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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 637-iii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS COMMITTEE (NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS SUB-COMMITTEE) WASTE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Wednesday 23 June 2004 MRS DEIRDRE STEWART and MR BRYAN GREGORY MR ERIC RANDALL and MR JOHN McMULLAN Evidence heard in Public Questions 102 - 179
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (Northern Ireland Affairs Sub-Committee) on Wednesday 23 June 2004 Members present Mr Tony Clarke, in the Chair Mr Adrian Bailey Mr Gregory Campbell Mr Stephen Hepburn Mr Iain Luke Mr Stephen Pound The Reverend Martin Smyth Mark Tami Mr Bill Tynan ________________ Memorandum submitted by CBI Northern Ireland Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Mrs Deirdre Stewart, Assistant Director, CBI (Northern Ireland) and Mr Bryan Gregory, Consultant, Kirk, McClure & Morton, examined. Q102 Chairman: Mrs Stewart, Mr Gregory, you are very welcome. We understand you had problems entering the building. Mrs Stewart: No, we did not. We have been down there since five past three. We were under the impression somebody was going to come down and get us, but anyway, we are here now. Q103 Chairman: You are very welcome. Mr Gregory: We would have hated to have been the first witnesses who failed to turn up! Q104 Chairman: We said earlier on, losing one set of witnesses is a bit much, but we lost both sets. We were very worried! First of all, can I thank you for the written submission from CBI (Northern Ireland); it was certainly helpful to the Committee. What we wanted to do was to supplement your written evidence with your answering some questions from the Committee. I wonder if I could start, not necessarily with a bouncer, but with a nice easy question in respect of non-municipal wastes. Do you think that the Waste Management Strategy and the Area Waste Management Plans contain enough guidance, incentive and direction for the treatment of non-municipal wastes? Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, thank you for the question. At the outset perhaps we could say thank you very much for this opportunity as well. We think this investigation by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee is very timely and that it will provide good stimulus, both for the review of the Northern Ireland Waste Management Strategy but also the pending review of the Waste Management Plan, because I think it is crucial to the future of Northern Ireland Plc. In terms of the question on non-municipal waste, can I say at the outset that CBI (NI) supports a shift from one of waste management to one of resource management. The corollary to that is that resources are really only exploited effectively when economic conditions are right and business responds effectively to economic and regulatory pressures, would be our belief. Is there enough guidance in the current strategy for commercial industrial waste? I think the answer to that is probably, yes, but in so far as it is a relatively light touch, setting out the waste hierarchy and setting some aspirational targets such as the reduction of C&I waste disposed of to landfill. Coupled with that, however, there is a strong and increasingly stringent regulatory framework in place to which businesses need to respond: for example, the duty of care packaging regulations, and we have obligations for businesses under that. We do, however, feel there is a need for greater direction in some areas and we would specifically highlight integration on a cross-sector basis between municipal and commercial industrial wastes and also some greater direction on the choice of technologies, and that impacts on the waste management plans themselves. We note, for example, that the Waste Management Strategy is quite strong in providing clear direction on incineration; but it is also interesting for us to note that the current strategy, for example, in the section on planning an infrastructure and key action, there is no action against industry. So for the future, in setting actions and targets, we believe they need to be framed in a context of defining what the objective of that target is, who is responsible for it, what is the mechanism for achieving it and also whether it is a direct action or an indirect consequence of something, and the timescales for delivery, because that needs to be translated into effective implementation for the future. So, yes, the Waste Management Plan has implemented a strategy, and it is argued that the commercial industrial waste must be included in the Waste Management Plan, because we think there are potential synergies there. There are opportunities to be exploited. Q105 Chairman: You mentioned twice there delivery. Do you think it is appropriate that local authorities of the bodies should be developing waste plans for commercial industrial waste as well as those that they already produce for municipal? Mr Gregory: Local authorities under the current legislation have a statutory obligation to prepare waste management plans for all controlled wastes, and they have a very strong interest in their own municipal waste schemes. We think there are potential synergies, and they can range, for example, from simple things like small SMEs could make use of council facilities, civic amenity sites. Some councils, for example, do not accept, take paper for recycling at their civic amenity site, but they will collect the waste from offices for disposal, and that seems to us to be a slight contradiction. They may not have the detailed knowledge of the commercial and industrial waste stream and the requirements for that. So we think that there is a need to broaden the waste management planning base to involve the relevant sectors. We have already seen in the current plans the involvement of waste stream specific chapters on packaging of hazardous waste, and we believe there is potential to expand that in principle. Q106 Chairman: So you are really talking partnership, are you not? Local authorities already have a duty, but there should be more partnership and cooperation with the industrial sector? Mr Gregory: We believe partnership very much is the way forward, Mr Chairman, yes. Q107 Mr Pound: Welcome. Sorry about the confusion earlier on. Mrs Stewart, Mr Gregory, the CBI speaks with a voice of authority in the way that many other groups and organisations do not, and you have earned the right to be listened to. One of the expressions you used in your report - and the Chairman has quite rightly thanked you for it, and I think he speaks for all of us when he says that - is the issue of leadership. You say, "Probably the most significant failure to date in the implementation of the Strategy" is a lack of leadership. You also go on to say this is a criticism of the while of government rather than the Department of the Environment. I am not in any way being sensitive about this, but surely the DOE, as the lead department, should give that leadership. How would you personally like to see that issue of leadership tackled? Mr Gregory: Perhaps, Mr Chairman, if I can offer an initial comment that actually comes from DETI, who commented, and I think I quote reasonably accurately, "The strategies led by DOE, and rightly so, other departments perceive to be the responsibility of DOE to implement and do not recognise the part that they can play". Clearly, in our view, government departments and agencies have an important leadership role to play. They can make an impact through their own purchasing and waste management practices. Particularly in Northern Ireland, as the public sector is such a high part of GDP, the Government is in a much better position to influence practices than in any other part of the UK. I suppose it is similar in terms of our view to sustainable development: it is an overall government responsibility, not the DOE's in isolation. We are not sure of the mechanisms, but essentially we believe that the Government, the head of the Civil Service, whoever is the most appropriate body, should issue a letter, a "let it be" memo, to all government departments, asking, instructing, or whatever the appropriate terminology is, each government department agency to implement the policies and measures set out in the Waste Management Strategy. Q108 Mr Pound: Has this ever been suggested, are you aware? Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, I am not sure whether it has been suggested or not, but I think we would be making some comment on the roles of other government departments. Mrs Stewart: If I could just expand on that. We feel it is all so clear that someone should play the lead role; but it cannot be in isolation: it does require the investment of DETI. The level of funding required, which we estimate as being of the order of as much as £3 billion over the next 20 years or so, would also require the involvement of DFP. Obviously we do not believe, for example, it would prove possible to fund the expenses necessary to comply simply through rates, because there is an issue, I think, about paying twice. Some of our members have actually raised this because they are paying an element within their rates already towards waste management and disposal. They feel that they are asked to pay again. They feel that they are already being asked to pay twice in this area. The DOE clearly leads in environmental protection, but we feel waste management is much wider than this. So, although they probably will still have the lead role, I think what we were trying to get over is that it is a lead role within a much wider government involvement in this area along with other departments. Q109 Mr Pound: I can assure you, by definition, a lead role, a leader is an individual rather than collective and collegiate, but I am greatly attracted to your idea of a "let it be" memo, a fiat or a ukase, as used by the Imperial Russian Court in the nineteenth century, but are you not aware of any bottom up movement here rather than top down because it is always tempting to issue a note and say, "Let it be", and, as I said, I am tempted by it, but if you look at the rest of GPU you often find that locally based schemes were put in place, in many cases, with chambers of commerce or CBI and it actually came from the bottom up. Are you aware of any such things in the Northern Ireland? Mr Gregory: I think, Mr Chairman, there certainly are examples of very good practice, for example within government, and I would specifically refer to, for example, Water Service, the Environmental Management System that has been driven by the members of staff within Water Service. Road Service, I believe, implemented one of the first black top recycling schemes in the UK. So there are within government already examples of good practice, but it tends to be, so far as we can see, in isolation. I think there is a potential role there, for example, within the procurement service, to have a big influence in the future; I think what is interesting to note there is that is going to headed by somebody who has come out of Water Service and brings that experience and drive with them. I think that offers potential for the future as well. Mrs Stewart: Could I also mention an initiative that I am involved with in terms of the steering group, which is Arena Network (Northern Ireland), which does work through landfill tax funding with most of the existing 26 councils in Northern Ireland. There is an issue there, I think, in terms of funding, because the Chancellor has changed that formula, but basically Arena is, I suppose, the private sector environmental arm, if you like, of CBI, Chamber of Commerce, IOD and a number of other organisations, and they are actually working on a day-to-day basis in terms of waste management issues and, indeed, wider environmental issues, as I said, through most of the councils in Northern Ireland. So that is an example. I think I am referring to that later on as well. Q110 Mr Pound: Last question, Chairman. I appreciate I am trespassing on your patience. Referring to GB and the local authorities, there were lead authorities in GB. I am thinking of Adur Council in Sussex and ECT from the London Borough of Ealing, which was one of the first people to grasp the issue of particularly kerbside recycling and the wider management of the waste stream. In fact, Stephen Steers started that back in 1986/87. Is there a lead local authority in Northern Ireland on that basis, or is there a "beacon" - if you will forgive me for using the jargon - local authority we can refer to? Mr Gregory: I think, Mr Chairman, yes, there very clearly is, and I am sure the follow-up witness will be making reference to that, but certainly we would hold up, for example, Banbridge in Armagh is a district council with primary-- Q111 Mr Pound: They would be your beacons? Mr Gregory: They would be our beacons, and there is that expectation from the public as well. One comment, Mr Chairman, if you will bear with me for just one second, is that at the time the last strategy was prepared, if my memory serves me right, Water Service and Road Service were part of the Department for the Environment. So at that stage they could not produce a leadership example of this group practice. That is now outwith the Department of Environment's remit, but was there housed within DRD. Q112 Reverend Smyth: Can I follow up on that? Is it not a fact that Belfast Council had been planning a strategy years back and had to change it because government officials in the environment did not know much about mismanagement, and it has already begun to take off with the appointment of Professor Stephen Austin, and that has put Belfast back and, with the new regulations, they might not be able to deliver in the time schedule that has now been accepted? Mr Gregory: I think, Mr Chairman, the chairman of the Belfast tender was referring to the cumulative exercise that was taking place in the mid to late 1990s. That was undertaken with a view to putting in place a long-term contract. We do not know the details of the process and procedures. What we do know though is that a significant investment of time, energy, money, commitment by the council, by the tenderers and, indeed, by the Department, but the end result was that not a single facility was developed through that process, and we are still left with a legacy of a number of undetermined planning applications that were borne out of that process. We do not think it was by design, but the net result was at the end of the day it seemed to reach a position whereby, if the Department gave planning permission to a facility, that would be the one that would win the contract. That seems to us to be untenable for a government department to end up essentially as the arbiter on a commercial tender for a third party, and I think that process - we can learn from it. It has had the effect, I think, of severely denting the confidence of major waste management companies and the ability of Northern Ireland Plc to deliver, so there is an investor confidence issue there. There is also a confidence issue in relation to waste management companies that might be looking to bring facilities on stream in the delivery of planning applications as well. So in recognition of that, I think it is fair to say that the Department have committed to developing a procurement strategy that overlaps with their development of a Northern Ireland wide BEPO. I think that if that is developed successfully, all employers, including the private sector, councils, planning service, the environment and heritage service, a potential tenant will know what is expected of him and should be able to deliver, to meet, particularly towards 2010/2013, landfill refuse targets. Q113 Reverend Smyth: You did say "if". Is there a doubt in your mind that you may not be? Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, I think time is of the essence with this, and when we start to look at the Landfill Allowance Scheme that is in place in Northern Ireland, our rough estimate, for example, if the measures that are in the current waste management plans only are rolled out, then Northern Ireland is probably looking at a fine under the legislation, based on £200 a ton, of between £20 to £30 million in the year 2009. Therefore, decisions need to be taken now, essentially from the middle of this year - decisions need to be taken next year to make the longer term targets, but time is of the essence. Q114 Chairman: Our sincere hope is that we have an assembly that can show some leadership back up and running, but in the interim perhaps the Committee can set an agenda. Mr Gregory: I am not sure that the CBI has a position on this, but from our conversation we would very much hope to see an assembly up and running. Mrs Stewart: I think we would, CBI would, as well. Q115 Mr Hepburn: On the cross-border issue, you say that there is "potential for certain wastes to be handled on an all-island basis", and you mention, more specifically, the recent all-Ireland fridge tender. Do you think this potential has been explored to an extent that you are happy with? Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, not at present, would be our belief. For example, there are only three waste management plans that refer to the potential for cooperation on a cross-border basis, and that is the one prepared by County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and the North West and SWaMP Waste Management Plan. The waste management plans in the North East and Connaught regions of the Republic of Ireland did not seem to make any reciprocal or recognise the potential for reciprocal arrangements at the time the plans were prepared. I am not sure of the reasons for that. Having said that, we understand that inter-reg funding has been allocated to a study to look at this potential within the inter-reg region. We welcome that. We believe it will be led by ICBAN on behalf of the SWaMP and North Eastern Connaught regions, but we are not aware of any work, for example, being undertaken by DOE or DETI in these areas. Q116 Mr Hepburn: What is DETI doing at present, what more could they do to develop cross-border opportunities and how realistic is your suggestion of an all-Ireland paper mill? Mrs Stewart: If I could handle the first part of that. We are not aware of what DETI are doing, to be honest, on this front. However, we do believe that there is potential for them to be proactive in analysing and assessing the potential in conjunction with local authorities and the business community to identify and encourage potential economic development opportunities that could be exploited. I will hand over to Bryan. Mr Gregory: The simple answer on the paper mill is that we do not really know at this point in time. What we do know is that it is a specific issue that has been raised time and again through the public consultation process, for example, for the waste management plans, it has been raised by some of our members as a potential opportunity, so at least there is a widespread perception that this paper mill would have some potential. We also know in the early 90s there was a proposal for a pulp mill in the North West, and we understand that the business model for that demonstrated viability but had failed to come to fruition for other reasons. We also appreciate that paper is essentially a commodity and that there have been changes in the market. There has been the development of additional capacity, for example, at Shotten, there are increasing quality requirements being imposed by re-processors for source separation, and essentially we are playing in the commodity market unless we develop local capacity in local markets. Notwithstanding that, we think there is some merit at least in exploring that and assessing the potential for that, but it does seem to have that sort of potential acceptance. Q117 Mr Hepburn: Are there not likely to be issues associated with trans-frontier shipments with different mechanisms on both sides of the border? Are you not really arguing for a rewrite of European legislation? Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, dealing with the European legislation, to the best of my knowledge we believe that more could be done on the basis of cross-border cooperation. We do not believe it is against European legislation to transport for disposal. We believe, or understand, that the European requirements are that it is acceptable or it is recognised in respect of waste management plans. It is the UK import/export plan that we understand has gone slightly further and has imposed a ban on export for disposal or import for disposal as well. A good example of that, for example, in Northern Ireland is the North West where Donegal is essentially an island compared to the rest of the Republic, and there is clearly a lot of potential there for cooperation between the Northern Ireland and the North West Management Group and County Donegal as well. Judging from reports as well, the simple fact is that it is happening. There was a report published by Pier Pagan Associates (?) that put the figure, from memory I think it was about 5,000 tons per annum coming into Northern Ireland last year, some of them many reports of illegal dumping. From our perspective I think CBI believe that cross-border movement of waste for treatment and disposal should be allowed in a properly regulated market environment with appropriate controls, so it should be allowed between the waste planning areas in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It was one of the recommendations in the CBI/IBEC report. We were particularly pleased to note the change of policy announced by the Irish Government in the article in the Irish Times of 26th April, and we think that approach will help to ameliorate the competition and achieve economies of scale - the corollary - which is, I think, the point that you made very fairly. There are dangers that within the respective jurisdictions we have not placed instruments or mechanisms that become drivers themselves: for example, the Landfill Tax or the Landfill Levy in the Republic of Ireland, a set differential rates. So we think there should be a reciprocal tax arrangement put in place essentially with the tax at the point of export, for example, so that a tax does not become the driver in its own right, it is the competition in the market and the effectiveness of a properly regulated market. Q118 Chairman: Do you accept that could cause problems in the rest of the GB if there are different reciprocal tax arrangements between the north and south of the border but different tax arrangements again on this side of the water? Mr Gregory: I am sorry, I am not sure. When I say "reciprocal tax arrangement", essentially, I think, what we are trying to say is that waste that is produced, for example, in the Republic of Ireland should be paying tax at the rate at which it would apply in the Republic of Ireland even if it was being exported for disposal in Northern Ireland. Similarly, waste being produced in Northern Ireland, if it was being transferred to the Republic of Ireland for disposal, should be paying tax on the Northern Ireland rate so that the tax differential does not become the key driver. It may create difficulties or issues, but it is a suggestion, Mr Chairman. Chairman: Thank you. Q119 Mark Tami: You will no doubt be aware of the practice of Scam recycling. What do you estimate to be the extent of this particular problem? Mrs Stewart: I do not think I could comment on the extent. We have been getting some feedback on this. I think we were looking at this issue in terms of how it could be acted against. We feel that what is required is tight contractual requirements. Q120 Mark Tami: I am sorry to interrupt you, but presumably, if you were going to counteract it, you would need to know what its effects were in the first place? Mrs Stewart: This is part of what I am going to say. I think this is part of the issue, that there is an issue around what are the true percentages going to recovery or diversion. I do not think that the true percentages are coming out. This is part of the issue. I have heard instances of some people using skips which they have procured from elsewhere and filled with recovered material to give the impression that recovery is going on when, in fact, only small amounts are being recovered or recycled on the site. I think another aspect of it is also a legislative one. We need the legislation in place to set out the limits and definition of recovery which we do not have in Northern Ireland but does exist in England and Wales. I think we certainly need good reporting back requirements on the total quantities disposed of when recycling. So the issues are connected. I know what you are trying to get at. I think the two are connected. Do you want to add anything? Mr Gregory: No. Q121 Mark Tami: It is said that this is a cross-border type issue. Would you agree with that, or is that a problem throughout the-- Mr Gregory: I think that... Certainly what we are hearing is, yes, shipments which are supposedly for recycling or recovery are, in fact, ending up being dumped. Q122 Mark Tami: It is said that certain stuff is taken out, a small amount, and the rest is dumped in the landfill? Mr Gregory: Yes. Q123 Mark Tami: Is that your view? Mr Gregory: Yes. Certainly that is the feedback I have been getting from members, yes. Q124 Reverend Smyth: You enclosed a report with your submission suggesting that there was very little that SMEs could do about the rising disposal costs. Is not the most obvious change to try to avoid disposing of waste, a matter that, as I understand it, is in the hands of the enterprise concerned? Mrs Stewart: You mean waste minimisation? Q125 Reverend Smyth: Yes. Mrs Stewart: Obviously that is, I suppose, the council of perfection, if that can actually be achieved. I think in terms of this issue, there was a question around what CBI's role would be: because obviously this is our report along with IBEC. I think IC are on here as very much an educative and promotional one. I have mentioned our involvement in Arena already. I suppose we are chiefly a lobbying group, but part of our mission is to spread best practice. We have been talking about waste minimisation through, in the early days, 10 years ago, our environment club, through promotional events for quite a few years in Northern Ireland. In more recent years we have instituted a best practice environmental bench-marking initiative called Contour, which, I think, 20 companies in Northern Ireland undertook last year, and using the European quality foundation type model to see where they fitted in terms of peers, and so on. We actually had two or three member companies who were world class, but obviously there is a long way to go. They are the kind of initiatives and areas in which we see our role; so it is very much an educative and promotional one rather than action, specific actions. Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, if I could add a comment there as well, because I think it is also important in looking at these things to look head slightly. For example, the thematic strategy in waste prevention recycling - we are anticipating that it will bring out measures that will apply to businesses in the future: for example corporate waste prevention plans were specifically mentioned in the consultation paper. There is also the thematic strategy and sustainable use of resources again looking at the potential of "green" procurement and taxes on virgin materials. There is the Integrated Product Policy Directive. All of these are measures that are continuing to add to the regulatory framework and the policy framework to which business needs to respond; so it is a very, very dynamic environment. The one thing that is clear is that the old, traditional practice of chucking waste in a dump just round the corner is no longer sustainable, and I think business is responding to the challenges as they evolve. Q126 Reverend Smyth: It would be important then to avoid that council of perfection because, human beings being what they are, will always find ways of not doing what we ought to be doing? Mrs Stewart: That was an unfortunate expression! Q127 Reverend Smyth: Do you think that what you are suggesting will help to promote recycling infrastructure in Northern Ireland, and is CBI taking the lead in that? Mrs Stewart: I think there is an issue around infrastructure. I think one of the key comments we made when we initially commented on the Draft Waste Management Strategy a number of years ago, was that it was very important that there was an infrastructure and indeed markets in place for recycled products. I think we still have issues around that. Your perception would be that, while progress is being made towards the targets, there would not be a great deal of public knowledge about this. Even probably in our view, we would be closer to the issue than, I would say, a lot of businesses, and we are not hearing an awful lot about the Waste Management Strategy and in terms how it has been implemented ourselves, so I would think that the average business is hearing a lot less. I think there is an issue in terms of capacity and also again they are referred to as the education process, or even publicity. Perhaps it is not even education; it is publicity, if you like. Q128 Reverend Smyth: Does CBI see a role for WRAP (the Waste Resources Action Program) in Northern Ireland? Mrs Stewart: Yes. Q129 Reverend Smyth: If so, might the CBI work with WRAP? Mrs Stewart: Yes. I actually heard advanced publicity about WRAP, I suppose. A number of years ago I remember a deal. He had a meeting, a lunch-time meeting, and told us, brought people over from WRAP and GB and told us that this initiative was coming on the cards, and so on, which obviously we welcomed, but I think the issue now is that... I know there was a seminar. Ian Garner, who is the WRAP officer in Northern Ireland, ran a seminar last September to try and raise the profile, and so on, which unfortunately I was not able to attend, but, to be honest, since then I have not heard anything more from WRAP, and I am not sure what they are doing; but I think there are more fundamental issues, one of which is the access to WRAP programmes needs to be the same, I think, in Northern Ireland as it is in the rest of the UK. My understanding is that we only have access to about four of seven programs which GB has; so obviously the issue of market development is the key to developing and delivering the targets. There is also an issue around how WRAP coordinates with initiatives such as Arena, which I mentioned in answer to an earlier question. I think what we suffer from in Northern Ireland is that besides quangos we have a lot of other bodies who are all busily working away in their own silos and may be not aware and not coordinating together. There is another issue, I think, around where WRAP is situated, which is in-house within the DOE, one of the DOE offices, which we feel is not the most appropriate location for them. We would also point to Wales. There is a best practice model where, I understand, the officers involved there worked closely with the Welsh Development Agency: because I think what we are trying to get, and it is a theme coming up throughout our submission, is that we feel this 'geterisation' (sic) of waste towards the DOE, we want to see DETI getting much more involved in this as an economic issue. So we see this as part of that. Q130 Mr Luke: I have a few questions to ask on the issue of planning. In your submission you make the point that the current situation with planning applications undetermined after many years is particularly unhelpful. Can you give us some reasons why these planning applications remain undetermined and why there is such a lengthy delay in determining planning applications? Can you give us any concrete examples of the determination of planning applications? Mrs Stewart: Yes. I think it is part of a wider issue. In terms of planning we have in the CBI been doing quite a lot of work on how the planning system is working or failing to work, because it obviously impacts in terms of our members in construction development, and so on. There are issues around the resources of the planning service, which I know have been addressed to an extent however do not seem to be developing much in terms of improving the speed of handling planning applications on the ground yet. I know they certainly have taken on extra staff within the last two or three years. I think there are fundamental issues in terms of how they see their role but also in terms of their day-to-day operation. In terms of specific examples, there are many. If I could give one, which is a member company who is actually... I do not want to name them, but it could perhaps be worked out who they are. Their planning application or their time in the process is now no less than 106 months, which is nine years, and that is not the worst example. There are ones which Bryan could give which are even longer than that. Obviously this is quite unacceptable. So there are some quite technical issues around there, but it is not just an issue in relation to planning for waste management facilities, it is part of a wider problem with planning services as a whole as well, but it has particularly come to the fore in planning because we are now reaching some quite crucial issues in terms of, for example, Dargon Road running out and the substitution for that. Do you want to follow up on that? Mr Gregory: No. Mr Chairman, I think the length of time of some of the longer ones referred to the question earlier about Belfast. A number of those tenders were borne out of that process and then, when that process fell, those applications have still continued and the applicants have done their best to adjust as they saw the changing needs or situation; and I suppose at some point in time decisions do need to be taken on these to move the thing forward to ensure that we have adequate capacity for the future. Mrs Stewart: Could I add another example, which I think is quite a good one? This was a company's application for an extension to its waste management licence. Apparently, if you go for a new waste management licence it is even worse, but this was an extension, which you think would be quicker. Apparently the planning service lost two parts of the company's application and the process took months. Apparently the process has got worse this year because the responsibility for the issue of new licences has passed to the EHS from district councils from the end of last year and since then everything seems to have ground to a complete halt - so the situation is no getting any better at all - and there also seems to be lack of communication between the planning authorities and the EHS. Q131 Mr Luke: You make some specific recommendations. You talk about the creation of a specialist waste team as part of the solution to the problem. You also support the creation of a waste planning authority. How would you see it operating? Are these one and the same body, or are these different bodies? How would they relate to each other and how would they operate in practice? Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, our approach, in terms of a specialist waste team, we see it as a natural evolution of the special study section that has already been established within the headquarters of Planning Service, and the reason for that is that it creates a specific, a focal point and it also creates an opportunity for the officer dealing with it in Planning Service to develop specialist knowledge of the waste as well as having knowledge of the planning policy and processes. But, dealing with the planning application for waste facility, it needs knowledge, not only of the development planning process and issues, but also knowledge of waste management planning. It requires knowledge of BEPO. BEPO under Planning Policy Statement 11 needs to be demonstrated for each and every waste management application, and all these relevant strands need to be drawn together quite effectively. Reference was also made earlier to the timescales involved for a decision of moving forward. Planning decisions do now need to be made quickly, or will need to be made quickly in the coming years, if you like, to unlock some of the facilities that are required to that, and the delays are something that need to be addressed, and that includes delays that go from statutory consultees responding to letters or queries from Planning Service, and those are issues that do need to be streamlined. We understand that Planning Service are looking to address this and we would like to see some concrete action involved from that. In principle such a team would operate pretty much as a special study section or an evolution from that, but I think it does need to be driven almost from the top down within Planning Service and monitored. The Waste Planning Authority really losing it - you know, the word partnership was used before. There needs to be some form of forum, authority - we are not sure of quite the right word - but somewhere where the different requirements and the different waste streams can be brought together and put into a melting pot that the optimum solutions for Northern Ireland Plc can evolve from. Q132 Mr Luke: This would be a super planning authority as well which would take the responsibility for determining, planning how local authorities begin to-- Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, I am not sure I would like to suggest that we are creating another planning authority to run in parallel with the current one. I think there would have to be an evolution in that - something to work with the Waste Management Plan. Certainly in Northern Ireland I am not sure that we need another tier of any form of government. Chairman: I leave that point well made. Mr Bill Tynan. Q133 Mr Tynan: In your statement the private sector has a key role to play in the provision of future services and facilities. That is in your submission. You seem to point out that at the present time they do not provide it. What prevents the private sector from providing the services and facilities which are required? Mrs Stewart: I think we would need to put this in some context. Fifteen years ago there was no private sector capacity - they were all public sites. There is now a fewer number of bigger public sites and there is a level of cooperation between councils. I think we have seen that through the Waste Management Plans and the consortia. I think the issue is where will the private sector get involved in the cycle? Local authorities need to consider their role to provide efficient services to direct to rate-payers involving economies of scale because obviously major capital investment would be required. I think the key issue is to have-- Chairman: My apologies. That bell tells us that there is a division. I believe there may be more than one. So the Committee is suspended until five minutes after the last bell. Mr Pound: It actually means one of us has escaped! The Committee suspended from 4.30 pm to 5.20 pm for a division in the House Chairman: First of all, my apologies for such a long delay. Votes in the Commons are a bit like deregulated bus services in Northampton: you see nothing for hours and then four or five come along at the same time! I do understand and appreciate that you have to get back to the airport, so, with your permission, we shall try to do justice to the questions we have perhaps with short answers. May I suggest that, if you wish, you can supplement those with additional written submissions to the Committee if you feel that is appropriate. At the time that the Committee was suspended we were on question seven. Is that correct? Q134 Mr Tynan: Yes. Obviously it is a long time since we met. Could you tell me, what prevents the private sector from providing services and facilities, to come back to that question? Mrs Stewart: Yes, I think I was talking about the context of that and the fact that 15 years ago there was no private sector capacity, it was all public. Now there are a fewer number of larger public sites and there is cooperation between the councils, but I think we see the issue as where will the private sector get involved in the cycle, and the local authorities need to consider their role to provide efficient services to rate-payers which involves economies of scale and because of major capital investment. The case is how procurement processes will be designed, and particularly in relation to security of supply. A good example of this is the recent tender by the North West Group, where all the councils in the group were involved in relation to dry mixed recycling. I think I will just end on this one that in terms of the private sector involvement, because of the financial constraints on them, the councils need to be able to guarantee tonnage for a number of years. Q135 Mr Tynan: Do you think there will be much interest in the private sector developing separately, independently from the public sector, these types of facilities? Mr Gregory: I think, Mr Chairman, it is a question of scale, and there was the point we were trying to get across earlier about the synergy between the different waste streams. For example, we would highlight the potential synergies between the agri-food sectors and the catering waste from kitchens within households, a relatively small quantity for the council waste stream, but clearly there are potential opportunities given the requirement for treatment under the Animal Bi-product Regulations. Deirdre is quite right in that historically, certainly from the municipal waste paper move from the traditional local dump or local authorities who perhaps have a number of local facilities just round the corner that were low standard operations, and this has evolved over a period of time. The private sector really would seek to buy the services that are required in response to procurement opportunities. As Deirdre has already said, once you are into the commodities and recycling of material, it is a question of where that material enters the private sector and goes to the market. It is in the provision of the waste collection services from the transfer point, and that really is a decision, in many respects, for local authorities in the design of their procurement arrangements, but there is clearly a parallel commercial and industrial sector where facilities also need to be developed. Our point is we believe there are potential synergies there that should be optimised to the benefit of all parties. Q136 Mr Bailey: In your submission you talked about the costs of waste management, saying that basically it put Northern Ireland at a competitive disadvantage. Given the fact that it is a relatively low proportion of total cost for industry, for most industries anyway, what evidence can you put forward to substantiate that and which particular industries are you talking about? Mrs Stewart: I think what we would want to say quite briefly is... I appreciate your point that for most... I do not think I could single out any particular sectors or industries, but I would take your point that for most industries it is a relatively small proportion of their cost, but we have been doing over the last year a lot of work on the cost of doing business in Northern Ireland along with our national work in CBI and, in fact, did a fairly detailed submission towards the end of last year responding to the cost comparison study which Ian Pearson had commissioned, and, I think, to give some specific examples, we certainly do have higher landfill costs. Just to run through some of the issues in terms of landfill capacity, we feel we need more competition, and obviously this is an issue in relation to planning development control, which we have already touched on earlier in the session; in relation to hazardous waste disposal, we need interim arrangements and the encouragement of new facilities by the DOE and the HSM Planning Service; in terms of recycling facilities, we need pump priming and financial support to assist in the development of facilities, and we see that as being a role for Invest Northern Ireland; and, in relation to North and South cooperation, we need to implement the IBECS/CBI recommendations on waste management which are contained in the report which you have, and this would be an issue for the government departments in Northern Ireland and the Republic: because I think we see the situation getting worse with several EU directives and a switch away from landfill. Finally, I think this also needs to be seen in terms of higher costs of doing business in Northern Ireland in relation to issues such as electricity, transport, water trade effluent charges, compliance costs generally, insurance, which has been a big issue for us in recent years, and, indeed, labour costs. Q137 Chairman: Could I check on a couple of questions in respect of technology? There was, if not a contradiction, a surprising imbalance in the comments that you sent to us in written format whereby you were calling for innovation in market developments but saying that as far as innovation in technology within the operational sector is concerned that you should use best available technology. So you are almost saying that innovation was good for market development, but not so good for practice. Could you square that circle for us? Mr Gregory: I think, Mr Chairman, yes, a turn on our choice of words. We really were not trying to suggest that there was no room for innovation or the use of demonstrator projects, and that certainly was not our intention. We believe that innovation is essential to the future competitiveness of Northern Ireland in all areas of our economy and we are very focused on a knowledge-based economy. Our emphasis on that best available technology, which is really a pollution abatement issue, is that authorisation for facilities under IPPC require compliance with BEPO; and guidance documents have been published by the European Commission on both waste treatment and waste incineration; so from our perspective we believe there is a need for a range of technologies, but we would also be uncomfortable with having all our eggs in one basket in one of the new emerging technologies which after a period of time perhaps proved to be unreliable. Q138 Chairman: Another point, if I may. There was a commentary on the outbreak of foot and mouth disease as being a reason for introducing a further treatment capacity. We are very hopeful that that type of event is not necessarily too frequent. Is that an acceptable reason for having a thermal treatment capacity, or do you feel that there are others? Mr Gregory: Again, Mr Chairman, I suppose the point we are trying to get across here was not that BSE or foot and mouth disease provided a basis for investment. That was clearly not our intention. I suppose what we were trying to get across is that there are unplanned issues that arise over a period of time and that we did not have the capacity to deal with those issues effectively as they arose in Northern Ireland at that time, and we still face some issues as a result of that. So we think that a capacity management approach carries significant risk and that there is potential, at least, for ensuring that there is competition and perhaps slight over-capacity to allow for fluctuations in the waste stream. Even, for example, if waste growth continues at a higher rate than had been planned for in the first place, that in itself would exceed the capacity that would be made available under a capacity management approach. So, no, that was not our intention. Thermal treatment for us, I think, is a separate issue. We believe it is needed as part of an integrated waste management system, and our specific concern there is that any such plant could potentially create a demand for feedstock of waste and then start to prejudice more sustainable recycling and recovery activity. So it does need to be sized and planned within an integrated waste management plan. Q139 Mr Campbell: Could I ask you, on the issue of calls that there have been for the establishment of an independent environmental protection agency for Northern Ireland, where would you see the CBI in terms of that? Are you in favour of that? Q140 Mrs Stewart: Yes. This was an issue we pointed up as long ago as 1993 where it is actually quite topical, because at the moment there is a current consultation on the way forward in terms of environmental regulation, and we also see this as being relevant to the review of public administration in Northern Ireland, so we will be doing some work on this over the summer. But taking our original position, which I do not think we see much reason to move away from even though it was quite a few years ago, I think what we have seen the issue in terms of there being separate arms, if you like, of government or regulation and strategy. I think we did see it being problematical that both these strands were contained within the DOE, and we see the need for transparency and openness in terms of these issues. Briefly to develop that, in terms of other issues around this and what happens elsewhere, my colleagues in CBI (Scotland) did a survey on businesses' experience with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency through means of a fairly detailed survey, and what they found was that there were concerns in Scotland regarding activities of the agency there, particularly regarding IPPC and the proactive role in terms of promotions and was less in evidence because there was pressure to implement the new regulations leading to quite a bureaucratic approach which was putting unnecessary costs on business; but I think that was maybe a warning for us that we did not particularly want to go down that road. One final point I would make which I also got feedback on from members in terms of the prosecution role of any future environment protection agency. There is an issue there in terms of would prosecutions be done through the DPP, for example, in Northern Ireland, or would it be done through agency staff? I think there is a feeling that it would probably be better to go down the DPP route, although that would need to be a scheme that would probably need technical assistance. Obviously that is a long way down the road, but it is just a point for the future. To conclude on that, I think this will be something that we will be getting feedback very specifically from members over the summer, but I do not see our 1993 position changing too much on that, and so, yes, we would favour an independent agency. Q141 Mr Campbell: Chairman, could I beg your indulgence to go back on a separate issue briefly? You made reference to the issue of a paper mill in the population base, and there was some correspondence from other contributors that indicated that there would not be the population to support it, and you indicated that you thought that there would be. Given that at the moment, in recent years, there has been, between Scotland and Northern Ireland, waste in transit simply because of the problems that have been faced, would you see a population base, for example, in a paper mill, or other issues that might include Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic, being a population over 10 million, that that might sustain something? Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, I am not sure that we are suggesting that there is a population base in Northern Ireland or on the Ireland of Ireland to sustain a paper mill. It is one of those issues that has been raised and seems to have some currency in that context. We believe there is certainly merit in investigating it, and it is about the issue of economies of scale, and perhaps the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scottish Access may indeed provide that base, but we do not have detailed information to support that. Q142 Chairman: Mr Gregory, I think the Committee is content, but is there any question that you expected us to ask you that we have not? Mr Gregory: Mr Chairman, hopefully no hard questions. Mrs Stewart: I think you have hit most of them. Mr Gregory: The only other one perhaps, Mr Chairman, was hazardous waste, which is a concern for some of our members. What is important about that is that it should be seen in the UK wide context where we are moving from the position of perhaps several hundred, may be 200, consented hazardous waste sites at present down to perhaps half a dozen. We saw the article in the Daily Telegraph on, I think, 16th June that referred to five permitted facilities and 18 applications. So there is a step change there in the availability of such facilities. There are none in Wales, none in Scotland, none in Northern Ireland; so there is a major issue there. The Department has moved quite quickly in Northern Ireland in developing BEPO for hazardous wastes, and that has been put into the public domain in terms of land-filling and development of specific sales, specifically for asbestos contaminated materials; so that is very much to be welcomed. Although that is a facility, I am not sure that it is... There is still a major decision to be taken as to whether Northern Ireland needs such facilities. We have heard figures of £5,000 a skip being quoted for disposal of asbestos contaminated material after July. So it is of concern, but it is not only a private sector issue; I would suggest to you that it is also a public sector issue. Look at the concern about asbestos in schools. At that sort of cost it could be a major burden on the public purse as well to address some of those issues; and, indeed, the decommissioning of, for example, Belfast West Power Station, more significantly, is how some of this contaminated material could be generated. So there is an issue there. There is an issue as to whether one facility would be developed and a monopoly created with exceedingly high prices, or, if that facility was to be closed for licenses to be sold. So there are dimensions there to be taken through, I think, in waste planning as a matter of urgency as to whether one or more such facility needs to be provided in Northern Ireland and the most effective mechanism to provide it. Mr Campbell: Decommissioning remains a very topical issue. Q143 Chairman: Absolutely. That is very helpful to the Committee. Thank you for that. Can I thank you both; and can I apologise that the business of the House interrupted our session and repeat our offer that, should you wish to supplement any evidence in writing, feel free to do so. Mr Gregory: Thank you. Mr Chairman, just in closing, can we say that although perhaps we maybe come from different perspectives at times, certainly from our perspective we believe that essentially all stakeholders in Northern Ireland share the same vision of a sustainable management system to share with the needs of the people in Northern Ireland. You yourself mentioned partnership earlier on. We believe that, based on effective planning and firm and deliverable commitments, that certainly represents the best way forward for Northern Ireland Plc; and thank you very much for your time. Chairman: Thank you.
Memorandum submitted by Bryce House Recycling Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Mr Eric Randall, Director of Recycling, and Mr John McMullan, Director, Bryson House Recycling, examined. Q144 Chairman: Mr McMullan, Mr Randall, welcome to the Committee. Perhaps I can start with a word of congratulations. I note from your written evidence to us that your company has grown from four to 45 members in a very short time. Mr McMullan: Thank you very much, Chairman. Q145 Chairman: Given the conversation we had earlier on about the future that there can be for those who enter into waste management, I think, you are proof that those that do invest and those who do take seriously this growing market can prosper. So my hearty congratulations to you. Perhaps I can begin the questions by asking, could you outline briefly Bryson House's current involvement in recycling as a practitioner in the recycling business? Can you give us your view as to the general development of recycling and composting in Northern Ireland over the past few years? Mr McMullan: Mr Chairman, can I thank you on behalf of Bryson House for the opportunity to come and share our experiences and give evidence to the Committee. I echo also the CBI's view that this is an opportune time for this matter to be looked at. It is clearly a matter of key public interest and it is very helpful and useful that you are investing the time to thoroughly examine the issue. I will say something briefly about Bryson House and its involvement leading to its work in the recycling activities, and Eric will take you through the remainder of the issues if you want to ask a question. Bryson House is a long standing charity formed in 1906, but its purpose has remained the same: developing sustainable responses to new and emerging social needs. We do a lot work on the social care front and the education front through economic development and, indeed, on the educational front, but, particularly in the environment and from our links with local communities, we were very clear that there was a need for assisting a demand that exists within those communities to engage in recycling, but the response to that was limited; it was mostly a variety of "bring sites"(?). Our work with those communities indicated quite clearly they wanted to participate in a robust scheme. So we for many years, for 12 years we have been working on the recovery of aluminium cans and felt it an easy step to develop our work actually collecting a wider number of materials. I will hand over to Eric to talk a little bit about that process and how we see it developing, Chairman. Mr Randall: We have certainly been involved in recycling now for about 12 years, and we were interested in our approach to recycling, which is a kerbside, door to door collection service, years ago. The climate simply was not right and it was not until approximately four, four and a half years ago that we began to see that local authorities were taking an interest in doing something new and innovative. At that stage, even relatively recently as four and a half, four or five years ago, the misconceptions were there about availability of markets, and there were barriers thrown up as to why in Northern Ireland we could not achieve a reasonable recycling type operation. So we set about drawing down European and landfill tax credit money to run a demonstration programme that could say, "Look, here it is happening. We have the markets and the materials. We can make this happen", and I think we have done our bit in the Northern Ireland context to see that change start to emerge. Q146 Chairman: You mentioned the differences across Northern Ireland between areas such as Banbridge and Armagh to that of Belfast. Why do think that Belfast has developed at a slower pace in respect of recycling? Mr Randall: I think when I mentioned Belfast I was not specifically mentioning Belfast City Council. I think the Belfast region, of which there are 11 local authorities, have taken a much more long-term, perhaps considered, response to the challenges infrastructurally that are required to deliver the recycling, composting. So that is by no means a criticism of what has happened there, but it is a fact that in other areas of Northern Ireland it has happened quicker. Q147 Chairman: So a difference in the planning rather than the-- Mr Randall: It is a planning process; and they may well reap the benefits of that. Mr McMullan: If I can add to that, Chairman. One of the things that concerned the charity because of its wish to develop policy through demonstration, but I had understood quite clearly and rightly that local authorities with substantial interest should plan and should carefully plan. We were suggesting that what they really needed was a risk partner, some body, some organisation who could try and develop and learn from practical exercises as opposed to simply trying to plan for it. That is why we took the initiative and found the resources and approached the local authorities and said, "Come and see how this works. We know it works elsewhere. We have found some money. Come and be part of this and see how it fits into your final strategy." So rather sitting about and planning and writing about it, we felt doing something was a better way to learn about it. Q148 Chairman: I was very impressed by the commentary you gave us on using white targets for residual waste rather than percentage targets, being that if we concentrate on weight we can minimise a lot more. Would you like to elaborate on that idea? Mr Randall: Yes, certainly. One of the targets within the Northern Ireland Waste Strategy is to see waste minimisation happen at one per cent a year. I think it is a forgotten about target. It is very hard to grasp waste minimalisation. How do you actually deliver it? From a local authority perspective it has nothing to do with trucks and it has got nothing to do with delivering services on ground, it is about behavioural change fundamentally, and the only way you can measure it is if you look at what actually goes to landfill. It is also quite possible to achieve very substantial increases in recycling rates while at the same time increasing the amount of material going to landfill. If you bring in a large quantity of garden waste, for instance, that previously was not being dealt with, it is not a particular issue in Northern Ireland because we have always used wheelie bins which have always had a lot garden waste in them, but it is relevant for other areas. You can rapidly increase the recycling rate while also sending more material to landfill, and that is something that has to be borne in mind. If you look at both issues of recycling weight and residual weight you can perhaps overcome that problem. Chairman: We thank you for that commentary. As I say, I think it will be useful in reporting back our views. Gregory Campbell. Q149 Mr Campbell: Thank you. Welcome to the Committee. We have had a number of submissions regarding the problems and delays that have occurred in relation to planning submissions. I do not know if you were present when the CBI were indicating some exchanges-- Mr Randall: Yes, I was. Q150 Mr Campbell: I am wondering, do you have any experience or knowledge of the extent of delays and what you think can be done about it? Mr Randall: I will comment directly on our own experience. Our old type operation would be considered to be pretty innocuous. We have been told to budget for about four months for what is, in effect, a straightforward change of use planning application in an area surrounded by other waste management type activities. Four months is a long time to wait for that type of operation when we have pressing deadlines to meet in terms of the demand to local authorities. If I can compare that with our partner in England, ECT, who say that they get a turn-round of six weeks for a similar application, that is workable; four months is difficult. Q151 Mr Campbell: Apart from obviously resources and additional planning service officials to deal with it, which, I think, is being addressed, at least according to the minister when I asked about it, apart from that, is there anything else that you think can be done in order to try and get something like a six-week time schedule, which I would have thought was more appropriate? Mr Randall: I do not know enough about the mechanisms and the workings of what causes that delay, to be honest, to make a useful comment on it. Q152 Mr Campbell: Right. In your opinion four months is excessive? Mr Randall: Yes, it is, for that type of application where it is uncontentious. Mr McMullan: It certainly mitigates against you running your business where it is a simple process where we are extracting materials and preparing them for sending on to be recycled. It is a different issue when it is dealing with landfill and landfill sites, and there is a requirement for that process not to be too speedy because of the need to take account of the impact it has on people who live in the vicinity of landfill sites. There is a substantial issue in and around the Belfast area, the Belfast Hills. I think in the Lisbon area there are probably 60 landfill sites functioning within that area. Our experience, and this only our experience, is that on occasions some of that landfill breaches its planning consent and, as such, is awarded retrospective planning permission for extending their site. That is very problematic from the point of view of what has happened during that period of time and what is contained within it. So that is a particular worry that we get from our community organisations which are living in the vicinity of those smaller sites. Mr Randall: Can I also just add. There is an interesting philosophical debate really as to: are we in our case really handling waste at all? It is the material which is patently going to an industrial use as a secondary raw material. It arrives on our site sorted as a material, and all we are doing is bulking the material up and selling it on, and we are highly dependent on income stream attributable to that sale of material. It is not waste. Clearly it is not waste, but it is classified as waste within the system, because that is what it had previously been considered as. Mr McMullan: One of our biggest barriers in working with some of the local authorities is convincing them, the very point that Eric makes, that it is not rubbish to resource: this stuff is valuable if it is treated properly. We have had great success in getting the public to see that. They are very keen and they understand that. We are dealing with a mindset that remembers and looks at a collection of rubbish for landfill. It sees recycling as being a collection problem when we are clear it is a cultural behavioural problem: people need to value - local authorities need to value and maintain the integrity of the material that is being recovered. Q153 Chairman: You are asking that recyclable material is not considered to be waste? Mr McMullan: That is right, but historically that is the perspective, Chairman, we have come to understand. Mr Randall: We still fill in ten documents which ask for recycling services and ask you where you are going to dispose of your materials. Of course we are not going to dispose of our materials anywhere. Chairman: That is a very valid point. Mr Bailey -- Q154 Mr Bailey: Some issues of finance. We have heard local authorities are very critical about the amount of finance available from central government. The first question is what is your view about the adequacy of funding from central government? The second thing which arises from that is that local authorities say that in order to fully implement the plan and reach targets, the cost to local rate-payers would be absolutely astronomical. What is your view? Do you think they can do it within the context of the resources that they have available? Mr Randall: I think that any major infra-structural change like this is bound to involve considerable resources and will continue to for a period of time. I think our comment would be, we would want to throw into the picture however that it is not only just about how much money they get, it is how smartly they spend it. We have raised the issue of Armagh and Banbridge, as did the CBI previously, as two good examples of local authorities who have taken the trouble to look at the overall system they operate and make some very painful decisions about how they are restructured in order to best approach waste management in their area. I think they are using the best use of the resources that are available and will alternative recycling rates as good as or better than their counterparts in the rest of the UK. Q155 Mr Bailey: An interesting comment. What sort of implication it that had on their local rates? Mr Randall: They have to go down the route of changing their residual waste collection, their normal waste from a weekly to a fortnightly collection, and they are using their same fleet of vehicles to collect composting materials on alternate weeks. That is a good use of resources because approximately 50 per cent of material going into the wheelie-bins in Northern Ireland is compostable; so it is very sensible to take that material out. Q156 Mr Bailey: So, in effect, if other authorities adopted some of the procedures that you have seen demonstrated by these local authorities then these particular complaints would be, if not, shall we say, completely removed but would have less weight? Would that be reasonable? Mr Randall: Yes. There is always going to be... Any change of this type is going to involve some public complaints arising from it, and they have to be managed. You have to have a very careful process in place to deal with that. Mr McMullan: I think the point stemming from what Eric said is spending smarter rather than spending more. There will be a requirement to spend more; some of that will mitigate against the rising cost of landfill which makes the economics stack-up better, where larger values being diverted to costs are clearly avoided, but clever use of a system which allows the same fleet of vehicles to collect, as Eric has said, on alternative weeks, supplemented by a scheme which is putting out the high quality, high rate recyclable material has shown to work significantly well. One other point I would to like make on the issue of resources. One of the reasons we were able to demonstrate the work that we have been doing was because we were able to access landfill tax credits which was for the first time when introduced an opportunity for our sector, the NGO sector, the charitable sector, to drawdown resources to be able to demonstrate things and to work in partnership with local authorities. That is what made this work able to be put in place. It was critical to us that we went to local authorities to say to them, "We have found the money to try this. You really want to see how this happens. You want to come alongside us and as we would all learn from this", at no particular extra pain to that council with a view to seeing where the advantages were. Losing access to that is a problem for us to continue to develop our work. Q157 Mr Bailey: Can I slip in. Do you have a view about the way in which landfill tax revenues should be used then? Mr McMullan: Strangely enough, yes. We were quite advanced in identifying the potential for credits when they became available to be used to underpin sustainable waste management processes which engaged local communities, which was not normally the case for any resources that were coming through, particularly with councils, given the understandable procurement restraints they have. We were able to go with those resources saying, "These are programs that we think we should try, or the programs you think we should try. We can fund them and experiment with them and use the learning to inform policy." So having access to that for waste minimisation projects was good. The change in the scheme has caused a problem for us in that we are not now able to access those resources, and the interim arrangements that were put in place have not been easy to work. Q158 Chairman: Just a couple of questions on procurement. I am sure you have views on the appropriateness of the procurement process by local authorities, and you mentioned in your submission that Arc 21 resisted the temptation to roll all their services into one large contract. Do you see a potential for larger contracts to threaten the future of your organisation and organisations such as yours, or do you think it is reasonable for local authorities to procure some services jointly? Mr Randall: It is not the issue about procuring the services jointly that is the problem. The issue is really when they lump every waste management activity together into one massive integrated contract. Lancashire district, I think, is doing that at the moment. What it does is enables about five players to bid, and that is it because other companies are not big enough to operate in that scheme. It also means that you get one company who acts as the middle-man, in a sense, and buys in whole range of different technologies that are on the market. I think it is better value for money to deal directly perhaps with smaller companies or specialists in those particular areas. They will still be big contracts but they do allow for Northern Irish companies to be in there with a shout for those types of contracts. Chairman: That is a very good point. Reverend Smith. Q159 Reverend Smyth: Many of the written submissions we have had make reference to the issue of markets for recyclables, but you seem to say in your submission this not going to be a problem for you. On the other hand, as I understand your submission, you speak of the desirability of greater material utilisation in Northern Ireland. If the issue of markets is not a problem today, an issue today, could it be an issue in the future? Mr Randall: It could be an issue in the future. What we have seen, though, over the last five or six years is a massive step-change in the way the industry, the paper industry, the glass industry, approaches recycled materials. We are in a very fortunate situation partly by planning, in that the materials we collect are all of extremely good quality because we separate them as we go along. We make sure that they are a saleable commodity, so we have never had a difficulty in selling our markets, in fact we have several options for all of the materials that we collect. It simply is not an issue for us. Having said that, if you look at the whole issue of markets for materials in the local context and what is best for Northern Ireland, clearly if there were opportunities to turn those materials into commodities in Northern Ireland, then we are able to add value and jobs to Northern Ireland Plc. You would expect that to be an advantage, but there is an issue of scale, and paper would be an example. We would have a contract with Shotten paper mill, which is pretty close to us, really, it is across the Irish Sea, and they give us a very good stable price for five years. It would be silly for us not to take that. I wanted to mention that, because it kind of fits into the arguments about an all-Ireland paper mill. If you were going to go for a very large-scale type of operation, there are three paper mills in England, two on the west coast and one in Kent. I would be of the view that a large-scale paper mill would be quite difficult, for the very reasons of scale, and also because of the contractual obligations that organisations like us have tied ourselves into, but John will make another point. Mr McMullan: I think we chose a processor route towards recycling which preserved the integrity of the materials that we recover. That is critical if we want to convince industry that at least we can use these materials as a new form of raw material. Some of the proposals that are in place for recovering materials co-mingles and therefore contaminates creates that problem in terms of quality. That has been critical to us. Eric points out, we do not recover materials that we do not have a market place for. We have somewhere to sell it. To date materials that are covered like paper will go to Shotten, and that is to a paper mill, and there has been an issue about the requirement for a paper mill, but we would say if enough material is being recovered new uses will come into play. I think of processes like the Warm Cell Company who use recycled paper to create insulation material to insulate lofts. Just as an example, but if we are recovering materials and industry is sure of the integrity of it, they will find ways to use it in an economic way to create new products, and that is part of the new thinking and new development, but there are markets for the materials we have recovered currently. Q160 Reverend Smyth: I appreciate that one. What impact, if any, would you perceive for the implementation of the green procurement commitment by the Government? Will it have any impact upon recycling and the market for recyclables? Mr Randall: It is bound to. They must be the biggest single purchasers of materials in Northern Ireland. It will create demand. It is a fairly straightforward answer, I think. Mr McMullan: It is a good pull system for engaging industry to develop products that will use recovered, recycled, reused materials, and as such it is quire critical to be used strategically. Governments purchasing and Governments contracting could be quite critical to getting a step-change that we need. We have seen experiences where government contracts for the disposal of spoil ends up in Belfast hills - not the fault of the Government, maybe the fault of the contractor - where the contractor goes to where the material can be disposed of at best cost in order to maximise profit, but clever drafting of contracts would require that the certification of all materials or all spoil being used - I think, again, it is about functioning smarter rather than functioning at more expense. Q161 Reverend Smyth: On the basis of your answers, what role would you see for WRAP in Northern Ireland? Mr Randall: At the moment we partly buy into WRAP. I think we probably get the worst of both worlds. In a sense there is a concern that because WRAP is a UK organisation involved primarily in large infrastructural change that Northern Ireland would be marginalised within that process. We would have to be pretty sure in Northern Ireland that does not happen. However, having said that, I think there is a grand swell of opinion that having WRAP fully involved in Northern Ireland is important, but providing we have that proviso at the end, that we make sure it works for Northern Ireland. Mr McMullan: Eric makes the point that we get the worst of both world in terms of being part in and part out. The other side to being fully is that we would need to be clear that there was local control and local direction on a body such as WRAP to ensure it matches the local need rather than simply maintains the national perspective, which may not be wholly appropriate in our context. So we would need to be sure that there was clearly the facility for regionally requiring a WRAP type organisation to reflect local need. Q162 Mr Luke: You mention in the section in your submission on the current and future availability of landfill capacity the issue of fly-tipping and illegal dumping. What is really the extent of the problem in the province and what are the reasons for this, do you think? Mr McMullan: I think unauthorised landfill and illegal dumping is driven by the cost. It is cheaper to do that. I can give you a very interesting example that we game across in relation to Belfast Hills where agricultural land - actually it was agricultural land with which we have had a tremendous bio-diversity, because it was poor agricultural land. It was actually in a hollow. You would normally price it somewhere about £1,000 per acre in terms of its value. It actually sold at £4,000 per acre on the basis that it was a hollow, because the attractiveness was to not make it a hollow, to turn it into a flat space, and that was enabling landfill to be brought on site. That creates substantial problems: because once that land is bought there is an imperative on the person that has bought it because they never get their money back in terms of its agricultural value to landfill. So you could find lorries coming in the middle of the night to fill it up, a bit of topsoil over the top, a bit of clay and they are away and gone. That is the business. It would be useful for the Committee to consider this whole issue of agricultural improvement to ensure that we are talking about agricultural improvement and not simply landfill on the cheap. Q163 Mr Luke: You also raise the issue of car recycling, which is also a cross-border activity, which often, I am led to believe, also crosses the Irish Sea? Mr McMullan: It may not be going to Scotland. I suspect that, yes. Q164 Mr Luke: Okay, on the east coast. I wonder, at the end of the day, what is the extent of this? What can be done to tackle the problem? Mr Randall: I have brought you an article from the Irish Times, which you may want to have a look at. From discussions I have had with people, I understand we are talking in the region of hundreds of thousands of tons, not just tens of thousands of tons. In Cork, apparently, according to this article, it cost 230 Euros per ton to landfill; in Northern Ireland it is going to be somewhere in the region of £45 a ton translated into Euros. So you can see there is a huge economic driver, and what I understand is happening is that this material is coming across in lorry loads on the basis that it is going to be recycled, and small amounts are removed, possibly, or it is just rejected, this cannot be used for recycling, therefore we have to send it to landfill. The only possible explanation for bringing it 300 miles from Cork is because it is cheaper to landfill it in Northern Ireland; otherwise you would recycle it in the south of Ireland. It is clearly a huge issue and I think the authorities are aware of it. Mr McMullan: The estimated value in the article, from memory, is 500 to 750,000 tons per annum, possibly, passing the border. Q165 Reverend Smyth: That is one aspect of illegal dumping. Can you throw any more light on the more recent one where there was a medical waste pile, and whether it came from within Northern Ireland, from the hospital sector, or from some chemists who were trying to dump stuff? Mr McMullan: I cannot comment on medical waste. Our experience in Belfast Hills, however, does indicate an increasing number of tyres being dumped on farming land in the middle of the night, given the restrictions on the island of cost to dispose of tyres. Easily medical waste, if not being disposed of properly, could find its way-- Q166 Reverend Smyth: There is a place in Belfast at the moment? Mr McMullan: Yes, there is another way, a unique method of disposal in Belfast around this time of the year, I suspect. Q167 Reverend Smyth: The beach? Mr McMullan: I know from contacts we have with Whitlow that they have found medical waste in lands in the Whitlow Hills, and it was explained the model I gave you of agricultural improvement where a farmer is encouraged to allow a pit to be dug, filled it and whatever goes into it goes into it. Q168 Reverend Smyth: Were you aware of the recent report in the press of this in Northern Ireland? Mr Randall: I had heard of it, but I could you not give you any details or throw any more light on it, I am afraid. Mr McMullan: We do have substantial problem, and I mentioned it in terms of the retrospective approval of land-filling, where no-one knows what is being buried, and only once the approval has been put in place. We do not have much experience of bore-holes being used to identify material. I know from the Whitlow experience that they will bore down, and if they can find evidence of the provider or producer of the waste they will prosecute. It would be interesting for the Committee to ask that were retrospective planning - where no approval has been given to landfill sites and where they have been land-filled on an unauthorised manner, how many times have the land-filling agents been asked to remove the land, remove the fill? I suspect it is probably zero, but it would be an interesting question to ask, because that kind of enforcement brings home the real penalty of carrying out a landfill operation in an unauthorised or unlicensed way. Q169 Chairman: You have suggested it. It is a very good question for the Committee to ask. I am sure the record will show that, and I am sure our clerks will make sure that we do ask that question. I think it is a very important question to be answered. Mr McMullan: I understand the experience in the Republic has indicated that in Whitlow where they have required large volumes of materials to be-- Q170 Chairman: Do not worry. It is not a vote. The House is simply adjourning. We will not leave you again, I promise. Mr McMullan: They have required the large volumes of materials, particularly by a substantial road builder, to be removed from a site and brought to licensed sites. That is the kind of enforcement which will make clear the penalties and implications for not following the law. Q171 Chairman: I wanted finish on a high. I congratulated you at the start on the fact that your company has grown and is successful now, and I am sure you would agree with me that your company has a social purpose as well as simply an industrial process and that you obviously see significant job creation potential in recycling in general. However, some people comment that jobs in recycling can be seen as low-skilled, and are the jobs really necessary. What would you say to those critics, and perhaps you could build on this answer and give us a view of where we are going in say five years time. What opportunities are there for people both coming into the sector and building their skills and working within a dynamic forward thinking sector rather than simply processing material? I shall not say waste because you have picked me up on that before. Mr Randall: You will be in trouble. Perhaps this is an opportune moment to invite you, Mr Chairman, to come to our facility and ask the question of our members of staff. Q172 Chairman: I am sure, if it is possible, we will consider it. We will look at the geographics of that perhaps? Mr Randall: I think there is always going to be a place for semi-skilled, low-skilled work. We have engaged in the New Deal programme and recently have employed four members of staff full-time who came through the New Deal programme and in fact one of them has just come back to us for the third time on New Deal, and that was for a period of six years. We have just given him a job - excellent. So we are bringing people who would have been previously, not all of them, some of them would have been previously employed, but quite a large number of people would have been employed for quite a considerable period of time, and we have given them jobs. That can be only a positive development. The type of work as well. Perhaps I have an old-fashioned view of this, but I think it is quite healthy. The guys are involved in the outdoors, they are interfacing with members of the public,, they are becoming part of the recognised community life, like a postman, and I think it is a very appropriate type of work. We have also seen quite a number of people progress rapidly through the organisations where people have joined us at perhaps the lowest end and are now moving up to be supervisors or, in one case, a development manager. So we are overall providing an excellent opportunity for people. Mr McMullan: Can I add something to that, Chairman, because I think it is critical to understand that this kind of work does enable us to reach into very marginalised deprived communities and provide people who hade had to cope with long-term unemployment with the opportunity to find sustainable employment. We are an investor in people and as such we invest in 'upskill' and upstream our staff. This kind of enterprise will require not just people who collect, but the people who collect are required to have very substantial, good interpersonal skills. We also need people who can drive forklifts, we need people who can carry out processes, we need people who can market, we need people who can manage, plan logistics, and as we produce materials more jobs will be created in the manufacturing end of the economy to use the material. So we see it as being a substantial contributor, and the idea of investing in people and letting them grow is borne out by the two guys here who are giving evidence. Both of us were long-term unemployed, came through training programs and have moved up within our own organisation. So those opportunities are there and we have evidence that it works for people. Q173 Chairman: Do you see a potential for innovation in more local use of recycling materials by new companies in terms of some of your staff becoming involved themselves in the manufacture of goods from recycled materials: because surely the answer is to recycle as close to the community as possible? Mr Randall: One of the things, Chairman, we were able to do and are currently doing when we had access to landfill tax credits was to invest in research and development with industry and with universities to identify options for using recycling material within manufacturing or recovering them within communities. I think a good example of the community analysis was we have engaged for many years with Belfast City Council and Belfast in Bloom. Last year for the first time we were able to source compost for the planting for the Belfast in Bloom competition from recovered domestic waste; so you can easily link the circle together; and that is a wonderful way of teaching people that there is a value in that material. The next step is getting them to compost it for themselves so they are continuing on in the practice but using their own waste which is not going into the waste stream, being composted in the home. Hopefully that answers the question you have asked. Q174 Chairman: You were quite critical of the demise of the landfill tax credit system. What progress do you feel has been made to work up a viable replacement scheme? Mr Randall: I think that is an issue that does concern us. The closure of the scheme and the change of the scheme allowed for redirection of a portion of the recovered credits somewhere between 100 and 110,000 per year over the next three years. The Northern Ireland portion of that went into the block grant, which I suspect was probably around 2.8 to £3 million, of which a portion was then secured by Environment Heritage Service to fund what was termed the transitional scheme or an interim scheme. We were then made aware that that was a scheme that we could buy into for carrying on our activities until a formal scheme was put in place. That was an interesting experience, Chairman. I think the criteria that were developed for securing the funds were put together by someone who had read Catch 22 on more than one occasion, in that we were advised that we could attract funding for schemes which had been offered funding for which there was no funding available. No distributor in their right mind could possibly offer funding where you do not have the funding to offer; you can end up in substantial difficulties. So we had to be creative in terms of making awards to enable us to pull down resources. Those resources were applied for, the funding was applied for, in March with the expectation of an award in April for schemes running in April. The letters of offer were made available in July. The funding was to be claimed within the year of operation, because it could not run beyond that. We received our first payment in respect of that funding in April of the following year. That was an interim of - I think it was probably about 90,000 of the total award of somewhere around £250,000 - so an interim has yet to be paid. The charity finds itself in the position where it is inappropriate for it to fund government, but it seems that it is doing that. So that was a problem for us, but, I think we have to understand, EHS are under pressure. They had a short staff position and they were developing a new scheme. We are currently into the second year. We do not have a scheme in place, although one is planned, and we are part into that year of funding, which has caused problems for the NGO sector where we run very tight margins. Issues of cash flow and operating capital are critical to us, and government needs to keep that in mind when it is creating a scheme. Our view is that any scheme should be administered by a third party agency. That was one of the values of the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, that it was taken outside of government, which made it a bit more flexible as to how it was used; not any less accountable, and no-one is suggesting that it should be less accountable, but certainly more flexible. Q175 Chairman: You used the model of the Lottery New Opportunity Fund, did you not? Mr Randall: New Opportunities, yes. There are quite a number of Northern Ireland particular models that could be considered where European funding, as some around the table will understand, are funded by independent agencies whose sole focus is on the delivery and development of the scheme as opposed to the substantial responsibilities that a body like EHS would have. This would allow us to focus. We like the idea of partners being involved, including particularly the local authorities, possibly through the three consortia sharing the funding compliments of waste management plans as opposed to runs counter to them, Chairman. Q176 Chairman: I am content. I am looking at my Committee. Gentleman, as I asked the last witnesses, are there any questions you expected from us which we have not touched on, any areas of your work that you wish to raise the Committee's awareness to? Mr Randall: There is one area of clarification which I would like to make regarding landfill tax and its role within what is now a business subsidiary of the charity and the ECT in London as well as a joint venture. I make it clear that we have used landfill tax and other sources of funding in order to set up demonstration programmes. When it comes to a tendered programme with a local authority, all grant funding is out of the picture and we then have to compete on a level playing field with any private sector operator. That has caused... There has been some misunderstanding, I think, within Northern Ireland which has caused some friction in our direction. In case that had crossed anybody's mind I take the opportunity to make that quite clear. Q177 Chairman: That is helpful. Mr McMullan: Chairman, the responsibility for landfill moved from local authorities to the Environmental Heritage Service, I think, in December of last year, but the issue of fly-tipping did not move with them; it sits with local authorities. Our experience is that there is some confusion around responding to that. We would ask you to look at that. I would like you to consider a report which we produced on the Belfast Hills with volunteers which monitors fly-tipping and unauthorised landfill which might inform some of your thinking on that. Q178 Chairman: That is helpful yes. Mr McMullan: I would certainly leave that behind. The point we get from departments is zero-tolerance in relation to the unauthorised dumping, which is something we clearly would like to endorse. Unfortunately, the issue I have mentioned about retrospective approval means that those actions go unpunished, and if the Committee could consider and concern itself with looking at how appropriate it is to provide retrospective planning permission after landfill has taken place and with impunity, without any award against the person that carries out that would be something we would like you to consider. Q179 Chairman: Thank you. You also have an article from the Irish Times that you were going to leave with us. Gentleman, this inquiry for us has probably posed more questions than it has given answers, but can I just say that it has been refreshing in the last half to three quarters of an hour to talk to people who are actively engaged in providing some of the solutions. I do congratulate you on what you have achieved so far and thank you for taking the time you have with us. Mr McMullan: Thank you. Do come and visit us. Chairman: That is on our mind. The Committee is adjourned. |