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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 637-v House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (Northern Ireland Affairs Sub-Committee)
Waste Management Strategy in Northern Ireland
Wednesday 13 October 2004 PROFESSOR DEBORAH BOYD and MR TREVOR KNIPE Evidence heard in Public Questions 214 - 272
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (Northern Ireland Affairs Sub-Committee) on Wednesday 13 October 2004 Members present Mr Tony Clarke, in the Chair Mr Adrian Bailey Mr Roy Beggs Mr Stephen Hepburn Mr Iain Luke Mr Stephen Pound The Reverend Martin Smyth Mark Tami ________________ Memorandum submitted by Waste Management Advisory Board for Northern Ireland
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Professor Deborah Boyd, Chairperson, and Mr Trevor Knipe, Member, Waste Management Advisory Board for Northern Ireland, examined. Q214 Chairman: Trevor and Debbie, we were just talking before you came in of the last time we met Debbie, we were talking all things Harley-Davidson, if I remember? Professor Boyd: We were indeed, Chairman. Q215 Chairman: I do not think Trevor was at that dinner, were you? Mr Knipe: No. Q216 Chairman: Welcome to the Committee. I am sure you are well briefed in terms of our inquiry and the issues that we have been raising with other witnesses. I hope you will find there are no questions we put your way that you will not be able to respond to. Probably you will pre‑empt a lot of our investigation. Can I begin by talking about the Advisory Board itself so that we can get an idea as to its remit. The terms of reference are very broad. How have you been able to respond to that broadbrush terms of reference document and do you think you are able to do justice to your terms of reference? Professor Boyd: Certainly in May 2001, to be precise, the Waste Management Advisory Board were appointed. The terms of reference were already detailed within the Strategy, but we did have to take those terms of reference and try to make them into practical working arrangements. We are a Board of 15 key stakeholders drawn from different backgrounds. The power of, the independence and the advisory nature and role of the Board I believe was in giving the key stakeholders an opportunity to present the Department with the views of how the Waste Management Strategy was being implemented from May 2001 to date. Our terms of reference were to guide the active uptake of the Strategy and we engaged through the key stakeholder groups to do that. We established a Business Forum for Waste Minimisation, which my colleague Trevor Knipe chaired. We established a markets development group, known as the 3Rs Group, which was chaired by Dr Robin Curry, and we expanded to include a group which looked at public awareness, education and training requirements within waste management, which was chaired by David Eastwood. We went into what were supposed to be bi‑monthly sessions but actually turned out to be monthly meetings because of the workload that was necessary; we were playing catch‑up. I believe we have delivered on our terms of reference to date and that the Waste Management Strategy Report, which we produced in June of this year, was the third part of our terms of reference, which we were asked to do and which we completed. Q217 Chairman: Would it be fair to say that you are happier with your terms of reference now that you have reviewed them and sharpened them up into more measurable objectives, than you were when the original terms were laid down? Would that be a fair comment? Professor Boyd: That would be a fair comment. I would say at this point that it is important to recognise that whilst we were independent our role was advisory, and as an advisory board we could only give the benefit of the expertise and advice round the table. Whether or not that was actually utilised or put into action was at the behest of others. The mechanisms we used throughout the period of the Board were resolutions or recommendations directly to the Department or to anyone else who had an interest in the delivery of the Waste Management Strategy, and then of course the Report which I have referred to previously. Q218 Chairman: One of the other criticisms which I think you were right to make was that it became very difficult to monitor progress when you had not got any necessarily measurable objectives and in the absence of a thorough implementation plan. Do you want to talk us through some of those difficulties and how you see a way round those difficulties? It is a very tough task we set you and yet we have done it without necessarily giving you a mechanism to measure success against. Talk us through the difficulties? Professor Boyd: The Implementation Action Plan was referred to on page 66 of the Northern Ireland Waste Strategy. That was the extent of the Implementation Action Plan received by the Waste Management Board until very late in 2003 when we received a draft of an implementation plan from the Department. Without an implementation plan, I am in business myself and if you cannot measure you cannot manage. As far as the Board were concerned, one of the key recommendations we made was that in order to deliver the Strategy not only do you need implementation plans for the regional waste plans drawn up by the district council but clearly there needs to be an implementation plan by the Department for the delivery of the Strategy. In our terms we describe those as smart implementation plans, and by smart I mean specific, measurable, achievable, realistic targets which can be validated externally as well as internally. Then we refer later in the Report to an independent review of those achievements and we refer to a smarter plan, basically that is the previous matters with evaluation and review attached, and that can be either internal or external. It is our belief that an Implementation Action Plan from the Department would have made our job much easier in recognising the successes that the Department achieved and also in recognising the areas where less success has been achieved. Q219 Chairman: Why do you think that the Implementation Plan was so slow in coming forward, was so noticeable by its absence? Professor Boyd: There was a heavy reliance placed, I believe, on the 26 Regional Councils, evolving into three Regional Partnerships, and the plans which they were producing. In effect, local government and the councillors and the officers of local government were producing three regional plans for Northern Ireland and I think possibly the implication was that when those plans were produced perhaps an implementation plan would roll out of it. I am still of the belief that under my Board there needs to be a separate departmental implementation plan to deliver the Strategy and there need to be implementation plans for the three regional groups obviously which feed into, underline itself with that Strategy. Q220 Chairman: One of the other areas of criticism that we picked up on was that levelled against the lack of linkage between Government strategies and policies. Would you like to comment a little bit more on your criticisms of that lack of linkage? Mr Knipe: It is our view that the Waste Management Strategy was developed in isolation over a fairly extended period of consultation but it did not really take into consideration some of the other strategies that were under development at the time. It certainly did not seek to integrate itself with the Sustainable Development Strategy and work that is ongoing in that area, nor was it clear the connection between the Strategy and the Programme for Government in Northern Ireland and what should be coming out of that. There are other strategies for agricultural waste and biodiversity, other areas, other strategies that clearly would integrate with the Waste Management Strategy, and indeed the strategic aims of other government departments, including Enterprise, Trade and Investment, where there is a need to link the development of the infrastructure with the ability of companies and councils and others to deliver that. As well as that, to give a specific example, the Strategy of the Department of Regional Development could have influenced the targets achieved in the Strategy if it had specified, for example, recycled material in road construction and recognised that by specifying that they could feed into the Waste Management Strategy and help to deliver the targets from that. There are a number of weaknesses in linking all the strategies together there. Q221 Chairman: You used the words "there are" rather than "there were". Were the Committee minded to look at this as an issue, would we be saying in a report and I am not trying to write the report before the inquiry is finished but would we be saying that broadly you are happy now with your terms of reference but still worried about the lack of targets and also the lack of linkage? Would that be a fair comment on the Board's view? Mr Knipe: Yes. I think certainly a new strategy needs to have the targets and there needs to be linkages, not only from the Waste Management Strategy to others but the other people who have a role in policy development need to recognise the Waste Management Strategy and bring that into their thinking as well. Q222 Reverend Smyth: I think we all recognise from other responses that the Government has been criticised for not being ahead of the game. Recently they did appoint a person in the Department. Would that have been at the time that they moved from smart to smarter, or would it have been after, or what has happened? Professor Boyd: To be honest, as far as smart is concerned, we still await the arrival of the Implementation Plan with the specific measurable, achievable, realistic targets contained therein. Q223 Chairman: You say you still await the arrival. Could you say when you have been told its arrival is due? Professor Boyd: The life of this Board has been extended from June of last year to June of next year in order to cover a handover period, during which a new phase of the Strategy will be publicly consulted upon. My understanding is, from information provided, that a revised version, a version two of the Strategy, will be made available to the Waste Management Board by January and the public consultation will take place from March to June. Therefore, by the time I am relieved as Chair of this Board there should be a full public consultation of a Strategy which will contain a smart implementation plan, or at least smart targets and the implementation plan which follows thereafter. Q224 Chairman: Certainly it will be helpful to us, in terms of the printing of our report, I should imagine, if you are saying January? Professor Boyd: January is my understanding at this point. Chairman: My apologies for interrupting you, Martin. Q225 Reverend Smyth: As we understand it, there are two procurement-related issues which have to be faced. One is that of procuring facilities and the other is that of the green procurement. Can you tell us what the Department or the Government might have done differently to improve these matters? Mr Knipe: I think it is clear that there needs to be leadership to deliver the Waste Management Strategy and particularly to achieve the targets for recycling, and that can only be achieved and needs to be led at Government level. It is not something that can come solely from the Department of the Environment, other departments have a role to play, both within their own departments in specifying recycled materials or materials from other sources but also in providing a lead to encourage others to think in that way. The main function, I suppose, for us, as the Procurement Directorate, is that we have the main role in public procurement for Northern Ireland for the Civil Service. If they had a specific target within the Strategy, an objective within the Strategy, then that sort of leadership would come through and others would recognise that, if it had to stimulate markets, if they were specifying those sorts of materials. Because of their purchasing power it needs that sort of stimulation to encourage people in Northern Ireland to recycle more and think about using recycled products. Q226 Reverend Smyth: You say "Government", would that be automatically a ministerial responsibility? Are you saying that the different ministers have not been allocated to those departments which should be co‑ordinating, in other words that even ministerial responsibility is divided? Mr Knipe: Yes. I think that is a weakness of the Strategy, that most people see the Strategy as being a Department of the Environment Strategy and it is down to the Department of the Environment to make it happen. There seems to have been no co‑ordination across departments and one of our main recommendations is that there is a high-level, permanent secretary level committee formed to help deliver the Strategy across all departments and get buy‑in from all departments particularly into the new Strategy. Q227 Reverend Smyth: When you say the permanent secretary level, would it not be even better at the procurement level in each of those departments? I am just trying to figure out which is the best method of doing it. Mr Knipe: We discussed this ourselves at some length and we thought permanent secretary level would be more effective in getting it to feed down through departments. It is not simply procurement within the departments either, it needs a change in mindset within departments, and that can be driven from permanent secretary level. Q228 Reverend Smyth: Thank you, that is very helpful. Can I go on to regulations and guidance, because it has been suggested that there are three areas where you have been working on your own, to some extent. Progress has been made, as I understand it, in terms of the wider application of the 'polluter pays' principle, one can understand that and we believe that is satisfactory. On the other hand, the use of economic instruments has been largely ignored. Is not this somewhat contradictory? Mr Knipe: Certainly we feel it is. If I go back quite a number of years, for example, to when the Landfill Tax was introduced, it was introduced at a fairly low level and it was increased by £1 per year. It was not an incentive to people to reduce waste, it was just a cost, particularly from an industry point of view, which was absorbed, as far as municipal waste was concerned and the councils were concerned, into their costs and really did not drive any reduction in waste production. The change from 1 April next, when the Landfill Tax goes up by £3 per tonne, will start to have more of an effect in driving the need to reduce the amount of waste that people are generating. Certainly we welcome that, but we would see other opportunities as well. There might be a case for the development of landfill credits in Northern Ireland as an incentive to people to recycle. Other options could be Enhanced Capital Allowances which would act as a carrot, if you like, particularly within industry, to reduce the amount of waste if they were getting some payback on that. There are things which can be done. As far as the stick is concerned, I suppose the other one is that it would be helpful if the penalties imposed on people who are operating illegally were sensible penalties, significant penalties, which were not reduced virtually to zero on appeal almost continuously. Q229 Reverend Smyth: Returning the lorries with their full loads. A significant change for that offence is going to be imposed? Mr Knipe: That is a fairly hot issue just at the moment. Chairman: You pre‑empt our next question wonderfully, because we want to turn to the problem of illegal dumping. Q230 Mr Bailey: In your original submission to the Committee, the Board recognised that illegal dumping of waste from outside Northern Ireland had become a major problem. First of all, what is your role in the context of illegal dumping? Professor Boyd: The Waste Management Advisory Board is about, I believe, protecting or assisting with the protection of the environment in Northern Ireland and anywhere where waste, whether it originates in Northern Ireland or outside of Northern Ireland, is illegally dumped. It actually impacts on Northern Ireland itself, and that is where I believe we have the right to make a comment and advise people that we believe it is something which is a detriment to Northern Ireland and a detriment to the Strategy which we are trying to implement. In that Strategy they are trying to assess capacity for Northern Ireland waste and that capacity is being undermined by the illegal transport of waste and space being taken up by it. That then will impact upon the delivery of the Strategy and I believe therefore will fall under our terms of reference. Q231 Mr Bailey: Do you monitor, insofar as you can, obviously, the level of the illegal dumping as opposed to appropriate and legal disposal? Professor Boyd: The Waste Management Advisory Board has no role for monitoring illegal dumping. However, as we are drawn from the key stakeholder sectors involved in this chain, I myself come from an industry background and my day-to-day business is about knowing what goes on in the environment, I can tell you that we do keep our eye to exactly what is going on. It is very important that we tackle illegal dumping, but there are a number of ways. It takes a substantial amount of resources to put fully-equipped enforcement teams on the road, such as those Reverend Smyth has just referred to, but what is much more important is that when you stop loads or when loads are identified as illegal the powers are there to make it hurt for the illegal trader. However, I must add, in light of the fact that the issue relating to recent stops has been mentioned, when those investigations are complete I think it is very important for this Committee to look at and assess whether or not the stopping of legitimate loads, destined under trans-frontier shipment for legitimate recycling centres, constitutes illegal waste. That question then raises the issue, of course, of cross-border trade and where there could be economic benefit from doing that kind of trade on a cross-border basis. Please understand that from the Board's perspective we are totally opposed to the illegal waste trade. However, we recognise that there are benefits to having a neighbour next-door who has less infrastructure than we have and there are economic opportunities for Northern Ireland. Using the mass of that tonnage which is available on an all-Ireland basis is very similar, I believe, to the way we have used fridges in Northern Ireland where we have had an all-Ireland contract. Whilst the processing does not take place on our island, currently it comes to the UK for processing, there is no reason why the black economy, being fuelled by the illegal waste trade, could not be stopped in its tracks by the provision of infrastructure, supported around the border, whose tonnage could come legally under trans-frontier shipment from the other side of the border. This would provide income, jobs and technological advancement for Northern Ireland, for the service of Northern Ireland waste, but benefiting from offering our colleagues across the border a route for recycling and recovery. Q232 Mr Bailey: If I may say so, you said that with some passion. Professor Boyd: I do have a lot of passion about this industry, I have to tell you, and I am renowned for it in my own home town and country. Q233 Mr Bailey: Would it be fair to summarise it by saying that providing the trade was enforced properly actually it would be of considerable economic benefit to Northern Ireland, and does that go across the whole range of waste materials, from inert to active materials, and you mentioned fridges? Professor Boyd: In my experience I am talking about municipal solid waste, commercial and industrial waste, construction and demolition waste, end-of-life vehicles and waste electrical and electronic goods at this point in time. Q234 Mr Bailey: If we could get an effective monitoring system and enforcement system it could be of considerable benefit there. To a certain extent you have anticipated my next question, but what more needs to be done? Is there anything specific that you could recommend from your perspective which would enable us to do that? Professor Boyd: One of the things that absolutely will kill the illegal waste trade is legitimate infrastructure where this material could go. Some of the prices, some of the economic arguments which are quoted currently by media relay economic figures which make people think there are millions being put in back-pockets at the moment. If you took it to a legitimate facility where people have had to invest multi-millions of pounds in mechanical and treatment facilities, the actual jobs created, the economic income probably would equate to what is being generated on the black market at the moment, but it would totally legitimise it. It would not cost them any more to go legitimate than it does at the minute to go through the illegal trade, so therefore Northern Ireland could have the opportunity of developing a waste management infrastructure to satisfy Northern Ireland's own requirements. I am talking about private sector as well as public-private partnerships, all kinds of partnerships to deliver the whole range of integrated treatment systems that need to be there. Q235 Mr Bailey: I am sorry to press you on this. I think we are probably convinced of the economic argument. What we are actually talking about is what steps can be taken to prevent the illegal dumping and reinforce the process of legal disposal. What would you recommend from your perspective? Professor Boyd: My belief is that enforcement teams operating from eight to five during the working day will have great difficulty enforcing the illegal waste trade because they tend to move between 6.30 pm and 6.30 in the morning. Certainly from the perspective of the enforcement teams, there is a lot of worry in relation to, which we have already heard about, gangland-related illegal waste teams and also very heavy paramilitary connections in some areas. That worries me significantly in respect of the safety of some of the enforcement teams and they do operate with PSNI and in fact with Garda Síochána support where necessary. The one thing that appears to me is that we do have a joint approach. We have just had the Republic of Ireland Government putting €9 million into enforcement of illegal waste on the south side of the border. Perhaps the Department could do with some reinforcement of resources for their enforcement teams on the northern side. However, I come back to the point, the easy targets are the legitimate waste trade coming north, it is not so easy to deal with the illegitimate or illegal. Q236 Chairman: This Committee over the years has looked at fuel smuggling, we have looked at issues related to aggregate crossing the border, now we are looking at illegal dumping. We always seem to put pressure on Customs and Excise to do more in terms of enforcement but surely the collective amount of cross-border crime which is going on should lead to a taskforce looking at all these issues rather than simply concentrating on one? As you said, the paramilitary involvement is well known. Professor Boyd: The Committee might be unaware but on the days of the illegal stops, which were referred to earlier on 20 and 21 September, on 23 September a joint North-South Taskforce, headed by Hugh Ord of the PSNI and the Garda Síochána Commissioner, held a press conference in Belfast and released statements around which they were looking at something like eight key areas of concern. A number of them you have mentioned already and illegal waste was one of them, so that moves forward. Q237 Mr Bailey: Are you encouraged by the Department's initial response to your call for a cross-border working group? Mr Knipe: Yes, we want to see action in this area so any response which will address the issue is very welcome. I think the concern is as much in the North as it is in the South. No‑one wants to see illegal trade so any progress in eliminating that trade is going to be welcome. Q238 Mr Bailey: It does seem a bit like having a, shall we say, talking-shop to deal with a problem which requires more immediate action? Mr Knipe: With some of the things that happened recently, we are seeing some action taking place in relation to this. Yes, we want to see action on the ground but we want to see co‑ordinated action as well. Professor Boyd: It is very important for the Department to recognise the contribution that the legitimate waste management industry could make to that debate and also local government, because recently local government, the councils, have lost power in relation to licensing facilities. It is important, I believe, that we recognise the contribution that everyone can make to wiping out this illegal waste trade. There is no single answer but in a co‑ordinated approach, using the local knowledge of the local authorities, using the waste management industry, a legitimate industry, which wants to close down the illegal routes as much as anyone does, and utilising the Department's own personnel and extended personnel which they now have, there is the possibility that we may well reach that happy day at some point in the future. Q239 Mr Bailey: You have advocated having a separate Environment Protection Agency. Do you not think the body would suffer from the same sorts of staffing problems as the WMCL Unit? Professor Boyd: The whole industry is suffering from those staffing problems because the waste industry is changing quite dramatically as are the requirements for those governing the industry, be it from an enforcement or a licensing perspective. Certainly I have been in the waste management sector for over 20 years and it never was the hottest topic around school. You do not see very many people sticking up their hands and saying "I can't wait to become an enforcement officer in a landfill site." I have to say that we see now quite a number of environmental engineers and very qualified people coming out of university. We are seeing also a waste industry which is actively promoting a much more professional approach to waste management. My belief is that we will only build it up when we have an industry fit for people to work in, and that is something that is coming. Twenty-first century waste management is here, it is in Northern Ireland, it is here to stay and those who do not want to join will not be playing in the ball-park, is my belief. Q240 Mr Bailey: "Where there's muck there's brass," you believe? Professor Boyd: I am a former scrap-woman and, let me tell you, you never made a truer statement. "Where there's muck there's brass" and where there is brass there is always money. Q241 Mark Tami: The Review Report recommends the removal of Crown immunity from government departments for environmental pollution and protection. What effect would that have on the management of waste in Northern Ireland? Professor Boyd: One of the problems with the 'polluter pays' principle is that there are a lot of people who believe the 'polluter pays' principle applies to only certain sections of the community and that Government is immune. It is very important, if you want everyone to play a role within the delivery of the Waste Strategy, that we get buy‑in from all sectors. If industry is having to pay when it pollutes, the message that the Board were getting through the key stakeholder representatives that we have was why should Government make NGOs, industry and councils and everyone else pay and have some form of Crown immunity which meant they were high and dry and free of any responsibility for environmental pollution? After all, they govern Northern Ireland, the protection of it should be at the top of their list. Q242 Mark Tami: I think that is a fair answer to that point. Turning to waste management plans, you recommend that a single waste management plan and indeed an independent body to deliver a Waste Management Strategy should be set up. What is wrong with the waste management plans as they stand? I know that is a pretty wide subject. Mr Knipe: First of all, I think we would commend the councils for coming together into three groups and producing the three plans, although we recognise weaknesses in them, primarily that the focus of the existing plans is on municipal solid waste and they do not take into consideration the other waste streams. It is understandable, I suppose, because the councils have a statutory responsibility for municipal waste, but they need to recognise that within their areas there are other people generating other waste streams. I think as well the three plans which are in place at the minute cover different timeframes, they have different objectives, they are looking at different options as well for dealing with waste within the three plan areas. We are also working forward towards the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland, which I suppose is going to upset further the status of the plans. I think virtually everyone else in the industry would welcome a single plan. Certainly I think the EHS would welcome that, the councils would welcome it as well. It would give them a single plan where they could look to the development of the infrastructure over a more stable timeframe, through a single procurement process as well, where the major infrastructural development could be done as a single tender against a single plan and there would be a greater level of co‑ordination. Crucial to a new plan is integrating the other waste streams into that as well and making sure that recognises an infrastructural development which would be recommended under the plan which would include infrastructure for dealing with commercial industrial waste and the other waste streams. Q243 Mark Tami: Would that particular thing make it more accountable to the public, and how would you achieve that? Professor Boyd: One of the things I think we were looking at when we were talking about a single plan was that it is clear that the three regional plans delivered what the councils needed to deliver, which was their regional response to the Waste Strategy. As a Board we are looking at how best to deliver the Strategy and, as a businesswoman working under one plan, with one set of targets, born out of a single strategy, it makes a lot of practical working sense for me and for the Board. This was why we thought now was the time when we called for both a review of whether an independent agency would be required and also how the waste management planning would go forward. Because of the review of public administration and the clear indication that there is going to be a restructuring within Northern Ireland over the next five years, we thought that it was appropriate. I have to say, I was a member of the Waste Management Advisory Group which made 104 recommendations to the Minister in 1999 through which the Strategy document was born; 98 out of the 104 were included in the Strategy. One of the ones which were not included was the establishment of an independent Environment Agency. We are actually revisiting something that we believe should have been there. Q244 Mark Tami: What is your reaction to that, that they have knocked it out altogether, or turned it down out of hand? Professor Boyd: My understanding is that on occasions governments decide and departments decide where and when and what they are prepared to listen to. I was very proud to be part of the group which had 98 out of 104 recommendations included in the Strategy and I believe I will be very proud of the work we have done on the Waste Management Board when I retire next June from this position. I do expect to see a substantial number of the 83 recommendations, which I believe are all commonsense, included in the next phase of the Strategy. Q245 Mark Tami: A very good answer, I think, to that particular point. I think probably you have covered all the main areas I wanted to tackle but perhaps one last point. You speak of looking at an all-island approach to management but obviously there are different elements of the regional plans. How would you try to draw the best bits out of those? I know you have touched on that to some extent. Professor Boyd: In relation to an all-island approach, an all-Ireland approach, the first thing that we would need to do is ensure that the Northern Ireland Waste Strategy and the Republic of Ireland Waste Strategy, which currently does not exist in one document, are compatible and speaking in similar languages. The rolling-out of the Implementation Action Plan from those Strategies would then drive the regional plans. We cannot deal with the island as one, but over the past now 14 years I have been involved with the Irish Business Employers Confederation and the Confederation of British Industry, sitting on an all-island Joint Business Council, during which time we have established links in telecoms, energy and waste management is now a key area of concern for them. In fact we did refer the Committee to a report which was produced by that body and relates directly to all-island opportunities. It is about mass, treating waste is about volume. If you have to invest £10 million in a waste treatment plant you need to have the material to put in, and I am not talking in relation to an incineration plant here, I am talking about a waste treatment or a recycling or recovery centre, you need the material to treat it. Ireland has a rural community, it is widespread once you move out of the east corridor, so an all-island strategy could offer the best economic opportunity for both parts of the island. Also, in terms of Northern Ireland, it is my belief, if we want to remain competitive for foreign direct investment, we need to provide a good waste management infrastructure to deal with it. If doing all-island business pays for it to be in Northern Ireland then why should we not take advantage of that? Q246 Chairman: Can I push you for just a short answer in terms of accountability. If we are going to have an all-island body, or even a Northern Ireland body, not regional, there are always going to be questions about accountability and local democratic deficit in terms of where plants are built and who should take the decisions and whether or not they are accountable. It is probably unfair in a very short answer but could you tell us how you would ensure that accountability? Professor Boyd: One of the things I find, coming from the private sector, is that demand will drive and normally the private sector can react much more quickly than the local government sector in terms of provision of facilities. However, the majority of waste in the north of Ireland is the statutory obligation of our councils. In the Republic of Ireland 90 per cent of the waste is handled by private sector organisations. We are talking about two completely different environments which should work together but not as one, Northern Ireland should have its own regime but which is compatible with the Republic of Ireland, but I am not talking a united Ireland of waste. Mr Knipe: There is work ongoing through the North-South Ministerial Council on market development and that might be a mechanism. Certainly it has worked successfully to date by agreement between both jurisdictions. A tender has recently been issued to look at the feasibility of constructing a paper-mill for all Ireland, to absorb all of the recycled paper in Ireland. Q247 Mr Pound: We move on seamlessly as on a conveyor-belt of recycled materials, because I was going to ask you a question about the infrastructural deficit, which actually I think you have touched upon. Do you think that PPS11 has made any major change in the problems you have identified in that area? Mr Knipe: PPS11 was put in place during the life of the Board and has been in place for a year or two now and certainly has helped with the development of projects and the planning process that goes into those. There is still a problem with planning, getting approval for projects to go ahead, and those problems I suppose are driving away some investors or discouraging them from making investment in infrastructural development. The other thing that is coming through the system now is the BPEO (Best Practicable Environmental Option), which the Committee is looking at now and is looking to develop that in parallel with PPS11. I think that review and their report certainly will identify where the main opportunities lie or what the best options will be for developing the infrastructure to provide the waste management facilities that we require. Our difficulty is, I suppose, it is not really a delay but the fact is that report will not be issued, I think, until the summer of next year. Q248 Mr Pound: On BPEO, is it an assessment that is being undertaken at the moment? Mr Knipe: They are looking at I suppose the protocols and the options. Q249 Mr Pound: So consultation? Mr Knipe: Yes, there is consultation with a number of stakeholders going on at the minute. Q250 Mr Pound: You are feeding into that? Mr Knipe: Yes. Q251 Mr Pound: Can I ask you the key question then which comes up over and over again. What is the drag on infrastructure? Is it the planning process or is it local objection or is it technology? Professor Boyd: The planning process is not an easy process to go through. When you consider that a landfill site which exists currently within Northern Ireland is looking to expand and currently is being tied within the waste planning process for in excess of eight and a half years, it may give you some indication. There is a private sector company involved in the extension of a landfill site in Northern Ireland and the planning process currently has run to 8.5 years, and in fact possibly just over it. We were made aware of it through industry representation to the Board. Not all planning runs to that length and I have to say, in practical terms, the planners are doing their best. One of the things that we have recommended is perhaps a time limit on the statutory consultees involved in the planning process to allow them to make any representations necessary in order to protect the environment and to raise objections, but certainly not to give them an extension of time which really does not live in the real world. If they do not respond for six months then a planning application delays that long; if two or three of them do not respond you get the knock-on effect. I believe that improvements in the planning process would be aligned with ensuring that statutory consultees are made to respond within a reasonable timeframe. I think that would assist. Q252 Mr Pound: There are certain answers which we hear on this Committee which in fact should be almost underlined in the air actually to reinforce them. You talked about an extension to an existing landfill site which has taken - and really I want to repeat this for the record - eight and a half years and still has not come to fruition? Professor Boyd: That is my understanding and that is the evidence which was given to us. I can tell you that came to us through an industry representative and a large, UK-based waste management company. That evidence can be brought before the Committee. Q253 Mr Pound: In GB you have a statutory duty under planning legislation to determine a planning application in a very finite timescale. Once you fail to determine that planning application within that timescale, which is eight to 12 weeks, the applicant then can appeal to the Secretary of State to have the matter determined. If the matter is determined then the only way in which that process can be extended is by appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, which in GB is at Bristol, and that process takes an additional three to four months. Even allowing for the sclerotic movement of British local government, with the best will in the world I could not see us dragging it out for eight and a half years. The statutory time limitation process within what used to be the Local Government Planning and Land Act but now is almost certainly the new Planning Act, does not that apply? Professor Boyd: My understanding is that it does apply. The actual circumstances of that case certainly could be brought to this Committee by the company involved or through my Board. I would be happy to disclose the information. My understanding is that it does apply, but in Northern Ireland, because we were waiting on regional plans being developed by local authorities and those regional plans were supposed to give us an idea of infrastructure, there were delays which were assigned to the non-production of council Regional Waste Plans and, in effect, that was the excuse levied in not responding to the planning application. My belief is that Northern Ireland is suffering because we are failing to put in place, either through councils, private sector or partnerships, infrastructure on the ground. Q254 Mr Pound: I have no doubt that matter has been noted. You were talking about large-scale infrastructural developments in terms of landfill. Would this apply also in terms of major recycling, incineration, some of the other facilities, and are you envisaging large-scale facilities in your area or perhaps a sort of devolved series of smaller local facilities? Do you have an overall view? Having just given us that snapshot of the planning process in Northern Ireland, I think whether you have or have not a view may be almost irrelevant when you come up against that degree of lack of decision-making. Professor Boyd: It is not the Board's role to determine where or how infrastructure should be placed. However, commonsense would tell you investing in markets development is not very useful if you do not have the facilities in which to access the materials from landfill through a recycling and recovery centre to market. The infrastructure is the key, it is the link and there is, from people who have a much broader perspective and understanding than I have as Chair of this Board, somewhere around three billion needed over the next 20 years to deliver what we say we will deliver in the Northern Ireland Waste Strategy. In fact, over the next five years if we are to meet targets the estimated expenditure is around £500 million. That is no insignificant amount of money in any man's terms. A £500 million investment in Northern Ireland, if we were able to take that to Invest Northern Ireland en bloc I think we would be welcomed with open arms and the development would move forward. What I think we need is action now on behalf of the Economic Development Agency, the Department of the Environment, to move this into an action-orientated phase. We cannot sit around thinking about it, we have to action it. Q255 Mr Pound: In actual fact there have been extraordinary successes. In 2000-2003 the percentage of household waste recycled in Northern Ireland has gone up I think from about six per cent to about 14 per cent and you deserve credit for that. Are you saying that level of increase cannot continue with the present infrastructure? I think it is very important that the Committee is clear on this. Professor Boyd: With the current level of infrastructure in place in Northern Ireland, no, it cannot continue to rise at this rate because the reliance is on composting at the moment, home composting, collections from the home taken to a composting centre. We need to have in‑vessel composting, we need treatment centres, we need recycling centres, we need recovery centres and we need industry manufacturing with those materials. Q256 Mr Hepburn: Still on the infrastructural deficit, you have stated that the Government's own Council Waste Management Grant Scheme is not as effective as the DoE would infer in tackling the infrastructural deficit. What sort of grant scheme would you like to see in place and can you give an idea of what sort of capital expenditure we would be talking about, and what role do you think local authorities should play in the funding of these schemes? Mr Knipe: On the cost part of it, as Professor Boyd said, figures vary but we are looking at something like £3 billion over the next 20 years, perhaps £500 million over the next five years needs to be invested. The Council Grant Scheme currently is £10 million per year divided across 26 councils. A difficulty with it is that it is awarded on an annual basis and the councils do not really know until some way into each financial year exactly how much they are going to get, in fact the announcements for this year were made only within the past month, I believe. There is no opportunity for councils to predict how much funding they are going to have and then they are pushed into making decisions on spend on that grant before the end of the financial year, so it presents an enormous difficulty for them. How it might be addressed to get up to the level of spend that is required is a big question, to get up to £500 million over five years, £100 million a year, a ten-fold increase, I do not know how we are going to achieve that. As well as increasing the spend that is available the profile of the spend needs to change as well so that we can operate on some sort of a reasonable, I think we suggest, say, five-year rolling plan for investment, so that they are not rushed into making decisions about purchasing equipment, which can be scheduled on a proper basis over a reasonable period of time. Professor Boyd: At this point in time the Council Waste Management Grant Scheme obviously is aimed directly at local government. At the moment there are no avenues for the private sector in Northern Ireland to go forward with a multi-million-pound scheme and find an avenue through which they could receive some assistance, whether that be in the form of grant, equity or any other incentive, to become engaged in this industry. That is something which I think needs to be considered because, in my opinion, to seek £500 million from local government, or in fact our regional government, or from Westminster, without involving the private sector and generating the monies that it could generate and invest in this sector would be madness. Q257 Mr Hepburn: Just going on to infrastructural development, how do you think the Government should prioritise infrastructural development? Mr Knipe: I think there needs to be a bit more integrated thinking on what infrastructure is required. Certainly a single plan would help that. BPEO will help that as well in determining what is required but there needs to be a bit more innovation in how we achieve that. It is not simply a matter for Government, it needs to include private investment, the various options that are available for that, but also it needs to look at all of the waste streams. Currently, the infrastructural development which is going on is almost exclusively to municipal waste, so the other waste streams have to be brought into that. Again, it is something which needs to involve other stakeholders, other groups, other departments, it is not just a role for the councils and Department of the Environment. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment have a role to play in ensuring that. Perhaps they have not stated it explicitly but they need to see the development of a proper waste management infrastructure that will certainly help indigenous companies to deal with their waste streams and meet their targets for recycling but also help to attract direct investment into Northern Ireland, so the infrastructure has to be there. There is a role for the Department, for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, and there is a lead that can be given from Procurement Service in specifying, as I said earlier, recycled materials, perhaps taking a bit of a risk with those or perhaps going out on a limb a wee bit to encourage the developments of the markets and that will attract the investment from business. Business investment I think is going to be key to this. Professor Boyd: One of the arguments in the island of Ireland is that it is landfill versus incinerator. The Board debated at some length the landfill versus incinerator argument and it is our belief that, having examined practices around the world as well as within the European Union, once you start looking at solution provision you can find lots of treatment, lots of recycling and lots of recovery options which include going to renewable energy generation but not from raw waste. Those options are the ones which were indicated to us should be explored before any consideration is made of incineration or incineration incorporating waste to energy. Q258 Mr Hepburn: In the reports that we have received it says that you are interested in changing the focus from municipal waste to other wastes, but I read also that much of the longer-term infrastructure is likely to rely basically on municipal contracts. Does not that suggest that infrastructural development needs to maintain that focus on municipal waste? Professor Boyd: What we were attempting to do was highlight that the priority and focus to date has been purely on municipal solid waste which is required to divert 25 per cent to recycling within the next couple of years. The commercial and industrial waste streams have to divert 85 per cent, but there has been absolutely no focus on that waste stream or target within those specific plans. There are some private sector companies which are out there, like most good waste management companies, looking for the opportunity. However, in a focused way the plans as we move from the three regional plans, whether we remain with three or go to one, there needs to be a recognition of both the amounts of commercial and industrial wastes, construction and demolition wastes and agricultural wastes. Again, I refer back to the Waste Management Report in 1999 which stated clearly that an Agricultural Waste Strategy should be aligned with the Northern Ireland Waste Strategy in order that we are dealing with all the wastes. My understanding is that we are talking about 19 million tonnes of agricultural waste in Northern Ireland, so if you are going to play tonnages it just depends how they are argued. Certainly, in terms of meeting targets for the European Union, commercial and industrial wastes and the others which come under the Producer Responsibility legislation need to be included, recognised and dealt with, which they are not in the current waste management plans. Mr Knipe: Just for the record, can I correct something which Professor Boyd said. The target for commercial and industrial waste is to reduce it to 85 per cent of 1995 levels. Professor Boyd: My apologies for that error, Chairman. Q259 Reverend Smyth: On data collection, we recognise it is difficult trying to get the accurate facts and one realises that building companies quite often unload their debris and all their sacks. There are other issues apart from what is done in bonfire collections and one wonders where all that waste comes from. Having said that, you note that there has been some progress in the area of municipal waste but not much elsewhere. You do make some recommendations concerning how this data might be collected. Would you like to elaborate a little bit for the guidance of the Committee on what your recommendations might be and comment on how they would work? Mr Knipe: Certainly we welcome the work that has been done during the period of the Board on the Data Flow Project which is collecting accurate data now on council waste collections, essentially domestic waste, which is being handled by the councils. Also it is giving us the information, the figures you quote, on recycling rates which are coming from that data, which is certainly to be welcomed. We mentioned earlier that the target for reduction of the commercial and industrial waste to 85 per cent of 1995 levels has been stated in the Strategy. The data on 1995 arisings of commercial and industrial waste, the estimates vary by about 50 per cent either way so their data is very unreliable. If we use the high-level arising against current production of commercial and industrial waste, we could argue that we have already achieved our target. Q260 Reverend Smyth: Government departments like to show what good they are doing? Mr Knipe: Yes. The fact of the matter is that we do need accurate data on all of the other waste streams and there are a number of options for collection of that data. On some of the commercial and industrial waste streams that data has been collected by survey, by going out to some of the major producers asking how much they produce, but that is not particularly reliable. There is data available under Producer Responsibility which covers packaging waste, but some of those returns were made on a national basis so it is difficult to identify what is Northern Ireland and what is going through the mainland, as far as that data is concerned. This then applies to landfill tax returns which can be made on a national basis rather than a specifically Northern Ireland basis. If those were specifically Northern Ireland then we could get some perhaps more accurate data from that. Any of those sources of data even if they were more accurate would still need some analysis of the waste stream to say how much plaster and how much wood and how much concrete, etc., was in a skip-load of waste coming from a demolition site. The lack of that data makes it difficult to demonstrate progress towards any of the targets that we have to achieve. There is a lack of any sort of management information system that would aim to pull that data together. An extension of the Data Flow Project could help if it included all of the other waste streams, but I think we recognise that, again, not only do we need the industrial and commercial waste we need the agricultural waste to bring all of the waste streams into that. It is vitally important that we have that data and that investors, business, councils and the various departments have that data to help them with capacity planning. They need to know how much waste they are dealing with to be able to put any infrastructure in place to deal with that, and it would be very helpful for them in any predictive modelling they were using to identify what future capacity would be required. We see it as absolutely crucial that accurate data collection is given priority. Q261 Reverend Smyth: Where you are collecting waste paper what are you doing with it, because I have heard different reports that this has been dumped rather than recycled? Mr Knipe: These reports come forward from time to time. There had been a waste paper mill; there is one left in Northern Ireland. There is one in the South, there had been two in Northern Ireland but one of those has closed, so some waste paper is going there. Because some of these waste streams now are a commodity, they are traded in world markets as commodities and we have the mildly ridiculous situation of waste paper and waste plasters going off to China to be recycled. While that might be beneficial, there is some commercial advantage in doing that at the minute, it is not really addressing the problem on a local basis. Ultimately the market in China will disappear, because they are building paper-mills as if they were going out of fashion and they will be producing their own waste paper, so where is that going to go? Yes, I think people would agree, in some cases, waste has been collected and simply disposed of, but certainly it is not something that we want to see. We want to see both the collection infrastructure and the processing infrastructure in place to be able to utilise it all. Professor Boyd: Can I add just one comment in relation to that and I think it is something that would be very useful for everyone to understand. Recycling is not free. Recycling costs, but it costs less than disposal and less than disposal and landfill tax. The sooner we realise the opportunities which are held within that, whether we market it in the UK and the extended Shotton paper-mill, which WRAP supported here on the mainland, and a quite substantial amount of tonnage comes out of Ireland to Shotton for recycling, or whether we put it in a container and send it to China, at least we are creating the economic benefit and we are actually keeping it out of landfill, and I think that is to be applauded. Chairman: That is a very clear message there, with which I am sure most of us would agree wholeheartedly, that sometimes it is difficult to get those messages across, which brings us on nicely to Mr Luke's question on marketing the Strategy. Q262 Mr Luke: We have looked at the Strategy in great depth, and obviously part of the Strategy is marketing and getting over the message. How much do you feel that, despite the benefits of this type of marketing, the lack of real incentives designed to alter behaviour means that in the end you might not deliver the Strategy? I know that the Professor in her own, distinctive, fluent style when she referred to a united island of waste ruled out this kind of approach. Could Northern Ireland not learn from incentives used in the Republic, and we have taken evidence from officers in a local authority based in the Republic, such as householder charging and the levy on plastic bags? Professor Boyd: Certainly in relation to the levy on plastic bags, one of the things we were told before it was introduced in the Republic was that it would cripple the plastics industry. What did we find? We found a plastics industry which responded very quickly because they were going to die if they did not start producing biodegradable plastic bags. My answer is, the human being is very resilient and whatever methods are used to encourage them to move down a recycling route are to be applauded and brought in. I would welcome a plastic bags levy in Northern Ireland because it is the bane of any landfill sight when you drive past. It is the one thing the public always sees, the plastic bags blown up against the fence around a landfill site. In relation to the introduction of household charging, I think the Waste Board would not give any opinion and nor have we debated that issue because it was not raised with us and our structure of charging in Northern Ireland. Just having been advised that our regional rate is going up by nine per cent, you may find that the households around Northern Ireland may well have a wee bit of an objection to any more levies being put on. We do have to encourage but I think the encouragement has to come through education and awareness and through an understanding of where the money from people's rates is being spent. In Northern Ireland people are quite canny and if they think they are going to get good value for money they will be quite happy to use a civic amenity site. However, I must point out at this stage that our council representatives on the Waste Board have been raising an issue which flies in the face of exactly what you are saying. In Northern Ireland our licensing authority deems it necessary to charge a local authority for the provision of a civic amenity or a 'bring' site, so every piece of infrastructure in relation to community 'bring' sites or civic amenity sites will have to pay a licensing fee to the Department in order that they can have those facilities for the public. We have just launched a €2.5 million cross-border campaign to encourage people to use the exact facilities that we are discouraging councils, through charging, from putting in place. We have got to have some joined‑up thinking here. I understand from information provided to the Board that these levies do not apply in England and Wales and my question would be why in Northern Ireland? Q263 Chairman: One to which we shall endeavour to find an answer, I can assure you. Professor Boyd: Thank you, Chairman. My council colleagues will be very pleased about that. Q264 Mr Luke: I think it is patchy in Scotland. Some councils actually do levy for access to their sites but others do not. Professor Boyd: If we are trying to encourage a change of mindset, it appears to me the more provision we have that the community can use on a voluntary basis the better. Q265 Mr Luke: I think you highlight very well the difficulty in implementing the Strategy when you have got parts of the actual (pool itself ?) playing against the other. We have talked about previously, as part of the Strategy, this Waste Management Industry Fund and I know you have called for changes to the Waste Management Industry Fund but effectively these have been ruled out by the Department. I know there have been problems with the size of the fund, indeed there has been talk of the fund being cut. The Department have argued that alternative mechanisms are required to stimulate market development. Are you aware of these alternatives which are under consideration? Professor Boyd: Can I start by explaining from the Board's perspective exactly what the Waste Management Industry Fund originally was anticipated as being. When the Board called for the establishment of this Fund there were absolutely no opportunities for the private sector or for partnerships with the councils to source any form of funding in support of infrastructure provision. As a Board we felt that this £1 million, part of the regional amount from the Department, so much went to councils and £1 million went to an Industry Fund which was managed jointly by EHS and Invest Northern Ireland, the Economic Development Agency, initially it was seen as something that would be a catalyst to the provision of small regional facilities. The £1 million was only ever envisaged as being a short-term stopgap, in terms of being a catalyst, and that a fund of larger proportions and of very clear criteria would be established in order to deliver the size of infrastructure and the type of expenditure necessary. First of all, it was seen always as only an interim fund. Secondly, when it became public and it was put out, besides infrastructure provision there was the clear markets development side to the criteria. On one occasion, and Trevor will also speak to this, he sat on the committee in relation to the Waste Management Industry Fund but they saw it as a markets development programme, and I come back to my argument, you cannot develop a market if you do not have the infrastructure to access the market. We got a sort of cart before the horse type approach, in that in order to put facilities in place more money was needed. The Fund was too small and therefore had to eliminate a number of the, shall we say, reasonably sized. A fund which receives 63 applications for £30 million, from a £1 million fund, has some serious applications in there but clearly cannot deliver because of the size of it. That was point one. The Board certainly would not like to see the Fund continuing this year unless a fundamental review took place, and I think Trevor will speak in relation to the planning and other issues. There were projects funded but those funds could not be given out within the 12-month timeframe because of the failure of the projects in gaining planning permission and licensing so that they could meet the criteria. Perhaps you would expand on that slightly, Trevor? Mr Knipe: You have almost said it all for me. I sat on the evaluation panel for the applications coming in. We did have a call for proposals on two occasions, two annual calls, and they were heavily undersubscribed, and we did go through the due process of assessing all of the projects and looking at their value, trying to get a spread of projects across the various waste streams and trying to get a regional spread so there was not a concentration in the east of the Province, which could have been a difficulty. The main problem was, although we were able to identify projects which could be supported, there were a few issues which gave us difficulty. One of them, which was discussed at some length but we could not see a way round it, was that where people wanted to use second-hand plant within the proposals our mechanisms did not allow that, that they had to go for new plant because there might have been an issue of double-funding where plant had been supported earlier on. The main issue and the main difficulty in getting some of these projects up and running was delay in getting planning permission, people did not anticipate the problem they would have in getting planning approval for the projects, and there were some issues around getting licensing for the projects as well. They had to go through the planning process then go to their licensing authority and get licence approval, and a lot of people found it very difficult to achieve that within the required timeframe. We have been able to be fairly flexible in allowing some extension to those, but the fact of the matter is that when people find that a layer is being sewn on they have withdrawn from the scheme, withdrawn their applications. Q266 Mr Luke: Just to summarise, I know that the Professor has made the point from a private sector viewpoint that the powers that be actually are not doing enough to ensure that the Strategy is being delivered. What more would you like to see done? Professor Boyd: A realistic approach to the funding of projects would be beneficial because that way you would get the private sector engaging positively with the Strategy. At the moment you are getting the private sector staying back and industry, in some cases, avoiding contact in relation to waste management in case they bring more of a problem down on their head than any solution. You need to have a better funding mechanism, it needs to be over a longer period of time and one thing that we would welcome is the New Technologies Fund, which has been launched here in the UK. My understanding, although I understand it has not been tested yet, is that Northern Ireland can access that and I understand there are a number of proposals that should be coming forward to test that very theory in the near future. To have £32 million in a New Technologies Fund, that kind of answer in Northern Ireland really would light my fire. Q267 Mr Luke: I am sure you will be after that money. The last question I have to put is to do with the policy support issue. When the Waste Strategy was developed there was a suggestion that policy support would be in line with what was referred to as the waste management hierarchy. We have got a copy of that in the papers we have received. In your view, to what extent has policy support really acted to focus activity on the hierarchy and specifically on the top of the waste hierarchy? Mr Knipe: We welcome I suppose the innovative approach that the Strategy demonstrates in inverting the commonly-held, pyramid view of waste management, reduce, reuse, recycle, that it gives priority to reduction and to reuse, etc., recycling. Within that, the approach I suppose has been innovative but the policy support I think has been lacking in making sure that approach has been delivered. We have seen an acceleration in the introduction of environmental legislation to bring Northern Ireland almost back up to speed with the rest of the UK, as far as legislation is concerned. Probably to go back to our earlier comments on the various other strategies that are in place and the policies of the other departments that can influence how these things happen, there is work happening with business, within councils, things that are happening almost despite the Waste Management Strategy in supporting the hierarchy as it is constructed within the Strategy. I think it needs considerably more lead, if you like, to make sure that it does happen. Q268 Mr Luke: Another issue is that the 3Rs Group was not asked to look at reuse. Do you not think obviously that is a failure in implementation of policy support? Mr Knipe: I suppose the short answer probably is that we would see reuse as being a subset of recovery, that you recover waste, you reuse as much of it as you can and the remainder that is recovered you look at other options for it. Certainly we see it within that. Certainly it was used as a strapline in the awareness campaign to reduce, reuse and recycle. We do not see any conflict there and I think reuse is at the heart of and should be well up the hierarchy. Professor Boyd: We used the actual priorities as listed in the Northern Ireland Waste Strategy as our headings within the Board. We decided that consistency with the Strategy, so the choice within the Strategy of the three Rs as they are described there, reduction, recycling and recovery, are Strategy straplines and ones we adopted, not ones we created. Q269 Mr Luke: Mr Pound is much more adept at finding out the differences and nuances in the language, he is gifted with his background, but obviously, reuse and recovery, there is a sort of difference, is there not, that industry recovers whereas households may reuse? Professor Boyd: Yes. Mr Luke: There is this sort of whack of the reduction in the actual waste continuing, at the end of the day. Q270 Mr Pound: I think Mr Luke is referring to recycling jokes, speeches and comments. Can I say, we Parliamentarians frequently recycle comments made by our colleagues but that is the limit of my expertise. Professor Boyd: Certainly I would say, as a Board, all the public awareness campaigns that have been used to educate the householder, as you rightly say, in Northern Ireland, the public awareness TV campaign has all been about reduce, reuse and recycle. The current €2.5 million cross-border campaign which is underway in Northern Ireland uses exactly the same straplines, except that in the South it is the waste against waste and in the North it is wake up to waste. That is something which is demonstrated within the entire public awareness campaign. However, as a group, we recognise that reuse is something we aim to achieve. The form on waste minimisation encourages reuse before recycling, recovery and, finally, disposal, so we use the hierarchy physically on a day-to-day basis both within work that we do and out there with industry. We are constantly reinforcing that message. Chairman: You have been very generous to us with giving your time and we are on the final stretch. We have just three, very short questions that we wanted to have the opportunity of putting past you for answer. Adrian Bailey, you had a question you wanted to raise. Q271 Mr Bailey: Just to continue your previous conversation, when it comes to the jokes of Mr Stephen Pound I do see the virtues of incineration. Can I say that your report has a very critical tone, yet in its response the DoE suggests that very few of your recommendations constitute anything new. Do you see that as a reflection of your inertia or their complacency? Professor Boyd: Would you like a one-word answer or the longer version? One of the things that I believe, and having been a member and provided of my time for the original steering group some five years ago, where I mentioned earlier we made 104 recommendations, the fact that I am sitting here five years later saying a number of things over again I think speaks for itself. I believe that just because you have to repeat a recommendation it does not reduce the necessity for action on that very point. Q272 Chairman: The Select Committee system exists and works in such a way that no matter what the question is the answer is always that it is the Government's fault. Certainly some of our witnesses have said that to us, they have criticised the Government, that the Government must act, the Government must implement the change, but surely the real issue here is not just about what the Government can do. Would it not be fair to say there is a more general lack of concrete action from a wider group of people, in terms of industry, public action, public perception, in terms of local government, and would we be a bit unfair if we simply fell into that line of blaming the Government just for the sake of doing so? Professor Boyd: Most certainly, you would. Everyone has a responsibility to try to make the Northern Ireland Waste Strategy vision a reality, but Government needs to lead by example, and, in leading by example, industry, the non-governmental organisations in the voluntary sector, the social economy, academia and all of those other key stakeholder groups will fall into line. It was and is this Board's belief that the representation which we had created a strong, independent form of advice, which we felt should have been beneficial to the Department in moving forward from what someone described earlier as inertia to an active, participative introduction of a Strategy. The fact we repeated what we needed to repeat indicates our view in relation to how that action actually materialised. One of the things we believe is that the last couple of years, in relation to our own local government, regional government and an Assembly in Northern Ireland, for instance, I would have felt much better taking my report to the Environment Committee of our own Assembly and working with our MLAs who know the NIMBY principle (not in my backyard). They know my backyard. They are the people who have the local knowledge. If we get our Assembly back and running in the near future, with the help of God, we will be able to deliver a Strategy to Northern Ireland for waste that will show the way, and I believe that. I would not have taken this position, I have much too much to do in my private sector life, if I could not have made a difference. A local Assembly would make a difference. Chairman: Let me assure you that this Committee would like wholeheartedly to be in the position where we do not have to have this inquiry, where the Assembly is back up and running and is able to conduct this business itself closer to the problem, more local on the ground, as you have said. Your sentiments are shared by all of us. On behalf of the Committee can I thank you both for the time you have given, for the generosity in terms of the answers and the material which you have provided for us. I am sure it is going to be of use to us and I am sure we will meet again in the very near future. Thank you. |