling but at the hazardous components and encouraging materials to be separated out for recycling. Also, both Directives make the issue of waste real to the public. Often these things are seen as coming out of Europe and it happens "over there" to "somebody else's waste". Most people can relate to the concept of Waste Vehicles and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment - if only it were not such a mouthful! Paul was talking about changing people's attitudes and this is a way of making it very real and saying that waste is a wasted resource and here is an opportunity to get people to think more responsibly about what they are purchasing, and how they are handling waste coming from it. Chairman: So you are saying that directives like these are an opportunity, not a threat? Q252 David Taylor: "Challenge" is the word they use! Ms Parkes: A challenge. Q253 Chairman: Is that the view of Defra and the DTI? Ms Parkes: I would not like to hazard a guess at what their view is. Q254 Chairman: Well, you work with them so what do you think? Dr Leinster: I think they see them as an opportunity because, for example, they are looking at other potential uses for producer responsibility in non-directive waste streams. Q255 Chairman: Thank you very much. I do not think you have promised to send us anything -- Dr Leinster: We did not! Chairman: -- But if something occurs as you are going down the list please do not be afraid to drop us a line. Thank you all very much indeed. |