Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 279)
MONDAY 4 JUNE 2007
MR PHIL
WOOLAS MP, AND
MR BEN
BRADSHAW MP
Q260 Mr Betts: The concern expressed
to us is the administrative cost involved in the system. First
of all, keeping records about who is doing well and who is not.
Secondly, sending letters out to people informing them why they
have a bonus or a penalty and chasing other people who have a
penalty to collect it from them. There were some fairly cynical
comments about the potential costs of that which might well go
against any savings that might be achieved by higher recycling
rates.
Mr Bradshaw: If you are saying
those cynical comments came from local government, it was the
Local Government Association that asked us to give them these
freedoms, firstly. Secondly, no one is forcing them to do anything.
It is entirely up to them whether they introduce them. If they
do not want to, that is fine as far as we are concerned. We have
published alongside the waste strategy, which I am sure you have
read over the Whitsun recess, a detailed regulatory impact assessment
of the financial incentives and a separate document on the financial
incentives outlining a whole range of schemes that operate that
are not necessarily complicated, that do not have to be computer
based. Even those that may be described as more complicated, the
computer based, weight based, chip based systems—I would
encourage or invite the Committee if you have time before you
publish your Report to go and examine some of these and how they
work in other countries—are not complicated. They are very
simple. There are ones that are even simpler like the simple bag
system where you pay for a bag or how regularly your waste is
collected, or the size of the bin. There are four or five different
systems that operate successfully in virtually every other country
of Europe and north America and it does not seem to me inconceivable
that they might operate successfully here too if local authorities
want to try them out.
Q261 Mr Betts: You just mentioned
the "could not give a damn brigade" who are not going
to do it unless somebody forces them to. If they suddenly get
faced with the possibility of additional costs, are they not likely
to put the black bag in the boot of the car and dump it in a layby
somewhere on the motorway or wherever?
Mr Bradshaw: That is one of the
reasons, first of all, why we have attached a number of conditions
to local authorities who might want to go down the route of incentives,
including an effective fly tipping and anti-littering strategy,
helped and aided by the new powers and measures in the Clean Neighbourhoods
Act which have vastly increased the maximum prison sentence and
fines for fly tipping. There has been an almost doubling in prosecutions
as a result of that by the Environment Agency. The experience
in other countries that have introduced these is that there can
be initially the kind of problems that you refer to but once good
strategies are in place to tackle this often the systems are self-policing
as well.
Q262 Martin Horwood: On revenue neutrality,
I am not absolutely sure if you really meant this but you said
that the scheme itself was going to be one of incentives that
were revenue neutral and that was separate from the overall cost
of collection. How can that possibly be? If there are incentives
being paid out, there must be balancing charges somewhere. You
must be talking about a combined system of incentives and penalties.
Otherwise, how can it possibly be revenue neutral?
Mr Bradshaw: What I was trying
to describe to you is that, separate from the council tax through
which people already pay for their waste collection and disposal,
local authorities can introduce an incentive scheme whereby they
can devise systems themselves where council taxpayers get a rebate
at the end of the year if they have recycled more and produced
less residual waste, or they get a further charge. It is a separate
charge from the council tax. Similarly, the rebate they get will
be in the form of a cheque or a voucher of some kind. Because
the overall costs to local authorities of increasing recycling
and reducing residual waste mean that their overall costs will
fall, the local authority can then decide whether to reduce the
council tax or spend the money it saves on other things, but that
is separate from the incentive scheme.
Q263 Mr Hands: I have two questions
on incentives. The first is, in terms of the incentives, whether
there is potential for these to discriminate against families
or larger households. Obviously a family is far more likely to
get charged and far less likely to be given a rebate. That is
the first question: how do you get around that and how might local
authorities do that? The second is who would be expected to pay
for the technology in terms of chipping or the weighing machines
or whatever is going to be needed to police these schemes? That
is presumably also going to have to come out of the revenue? Has
there been any estimate of the costs involved to local authorities?
Mr Bradshaw: Yes. All of those
estimates are in the RIA and the document on financial incentives.
A summary of them is that the benefits we estimate to local authorities
will very quickly more than compensate for any initial costs.
I think I am right in saying that even for those local authorities
that started from scratch—i.e., have none of the technology
already in place—the savings should compensate for the costs
within a year. If my officials think that is wrong, they will
correct me in the form of a note, please. On the issue of families,
one of the other conditions we have attached to local authorities
wanting to go down this route is that they should have strategies
in place to protect vulnerable groups, which include large families
with children. Again, these strategies exist perfectly successfully
in other countries that operate these incentive schemes.
Q264 Chair: Mr Woolas, do you have
a comment on the investment of local authorities in upgrading
their technology?
Mr Woolas: Clearly there are two
factors from our point of view. The first is the infrastructure
and the second is the revenue. This is part of the analysis that
we have referred to before with the LGA. One of the advantages
of not ring fencing formula grant is that savings that are made
through achieving recycling can be put into both capital and revenue.
In the comprehensive spending review, part of our analysis is
to look at not just the revenue but the capital costs as well.
It is worth emphasising the point that Ben makes, which is that
the relationship of the incentive scheme is separate to the council
tax itself. It is possible of course that the incentive will appear
in the form of a rebate on the bill, but it will not be part of
the council tax calculation.
Q265 Mr Hands: Do you think the creation
of Joint Waste Authorities would benefit refuse collection or
would they mean the loss of autonomy and democratic accountability?
Mr Woolas: The idea of a Joint
Waste Authority comes first and foremost from local authorities.
It is to my mind surprising that current legislation does not
allow for the creation of a joint collection and disposal authority.
There are of course already in existence Joint Waste Disposal
Authorities. Some of the largest public authorities in the country
are those, where authorities across geographical boundaries cooperate.
There are four in London. There is one in Greater Manchester and
so on. There is no evidence of lack of democratic accountability
in those authorities. I readily accept that they are perhaps not
at the forefront of the public's mind when they go to the ballot
box. Surprise, surprise. I suppose we should be glad they are
not. There are precedents. Fire authorities are often joint authorities
where there are different councils that come together. Police
authorities similarly. There are two points: the pressure from
local authorities in two tier areas in particular and, secondly,
that there are joint disposal authorities. Obviously a council
in pooling its sovereignty as it were has to take a decision as
to whether it wants to commit itself for that period of time as
defined in the authority's agreement and what the consequences
are of that but we see no reason why we should not create a permissive
regime to allow the creation of Joint Waste Authorities. The argument
over the decades as to what is wrong with two tier authorities
and the proponents of unitary authorities—I am not here
to argue for that case; that is up to local authorities—use
the example of the separation of waste collection at district
level and waste disposal at council level as the strongest argument
for improvement.
Q266 Mr Hands: This is just a quick
question about your presumption in favour of local choice. Why
is the Government so dead set then against Ken Livingstone's plans
to have a single London waste authority? That would seem to be
juxtaposed with your permissive regime on Joint Waste Authorities.
Mr Woolas: I could give DCLG reasons
but the policy lead on that area is Defra.
Q267 Chair: Is it? Is there a difference
of opinion between the two departments?
Mr Woolas: Certainly not.
Q268 Chair: In that case there is
no reason why you should not give the answer.
Mr Woolas: The reason is that
I cannot remember what it was.
Mr Bradshaw: I can. The reasons
are many and complex but they are basically the same as the reasons
why the London boroughs of all political persuasions also oppose
it. We believe firstly that the disruption that would be caused
by such reorganisation is not sensible at a time where we are
going to be stretched to meet our landfill targets of 2010 and
2013. We are confident we will for 2010 but 2013 is challenging.
London is doing pretty well on landfill diversion but not so well
on recycling. We think the disruption caused by that would not
be helpful. Secondly, it goes in the opposite direction to the
one that Phil has just been describing on joining up better waste
disposal and waste collection, just at a time when we are encouraging
a more integrated approach between waste collection and waste
disposal. To separate those two out in London, which is what the
Mayor was requesting, does not seem to us to make a great deal
of sense.
Q269 Martin Horwood: I come from
Gloucestershire where we have a two tier authority struggling
to make the joint waste collection and recycling work mainly because
there does not seem to be clear enough guidance on who banks which
landfill credits and who has the contract and things like this.
I do think there are problems with going to waste authorities
which, like police authorities, might then be able to bump up
precepts without direct, democratic control, but do not the existing
arrangements need more guidance and support if they are to work
within democratic authorities?
Mr Woolas: Yes. In the Local Government
Bill in the creation of the power to create Joint Waste Authorities,
one of the arguments we put to the Standing Committee was the
point that you quite rightly make, in our view. The benefits of
pooling have to be based on an agreement and some of the most
complicated contracts in local government are in this area. The
largest public sector procurement contract in our country is to
do with waste disposal and it is an agreement between local authorities.
The answer is yes, you have to have those agreements spelled out.
Q270 Martin Horwood: They know that
but the difficulty is coming to an agreement on who pays for what.
Mr Woolas: That is absolutely
right but we are, we believe, a government that is pursuing a
responsible devolutionary approach and there is a balance between
central government dictating what the terms and conditions of
joint contracts should be and allowing local authorities to reach
agreement. There is nothing compulsory in the Joint Waste Authority
legislation.
Q271 Martin Horwood: You are not
talking about going down the line of authorities like police authorities
having the right to levy their own precepts?
Mr Woolas: No. There is no proposal
whatsoever for a Joint Waste Authority precept.
Mr Bradshaw: I am sorry that the
voluntary system does not work very well in Gloucestershire. It
does work well in other parts of the country but for that very
reason we are giving local authorities the freedom in the Bill
to set up statutory joint authorities if they want to, to provide
the kind of long term strategic, financial certainty, not least
for the contractual arrangements they are making with the private
sector.
Q272 Sir Paul Beresford: Your new
Planning White Paper talks about incinerators, MRFs and all the
rest of it. One of the difficulties, not with MRFs but with incinerators,
is that it is technology that is changing. It is out of date and
in some ways there is a movement in Europe away from incinerators.
Incinerators, when you build them, last 20, 25 or 30 years and
some of us are looking at the prospect of incinerators based on
the collection and recycling rates now with the anticipation in
20 years' time of having to feed the darn things because the contracts
are there.
Mr Bradshaw: I would say what
is out of date, Chair, is the approach of some of the green NGOs
to waste to energy. It is not the case that countries on the Continent
are moving away from waste to energy. Far from it. Many of those
countries, like Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, have
far higher levels of recycling than we do, and also have far higher
levels of using waste to create renewable, clean energy. You are
right to say that the technology has changed dramatically. This
energy generation is now far cleaner than it ever has been. It
is much cleaner than power generation, for example, and the waste
strategy does envisage—
Q273 Sir Paul Beresford: What alternatives
have come through?
Mr Bradshaw: Alternatives are
coming through all the time. There are all sorts of alternatives.
There are a number of waste to energy technologies and, when you
look carefully at the waste strategy, you will see that we outline
those, and although we are generally technology-neutral, we do
say, as we have already discussed, that there are strong arguments
for anaerobic digestion and we think there are also very strong
arguments for combined heat and power for climate change reasons,
but there is no doubt that we will have to increase the level
of waste to energy in this country from about 10% at the moment
to 25%. It will still be far lower than most other European countries
and lower than we thought it would have to be in the waste strategy
2000 because we have done so well on recycling.
Q274 Mr Betts: Can I follow up the
waste to energy situation? Sheffield has a very big investment
in incinerator projects. It is one of the lead authorities in
the country and has now had European Union grants completely reinvested
in a new incinerator. The very fact that the incinerator is there
means that you have to feed it. You have a contract with an operator
and, in the end, you have to have a certain balance of waste going
into it to get the calorific values up. Does that not almost inevitably
mean that there will be some things that could be recycled that
will end up going in the incinerator even though that would have
benefits maybe in terms of overall use of waste?
Mr Bradshaw: That is one of the
reasons why, again, you will see in the waste strategy that we
have indicated for the first time that we might actually introduce
a ban on certain materials going to landfill altogether, which
has been common practice in some continental countries, to try
to avoid that happening.
Q275 Chair: Can you explain why banning
it going into landfill would stop recyclables being incinerated?
Mr Bradshaw: No, we would have
a landfill ban on certain materials that would then have to be
recycled and, if they could not be recycled, only then could they
be incinerated.
Q276 Chair: That is the difficulty.
How would you stop the recyclables being incinerated?
Mr Bradshaw: We do not have the
capacity at the moment in this country to incinerate a lot of
stuff, which is why we are still sending far too much stuff to
landfill. If you do not mind me saying so, you have skewed the
argument round the wrong way. We, as a country, are third worst
in the European Union for landfill. Only Portugal and Greece are
worse. We still send two-thirds of our waste to landfill. That
is environmentally totally unacceptable in the future for the
reasons that I am sure everybody here understands. We are going
to have to massively increase our recycling levels. We are also
going to have to expand our energy from waste from 10% currently
to 25%. What we send to which solution will depend on the calorific
value. For example, there are very strong arguments for wood to
be used for incineration because, in climate change terms, that
is the most sensible thing to do with it, to generate energy from
it rather than to even recycle it in many cases, let alone send
it to landfill. So we are developing a more materials-based approach,
as you will see when you read the waste strategy.
Q277 Mr Betts: Therefore you have
to have some sort of government direction for local authorities
because, where you have a local authority which has its own method
of dealing with its waste and incinerator, then it has to feed
that incinerator from its own sources in order to comply with
the contracts it has with the private operator of the incinerator.
It might well be that that authority could recycle more and take
on board somebody else's waste which is currently going to landfill
and incinerate it, if that is what you are suggesting might be
a way forward, but it almost then seems to move away from each
local authority coming to its own solution about what is right
for its area and fitting into a more general national picture,
which surely the Government has a responsibility for leading on.
Mr Bradshaw: No, local authorities
are free to draw up whatever contracts they wish with incinerator
operators. Some, as you rightly say, have agreed contracts which
require a minimum amount of material to be sent through that process
and others have not. That is up to them.
Q278 Sir Paul Beresford: Being realistic,
it is not likely the contractor is going to accept the sort of
contract that obviously the local authorities want, with greater
freedom.
Mr Bradshaw: That is not the case.
If you speak to the waste industry, it is entirely up to local
authorities.
Q279 Sir Paul Beresford: I cannot
see an incinerator manufacturer and user, say, in my area, where
they are down to put up two incinerators—God knows why—which
would consume far more than the 25% of the waste that you are
talking about as a target. We are going to end up in Surrey in
20-25 years' time, perhaps even 15, with the prospect that has
been set out by Clive Betts of us having to feed the blasted thing.
Mr Bradshaw: That would again
be counter to the economic logic, which is that it is more expensive
to incinerate recyclable materials, so why do it when you can
recycle them and make money out of it?
Sir Paul Beresford: Because of
the contract to feed it.
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