Select Committee on Communities and Local Government Committee Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60 - 79)

MONDAY 21 MAY 2007

CLLR PAUL BETTISON AND MR MARTIN WHEATLEY

  Q60  Mr Betts: Is this not like fighting for a power that you have no idea whether it is going to be practical to use and all the evidence we have had so far seems to indicate that the figures are just going to stack up.

  Cllr Bettison: I believe we are the only country in Europe who does not do it.

  Q61  Mr Betts: We might be the only one that is right.

  Mr Wheatley: There are a couple of points there. First of all, as set out in our submission, the cost to councils of disposing of non-recyclable waste is going to go up. Secondly, as is known from other areas of consumer activity—for example things like store loyalty cards—really quite small amounts of money can persuade people to think and start to behave differently.

  Q62  Mr Betts: It is a question of whether there is any saving at all when you add the administration costs in. Can you name a country in Europe which actually has collection costs and disposal costs as low as ours are?

  Mr Wheatley: We could see if we have those figures.

  Q63  Mr Betts: I think it would be interesting. We have just been quoted what other countries in Europe do, so if that is the evidence we are going on in terms of asking for the power to charge we should be looking at what comparable costs are there and my understanding is that other countries have generally much higher charges than £150.

  Cllr Bettison: Other countries are diverting much more of their waste away from landfill than we are. We are landfilling more of our waste than any other country bar two; I believe it is Greece and Portugal who actually landfill more of their waste than we do.

  Q64  Mr Betts: What would you do in the system for people on council tax benefit?

  Cllr Bettison: I am sure that if a charging system were introduced there would be allowances for people on benefits. It is rather like metering water. When we have a supply of something that is finite and in danger of failing to meet demand in the future it draws the attention of people not to be wasteful with that resource if they are actually paying as they use the resource.

  Q65  Martin Horwood: In your submission you suggest that if charging were to be introduced then that would be balanced by a corresponding cut in council tax. Do you have any examples from anywhere of a charging system being introduced and leading to a resulting cut in the local taxation?

  Cllr Bettison: Not from elsewhere in Europe. There would be examples from other European countries but we do not have them with us today.

  Q66  Martin Horwood: Would you be able to write to us with them?

  Cllr Bettison: I am sure we could do that.

  Q67  Anne Main: With the water system you only have one system or the other, you do not have both. My concern is that you are going to run both. Are you in favour of charging?

  Cllr Bettison: I am in favour of local authorities having that power. If you are asking whether, if we had that power, I would use it in my authority, the answer would have to be that I do not think I would. We already have the power to take legal action against people who do not recycle which actually seems to me to be much more draconian than the power that is being requested here. In my authority again I have not found the need to use it.

  Q68  Mr Betts: What would you do if someone simply refused to pay?

  Cllr Bettison: If somebody could not pay I am sure there would be a system as part of any charging that would assist those people. If they would not pay then we would deal with them, if we had such a charge, in the same way as people who will not pay their council tax.

  Q69  Mr Betts: Would you carry on collecting their refuse in the meantime?

  Cllr Bettison: That would have to be a decision that would have to be taken locally.

  David Wright: Are there any examples where there are systems where you get a discount for the more you recycle? Surely you need to turn this debate around and actually say to people that the more they put into the recycling stream the more money you will get back. When we used to have the old pop bottles you returned for five pence a time the kids in our neighbourhood would go around collecting them up to take them back.

  Q70  Chair: Do authorities have the power to offer a discount in that way at the moment?

  Cllr Bettison: I am told they do have the power now, yes.

  Q71  David Wright: That is the way to tackle this issue surely, to actually incentivise people to recycle more. The kids in my area would be roaming round the streets looking for cardboard and bottles and taking them in if there was a discount system.

  Mr Wheatley: We would agree that is one way, a system where councils were permitted to offer financial incentives for higher recycling or lower landfill.

  Q72  Mr Betts: It is simple logic. This can apply to families as well. The larger family you are, the more cardboard you are using and the more that goes into the stream surely the bigger the discount you should get, that is if you are putting more into the stream in terms of recycling.

  Mr Wheatley: I think that is an important counter-argument to the claim that is often made that charging will bear most heavily on large families.

  Q73  Chair: One of the questions that often comes through from people, in particular when they move from one area of the country to another, is confusion over what they can recycle and what they cannot and what they put in what coloured sack or bag or bin or whatever. Does the LGA have a view about whether it might be beneficial to have a kind of national agreed colour coding, not necessarily everything agreed but at least so bins or sacks always have the same sort of stuff in them.

  Cllr Bettison: If we were starting from day one I am sure we would have a national colour code. Regrettably we are not, we are starting with a system with bins that were purchased years ago. In my case our landfill bins were purchased eleven years ago when we actually chose green as the colour then because we never imagined we would have multicoloured bins and green just seemed to blend better with the hedgerows. Hence our green waste now has to go into a brown bin. Yes, it can be confusing but the media make a big issue about confusions. Maybe the media have more than one home. Most people in this country only have one home so they only have to come to terms with one set of colour bins.

  Q74  John Cummings: I am just wondering how we can involve the prime proponents of waste, the supermarkets, to act in a more responsible manner. Do you have any direct contact through the LGA with the larger supermarkets? Would you look for extra powers yourselves? Is it open to authorities to apply pressure upon supermarkets either nationally or within their own locality to act in a more responsible manner? We have talked about the penalties placed on individuals who do not behave in a responsible manner but surely the supermarkets—the main protagonists of the problem we have at the present time—have an equal responsibility to act in a responsible manner.

  Mr Wheatley: The Chairman of the LGA wrote earlier this year to the major supermarkets and following that we are having some very productive discussions with executives from supermarket chains about such matters as improving communication between them and the local authority sector about how packaging can be minimised and recycled, and encouraging them to think harder about the role they could play for example in taking back materials that they themselves produce. In addition the Association has been calling for the powers that local authorities have to prosecute and fine retailers for excessive packaging. We have been calling for those powers to be clarified and the penalties to be increased.

  Q75  John Cummings: Are you saying that there is existing legislation to cover that particular issue but it is not being enforced?

  Mr Wheatley: There is existing legislation but the maximum fine is £5000 and there are a number of defences that a retailer could bring, for example consumer acceptability which, where cases have been brought, have enabled them to claim that the packaging was acceptable.

  Q76  Chair: Have there been any successful prosecutions?

  Mr Wheatley: I believe there have been four.

  Q77  Chair: Do you have details of them that you could let us have later?

  Mr Wheatley: Yes, of course.

  Q78  John Cummings: You suggest in your memorandum that local authority waste spending will need to rise by 10% a year between now and 2013. Could you tell us to what extent does this affect collection authorities? What are the main reasons why collection costs will rise?

  Cllr Bettison: The costs are increasing because in many authorities they are facing an increase in the total amount of waste that is presented for collection and disposal. Regrettably people are still producing more waste every year. The other factor is that as local authorities strive to avoid landfill charges—of course now the escalator is up to £8 per tonne per year (that is a very real increase in annual costs for local authorities)—they can either pay the landfill costs or try to introduce new methods of avoiding landfill by introducing more recycling streams. Every time a new recycling stream is introduced there are costs to do with the collection and the arrangements for the disposal of those recyclates. The other thing is that when the LATS scheme kicks in in 2010 local authorities can face absolutely astronomical fines if they exceed their due allowance of putting stuff into landfill. This is very serious for local authorities because local authorities of course are capped so in the event that a local authority incurs these fines it does not have the opportunity of simply charging the taxpayer for the fines, it will have to reduce services in order to pay the fines, which of course brings us back to an earlier question that this does regrettably hurt the most vulnerable people first.

  Q79  John Cummings: Are you saying that it will rise by 10% yearly between now and 2013 if nothing is done or will it be 10% a year if these measures you are talking about come into operation?

  Cllr Bettison: If nothing further is done. It has been rising by that over the last years.


 
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