House of Commons
Thursday 26 February 2009
The House met at half-past Ten o’clock
Prayers
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
Business Before Questions
Manchester City Council Bill [ Lords] and Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [ Lords]
Motion made, and Question (15 January) again proposed,
That the promoters of the Manchester City Council Bill [ Lords] and Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [ Lords], which were originally introduced in the House of Lords in Session 2006-07 on 21 January 2007, may have leave to proceed with the Bills in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).—( The Chairman of Ways and Means).
The debate stood adjourned; to be resumed on Thursday 5 March.
Canterbury City Council Bill, Leeds City Council Bill, Nottingham City Council Bill and Reading Borough Council Bill
Motion made, and Question (15 January) again proposed,
That the promoters of the Canterbury City Council Bill, Leeds City Council Bill, Nottingham City Council Bill and Reading Borough Council Bill, which were originally introduced in this House in Session 2007-08 on 22 January 2008, may have leave to proceed with the Bills in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).—( The Chairman of Ways and Means).
The debate stood adjourned; to be resumed on Thursday 5 March.
Oral Answers to Questions
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Secretary of State was asked—
EU Floods Directive
1. Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con): What recent discussions he has had with the Environment Agency on the implementation of the EU floods directive. [258775]
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Hilary Benn): DEFRA officials hold regular discussions with the Environment Agency on a range of matters associated with the draft floods and water Bill, which will include the implementation of the EU floods directive.
Mr. Dunne: The EU floods directive is due to be implemented this September. What reassurances can the Secretary of State give to the many people who have suffered flood damage in the past couple of years in particular, including my constituents, who have suffered flood damage three or four times in that short period? What reassurance is there that the Environment Agency will be able to implement the directive on time, when there were some 200 flood risk-based vacancies in the agency only last summer?
Hilary Benn: I am well aware of the flooding that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents have suffered, and the greatest reassurance that I can offer him is that since the floods of 2007, 49 schemes have been put in place, protecting 37,000 homes across the country, as I have reported to the House previously. Frankly, that is the best protection. We are putting more money into flood defence; indeed, we are bringing forward some of that investment in order to provide the protection earlier. We will be consulting on the draft floods and water Bill, which will look at how we implement the EU floods directive. Part of the work that that will require is already in train. The Bill will cover the further steps that we need to take to implement it.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): My right hon. Friend was very helpful at the time of the floods in July 2007, but we were also promised some EU funding for some of the measures that we need to put in place. It would be useful to know what money we have received from the EU and how it can be taken forward in respect of the floods and water Bill. The sooner we get that Bill in place, the better.
Hilary Benn: The question of EU funding to support the recovery effort was dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. As I indicated in answer to the first question, we are significantly increasing the investment in providing defence. It is important that we do that, because it gives us the opportunity to provide more flood protection. Each scheme has to be assessed against criteria. Not all of them can go ahead, but the best thing that we can do is ensure that more money is available.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD):
Almost every weekend since December I have been visiting people who were affected by floods in my constituency. Is not the clear message that there needs to be a step change in our approach to flooding? We need much more emphasis on the maintenance of watercourses and drainage and much more concentration on resilience. We need to empower local communities to help themselves and we need to manage whole river catchment areas more effectively. May I invite the Secretary of State again to visit Somerset and to see for himself the
problems that we face there and, perhaps, some of the solutions that have been developed locally, with which he might help?
Hilary Benn: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will do my level best to accept his invitation. Indeed, I know that he was personally caught up in the recent flooding. The truth is that the answer is all the things that he mentioned. They were all laid out clearly in Sir Michael Pitt’s excellent report, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware. We have accepted all the recommendations and we are getting on with implementing them, because there is not just one solution, and local responsibility is included in that. Indeed, I am absolutely up for looking at steps that can be taken locally, both because that engenders a greater sense of responsibility in local communities about what they can do to help and because, frankly, this is a task for all of us.
Mr. Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con): Two weeks ago, many villages in and around Braintree and Witham were once again hit by substantial flooding, which closed roads and left people stranded. Does the Secretary of State agree or at least recognise that my constituency urgently needs further investment for flood prevention, and will he commit to that investment today?
Hilary Benn: I recognise that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents were affected by the flooding and I know that he wrote to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State on that question. Mercifully, the number of properties flooded across the country was relatively small and a number of the flood defence schemes that have been put in place acted to protect people in those circumstances. On investment, the Government’s position is crystal clear. It would be quite helpful if the hon. Gentleman encouraged his party’s new shadow spokesperson to give an equally clear commitment that it supports the investment that we are going to make up to 2010-11.
Domestic Waste Collection
2. Linda Gilroy (Plymouth, Sutton) (Lab/Co-op): What plans he has to promote good practice in the collection of domestic waste. [258776]
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jane Kennedy): It is for local authorities to decide on the best way to collect waste in their area. They are, after all, best placed to make decisions based on local circumstances. Our role is to give them the tools to do that. It is for that reason that we fund the Waste and Resources Action Programme, among others, to provide guidance and share best practice.
Linda Gilroy: I hear what my right hon. Friend says, but in the case of Tory-controlled Plymouth city council, it took the combined efforts of myself, the shadow leader and the local councillor to get some rubbish removed for Mr. Pickford in Vauxhall street. It took more than a week, and even when he reported rat infestation, he received a flippant response. Will the Minister take an interest in ensuring that the quality of service, which was designed to be improved last November, does in fact improve?
Jane Kennedy: I am interested to hear about my hon. Friend’s example. As she will know, 99 per cent. of households in Plymouth city council have a kerbside recycling collection of mixed materials, but the circumstances that she describes would be very much worse if the proposed Tory cuts to public spending were introduced. There would be a very bleak prospect indeed for all the available support—not just through WRAP, but through the recycling and organic technology advisory team and others—if the Conservatives were to come to power.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD): The National Audit Office has warned the Government that they are set to miss their targets for reducing waste going into landfill and therefore face massive fines for failing to achieve good practice. Is it not madness that more of the funds raised by the landfill tax are not going into increasing good practice in waste collection, but are being swallowed up by the Treasury black hole? Will the Minister agree to reallocate funds from the landfill tax and further funds to local councils so that they can step down landfill and step up recycling?
Jane Kennedy: The rate of recycling in England in 1997 was 7.5 per cent.; it is now 34.5 per cent., and it is continuing to improve. The landfill tax has been a singular success and it has focused the minds of local authorities on precisely that threat of failing to reach the targets. Local authorities are working hard, and in very many cases they have got the message. I think that they should be congratulated on the progress they have made.
Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central) (Lab): As my right hon. Friend knows, best practice in waste management is recycling. As she mentioned, the Government have a good record on that, but we could improve it even more. Local authorities’ recycling targets are measured not by product but by weight; if we had material-specific targets, recycling could be improved, as it could if we also removed the distinction between the collection of domestic and commercial waste in some circumstances. Will the Minister revisit those issues?
Jane Kennedy: My hon. Friend will know that the waste strategy was published in 2007, and that the new economic climate in which we are operating requires us to keep all such matters under review. He has made his point in writing and at meetings. He raises an interesting point, which I will want to study further, but it is worth knowing that a lot of good work is already going on. Just this week, I visited a business in the centre of London, in Great Titchfield street. The business is called i-level; it is a digital media agency that is working with Alupro, the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation, on the “Every Can Counts” initiative, which is all about the recycling of just aluminium and steel cans in a highly specific way. As I said, a lot of good work is going on, but there is always more that we can do.
Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con):
I am concerned about the service that local authorities give to residents. Increasingly, under councils of every political colour, there is anger and criticism about how local authorities are operating refuse collection, not least
regarding the move from a once-a-week to a fortnightly collection. In many cases, the size of wheelie bins has been reduced. When will local authorities take account of the interests of those paying them their wages rather than seek to meet—I say this although I do support recycling—some unacceptable regulations, many of which come from Europe?
Jane Kennedy: It is obviously a matter for local authorities to determine how local household waste is managed, how it is collected and how much recycling is undertaken. I have already described the improvements across England in respect of the proportion of household waste recycled. The hon. Gentleman’s local authority may be behaving in a way that he disapproves of, but let me tell him that in my experience, because of the importance to every household of dealing with waste, this is one of the most highly political issues. It is therefore very important for local authorities to be aware of what their communities are saying.
Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): As a busy person who manages to compost my food waste, including small bones and the mouldy stuff that we find at the back of the fridge, may I ask my right hon. Friend what incentives the Government are providing to encourage the roll-out of composting systems such as Bokashi and Green Cone, so that more domestic food waste is kept out of the waste stream and so that gardens flourish?
Jane Kennedy: It is a long time since I looked at the back of my fridge, and I dread to think what is lurking there. The recycling and organics technical advisory team is available to all local authorities in England; it provides advice on the separate collection of dry recyclables, and in particular the organic wastes that my hon. Friend describes. It is doing extremely good work. We also encourage the take-up of anaerobic digestion as an alternative means of dealing with organic waste. Again, good progress is being made by some of the big retailers, who are working with local authorities to bring organic waste into anaerobic digesters and produce some really useful products as a result.
Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): Kettering borough council has increased its domestic waste recycling rate from 4 per cent. to more than 45 per cent. in the past six years, but following on from the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones), to get the figure up to 55 or 60 per cent, we need to tackle the recycling of cooked food waste, which is not allowed into the compostable waste stream. That is proving problematic. Is the Department considering any financial or other incentives to enable local authorities to deal with that particularly tricky problem, so that we can reach the sort of recycling rates to which we aspire?
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): You should eat up your dinner—clean the plate!
Jane Kennedy:
On the other hand, health advice would be to eat only what we need to eat. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) presses a very good point. He is right that local authorities need to engage much more with the issue of what we do with organic waste, precisely as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) said. There
are projects in place, and there is funding, but it needs to be bidded for, and it needs to be based on local circumstances and local need. Good projects should be brought forward; they would then be considered by the regional development agencies, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or a local government department.
National Waste Management Strategy
3. Natascha Engel (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab): What steps his Department is taking to develop a national waste management strategy. [258778]
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jane Kennedy): We published the 2007 waste strategy for England on 24 May. Progress remains very much on course, as is shown by continued reductions in levels of household waste—a subject that we have just discussed—and an increase in levels of household recycling.
Natascha Engel: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. The emphasis in my question is on the word “national”. I think that everybody agrees that recycling, composting and making waste into energy are good things, but on numerous occasions—and twice in very recent history—massive local campaigns have been mounted against a composting plant or gasification unit. The decision has to be taken by the local authority, which will also take the hit for it. Is there some way in which decisions about where such units go could be made nationally, so that we could all take a part in that recycling, composting and gasification?
Jane Kennedy: Some aspects of waste recycling are controversial. Often, the controversy is based on misunderstood information and fears that are not well founded. The Waste and Resources Action Programme offers advice and help, and DEFRA is developing programmes of support for local authorities. The Local Government Association is asking for further detail and guidance on how local campaigns can be clear and reassuring, and can provide good, solid, well-founded information to local communities who might have concerns about a particular technology. There is no doubt that there have been massive improvements in the type of gasification technology that my hon. Friend describes, for example, which causes alarm. People can be reassured that it is good, clean, technology.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con): The Minister told me this week that in all but two English regions, landfill capacity would run out in less than seven years’ time. We urgently need a better strategy to increase recycling rates further and develop markets to use waste as a resource for materials and energy in particular. Last month, however, the National Audit Office said that DEFRA had responded too slowly to the landfill directive, with the result that waste infrastructure projects were being delayed. Can the Minister explain why a Department that is meant to be leading on environmental protection takes years to act?
Jane Kennedy:
As I said earlier, the recycling rate in England was 7.5 per cent. in 1997 and is now 34.5 per cent. A huge amount of work has been done. We expect
the combined impact of our policies in the waste strategy that I described earlier to be a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions of at least 9.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2020 as a result of waste management. What would be the impact on targets of that nature of the cuts that the hon. Gentleman would be forced to make in any departmental programme of this kind? When in government one makes decisions that have a big impact, and the decisions that we have made have brought about a sea change in household attitudes to recycling.
Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North) (Lab): Is it not the case that the heart of a national waste management strategy should be the principle that the polluter pays? Does the Minister share my concern about the fact that more local authorities have not shown interest in differential charging for domestic waste? Is it not common sense that the filthiest households should pay more, and what further steps can the Government take to increase local authorities’ understanding of the importance of the “polluter pays” principle?
Jane Kennedy: I do not necessarily agree with my hon. Friend. Some of the poorest households find waste management the most difficult, often because the circumstances in which they live are so difficult. I think that we should work harder to understand how we can help households in such circumstances to do better. One possibility is a punitive approach, but I want to study the situation with some of those local authorities, which may be struggling. We know that it is particularly hard to deal with houses in multiple occupation containing lots of families. I want to understand what the barriers are, and how we can reduce them to help local authorities perform better and improve the environments of some of the poorest people in the country by enabling better recycling techniques to be used.
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