Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]

House of Commons, 28 October 2003.

New Clause 18 — Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategies: England

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 19—Power to disapply duties under section (Joint municipal waste management strategies: England).

Government new clause 20—Interpretation of Chapter 3.

Government new clause 21—Repeal of duty to prepare recycling plans in England and Wales.

Amendment No. 16, in clause 4, page 3, line 32, after 'authority', insert

'taking into account that there can be no separation of responsibilities between district, or county council,'.

Amendment No. 31, in clause 10, page 8, line 3, after 'authority', insert

'taking into account that there can be no separation of responsibilities between district, or county council'.

Government amendments Nos. 44 to 46 and 48 to 58.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I shall speak to the new clauses and to the Government amendments, but I am also happy to give the Government's views on amendments Nos. 16 and 31.

The new clauses and amendments deal with joint working between waste collection and disposal authorities in two-tier areas. I know that that issue was discussed in Committee. I did not have the opportunity to serve on the Committee, but I followed its proceedings with interest. There was constructive discussion among all those involved on the important issues before us. For the convenience of the House, I shall set out some of the background.

The White Paper "Waste Strategy 2000" makes it clear that, to tackle waste management effectively, we need to develop constructive working relationships between the different tiers of waste authorities. That is not an unreasonable or controversial point. The strategy unit's 2002 report "Waste not, Want not" made the same point and recommended that the Government consider putting joint municipal waste management strategies on to a statutory footing. In our response to that report, we accepted that recommendation in principle, although in line with our wish to reduce burdens on local authorities, we have also sought to explore other incentives, short of legislation, to encourage joint working.

In speaking to the new clauses and amendments, I am fulfilling the promises made by Lord Whitty in another place and by the previous Minister for the Environment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), that the Government would bring before the House their proposals to effect a statutory requirement for joint municipal waste management strategies. New clause 18 introduces a new requirement for all waste authorities in a two-tier area to consult on and prepare a statement on a joint strategy for the management of household waste and other similar waste within 18 months of the day on which Royal Assent is received. That strategy must be adequately publicised and kept under review. Again, that is not an unreasonable requirement. There are special features for London involving amendments to the Greater London Authority Act 1999 requiring the Mayor of London, in revising his waste management strategy, to have regard to any joint municipal waste strategies produced by authorities in Greater London.

In accordance with the Government's wider approach to performance management, including the provision of freedoms and flexibilities for higher performers, we have tailored the new clause to ensure that it targets the authorities and areas that most need to improve their performance on waste.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

Will the Minister tell us a little more about high performers and the sort of freedoms and liberties that will apply to them?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I am happy to do so. New clause 19 gives the Secretary of State power to exempt through regulations an authority whose performance is satisfactory. In accordance with the Government's wider undertaking to remove planning requirements on excellent authorities, we will exempt all authorities that are categorised as excellent under the comprehensive performance assessment, as well as those whose performance on waste is satisfactory with regard to defined targets.

New clause 19 also enables the Secretary of State to provide for the exemption of two-tier areas. We plainly wish to implement the provisions in a way that avoids placing unnecessary burdens on authorities, while ensuring that, where authorities need to work together more effectively in planning for the exercise of their functions, there is an obligation for them to do so.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Surely, there will be most difficulties in agreeing a strategy where there is a need to work together more closely, perhaps because of division between a county and boroughs and districts. What mechanisms will deal with circumstances in which forward-looking districts such as Lewes and Wealden, and Rother for all I know, want to formulate a good strategy, while an antediluvian county council such as East Sussex does not?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I cannot comment on individual councils, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's knowledge of his local area is greater than mine. None the less, I can say that there will be a duty for co-operation in relation to a joint strategy. He will be aware that, on top of that, the waste collection authorities are set a number of targets and responsibilities in relation to the waste strategy. Of course, the Bill also places obligations on the disposal authorities.

All those involved have their own responsibilities. The disposal authority can also make directions to the collection authorities, and they will be binding. Thus, a range of measures provides a strong incentive for agreeing the joint strategy. The thrust of the new clauses is not to provoke division among local authorities or different tiers, but to bring about co-operation between them. Surely that is better than division.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Let me pick up on the valid points made by the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). Where the collection authority has a clear strategy to increase the amount of waste that is recycled, but the disposal authority has entered into long-term contracts to provide waste to an incinerator, there will be not only philosophical differences between their interests, but economic ones. I do not see in the proposals a sufficiently robust legal strategy to enable such bodies to work together where there are genuine differences.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The hon. Gentleman is leading us on to other amendments and new clauses dealing with issues such as incineration. Of course, different circumstances will apply where a waste authority has an existing incineration strategy as part of its policies. Such a strategy will involve a considerable capital investment, and the collection authorities will have to work with the waste authority on a joint strategy that takes that into account. There may be other cases in which the disposal authority wishes to consider incineration. In those cases, we would expect them jointly to consider with the collection authorities the most appropriate way forward in relation to disposal policies, which may include incineration. We want discussion and consultation to take place between all those involved in developing the joint strategy.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

My inquiry is altogether more prosaic than that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker). Under subsection (11) of new clause 18 and subsection (6) of new clause 19, the Government apparently propose that regulations should be subject to the negative procedure of the House rather than to its affirmative counterpart. If that is so, can the Minister enlighten me as to how there will be an opportunity to debate the contents of those regulations?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, that issue has already been independently scrutinised. As far as I know, the use of negative or affirmative procedures was not queried. He will also be aware that negative procedures are fairly common. Personally, I am fairly relaxed about which procedure is used. There are reasons why legislation is sometimes implemented by negative rather than affirmative procedure; those reasons are separately scrutinised by the various Committees.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Can the Minister direct me to any part of the Bill or the amendments that deals with dispute resolution? Where two elected authorities are both concerned with the collection and disposal of waste, that gives rise to a problem if one authority pursues one strategy while the other pursues a different one. Furthermore, the Bill contains penalties. How are those to be divided up between the two authorities; and what system is there to resolve any dispute between them?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

That is a rather complex series of questions. I am happy to deal with them, but it might be better to do so as I outline the meaning and implications of the amendments. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that I have missed a point, he must feel free to intervene.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

rose—

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I shall give way, but I should like to make some progress.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I understand that the Minister wants to make progress, but this is an important issue. No one can deny that the joint strategy is right in concept, but the final decision—the whip hand—is given to disposal authorities, which can issue a direction. It is therefore possible—in fact, likely—that a scenario will arise whereby a waste collection authority wants to perform in a way that is more akin to the Government's waste strategy than that of the waste disposal authority. That could create a ludicrous situation in which the waste disposal authority issues a direction to require the waste collection authority to behave in a way that is further away from the Government's intentions. That cannot be right.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

If I may say so, the hon. Gentleman seems to be assuming that all waste collection and disposal authorities will be at each other's throats. That is not so. It is true that disagreements may arise and that directions can be given by the disposal authority to the collection authority. That is why there has to be a system: the amendments address that.

The hon. Gentleman argues that one authority might be trying to implement strategies that are much more in line than those of others with what the Government want. The answer to that is that all waste collection authorities will work to a series of targets, especially on recycling and re-use. That is sometimes forgotten. Some of the discussion that took place in Committee, particularly on incineration, seemed to overlook the fact that waste authorities cannot simply do exactly what they like: they have obligations in relation to recycling, re-use and reducing the amount of biological waste. In that sense, they operate within a framework that provides certain disciplines—it is not a complete free-for-all.

The hon. Gentleman must also recognise that we are committed to giving as much freedom as we can to local authorities in coming together to determine the most effective strategy for their area by taking into account their local circumstances and needs. We do not want to be too prescriptive in terms of taking tight, centralised control, but we do want a framework for delivering targets in relation to fulfilling our commitment to sustainability and to meeting our obligations in line with various directives. The amendments strike that balance: I shall outline some of the reasoning behind them.

On the point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) raised about exempting local authorities, we plan to give some exemptions in the form of freedoms to those that hit the excellence targets. That is not unreasonable. We have to take into account the possibility that some authorities might go backwards at a later stage, so there must be a facility whereby exemptions granted to authorities whose performance drops below the levels that we would expect are withdrawn. Even then, we would expect them to have a period in which they could improve their performance before being required to produce the strategy. We are trying to be flexible in dealing with that by tailoring the requirements to enable us to target those areas that need to improve their waste performance, while refraining from placing unnecessary burdens on authorities that are performing well.

New clause 20 defines what is meant by a two-tier area. New clause 21 repeals the requirement for waste collection authorities in England and Wales to prepare and publish a waste recycling plan in accordance with section 49 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It also provides certain consequential repeals in relation to the Greater London Authority Act 1999. That is a clear example of our desire to remove unnecessary and ineffective burdens on local authorities while expecting them to have in place appropriate arrangements for strategic planning of their waste management functions. That strategic planning is vital in moving towards more sustainable forms and in helping us to meet our ambitious targets for composting and recycling.

Amendments Nos. 44 to 46 remove certain powers to make regulations, and certain references to the duty under section 49 of the 1990 Act to produce a waste recycling plan, from clause 29, which concerns municipal waste management strategies for Wales. The repeal of section 49 of the 1990 Act through new clause 21 negates the need for those references.

The remaining amendments relate to the commencement and extent of new clauses 18 to 21.

The Government believe that these provisions, together with clause 31, give waste disposal authorities the power to direct waste collection authorities about the separation of waste and address the concerns that influenced Opposition amendments Nos. 16 and 31, the purpose of which is to require allocating authorities to take into account that there can be

"no separation of responsibilities between district, or county councils"

when making an allocation of allowances authorising the sending of biodegradable municipal waste to landfills under clause 4(1) and appointing a person to be the monitoring authority for its area under clause 10(1). There is clearly a genuine functional division of responsibilities in two-tier areas, because waste collection is carried out at district level and waste disposal is carried out by the county council. If the Bill is to succeed in its aim of ensuring that the UK meets its targets under the landfill directive, it is important that we have a clear ownership of responsibility. To that end, obligations to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill are imposed on the disposal authorities, whether unitary or county, as those authorities are responsible for the final disposal of waste, and therefore for sending waste to landfill. That touches on the point that was raised about who is responsible for any financial penalties.

I understand the reasoning behind the amendments in relation to where responsibilities and potential financial penalties fall. The Bill, however, necessarily works by imposing duties on the disposal authorities. As I have explained, we have already catered for the consequences in two-tier areas, and I do not think amendments Nos. 16 and 31 will help in that regard. I hope that in the light of my explanation they will not be pressed to a vote.

The Government's preferred approach, as I have stressed, is to encourage waste collection and disposal authorities to tackle waste management together, while taking account of the distinct role that each tier plays.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

If, as we all assume, the Bill's purpose is to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, why does the strategy not encompass waste minimisation? Moreover, the Bill makes no mention of a duty to consult local businesses. Why not? After all, supermarkets and other businesses could be extremely useful in reducing the amount of waste that is produced in the first place.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The Bill does do that. We presented our waste strategy in 2000, and it has been followed by "Waste not, Want not" and the 2002 strategy unit report. What we have established is a clear waste hierarchy, at the top of which is waste minimisation. That is our No. 1 policy. Next come recycling, the reuse of waste as compost, incineration and, finally, landfill. We expect local authorities to adhere to our strategy, and indeed they are doing so.

I agree that businesses have an important role to play in waste minimisation. We are involving them in, for instance, the Advisory Committee on Packaging, which is focused very much on industry, although not hitherto on the industry that we are discussing. We are also involving them in the waste implementation programme and the waste and resources action plan, which means not just encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises to take advantage of new opportunities and technologies in recycling and minimisation, but giving financial support for the establishment of new businesses and enabling them to explore new markets. We have a sophisticated range of measures to encourage waste minimisation, which includes industry along with other stakeholders.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am pleased to hear about the waste hierarchy and the emphasis on minimisation, but what troubles me and many others is that little in the Bill will stop waste that currently goes to landfill being booted up to the next level of the hierarchy, namely incineration. There is nothing to prevent a considerable increase in incineration as a result of the clampdown on landfill. One bad thing is being replaced by another.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I do not accept that. We shall be able to discuss this in more detail later, but I will say now that I do not see the Bill in itself as a driver for more incineration. The Government have set clear targets for recycling and re-use, and the Bill does not remove the obligation that local authorities will have. This year's target is 17 per cent., and all the indications are that we will meet it. That is a considerable improvement on the beginning of the year, when I feared that we might not.

There has been an enormous increase in recycling and re-use, for which authorities deserve much credit. Some poor performers have improved dramatically in the last 18 months to two years. The target for 2005–06 will be 25 per cent., and the targets will be driven up to about 33 per cent. Furthermore, there will be a review. It should not be thought that 33 per cent. is necessarily the highest figure for which we are aiming.

Local authorities are constantly having to address their strategies to meet the waste and recycling targets. That is removing a great deal of material from the waste streams and reducing the amount of biological waste, thereby reducing the need for both landfill and incineration. Nevertheless, we should all be honest about the fact that there may well be a case for incineration in certain circumstances. It is neither true nor reasonable to say that it can never be part of the waste hierarchy. We have a lower level of incineration than any European country of similar size. Denmark, often cited as a country with a good recycling record, has a 55 per cent. level. We need not go that far, but it would be wrong to mislead people by saying that there is no case for incineration—although nothing in the Bill impels further incineration.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I have just been to Copenhagen and looked around an incinerator. I was told that Denmark was placing a cap on incineration, and that the instruction was to move towards recycling. The difference between this country and countries such as Denmark is our huge reliance on landfill, which must be got rid of if the landfill directive is to be met. Without real measures to encourage minimisation, re-use and recycling, beyond those already introduced by the Government, the landfill that is removed will simply be replaced by incineration. That is the point that Members are making, and, with respect, I think that the Minister has failed to grasp it.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has produced evidence to support his statement, although he will have an opportunity to do so later, and we shall all have further opportunities to discuss the issue. It does not surprise me, however, that any country whose incineration rate is about 50 per cent. should want a cap. It would want to increase the amount of recycling and re-use, as we are doing.

Let me say something about potential disputes. New clauses 18 and 19 set a regulatory framework for the development of the joint strategy that we have discussed. It is for authorities in each area to decide together how to develop the strategy on the basis of local conditions, working towards targets that they all need and are required to meet.

My Department can help all authorities to meet their objectives. Members of the Department have spent a lot of time going around the country and talking to authorities about the strategies they need to adopt in order to minimise waste and increase recycling and reuse. They have done a good job, which I think is one reason for the surge in the number of authorities meeting our requirements in a comparatively short time.

The Government's new clauses and amendments will, I believe, give sufficient encouragement to joint working without imposing further requirements on authorities that already discharge their responsibilities satisfactorily. Along with clause 31, they provide the right framework for a positive relationship between authorities in two-tier areas working towards a common goal. I do not feel that amendments Nos. 16 and 31 are consistent with that approach.

We believe that our new clauses and amendments offer an appropriate balance between the desire for an integrated approach to waste management and the rights and needs of different authorities at local, regional and national level. I hope that Members will recognise that and support the Government's proposals.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

We do not wholly disagree with the gist of the Minister's comments. The amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) and I tabled try to ensure that different sorts of local authority and waste disposal and collection authorities are held together. We want top quality co-operation between both sides of waste management at unitary, district and country level. We therefore need to ensure that they have every incentive to work as a team and that, if one half lets the side down, it is not only in its interest but in that of the other half to bring it up to the required standard. That is important because the Bill provides for fines and a range of penalties culminating in imprisonment to ensure that waste management is done properly. We must therefore make sure that it contains no loopholes that would allow a waste disposer to play off against a waste collector.

Any fine should relate to both bodies. There is probably a weakness in the amendment because there could be a case in which one authority was clearly out of line and it was not the fault of another. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) was right to ask the reason for the lack of a proper process to identify those responsible for a breakdown in the system. That is one of many glaring omissions from the Bill.

My first question to the Minister is about the term "statement" in new clause 18. How legally binding are such statements? In the worst case, one waste authority could sue another to try to apportion blame. I agree with the Minister that waste collection and disposal authorities will not be at each other's throats. However, if we are legislating to ensure that that does not happen, we must cover every eventuality.

Earlier, I asked the Minister to define the differences and he referred to new clause 19 and exemptions. As I understand it, an excellent council that performs in the way in which the Government wish no longer has to have a plan. However, to get to that stage, such a council would first have to have a good plan to which it stuck. It is especially bizarre that once a council has a good plan that works, it is allowed to ignore it. Surely there is a lack of logic in that.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The concept of the excellent authority means removing some of the directions from it on the basis that it has demonstrated that it delivers excellent standards, including in waste strategies. Those authorities probably have their plans, strategies and joint working, and that is fine. The difference between them and other authorities is that they will no longer be under direction, because we acknowledge that high-quality authorities will continue to act without it.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The Minister is right to want greater freedom and flexibility for top councils and to remove the cold, dead hand of Whitehall from them.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

The Minister's answer is fair, but it misses the point that although a local authority might start out with the best intentions and the best plan, and put it into effect, it is judged by the past. If there is a budgetary constraint or change in council leadership, the future may not be as rosy as the past. Perhaps it would therefore be better for a local authority that wants to move away from the plan on which it has operated to be required to report that.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

My hon. Friend makes a valid and useful point. [Interruption.] The Minister says that the Bill covers it. However, my hon. Friend is right that if we judge everything with hindsight, as time goes on and people are allowed to move away from their effective plans, the potential for disaster is obvious. That aspect of the Bill is especially bizarre, and I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. We are united in acknowledging the Government's good intentions, but they have added a bizarre twist to the measure that may run counter to what they want to achieve.

My hon. Friends' most important points in interventions related to the quantity of recycling. The United Kingdom recycled 13.5 per cent. of its household waste last year, incinerated 9 per cent. of household waste and 3 per cent. of hazardous waste. It is hardly surprising that some authorities are expected to increase their performance dramatically, especially given their political colour. Eight out of 10 of the best councils at recycling are run by the Conservative party and seven out of 10 of the worst are run by the Labour party. I am therefore delighted that the party of Government is improving its act, but it is easy to do that from a low base.

We must ensure that the Bill makes a proper distinction between the responsibilities of the disposal and collection authorities so that we get the best possible co-operation. We want money to go into recycling and the re-use and recovery process rather than taken out in fines. Later, we shall perhaps debate whether the fines should go to the Chancellor or back into the process to continue the positive activity that hon. Members support.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am the only Front-Bench spokesman to survive the Committee proceedings. The Minister for the Environment has replaced the Minister for Rural Affairs and Environmental Quality and the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) is the latest in a bewildering succession of Conservative environment spokesmen. I hope that the hon. Member for Leominster—and, indeed, all Conservative spokesmen—will remain in position for a long time.

I am sure that the Minister has read details of our Committee proceedings in Hansard as part of his preparation. The subject of our discussion was considered at length in Committee by all members, including the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed). There was agreement, which the Government acknowledged, that we needed a guarantee that waste collection and disposal authorities would work together. It was also agreed that we should not place too many burdens on local authorities and that it was right to deal with recalcitrant authorities, not those that perform well. The Government try to do that in the new clause. So far, so good. My residual worries relate to cases of disagreement between waste collection and disposal authorities, and their resolution. The hon. Members for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) and for Mid-Bedfordshire also asked about that.

I want to refer to East Sussex—I am not obsessed by it but I know it best. Waste collection authorities there, both Conservative and Liberal Democrat, pursue high recycling levels. Indeed, parts of Wealden district council, which is run by the Conservatives, are recycling more than 50 per cent. as a consequence of doorstep collection. There is also a phenomenal uptake in Liberal Democrat Lewes district in my constituency. Those collection authorities will achieve recycling levels that exceed the Government's targets. That is important, because the waste disposal authority will calculate on a lower recycling rate. That means that it will agree an incinerator contract—which has not yet been drawn up, by the way—for a guaranteed throughput of waste to be delivered to the incinerator company, which in this case is Onyx. I hope that the Minister is taking in this complicated argument.

If the waste disposal authority then wished to have a guaranteed throughput, that would necessarily depress the amount of material available for recycling, particularly if the Government are successful in reducing the overall amount of waste. In those circumstances, the only guaranteed set figure would be the amount required for the incinerator, and everything else would have to go in order for that target to be met. There is therefore a real danger that, in these two-tier areas—I think that this could arise in East Sussex—the waste disposal authority could issue an instruction to the waste collection authority effectively to cap or even reduce its recycling capacity.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

indicated dissent.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The Minister is shaking his head, but that could happen if the authority were recycling an amount in excess of the Government target, and had to reduce its recycling capacity so as to ensure that there was a sufficient amount for the incinerator throughput.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I understand the case that the hon. Gentleman is making in relation to those who exceed the Government's recycling targets. If there is incineration—particularly if it involves a heat-from-waste recovery system—a contract might be needed in relation to the throughput. I do not know the details of the particular case that he is describing, but this situation should not stop the collection authorities reducing the biodegradable waste. There is always an element of waste that is not biodegradable, and there may be a case for incineration in those circumstances. The authority could simply extend the area to include some of those factors, rather than reducing recycling. Is the hon. Gentleman trying to argue that there should never be incineration in any circumstances?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

We shall debate incineration in due course. I am arguing that incineration has a role in specific circumstances, such as the destruction of medical or other special waste, so I accept the Minister's point on that. I was talking about mass-burn household waste, but we will come to that later.

It is conceivable that a waste disposal authority could issue an instruction to a waste collection authority, to which the latter did not want to agree but to which it would be obliged to agree. Carrying out the instruction would involve decreasing the amount of material recycled. That is a real possibility that is not being addressed, and there is no dispute resolution system in place to deal with such situations. Because the penalties relate to landfilling as well, the only objective of the waste disposal authorities, in terms of avoiding fines, will be to meet the landfill targets. They can do that either by incinerating or by recycling, and they will not be particularly bothered about which way they achieve that target. They will simply want to meet the target. The primary goal of the waste disposal authorities will be to avoid paying a fine, and they will say, "It doesn't matter how we get there. We'll incinerate, we'll do anything that we have to do, provided that we can avoid a fine."

The Minister is effectively creating a system in which waste disposal authorities will seek to avoid landfill at any cost, but he is not putting in place the waste hierarchy that he advocates to achieve the solutions that we all wish to see. I said in Committee—I repeat the point for the Minister, who I hope has now finished his conversation with his Parliamentary Private Secretary—that this is not a waste hierarchy implementation Bill, but an EU landfill directive implementation Bill. It has been brought before us solely to achieve the EU landfill reduction target. That is all that it is about.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The hon. Gentleman is making a good case, but it is worse than that. This is actually a fine-avoiding Bill, and not even a very good one, because I believe that we are going to be in line to receive fines of £180 million a year for failing to minimise waste.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. This is about money, and the paucity of the Government's forward planning is illustrated by the fact that they are continually running after EU directives, rather than anticipating them and putting in place structures to deal with them. We should be in the lead in these circumstances, rather than having to chase after Europe to catch up.

There will be cases—a minority of cases, I accept—in which waste disposal and collection authorities will be at each other's throats and disagreeing on the best way forward, and it is in those situations that the Minister wants to apply new clause 18. He does not want to apply it when there is agreement between the authorities and the recycling levels are good. He wants to apply it when there are problems, and those problems will predominantly be caused by disagreements between waste collection and disposal authorities.

The Minister is saying that the disposal authority will always have the decision-making powers when push comes to shove, but I do not think that that is right, for the reasons that I have given. I hope that he will be able to deal with this point when he replies. If a waste collection authority believes that the direction from the disposal authority is unreasonable, either because it runs counter to the Government's waste hierarchy or because it could undermine the collection authority's targets, what redress will it have? What power of appeal exists? What could the authority do in those circumstances? As I read the strategy, that arrangement is open-ended. It is not clear what powers apply to the waste collection authority in those circumstances. It seems to me that it would have to comply, whatever the environmental and financial consequences. We could be faced with a situation in which a disposal authority required a course of action to be followed which would cost the collection authority an unreasonable amount because it would have to dismantle certain things that had been put in place. What would the consequences be in those circumstances?

Has the Minister considered whether the continuation of the arrangement whereby responsibility is split between the collection and disposal authorities is actually sensible? There is a case for merging the two into one authority. One answer might be to have a regional light-touch waste plan, and to have the collection authorities dealing with the bulk of the work. Although the Minister has done his best to get the balance right in the new clause—I accept that he has listened, and that his colleagues have listened in Committee—there will be a minority of cases in which there will be a dispute between collection and disposal authorities and in which they are following entirely different paths, as some are at the moment. There is going to be trouble as a result of this.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), and I would disagree with very little that he has said. The Minister is competent and courteous, but he was not in Committee with the hon. Member for Lewes and me. Those sittings were very time-consuming, and one of the problems that the hon. Member for Lewes, my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) and I talked about all the way through was that the Bill is extremely narrowly drawn. It fails to provide a comprehensive strategy for all forms of waste, because its prime aim is to save the Government money.

We have here a Bill whose scope is narrow, whose vision is extremely small-minded and whose provisions are inadequate. I have always believed that legislation is best formulated when it is a vehicle that is used to drive forward a long-term, holistic and sustainable vision. Bad legislation is nearly always reactive, singular and isolated, and a panic-stricken reaction to a European demand. That is what we have here. Although I support the Bill's overall environmental objectives, it is still a legislative response, rather than a driver designed to send out policy signals to local government and industry for the purposes of long-term security and investment.

Legislation about the environment should be driven by the overriding objective of carbon emission reduction, and the development of a market that rewards sustainable consumption of primary resources and recycled materials. We need a Bill that encourages environmentally sensitive forms of product design and that frowns on unnecessary waste, but the present Bill does none of that.

I asked the Minister whether he believes that there is an adequate system of dispute resolution, and I have to tell him that he has not answered that question adequately. I realise that the issue applies to provisions that we shall debate later, but one of my main concerns is where long-term contracts have been entered into by one authority—for an incineration plant, for instance—and another authority wants to reduce the amount going for incineration and has a better, more environmentally sensible proposal, which is in greater accord with the waste hierarchy. If that authority tried to implement that plan, it could be penalised for the losses of the other authority. There is a potentially profound dislocation between the two authorities and unless an appeal procedure that permits a Minister to make a judgment is in place, the Bill may cause as many problems as it solves.

Another concern is that the Bill is so narrowly drawn that it does not allow all the other interested parties to share in its implementation. Much household waste is produced in supermarkets—we all know that—yet there is no incentive for local authorities to involve supermarkets and other producers of waste packaging in the process. There is an incentive not to send material to landfill, which is good, but there is an almost equal incentive to send it to the next cheapest option of incineration. We shall deal more fully with incineration in a later group of amendments, but unless the Minister can demonstrate that the Bill will fulfil the Government's objectives on waste hierarchy, it will amount to a lost opportunity.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I shall attempt to deal with some of the points that have been raised.

The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) asked what was meant by the term "statements", and the answer is statements of policy. Those amount to guidance to the authorities and joint committees that determine the strategy. It is guidance by its very nature, because we are trying to avoid a too rigid or straitjacket approach in respect of what can and cannot be done. We want to give local authorities some flexibility. There may well be different solutions in different areas, and local authorities are probably best placed to determine what they should be. Where there are two-tier collection agencies, we want a joint strategy so that agreement can be reached. Hon. Members have referred to problems that might potentially arise in that regard, and I shall attempt to deal with those.

On the subject of scrutiny and whether there should be positive or negative resolution, I want to make it clear that the procedure that I outlined earlier was correct. However, these new clauses have, of course, just been tabled, so they will have to go through that scrutiny. The Lords Committee will have an opportunity to scrutinise the provisions and a supplementary memorandum will be prepared to deal with the question of these powers and other matters raised during this stage of the Bill. The process will be put in place as I have outlined.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

Before the Minister moves on from his point about flexibility, will he clarify for the record whether the same flexibility will apply to authorities that are being fined? There are good and excellent authorities, but we also need to take account of the ones that begin to fail. When a fine begins to be apportioned, will it be the authority that decides on the most appropriate way of dividing the fine, or will there be a more rigid process? There could be a significant danger here and I would appreciate the Minister's guidance.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The fines in the Bill apply to the disposal authority. I understand the difficulties that hon. Members have mentioned, but in the end it is necessary to have a line of accountability. I have some sympathy with the argument that a disposal authority could find itself in trouble because of the failures of a collection authority, but taking responsibility away from the disposal authority also means removing some of the incentives and controls. There are pros and cons to the issue, but I believe that it is right to concentrate on the disposal authority.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Before the Minister moves on from that point, will he consider the mechanism that the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) and I suggested—an appeal to a Minister in extreme circumstances where the two authorities cannot agree?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I was going to deal with that point later, because it was mentioned by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed). I do not want to have to go over the issue in my hand-written notes again. Ministers are sometimes asked to intervene on a range of issues, and we debated that matter in the Committee considering the Water Bill, on which several Members present served. The formal process is appeal to the Secretary of State, but, in reality, the Secretary of State sets up a mechanism for dealing with the appeal. In the case of major disagreement between the collection authority and the disposal authority—we are talking extremes here—the collection authority could refuse the direction from the disposal authority. That would mean going to court for the matter to be resolved. If the collection authority believed that it had a genuine case, it could put its case through the legal process. Due process exists for those extreme circumstances.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

With respect to the Minister, that is no solution at all. The waste disposal authority would simply point to legislation saying that it had the right to issue a direction—end of case.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

No, the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the legislation. He has completely disrupted my nice linear flow as I have to jump around from note to note. If I am completely confused by the end, he will understand why.

Hon. Members' main concern in respect of clause 31 seems to be a dispute over incineration. That is the most frequently mentioned example. The hon. Member for Lewes mentioned the specific example of a collection authority that believed that it had better solutions for waste minimisation—the object of the Bill—than incineration. However, clause 31 does not give the waste disposal authority powers of direction for incineration. Directions can relate only to legal obligations on the waste disposal authority and there are none specifically for incineration. The waste disposal authority therefore has to consult the waste collection authority before it issues a direction, and the waste disposal authority must have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State.

That brings us back to the waste hierarchy and the fact that waste minimisation, re-use and recycling are at the top of the hierarchy. Those are the Secretary of State's directions and I do not go along with the argument that the Bill necessarily gives an impetus to incineration. I simply do not accept that, because in no way does it cut across the policy framework. The authorities must work within the hierarchy of disposal and take into account the various regulations.

With respect to the hon. Member for Lewes, who does not normally duck the question, I did ask him whether he was arguing that incineration could not be used in any circumstances. [Interruption.] No. The hon. Gentleman said that he accepted incineration for clinical waste, but that is a bit of a cop-out, because clinical waste must be incinerated. However, in every area there will be an element of waste that is not biodegradable, so the choice for that waste residue will be landfill or incineration. In some circumstances, it may be decided that incineration—particularly where there is heat recovery, energy recovery or combined heat and power—may be the best option. That is for local authorities, through their joint strategies, to decide. I should like to know whether Liberal Democrat Members believe that we should never have that facility in any circumstances.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

Yes, we are very strong supporters of a zero waste policy. Within that, however, there may be circumstances where it is possible to take opportunities, such as in the construction industry with cement kilns. Certain products that do not easily degrade, such as tyres, can provide good materials for other processes, so we are taking an ideal opportunity to use those materials to support another industry.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

Forgive me, but that sounds as though the Liberal Democrats are really saying "Let us incinerate by sticking material in cement kilns". It is still incineration. The salient fact may be that the incineration would take place in an existing facility. I do not know why the Liberal Democrats, in particular, continue to be so evasive about this. I am simply asking whether they are saying that in no circumstances whatever could there be incineration.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I shall try to tell the Minister again. I have given him one example of where incineration would be appropriate: special waste. If he reads the Committee reports, he will see that we suggested that there should be a moratorium, and that therefore existing incinerators that have been practically shut down might be used, although we want greater monitoring of the dioxins—as we have said in a new clause that we shall discuss later—and we want a life-cycle analysis of incineration. We do not want more Bills at present, because we do not believe them to be necessary, and we think that it is possible to deal with the country's waste without recourse to further incineration. That is the policy we espoused in Committee and which we shall espouse again shortly, when we discuss incineration in a few minutes.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I had noticed the hon. Gentleman's comment that there should be a moratorium on incineration, although I am not aware that there is a lack of business in incineration —rather the opposite, in my experience. However, at this stage I do not want to focus too much on incineration, because there will be an opportunity to discuss it later.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I am grateful to the Minister for his courtesy in giving way. The answer to his question from the Conservatives, as far as I can remember, was that, provided the most environmentally friendly activity had been undertaken and found not to be cost-effective, one could then go to a lower level of the hierarchy. But one had at least to check that the most environmentally friendly system of disposal was used first.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

That strikes me as a perfectly reasonable position to take. Incineration should be a resort, because it is down the waste hierarchy. As the hon. Gentleman fairly states, it should not be first choice. There are a lot of caveats: there are issues in relation to standards and safety, whether other options are available and whether it is the best practical measure. That is a perfectly reasonable and, I might say, honest position to take on incineration.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

Although the Minister's initial comments were about the hierarchy and how the Bill would bring it about, they quickly descended into how the authorities would avoid being labelled failures and being fined. Immediately, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) gave an example, which the Minister pursued, quite keenly, towards incineration. Does the Minister not think that that parallels exactly what the Bill is all about, and that as soon as it becomes law everyone will run to the lowest common denominator, which is incineration?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

No; absolutely not. I do not believe that. I was pursuing the point because the hon. Member for Lewes raised it and I was trying to tease out where he stands on this matter; I am still not absolutely certain. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Lewes will have the opportunity to explain as we progress through the Bill, so I do not wish to be distracted at present. I have all these bits and pieces of notes and I have to try to reach a conclusion on this.

The hon. Member for Mid-Befordshire repeatedly raised the issue of supermarkets. We do not ignore the role of supermarkets. In fact, most local authorities, including my own, find that supermarkets are a very convenient centre for recycling because many people buy a lot of material there, and it is a convenient place to take the material back to. I see supermarkets playing a very important role in relation to waste minimisation, which is a legitimate part of the joint strategies that should be developed by the local authorities through the collection and disposal authorities. That is dealt with by these amendments.

We have had a fairly broad run around on this issue, but judging by what I have heard, hon. Members accept the desirability of joint strategies. We have tried to make allowances in relation to authorities that are rated excellent, and to deal with matters that may give rise to disputes. I have tried to give some reassurances that I do not believe that the joint strategies are necessarily driven by incineration alone in relation to the waste hierarchy. The strategies and guidance from the Secretary of State will prevail and the local authorities will have to work within those in terms in formulating their strategies.

These sensible new clauses reflect the desire expressed on both sides of the Committee, and I very much hope that they are supported. I believe that the amendments tabled by Opposition Members are not relevant, although I understand the reasoning that prompted them, and I hope that I have answered hon. Members' questions.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 19 — Power to Disapply Duties Under Section (Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategies: England)

New Clause 20 — Interpretation of Chapter 3

New Clause 21 — Repeal of Duty to Prepare Recycling Plans in England and Wales

New Clause 1 — Strategies for Waste Minimisation: England

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Strategies for waste minimisation: Scotland—

'(1) The Scottish Ministers must develop a strategy for waste prevention and minimisation containing quantitative targets for overall waste reduction and for specific waste streams.

(2) The Scottish Ministers will set out in regulations requirements for local authorities and business relating to waste prevention and minimisation, including—

(a) taking a lifecycle approach;

(b) reducing packaging.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Scottish Ministers must—

(a) consult the Secretary of State, the National Assembly for Wales, the Department of the Environment and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to them to be representative of the interests of local government as they consider appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to them to be representative of the interests of industry as they consider appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as they consider appropriate.

(4) The Scottish Ministers must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Scottish Ministers must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the National Assembly for Wales, and

(c) the Department of the Environment.'.

New clause 3—Strategies for waste minimisation: Wales—

'(1) The National Assembly for Wales must develop a strategy for waste prevention and minimisation containing quantitative targets for overall waste reduction and for specific waste streams.

(2) The National Assembly for Wales will set out in regulations requirements for local authorities and business relating to waste prevention and minimisation, including—

(a) taking a lifecycle approach;

(b) reducing packaging.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Assembly must—

(a) consult the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers, the Department of the Environment and the Environment Agency,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of local government as it considers appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of industry as it considers appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as it considers appropriate.

(4) The Assembly must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Assembly must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the Scottish Ministers, and

(c) the Department of the Environment.'.

New clause 4—Strategies for waste minimisation: Northern Ireland—

'(1) The Department of the Environment must develop a strategy for waste prevention and minimisation containing quantitative targets for overall waste reduction and for specific waste streams.

(2) The Department of the Environment will set out in regulations requirements for local government and business relating to waste prevention and minimisation, including—

(a) taking a lifecycle approach;

(b) reducing packaging.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Department must—

(a) consult the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of local government as it considers appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of industry as it considers appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as it considers appropriate.

(3) The Department must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(4) The Department must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the Scottish Ministers, and

(c) the National Assembly for Wales.'.

New clause 8—Minimising Arisings from Nuclear Waste—

'(1) The Secretary of State must develop a strategy for—

(a) minimising the arisings of nuclear waste;

(b) minimising the discharge of liquid radioactive waste into the marine environment;

(c) ending the production of plutonium;

(d) implementing best available techniques for the management of spent nuclear fuel.

(2) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsection (1), the Secretary of State must—

(a) consult the governments of all neighbouring countries around the North East Atlantic, including those countries bordering the Irish and North Seas;

(b) consult Scottish Ministers, the National Assembly for Wales, the Department of the Environment;

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of local government as he considers appropriate;

(d) consult such bodies or persons appearing to him to be representative of the interests of industry as it considers appropriate; and

(e) carry out such public consultation as he considers appropriate.'.

New clause 9—Strategies for meeting the Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment Directive: England—

'(1) The Secretary of State must have a strategy to meet Directive 2002/96/EC on Waste Electric And Electronic Equipment.

(2) The Secretary of State will establish by regulation that the original electrical equipment manufacturers, distributors and importers are held responsible for the cost of recycling the electrical equipment at the end of its life.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Secretary of State must—

(a) consult with the relevant EU bodies, the Scottish Ministers, the National Assembly for Wales, the Department of the Environment, the Secretary of State for the Home Office, the Environment Agency and the Mayor of London,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to him to be representative of the interests of local government as he considers appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to him to be representative of the interests of industry as he considers appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as he considers appropriate.

(4) The Secretary of State must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Secretary of State must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Scottish Ministers,

(b) the National Assembly for Wales, and

(c) the Department of the Environment.'.

New clause 10—Strategies for meeting the Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment Directive: Scotland—

'(1) The Scottish Ministers must have a strategy to meet Directive 2002/96/EC on Waste Electric And Electronic Equipment.

(2) The Scottish Ministers will establish by regulation that the electrical equipment manufacturers, distributors and importers are held responsible for the cost of recycling the electrical equipment at the end of its life.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Scottish Ministers must—

(a) consult with the relevant EU bodies, the Secretary of State, the National Assembly for Wales, the Department of the Environment and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to them to be representative of the interests of local government as they consider appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to them to be representative of the interests of industry as they consider appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as they consider appropriate.

(4) The Scottish Ministers must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Scottish Ministers must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the National Assembly for Wales, and

(c) the Department of the Environment.'.

New clause 11—Strategies for meeting the Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment Directive: Wales—

'(1) The National Assembly for Wales must have a strategy to meet Directive 2002/96/EC on Waste Electric And Electronic Equipment.

(2) The National Assembly for Wales will establish by regulation that the electrical equipment manufacturers, distributors and importers are held responsible for the cost of recycling the electrical equipment at the end of its life.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Assembly must—

(a) consult with the relevant EU bodies, the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers, the Department of the Environment and the Environment Agency,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of local government as it considers appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of industry as it considers appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as it considers appropriate.

(4) The Assembly must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Assembly must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the Scottish Ministers, and

(c) the Department of the Environment.'.

New clause 12—Strategies for meeting the Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment Directive: Northern Ireland—

'(1) The Department of the Environment must have a strategy to meet Directive 2002/96/EC on Waste Electric And Electronic Equipment.

(2) The Department of the Environment will establish by regulation that the electrical equipment manufacturers, distributors and importers are held responsible for the cost of recycling the electrical equipment at the end of its life.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Department must—

(a) consult with the relevant EU bodies, the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of local government as it considers appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of industry as it considers appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as it considers appropriate.

(4) The Department must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Department must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the Scottish Ministers, and

(c) the National Assembly for Wales.'.

New clause 13—Strategies for meeting the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste: England—

'(1) The Secretary of State must have a strategy to meet Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste.

(2) The Secretary of State will establish by regulation that the original producers have mechanisms in place to facilitate the recovery and reuse of their packaging, and the recycling and recovery of packaging waste.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Secretary of State must—

(a) consult with the relevant EU bodies, the Scottish Ministers, the National Assembly for Wales, the Department of the Environment, the Secretary of State for the Home Office, the Environment Agency and the Mayor of London,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to him to be representative of the interests of local government as he considers appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to him to be representative of the interests of industry as he considers appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as he considers appropriate.

(4) The Secretary of State must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Secretary of State must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Scottish Ministers,

(b) the National Assembly for Wales, and

(c) the Department of the Environment.'.

New clause 14—Strategies for meeting the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste: Scotland—

'(1) The Scottish Ministers must have a strategy to meet Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste.

(2) The Scottish Ministers will establish by regulation that the original producers have mechanisms in place to facilitate the recovery and reuse of their packaging, and the recycling and recovery of packaging waste.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Scottish Ministers must—

(a) consult with the relevant EU bodies, the Secretary of State, the National Assembly for Wales, the Department of the Environment and Scottish Environment Protection Agency,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to them to be representative of the interests of local government as they consider appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to them to be representative of the interests of industry as they consider appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as they consider appropriate.

(4) The Scottish Ministers must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Scottish Ministers must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the National Assembly for Wales, and

(c) the Department of the Environment.'.

New clause 15—Strategies for meeting the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste: Wales—

'(1) The National Assembly for Wales must have a strategy to meet Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste.

(2) The National Assembly for Wales will establish by regulation that the original producers have mechanisms in place to facilitate the recovery and reuse of their packaging, and the recycling and recovery of packaging waste.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Assembly must—

(a) consult with the relevant EU bodies, the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers, the Department of the Environment and the Environment Agency,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of local government as it considers appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of industry as it considers appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as it considers appropriate.

(4) The Assembly must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Assembly must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the Scottish Ministers, and

(c) the Department of the Environment.'.

New clause 16—Strategies for meeting the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste: Northern Ireland—

'(1) The Department of the Environment must have a strategy to meet Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste.

(2) The Department of the Environment will establish by regulation that the original producers have mechanisms in place to facilitate the recovery and reuse of their packaging, and the recycling and recovery of packaging waste.

(3) Before formulating policy for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the Department must—

(a) consult with the relevant EU bodies, the Secretary of State, the Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales,

(b) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of local government as it considers appropriate,

(c) consult such bodies or persons appearing to it to be representative of the interests of industry as it considers appropriate, and

(d) carry out such public consultation as it considers appropriate.

(4) The Department must set out in a statement any policy formulated for the purposes of subsections (1) and (2).

(5) The Department must, as soon as a statement is prepared for the purposes of subsection (4), send a copy of it to—

(a) the Secretary of State,

(b) the Scottish Ministers, and

(c) the National Assembly for Wales.'.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

We have had a broad run around the houses and we have mentioned waste minimisation. I have no wish to distract the Minister further and wander off the point, so I shall stick to waste minimisation as far as I can.

The Minister referred to the waste hierarchy. One of the points of agreement between hon. Members on both sides of the House and the population at large is that the waste hierarchy is right—the order of process is right. However, incineration is further down the hierarchy than landfill. It has been reclassified as a disposal technique rather than a recovery technique following a recent Luxembourg judgment, which I hope the Government are aware of and will now take account of in their strategy. However, the hierarchy is right and at the top, as the Minister says, is waste minimisation. Yet that is the least developed part of the hierarchy: we know least about it, and have discussed it the fewest times. I suggest that there are fewer measures in the Bill to deliver waste minimisation than there are for other elements of the hierarchy.

In fact, delivery of the hierarchy is almost like an upside-down pyramid in reverse. Landfill remains the most attractive option in many ways, even though the EU landfill directive will no doubt have an effect. The landfill tax has not increased to the optimum level. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has proposed a rate of £35 a tonne, but getting there is taking a long time and we are not there yet. After landfill, incineration is the next most attractive option, followed by recycling, re-use and waste minimisation. In terms of incentives, that is the waste hierarchy in reverse. It contrasts with Government statements about what should be happening in theory.

Our intention with the new clause is to help the Government and the Minister, by encouraging waste minimisation. I want to help the Minister to deliver his strategy, as he is not doing so at the moment.

Waste is not being reduced but is growing by 3 per cent. a year. That is the key measure of the Government's success in protecting the environment, which is what we are talking about, not EU directives or avoiding fines. The best way to help the environment is to minimise the creation of waste in the first place.

Waste minimisation is not happening, for a number of reasons. One is that the levers to pull in respect of waste minimisation are more difficult to find. I am happy to accept that that is the case. Another reason is that EU measures cannot, by their nature, be fiscal measures, as countries have not agreed unanimously to introduce such measures. The packaging directive, for example, requires that a certain amount of waste is recycled but does not reduce the amount of packaging used in the first place. The directive helps recycling, therefore, but not waste reduction and minimisation.

Another factor is that the Government's waste minimisation strategy, to the extent that it exists, is not communicated effectively to local authorities, which do not consider that they have a waste minimisation function. They see themselves as having a waste recycling, incineration or disposal function.

I recently gave evidence at the public inquiry into the East Sussex waste local plan, covering Brighton and Hove. I attempted to suggest that we should broaden the waste minimisation plan, but the barrister representing the county council told me that I had no business to try to introduce waste minimisation into the local plan. He said that that was inappropriate because waste minimisation was a national measure. The clear message from the councils is that waste minimisation is a matter for Government, but the Minister has said that it should be delivered by local councils. The reality is that no one is doing it properly, which is why nothing is happening and why waste is continuing to grow.

A number of measures could help, and I shall set them out later. First, however, we should remind ourselves of the scale of the problem and of the amounts disposed of last year in this country: they include 24 million car tyres, 972 million plastic water bottles, and 94,000 fridges. There were 226,000 old cars abandoned, as opposed to their being disposed of. In addition, 2 million mobile phones and 32 million printer cartridges were thrown away.

Printer cartridges provide a good example of where the waste minimisation strategy proposed in new clause 1 could be helpful. Twenty per cent. of the printer cartridge market is taken up by re-usable products that can be refilled and reclaimed. That minimises the throw-away culture and the amount of landfill taken up by printer cartridges.

I am sure that the Minister will agree that re-using printer cartridges is a better solution in environmental terms than buying new cartridges and throwing them away at the end of their useful lives. However, the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive discussions were led by the Department of Trade and Industry, and not by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as I think should have been the case. Britain has taken the lead in resisting the inclusion in the WEEE directive of printer cartridges. The DTI does not want cartridges to be classified as electrical wastes. Under pressure from Hewlett Packard and other manufacturers, the DTI wants the disposable culture to continue. That is an example of how the Government are simply not implementing their waste minimisation strategy.

Robert Syms (Conservative, Poole)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. A number of companies in this country want to get into the business of recycling printer cartridges and other items, but they feel that they will be at a disadvantage if such cartridges are not included in the WEEE directive. Does he agree, therefore, that it is also a matter of allowing small businesses to grow in this sector?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The hon. Gentleman is right—

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

No, the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) is not quite right on that matter. It is true that printer cartridges and other such items are not included in the WEEE directive, but there is nothing to preclude their re-use and refilling. The hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) was right to say that the DTI took the lead in the negotiations, but the basis of the directive is that the electrical equipment that it covers should go back to the original manufacturers. The same logic would apply to printer cartridges: if covered by WEEE, they would go back to the manufacturers, even though many are refilled and reused. That will not be affected by the WEEE directive.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The Minister is either being slightly disingenuous, or ill informed. The point is that we think that the WEEE directive should cover printer cartridges. The requirement should be that they are dealt with on a comprehensive, life-cycle basis, but the Government are resisting that.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

Does not the hon. Gentleman think it extraordinary that the Minister did not say in his intervention that the real problem with printer cartridges is that they are being put in landfill? By including them in the WEEE directive, we would achieve what the whole Bill seeks to achieve.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

That is exactly right. In respect of the Minister's intervention, I should point out that many small businesses would benefit from the inclusion of printer cartridges and such items in the WEEE directive. All printer cartridges used in this country are imported, and some are recycled and re-used by British companies. So every time the Government stand up in Brussels—or sit down in smoke-filled rooms—and say that they cannot allow the WEEE directive to include printer cartridges, they are disarming small businesses in this country, and damaging the environment.

That is what the DTI is doing. It has created the mess, and DEFRA is left to pick up the pieces afterwards. That is how the Government are constructed. We need more effort on waste minimisation, and I have given the Minister one concrete example of something that he could do to help.

The Minister also needs to clarify the Government's position on variable charging. My party believes that the proposition has considerable merit, and that it at least deserves to be tried in pilot projects around the country.

The Minister referred to the strategy unit report entitled "Waste not, Want not", which grasped that nettle. However, I do not know the Government's intentions in the matter. I think that they have concluded that variable charging is too difficult in political terms, and that they will sweep it under the carpet, at least until after the next election. Will the Minister say what he intends to do in connection with variable charging for local authorities? Perhaps another system could be used, but there has to be some incentive for householders in particular to reduce the amount of waste that they create, and thereby to ensure that waste minimisation strategies work. So far, I have seen no evidence that that is happening.

Where are the Government strategies to encourage businesses to minimise waste? I used to be chair of economic development in East Sussex county council, before it adopted antediluvian incineration policies. We looked at a business estate in Newhaven and discovered that some businesses were paying to dispose of stuff that other companies on the same estate needed as virgin products. We not only saved some businesses' disposal costs, which was good for them, but produced virgin material—or, at least, ersatz virgin material—for other companies to use, in place of what they would have had to buy on the open market. Waste minimisation can therefore help business as well as the environment, but there is no evidence that the Government are helping British businesses in that regard.

Why do the Government not sign up to the concept of zero waste? No one pretends that it can be delivered overnight, or even in 20 years, but it must remain the ultimate aim. A zero-waste culture would not consider waste as something to be disposed of, but rather as something whose creation should be avoided. If waste were created, it would be regarded as a material with a potential use, rather than as a problem to be got rid of. That may not always be possible, but we should move in that direction. I have heard no encouragement from the Government for the concept of zero waste, although the Liberal Democrat party conference in Brighton this year officially adopted the zero-waste policy.

A number of councils around the country—Liberal Democrat councils and others—have adopted the zero-waste strategy. They include Lewes district council and Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority. Other councils of different political persuasions have also adopted the concept. Why are the Government not doing so? They pay lip service to the concept of waste minimisation but do nothing about it.

We have heard one or two examples of what the Government were, theoretically, doing but I have seen no evidence of it. The key point is that the waste stream is growing. It is rather like the Government's road traffic reduction policy. In 1997, the Deputy Prime Minister promised that there would be fewer vehicles on our roads and said that we should hold the Government to that promise. However, there are far more vehicles on our roads and road transport is increasing. We are told that the Government want waste minimisation, but a growing amount of waste is being produced. They cannot deliver their own rhetoric. That is part of the problem that we face.

We need a zero-waste strategy and key to that is the extension of producer responsibility. Yet again, the lead is coming from the EU, which is introducing measures such as the end of life vehicles directive. Such initiatives will ensure producer responsibility, which we all want, but they are not coming from the Government, who plan to implement the directive in such a slipshod manner that its effects will, in the short term, be the opposite of what is intended. The polluter must pay, but currently that is not happening.

We have little evidence that the Government take these matters seriously. I refer the Minister to the comments of the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs. It stated:

"Measures to encourage waste minimisation in the UK remain very weak."

If the Minister does not like that, he could try looking at the report of the Select Committee on Environmental Audit, which stated:

"No target has been set for waste minimisation. The resources available under the National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund have been largely directed at recycling projects rather than waste minimisation efforts. Few other levers to stimulate waste minimisation exist to compensate for this."

The Committee further noted that it agreed with the assessment of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that UK measures to encourage waste minimisation were very weak.

That is interesting. Two Select Committees both used the phrase "very weak" to describe waste minimisation measures. Two cross-party Committees, specialists in their field, heavily criticised the Government—[Interruption.] The Minister mutters "Out of date". In that case, ""Waste Strategy 2000"" is out of date. He cannot claim that some documents are state of the art just because he happens to like them and dismiss others as out of date. Those Select Committee reports postdate "Waste Strategy 2000", so they are less out of date than the Government's strategy.

The Government have done nothing seriously to address the need to minimise waste, but have instead allowed it to grow. They recognised the need to deal with landfill, with consequences for incineration that we have already discussed. To be fair, they have also recognised the need to increase recycling and have introduced measures to encourage it. However, they have not dealt with the first two items in the waste hierarchy: waste minimisation and re-use. Until they do so, their waste strategy will not be worth the paper it is written on.

Will the Minister set out what the Government plan to do to minimise waste? A sensible way forward would be to accept new clauses 1 to 4.

Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru, Caernarfon)

I have a problem with the hon. Gentleman's proposals, as would my hon. Friends in the Scottish National party and his hon. Friends with Welsh constituencies. The proposals state that the devolved Administrations must develop strategies and describe the regulations that should be included, but is not that inconsistent with the whole idea of devolution?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

That is a far better point than any of those made by the Minister—[Interruption.] I am sorry; that was a bit harsh. The Minister is a very nice chap and I apologise for being unduly rude to him—but it is still true.

Our new clauses are an attempt to deal with the Bill as it has been constructed by the Government. We have tried to be consistent with the existing terms of the Bill. The measure applies to the whole United Kingdom, so that is how we tried to deal with our proposals. If the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) is suggesting that there should be more devolution to Scotland and Wales, I should not oppose that—[Interruption.] I have tried to explain that it is a UK Bill and that is why we took that approach.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend on that point. The measures are based on the European directive, which would penalise the UK as a whole, so the legislation has to deal with that fact. Where a European directive applies to the whole of the United Kingdom, we need a mechanism so that the problem can be divided up between the various UK nations. That is why we drew up our proposals as we did, but it would be up to the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament to make such representations as they can. The matter was considered in the Standing Committee, as we were concerned about the devolved aspects of the Bill.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the argument more eloquently than I did in my response to the intervention.

New clause 8 would minimise arisings from nuclear waste. We have not really touched on that subject during the passage of the Bill, but it is a serious environmental issue that relates to the waste stream. I do not entirely understand why successive Governments treat nuclear waste as something other than waste. I realise that it has to be dealt with differently, but why is it subject to separate consideration and not included in the waste strategy? It should not be put to one side; it can be dealt with under waste minimisation programmes and we should have a strategy for doing so.

Our new clause encourages the Secretary of State to develop a strategy for

"minimising the arisings of nuclear waste . . . minimising the discharge of liquid radioactive waste into the marine environment . . . ending the production of plutonium—

and—

implementing best . . . techniques for the management of spent . . . fuel".

The Minister is extremely well informed so I am sure that he is aware that the amount of radioactive waste stored in Britain has more than doubled over the past 15 years. The Government have released figures showing that stocks of nuclear waste, including high-level waste, which will, in some cases, remain hazardous for tens of thousands of years, increased to 92,000 cu m last year. The Minister will also be aware that, according to his predecessor, there is no information about the amount of waste stored before 1984, so there is uncertainty about what happened then.

I do not want to take up too much time on this matter, but a waste strategy that fails to recognise the doubling of nuclear waste—with all the implications of that—can hardly be complete. I encourage the Government to find a way of including nuclear waste in their strategy.

That should not be a DTI-DEFRA issue. I do not want a situation to arise in which the Department of Trade and Industry lets the nuclear industry off the hook, as it may do in relation to the nuclear liabilities Bill, and then asks DEFRA to clear up the mess. I am trying to help DEFRA by encouraging the Minister and his colleagues to be rather more vocal about the nuclear industry than they sometimes are.

I endorse new clause 1 and unless the Minister gives us a good response I shall divide the House on it.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) made an extremely good and accurate speech about the state of the Government's approach to waste. I thoroughly agree with him and if he puts the new clause to a vote I shall support him in the Lobby. Similarly, I hope that he will support me when I move new clauses 9 and 13.

The Bill treats landfill in complete isolation, whereas we need a comprehensive approach to waste policy. The waste electrical and electronic equipment and the packaging directive must be incorporated in the Bill. We need a strategy to reach those targets. The Government have missed the opportunity of using the Bill to connect the targets in a single, co-ordinated strategy.

The WEEE directive applies to the European concept of producer responsibility, whereby the producer or supplier must carry the cost of the overall environmental impact of the product when it becomes waste, through recycling and recovery rather than landfill disposal of all electronic and electrical equipment. Targets are required for collection and recovery to be met by the end of 2005, and a strategy to meet those targets is vital. The WEEE directive was published on 13 February and the UK now has 18 months to transpose it into national law. It states that systems for separate collection of waste must be set up, and it places obligations on producers and consumers, but not on local authorities.

In 1997–98, the packaging waste directive was implemented in the UK, obliging Britain to increase the recovery and recycling of packaging materials. The Government's packaging recovery target for 2001 was 52 per cent. However, needless to say, it was not met and still only 48 per cent. of packaging is recycled. The European Commission proposes higher targets of 60 to 85 per cent. for recycling and recovery in 2006 to 2008. To meet its targets and avoid heavy fines, the UK must recover an extra 1.2 million to 2.7 million tonnes of packaging from the municipal waste stream. A great increase in separate household waste collections could aid the recovery of packaging if households were focused on it. We need a proper national strategy to reach that target, and new clauses 9 to 16 seek to achieve such a strategy. I recognise that the Government will not wish to accept those new clauses, but if we are to avoid enormous fines, we need a proper co-ordinated policy.

The hon. Member for Lewes told the House that official Liberal Democrat policy is to have zero waste. I recognise the benefit of zero waste. Waste involves resources, and it is a shame that landfill is the Government's preferred choice, followed by incineration. The hon. Gentleman said that achieving zero waste could take 10 or 20 years and that it may never happen. Perhaps he will tell us what is his party's policy on that time scale during the afternoon.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

It so happens that I have with me the Liberal Democrat policy motion, which was accepted at the Liberal Democrat conference, and I can formally tell the House that the conference agreed that there should be a target of zero for all municipal waste by 2020; 60 per cent. by 2010; and 70 per cent. by 2015.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

That is very helpful.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) talked about supermarkets and the volume of waste packaging generated by people who shop. That is another excellent point and another very important reason why the packaging waste directive needs to be included in the Bill.

I am warned by my Whip that we may only get one vote on this subject, but all hon. Members can see that the Government have been seriously remiss in not including both those European directives, which they have signed up to and which they will be paying fines for if we do not achieve those targets. I should like to see both directives included in the Bill.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Last November, the Government's own strategy unit produced a very good report entitled "Waste not, Want not", and one of its central recommendations was that all Government thinking on waste should be coherent and holistic. Instead, we have a Bill that is exactly the opposite. Rather than starting at the front line of the battle and dealing with waste minimisation, we are starting at the rearguard and the final disposal of waste—not particularly holistic and certainly not particularly coherent.

The Bill penalises and affects local authorities in their disposal of waste, but it does not help them to minimise waste at source. It fails to provide incentives for individual citizens to act in a more environmentally friendly manner. The Bill is piecemeal, in direct contravention of what "Waste not, Want not" was all about. That is one of the reasons why it will fail.

I will not rehearse the arguments adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) about the WEEE directive and the end-of-life vehicle directive, but it is absolutely clear that a Bill that deals with only 30 per cent. of waste misses a very considerable opportunity. The Bill should encompass strategies that deal with the WEEE directive, the packaging waste directive and the end-of-life vehicles directive.

The Bill should also make it clear how local authorities can deal with some of the most pernicious scourges in rural and urban Britain: abandoned cars and fly-tipped waste. The Bill says a lot about penalties on local authorities, but it does not demonstrate, and give clear guidance on, how local authorities can use the law to prosecute and penalise those who cause such antisocial and anti-environmental crime.

This is a bit of a Bill. In Committee, we tried to make it a much better Bill. We tried to shift its emphasis, so that it would do what the Government said that it was meant to do: deal with a waste hierarchy and encourage local authorities to do the most environmentally friendly thing. All it will actually do is penalise local authorities for doing one of the least environmentally friendly things. It is an opportunity missed.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's last comment at all. Hon. Members have spoken as though the Bill is the be-all and end-all of our waste strategy. It most certainly is not, and I shall come to some of the other issues. There is a range of work streams in progress and enormous acceleration in policy formulation, actions taken, changes in delivery, changes in targets and changes in achievements. Those are all important issues.

I am not going to say that we did not start at a low level—it is absolutely true that we did—but we have doubled the rate of recycling in this country since 1997. That is not enough, and we have to do more. I am very glad to say that we are making progress, and I shall refer to the work streams that we have in progress in a moment. Before I do so, I shall deal head on with the point about the variable charging made by the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker).

There may well be a case for variable charging, and we are considering how it could possibly be applied. We are talking to the Local Government Association about how that could be done. However, there are downsides to variable charging, as the hon. Gentleman will be only too aware, and we must address the possible disadvantages as well because, if we introduce variable charging, we want the policy to be successful. My personal concept of variable charging is not to impose additional charges on people who are already paying for waste disposal through their council tax, but there could be discounts for people who change their behaviour. We have to consider how that could be put in place, but we are interested and we are trying to address the issue.

New clauses 1 to 4 would require the Secretary of State and each of the devolved Administrations to develop a strategy for waste prevention and waste minimisation, but that presumes that that is not being done in England and by the devolved Administrations, who are developing their own strategies. That is right and proper, as it is the principle of the devolved approach. We have to put in place more sustainable waste management arrangements. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that waste is still increasing at about 3 per cent. a year—we are well aware of that—but that makes the fact that we have increased recycling and re-use so significantly a greater achievement, although that is no ground for complacency when waste is still increasing.

The growth in municipal waste has slowed to about 2.4 per cent. a year. Again, that is no cause for doing cartwheels down the street. All I am saying is that we are making a bit of progress. We have an awful long way to go, but we are committed to making progress. Waste prevention cuts across a number of disciplines, and there are several Government programmes that I have not mentioned, such as waste minimisation, which is already covered in "Waste Strategy 2000". Incidentally, that waste strategy approach is very different from what is in the Select Committee reports that have been published. I have the utmost regard for both the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee, which DEFRA takes seriously. If Members look at DEFRA's record, they will find that we try to implement the recommendations that Select Committees make to us, because we respect their views and the detail in their reports.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I am of course grateful for the Minister's comments. He made a point earlier about variable charging and his desire to make progress. One of the ways to make progress is to have pilots. Will he reinforce his efforts to look at experimentation in this area? No one wants a full scheme at present, but there is a need to play around with some of these issues.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

That is a sensible suggestion. When dealing with a new approach, it makes sense to pilot it in several areas, to gain experience and establish what are the advantages and disadvantages. Those are among the issues that we are currently discussing with the Local Government Association. As I said, it is a complex issue, and we need to consider a range of issues, but we are talking those through, and I will certainly take seriously the pilot area approach.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I am grateful for the comments of the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) who, like me, sits on the Select Committee. In addition to variable charging, will the Minister consider incentives, because I believe that 90 per cent. of people in this country would recycle voluntarily if they were given the opportunity?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

That is a possibility. My local authority, under the brown bin scheme, which involves composting by the local council—I live in one of the villages that does not benefit from the scheme, so I do not know whether it still goes on—used to give every household that took part in the scheme a bag of compost, which it could use on the garden or do with as it liked. I accept that that is a small incentive, but it is an incentive nevertheless, and it makes people feel that they are part of something meaningful and useful, and I like that idea. A range of incentives is possible, and I do not rule out that kind of approach.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The Minister will appreciate that a bag of compost is not necessarily the sort of incentive that sends out the clearest signal about what exactly he wants to achieve.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The hon. Gentleman may be surprised about how much enjoyment some people can get from a bag of compost in relation to their pastimes, so I would not rule out that incentive.

We are taking forward the waste resources action programme, which involves promoting waste minimisation and the recommendation of the Prime Minister's strategy unit to consider developing proposals for indicators for local authorities that incorporate success in reducing waste volumes. That will include consideration of the case for setting quantitative targets for waste reduction. The second phase of the 1994 packaging waste directive review will also look at re-use, minimisation and producer responsibility, and I intend to be fully engaged in that process. As a first step, I have already asked the Government's Advisory Committee on Packaging to provide me with advice on the issue to feed into the work of DEFRA, and it is already looking at ways of achieving more minimisation and reuse of packaging. The idea that the whole Government strategy hinges on this one Bill alone is therefore entirely untrue.

It is all very well for the hon. Member for Lewes to talk about zero waste and targets, but those must be delivered. I will watch with interest what Liberal Democrat authorities do in relation to those targets, but a clear strategy is necessary, which involves making decisions, not copping out on incinerators by talking about a moratorium and refusing to give a straight answer as to whether there is a role for them. The whole range of issues must be addressed, and there must be a hierarchy, which I do not believe is upside down. I accept that we have not got the hierarchy right in relation to the percentage of waste streams that we want, but we are addressing those issues. We have strategies in place, which we are pursuing, and I hope that I have addressed that point.

In relation to new clause 8, the hon. Gentleman invites us to develop a strategy for, among other things,

"arisings of nuclear waste . . . the discharge of liquid radioactive waste into the marine environment . . . ending the production of plutonium . . . implementing best available techniques for the management of spent nuclear fuel."

Again, all those policies are currently being put in place. We are currently putting in place the nuclear waste committee and the various strategies that we would apply, such as new strategies in relation to minimising liquid radioactive waste, which I believe have great potential. Those issues need to be addressed differently. The way that the hon. Gentleman was speaking—I am sure that he did not mean to present it in this way—it sounded as though the local council would send a bin lorry round to Sellafield to pick up today's nuclear waste and take it away for composting and recycling. Dealing with those issues is a bit more complicated than that. In that respect, a separate strategy is required, which we are putting in place.

This Government's policy has always been to minimise arisings of radioactive waste. The hon. Gentleman will be aware, however, that a number of power stations are coming to the end of their working life. Those have to be decommissioned, and as a result, there will be an increase in radioactive waste, which is inevitable. Robust strategies will be necessary to deal with that.

Alan Meale (Labour, Mansfield)

I am grateful for the answer that the Minister has just given. What he is saying to the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) is that if we go full speed ahead and close our nuclear power plants, what will occur is not minimisation of waste but maximisation of waste. I know that my hon. Friend is aware of UN talks that are going on at the moment, whereby we will try to have a worldwide approach to this enormous problem. For instance, he is aware that only two places on the planet are geographically safe to store nuclear waste underground—Australia and parts of Africa. The reality is that until we have a worldwide strategy, not only in relation to storage but in relation to transportation, we should be very careful about how we handle this whole issue.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The UK is recognised as one of the world leaders in relation to the expertise that we have in nuclear waste handling, but I acknowledge that it is a global issue, which we need to address. In fact, in September 2001, my Department and the devolved Administrations published a consultation document entitled "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely", which was about developing a policy for managing solid radioactive waste in the United Kingdom, and we are currently in the process of appointing the new committee that I mentioned on management of such waste. In July 2002, my Department published a UK strategy for radioactive discharges, which set out proposals for reducing radioactive discharges to the marine environment in the period to 2020. That strategy is in compliance with targets agreed at a ministerial meeting of the OSPAR commission in 1998, which we also addressed this year. We are therefore approaching the issue in relation to best available techniques, we are taking seriously our commitments in international bodies such as OSPAR, and we are addressing the targets that we set ourselves.

David Marshall (Labour, Glasgow Shettleston)

The new clauses relate to strategies for the composite parts of the UK. What discussions has the Minister had already, if any, with Ministers in the Scottish Parliament, and what was their attitude to this aspect of the Bill?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

Regular discussions take place between my Department and the devolved Administrations, at ministerial level and at official levels, and facilities at Sellafield serve the whole of the UK, as my hon. Friend will be aware. Nevertheless, there are power stations in each of the devolved areas, which have considerable interest and involvement in the formulation of those strategies.

New clauses 9 to 16 are all concerned with the implementation of EU waste management directives. Again, this Bill is not necessary to implement such strategies as the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive. We are already making progress on that. As with all directives, the UK is required by European law to implement it. The purpose of the directive is to prevent waste electrical and electronic equipment and encourage the re-use and recycling of such waste. It includes a requirement for member states to ensure that producers set up systems to provide for the recovery of WEEE. The requirement in the new clauses for separate regulations is therefore not necessary—it is already being done.

New clauses 13 to 16 deal with packaging and the packaging waste directive. I am pleased to inform the House that the new clauses are unnecessary because the requirements of packaging directive 94/62/EC have already been transposed into UK law, mostly through the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997. We are getting on with implementation and making progress toward meeting the targets.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

If we are not reaching the targets set by the directive, will the Minister explain whether people are breaking the law or whether the system must be reinforced by amendment to the Bill?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

There are separate issues relating to the potential penalties that apply within the directive that was implemented. However, we are making especially good progress on waste from packaging. Since 1998, which is when the obligations took effect, recycling of packaging waste increased from 27 per cent. to 44 per cent. in 2002. The figure is now beyond that. When the higher recycling targets in the next directive are put in place, I expect that there will be even greater reductions in waste.

I apologise for my somewhat lengthy explanation, but the idea that the Government's waste strategy is restricted only to the Bill is not fair, justified or correct. I have outlined to the House that a whole range of policies, strategies and work schemes are in place. We are making good progress on domestic, commercial and packaging waste and we intend to do more. I appreciate hon. Members' comments, understand their concerns and share their desire for progress. We are committed to continuing to make progress, so I hope that the House will reject the new clause.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am grateful to the Minister for his comments, although they were a broad sweep over the waste hierarchy and did not tell us much about waste minimisation, which is the subject of new clause 1.

On new clause 8, which relates to the nuclear industry, it is quite true, to pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), that closing nuclear power stations would increase the amount of nuclear waste in the short term. However, my answer to that is that not closing the stations would produce even more waste in the long term because they produce waste as they continue to operate. The Government might say that they are producing strategies and doing this and that to minimise nuclear waste, but it is not long since they resisted attempts by the Irish, Norwegian and other Governments to stop the discharge of T99 from Sellafield, so their record is not especially good.

Alan Meale (Labour, Mansfield)

I am not really against many of the hon. Gentleman's arguments. However, I have difficulty with new clause 8. My area receives electricity from the Normandy coastline in France, which is interconnected with a series of power stations. The problem cannot be considered as purely a British response to nuclear spent fuel—there must be a global approach.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I have some sympathy with that point. Of course, the problem must be dealt with internationally as much as possible and international agreements on energy and nuclear power exist. Such matters are often best dealt with at a European level, which is why environmental improvements that have occurred during the past 20 or 30 years have largely been a result of EU directives rather than individual action by successive British Governments. However, that is not to say that this country cannot do something. We should consider what can be done because we are creating nuclear waste and we should try to deal with it responsibly—I am not convinced that we always do.

Let me deal with the central issue of waste minimisation. I am grateful to Conservative Members for their comments, which show that there is agreement and understanding on this side of the House about the need to promote waste minimisation. We heard a lot from the Minister about recycling—the third bullet point on the waste hierarchy. I am happy to say that the Government are doing work on recycling and that recycling levels are going up. Progress is being made, albeit from a low base, so I give credit where credit is due. However, with respect, that is not the subject of new clause 1, which is about waste minimisation.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving credit where credit is due. Credit is due to the Conservative councils that form eight out of the 10 best councils at recycling and recovery. That has not been due to the Government because they are failing to reach their targets, which explains why we need such provisions in the Bill.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

We do need the provisions in the Bill, so the hon. Gentleman and I agree on that.

On variable charging, I am grateful to the Minister for taking up my point and that made by the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on the need for pilot projects—that is sensible. However, such charges should not represent a stealth tax. The system should be revenue-neutral so that those who help the environment receive a financial gain and those who behave irresponsibly receive a financial penalty. I hope that the Minister will conclude his discussions with the Local Government Association quickly and that a pilot project—or three or four—will be up and running before the next general election so that we can judge its success.

I return to the central point of minimisation. The way in which the waste hierarchy has been delivered is upside down, although the hierarchy is the right way up on paper. There are insufficient measures to address minimisation. The waste stream is increasing by 3 per cent. a year and nothing that I heard from the Minister convinced me that that trend will change. For that reason, I shall press new clause 1 to a Division.

New Clause 5 — Environmental impact assessment of incineration

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 6—Monitoring of Dioxin Emissions from Waste Incinerators—

'In section 3 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (c.43) (Emissions etc. limits and quality objectives) there is after subsection (2) inserted—

"(2A) The Secretary of State must introduce regulations to require continuous monitoring of dioxin emissions for all waste incinerators by 2006.".'.

New clause 17—Directions to waste disposal authorities—

'(1) a waste collection authority in England which is not also a waste disposal authority may direct that the waste disposal authority to whom it delivers its waste shall not dispose of that waste by incineration.

(2) Any waste disposal authority which receives such a direction shall take such steps as are necessary to ensure it is complied with within 12 months of the issuing of the direction.

(3) A waste collection authority issuing a direction under subsection (1) above shall pay to a waste disposal authority such amounts as are needed to ensure that the disposal authority is not financially worse off as a result of having to comply with the direction.'.

Amendment No. 59, in clause 26, page 17, line 23 at end insert—

'( ) A waste collection authority in England which is not also a waste disposal authority may direct that the waste disposal authority to whom it delivers its waste shall not dispose of that waste by incineration. Failure on behalf of the waste disposal authority to comply will result in a penalty as set down in Clause 9'.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

No doubt the Minister wants to discuss incineration. He has shown a thirst for the subject in our debates this afternoon, so I am confident that he will deal eloquently with new clause 5, which requires an environmental impact assessment of incineration—a spot check, as it were, of the current position. That is important, because incineration is not only a controversial matter for the public but is being reviewed, as the Minister will know, at European Union level. I am sure that he will be aware of the Luxembourg judgment, which I mentioned in an earlier debate and which has recently reclassified incineration, previously a recovery technique, as a disposal technique. That should influence the Government's thinking—it does not change the components of the hierarchy, but it moves incineration further from recycling and closer to landfill, and it is important that we view it in that way.

In "Waste not, Want not", a report on the future of waste management by a Government strategy unit, a review of the health and environmental impact of different forms of waste management was promised. The Government have therefore taken the issue on board, although the review encompasses more than just incineration. A report was promised for autumn 2003, so perhaps the Minister will say something about its progress. I hope that that there has been consideration of whether or not to introduce fiscal measures on incineration—in other words, an incineration tax. If incineration is now officially a disposal technique, should we not apply the logic that we have applied to landfill and discourage it through the introduction of a tax? Before anyone seeks to intervene, the tax would not be used to raise funds and would be redeployed on a revenue-neutral basis.

We must however find a way to discourage incineration. Like other Members, I believe that, under pressure from the European Union, the Government have sought to minimise landfill but have not sought to prioritise anything else in the hierarchy. Consequently, the waste that was going to landfill will simply go to the next available alternative which, I am afraid, is incineration. It will not be recycled, minimised or re-used—it will be largely incinerated. The Government must therefore consider whether they are content to incinerate the 50 per cent. of waste currently going to landfill that will no longer be allowed to be disposed of in that way by 2015. I urge the Minister to give the matter serious consideration, as that will happen unless the Government change the course.

The public are entitled to a clear understanding of the full national environmental impact assessment of incineration, as required by our new clause. The Government's general assessment in "Waste not, Want not" is welcome as far as it goes, but unless the Minister tells me otherwise, I do not believe that it will deliver such an understanding. He will be aware that in 1996 a European Commission report on the draft incineration directive estimated that for every tonne of municipal waste that was incinerated, between £21 and £126 worth of environmental damage was caused. Incineration therefore has a serious downside that has to be accounted for in environmental terms. If there is a cost to the environment, perhaps a cost should be imposed on incineration above that which currently applies.

We need to know the true cost of incineration—not simply a 1950s Treasury cost of incineration but the overall environmental cost, taking account of externalities, whether damage to health, transport movements or the loss of the proximity principle, if that can be costed. Incineration can result in such a loss because it requires a large throughput to justify the initial capital costs, pulling waste from a large geographical area, larger than that required for recycling schemes or other waste treatments. To use East Sussex as an example again—I am sorry to do so, but it is the area I know best—there is a proposal to have one incinerator there. Waste from a large geographical area will be pulled into a single incinerator, thus defeating the proximity principle that the Government correctly espouse when they talk about the waste hierarchy. The idea that local communities should take responsibility for their own waste has also been defeated. If it is all transported 40 or 50 miles to an incinerator, they are not taking that responsibility.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument closely. The logical conclusion is that if an incineration plant is localised and conserves energy and heat as well as waste, that is supportable. Is that his position?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Not entirely, but I shall get there. In response to that sensible intervention from the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping), I can say that an incinerator that was more local, which people owned and for which they had responsibility, and which was consistent with the proximity principle and used the heat generated, would be preferable to the sort of incinerators being proposed across the country, which do not always meet those requirements by any stretch of the imagination.

We are told by those who propose incineration that it is perfectly safe and that there are no health risks. The health case is not certain, one way or the other. However, those who advocate incineration are the first to jump up and say, "We can't have it in our area." Why? Because they are concerned about the health risks and the negative impact of incineration. They want the waste taken somewhere else, out of their area. The Government should not support such a strategy, which undermines the concepts that they espouse in the '"Waste Strategy 2000"' and in "Waste not, Want not".

Transportation is an aspect of incineration that must be considered as part of any impact assessment. The process of incineration, by and large, requires greater transport movements than would be the case with waste minimisation and re-use, obviously, and possibly also with recycling. Have the Government quantified the transport movements that incineration generates?

I mentioned emissions. It is true, as those who advocate incineration say, that emission levels have been tightened considerably over the years and are now a fraction of what they were. I accept that, but there is still some doubt among eminent scientists who have looked into the matter. Dr. Vyvian Howard and others say that the present level of emissions still represents a health hazard. I do not know whether that is true or not, but people with experience and qualifications maintain that case. A further issue for those who live in the vicinity is the emissions resulting from large numbers of lorry movements to the incinerator and back. We need further investigation of the health aspects.

We cannot necessarily believe the figures that we are given about dioxin emissions. There are two reasons for that. One is that the Environment Agency does not have enough staff to undertake proper monitoring. Their visits are pre-announced, so it is possible for the incinerator plant to be operating at maximum capacity in order to produce the minimum dioxin emissions at the time that monitoring takes place. Secondly, if there is no continuous monitoring of incineration emissions, as there should be and for which new clause 6 provides, all we get is intermittent photographs that tell us everything is all right. In the meantime, if the incinerator plant has not been operating at capacity, the emission levels may have increased without being caught by the Environment Agency.

There are other downsides to incineration. The Minister will know of the fly ash that is generated. Up to 5 per cent. of what is incinerated has to be disposed of to landfill in any case—highly toxic fly ash. There is also bottom ash, which is generated in even larger quantities.There is no doubt that incineration gives rise to significant problems. If we can avoid it, we are keen to do so, except for specialist uses such as the disposal of special waste, chemical waste and medicines waste, where incineration clearly has a role to play.

Can we obviate the need for incineration? Earlier, the Minister kept asking me questions and would not take yes for an answer. If landfill is minimised according to the landfill directives, if there are special purpose incinerators, as well as the existing incinerators, if recycling, re-use and other techniques are promoted, particularly the separation of organic material for composting, which is a strategy that we have not yet maximised, if we consider anaerobic digestion and so on, and if we have a proper waste minimisation strategy, which we do not have at present—if all those conditions are met, we do not need the expansion of incinerators. That is the aim that the Government should pursue, but they have palpably failed to do so.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

In response to my previous intervention, the hon. Gentleman said that he was not against incineration in practice, but he now seems to be saying that he is against it in principle. Will he clarify in simple terms his position and that of his party?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I have clarified the position and I do not know how much more I have to do so. The hon. Gentleman is being uncharacteristically disingenuous. He suggested earlier that the incinerator that he described was preferable to the others being built across the country. I was happy to agree with that proposition while not endorsing the creation of such incinerators. That is the position. If we are to have incinerators—that is the phrase that I used—it is better that they be the sort that he described than those that local authorities are currently planning to build. In making those comments, I am not suggesting that we should use incinerators as a matter of course, as I am keen to avoid them.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

Let us be clear: is the hon. Gentleman against incineration in principle?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am in favour of the waste hierarchy, which the Government fail to deliver. I believe that a judicious mix of waste minimisation, re-use and recycling, separation of organic waste, the use of anaerobic digestion and so on, obviate the need for a lower option in the waste hierarchy to be pursued in relation to incineration, taking account of specialist needs such those related to chemical and medicinal waste and so on. I hope that that is clear.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

It is not clear to me. The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned the waste hierarchy, in which incineration is listed above landfill, especially where it is linked with energy re-use. He is probably aware that we have commissioned a detailed study in conjunction with the Royal Society—I shall deal with it in more detail later—on the environmental and health effects of all the various ways of disposing of waste. I have no idea what that study will say, but what will his position be if it says that incineration is the best option in certain circumstances in terms of environmental and health objections? Does he agree that incineration may be justified in certain circumstances, depending on what those circumstances are?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I do not know how many times the Minister used the word "if" in that intervention. I have already answered his question: there are certain circumstances in which incineration is the best option.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

At last.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

It is not a matter of saying "at last", as I have made the same comment about eight times. In dealing with clinical waste, for example, incineration is clearly the best technique. There is nothing new about that—it is the hypothetical example that the Minister wants and he has now got it. I hope that that is now clear. Many problems also arise in respect of landfill, but it may be the best solution in relation to inert building waste, for example. There are circumstances in which landfill is an entirely appropriate solution.

The Minister is keen to push the cause of incineration, and people out there in the country should be aware that he has intervened regularly this afternoon to defend it. That will not be missed by local authorities and others outside the House. If he does not want to believe me, however, let me refer to work done by his colleague, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), who made effective contributions on Second Reading. He carried out a study in which he received replies from 130 councils about what they were planning to do with their waste. Some 45 of those councils, or 35 per cent., are contracted to private incinerator firms individually or as part of a consortium, and 36 of them, or 28 per cent., will start using incinerators within a set time frame. Only 49 of the 130 councils that replied—it was a big survey—have no plans to use incineration, and 19 of the 36 councils considering incineration have relatively short-term plans. So it is clear that, whatever the Minister may say about his hierarchy, local authorities are opting for incineration.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

I should be intrigued to know how many of those authorities have, first, applied for planning permission and, secondly, achieved it.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the excellent survey on the website of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, which includes that information. He has also collected, through parliamentary answers, details of planning permissions that have been given and are outstanding. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) may want to dispute that information, but it comes from a Labour MP, so I hope that he is not saying that it is in any way unreliable.

The reality is that under the Bill, local authorities are faced with a very short time scale within which to conform to the EU landfill directive. They know that they have to reduce the amount of landfill very quickly. The situation is not comparable to that in Denmark or anywhere else. We landfill about 80 per cent. of our household waste and we have to get that down to 35 per cent. Doing that quickly will require either an explosion in recycling, a really radical waste minimisation programme, or more incineration. Local councils are saying that only way in which they can meet the target quickly and effectively is to opt for incineration.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

indicated dissent.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The Minister may shake his head, but that is what is happening all over the country. He needs to get out a bit more to talk to local councils.

Incineration is not the best solution by any stretch of the imagination. There is no tax or other disincentive to incineration—on the contrary, once landfill is eliminated, there are perverse incentives to incinerate, and it is not surprising that local councils are taking them. The Government want to avoid a chain of incinerators, but that is what they will get.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

indicated dissent.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The Minister shakes his head again, but I am sorry to say that he does not know what is going on. Planning permissions are being granted all over the country. If we end up with a chain of incinerators, that will represent a failure of the waste plan. Local authorities will be tied into what the European Union now officially calls a disposal technique—not a recovery technique—for 25 or 30 years, because they have to enter into long-term contracts with incinerator manufacturers in order to recoup their funds. They will not be able to change direction and we will be stuck with this fourth option in the waste hierarchy for the foreseeable future.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

It is worth reminding the Minister that the Environmental Audit Committee regularly tells the Treasury that, because it is cheaper to send waste to incineration than to landfill, the perverse incentive will remain until it starts to tax waste that goes to incineration, as well as to landfill, and accelerates it to some £35 a tonne in a far shorter time frame than is currently planned. The Bill will maximise that perverse incentive. We require the Government to take the threat seriously and to understand that they have a choice, as well as responsibilities, in this matter.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend: that is absolutely correct. I hope that the Minister will deal head on with whether the Government are going to introduce an incinerator tax, because he has so far studiously avoided that question.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I have kept very quiet because I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully. He is right that the Bill promotes incineration, but does he agree that for the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) to urge an increase in the landfill tax sends a wrong signal? Surely we require some sort of disincentive for incineration, not for landfill.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The hon. Gentleman is right that we have to be careful how such fiscal measures are introduced. They should not be introduced individually so that they send the wrong signals. The Government should implement a comprehensive overall waste strategy through an Act of Parliament that brings in measures to achieve the ends that they, and we, want. By contrast, all that we are getting is the part of the Bill that discourages landfill. As long as the Government continue to run behind EU directives instead of considering the waste hierarchy as a whole and producing joined-up legislation, they will continue to send perverse, stop-start signals that, for example, discourage landfill and encourage incineration. What is missing from the Bill is a comprehensive, overall, holistic view of the waste stream.

As I have said, local authorities will be tied to their contracts with incineration companies for 25 or 30 years. If we find that the health problems are greater than we may now think them to be, or discover other problems with incinerators, we shall not be able to do much about it. We shall be stuck with those problems, as will local populations.

The situation is even worse than that, however. Sensibly enough, for business reasons—I do not blame them—the incinerator companies want to guarantee throughput. They have to operate their plant at near capacity to reduce dioxide emissions, and they want to be assured, as part of their contracts, that they will be delivered a certain amount of waste with which to deal.

What will the consequences be? I do not happen to believe that the Government are right about waste minimisation, but let us suppose that the Minister proves me wrong and that the Government reduce the amount generated by, say, 10 per cent. over the next 10 years. The amount to be incinerated, however, will not diminish because it is guaranteed under the contracts. In the event of minimisation, recycling must suffer, because there will be no waste to recycle. We can have minimisation and incineration or incineration and recycling, but we cannot have all three—and I know which option I want to dispose of: incineration.

The Minister must face the reality of the fixed-term contracts, and what they mean in terms of guaranteed waste throughput. When the amount of waste is changing, the only fixed point is the amount that authorities are required to give the incinerator companies. Notwithstanding the Minister's protestations, this is a Bill for incineration. It will lead to incineration up and down the country, in council area after council area, as landfill gives way to that option. Unless the Government produce real measures to implement the waste hierarchy, that is what will happen, and I intend to be here in 10 years to say to the Minister, "I told you so".

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I agree with the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) that this is a Bill for incineration, although I do not believe that the Government intended it to be. I know that the Minister strongly favours implementation of the waste hierarchy, and I share that sentiment; what I do not share is his optimistic view that the Bill will lead to such implementation. The purpose of new clause 17 is to ensure that we do not increase the amount of incineration. I know that that will find favour with the Minister, which is why we are trying to amend the Bill in a helpful and constructive way.

The important thing about local authorities and, indeed, all involved in the waste scheme is that they will try their best to do what they interpret the rules as making them do. That means, first and foremost, that they will avoid being penalised. They will not allow themselves to fall into the trap of having to pay because they have failed to achieve their targets. They will therefore look for the best way of achieving those targets. They will start with good intentions, and recycle, re-use and recover as much as they can; but if they feel for one second that they will not achieve their targets by those methods, they will immediately investigate incineration. Because there is little incentive for them to do otherwise, they are likely to choose that option.

The Minister responded positively when I pressed him on the incentives issue earlier, but he should give it proper consideration. This is the way in which to encourage people to do the right thing. I always prefer incentives to penalties, but unfortunately that is not how the Bill has been drafted. Local authorities are opting for incineration to meet reduced landfill targets because the Bill contains no measures to implement the waste hierarchy, which places recycling and re-use above incineration. A decision on incineration needs to be made properly.

I am a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as are a couple of Labour Members who are present. The Committee expressed a fear that incineration will be the sole beneficiary of the landfill directive. It said:

"We fear that increases in the landfill tax could simply drive waste to the next cheapest option, which is likely to be another form of disposal such as incineration."

I believe that that is right—I suppose that, as a member of the Select Committee, I would. The statement is clear and accurate, and we need to deal with the matter today to prevent that fear from being realised. We are trying to make the Government acknowledge that incineration will increase so that they deal with that undesirable disposal option. Waste minimisation should be the focus, but the Government have set no targets for it and it is not incorporated in the Bill.

We have not yet mentioned energy recovery today. The United Kingdom currently recovers only 9 per cent. of energy from waste, compared with 78 per cent. in Japan, 58 per cent. in Denmark, 45 per cent. in Switzerland, 42 per cent. in the Netherlands, 38 per cent. in Sweden, 35 per cent. in France and 18 per cent. in Germany. Those figures are impressive. If we are to follow the incineration route, we must also have energy recovery. I am keen not to rule out incineration, because it is not an inappropriate method of dealing with waste, but it must not be encouraged in the Bill. However, the measure will do that instead of encouraging what the Government want to achieve. New clause 17 tries to change that counter-productive aspect.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I wonder whether it would be helpful to caricature the hon. Gentleman's position. He does not like waste or incineration, but does he accept that incineration of locally collected waste, which produces energy, is relatively better than many other options? Does he support that?

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The hon. Gentleman's caricature is most unfair. The Bill was not designed to encourage incineration, but it will do that. That is its failure. The hon. Gentleman should have drawn that caricature but, sadly, he did not. I have no objections to the position that he outlined. There are many benefits, especially in terms of carbon dioxide, to be gained from local incineration, but the Bill aims for implementation of the waste hierarchy and it fails. That is a fundamental problem, which new clause 17 seeks to resolve.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

If the hon. Gentleman wants to have another go at painting my caricature, I should be delighted.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

Let me have a second go. Am I right that the hon. Gentleman is not averse to local incineration schemes that produce energy from waste?

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The hon. Gentleman should read new clause 17 carefully. He is trying to force me to make a statement on incineration when I do not need to do that. According to the Minister, the Bill does not promote incineration. However, he, the hon. Members for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) and for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and I know that the Select Committee found that it would do that. Although local incineration that cuts carbon dioxide and provides energy has many benefits in principle, and Britain could increase the amount of energy recovered from waste from 9 per cent. to the levels of our European counterparts, that is not happening. Worse, it may never happen if we do not insist on energy recovery from incineration. Nothing in the Bill does that. The Minister tells us that the measure promotes the waste hierarchy. Unfortunately, the Opposition do not believe that that will happen. That is a shame, because we all want to do the right thing for the country and the planet. We shall fail because the measure is inadequate. I have made my position clear and I note that the hon. Member for Sherwood is no longer trying to intervene.

Waste collection authorities may direct the waste disposal authorities to which they deliver not to dispose of waste by incineration. However, the hon. Member for Lewes gave the example of waste collection authorities collecting sorted waste that could have a more beneficial use but goes to incineration because that allows the disposal authorities to avoid penalties. It will be a mistake and a wasted opportunity if we allow the Bill to progress without rectifying that.

New clause 17 would amend the Bill to ensure that collection authorities can insist that disposal authorities do not burn the hard sorted, hard collected and most useful resource that constitutes much waste. It would also ensure that recycling, recovery and re-use happened before incineration. I am sure hon. Members agree with that, and I therefore urge them to support new clause 17.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

I rise not to continue the debate that we had in Committee but to try to clarify the misjudgment in relation to the new clauses. In Committee, we managed to redefine the Bill as one that would not speak the name of incineration. That was probably achieved from a position of opposites, and I am sure that I do not necessarily agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping). From my perspective, the reason that the Bill does not speak the name of incineration is that incineration is not a possibility. It is certainly not a possibility at present, and I do not foresee it being one in the future.

Unlike the Liberal Democrats, I genuinely believe that local democracy should flourish. From all the analyses that I have carried out in my area, I have discovered overwhelming opposition to any proposals for incineration, in terms both of planning procedures and of the overall debate on waste disposal. I worry about putting the term into the Bill, because if we begin to speak the name of incineration, it could become a possibility. It could become a viable option, but I do not think that it should be, either for economic, social or—dare I say it—political reasons. I should like to see a local authority launch a campaign for incineration as its means of waste disposal, because I hate to think what would happen if such a campaigning agenda were adopted.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good case for individual councils not promoting incineration. Like him, we are committed to local decision making and democracy. He must, however, address the issue of why, if there is such overwhelming opposition to incineration from the public, for a whole variety of reasons, local authorities up and down the country are promoting it.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) did some interesting evaluations of local authorities in regard to this issue, and it is fair to say that they are in something of a mess. A meeting will take place this week in Gloucestershire with the county council, the waste disposal authority, at which its waste proposals will be discussed. Its waste plan did not get a very good response. In fact, it was so badly written that the inspector ended up coming in like a deus ex machina and talking about putting back the proposal of a regionally centred incinerator, which has caused an outcry. The one thing that the whole panoply of parties in Gloucestershire can agree on is that incineration is not the right way to go.

In our long discussions in Committee we agreed that incineration would not be on the face of the Bill. That does not mean that we removed incineration, but it is a piece of realpolitik that no one on the Committee saw us going in that direction in the immediate future, so I do not quite understand why hon. Members are now trying to put it back into the Bill.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The point that the hon. Gentleman makes about the people of Gloucestershire is extremely important. What we are really saying to the general public is, "If you don't want incineration, you should recycle." It is sad that 90 per cent. of people would go for that—they will recycle if they are given the chance—but that is not happening either. We are in a dangerous position in which the Government could force people to incinerate because there is no other option, and expect to pay penalties.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

I hate to disagree with the hon. Gentleman because we agree on many things, not least on the subject of fluoridation, on which I shall say more in a minute.

It is dangerous to pre-empt local decision making by saying that, if local authorities are incapable of changing the mindset and consciousness of their local populations, they will inevitably come back with the incineration proposal. I believe that they would be foolhardy to do so. They had better get on with the persuading now, because if they deem themselves faced with that problem—that may be what they fear, as the analysis of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test may suggest—they will face some difficulties. If they are in tune with their local populations, the campaign against incineration should be the way in which authorities meet the Government's agenda. That is why I fear proposing these particular changes at this time.

I hope that the two parties will reconsider. Having secured a degree of agreement in Committee, it is not right to divide the House now. We should be clear and the message should come out loudly from this Chamber that incineration is not the way forward—and it is not what is happening out there. The Minister was accused of not knowing what is going on, which I honestly cannot understand unless I am misreading all the parliamentary answers that suggest time and again that planning has resulted in not proceeding with incineration. Even where there has been an attempt to expand existing capacity, it has not progressed. Something confusing is going on out there, but I believe the parliamentary answers.

Further to challenge the Liberal Democrats, I hope that they will not repeat what they did in the fluoridation debate. They led me to believe that there would be four-square opposition to fluoridation, but at the last moment bottled out on their opposition, resulting in a much bigger majority for clause 61. I understand that that is a different issue, but if the Liberal Democrats are against incineration, they should state that they are against it. Similarly, if they want incineration, albeit with qualifications, it would be honest of them to say so. It is no good making proposals that tend to mislead, for example by saying that the process is up to local authorities, and the waste collection authority can be predisposed to argue in favour of a different process from the waste disposal authority. That is quite an assumption. One cannot envisage waste disposal authorities opting for incineration where the waste collection authority says something different.

I hope that we are clear that incineration is not the way forward. The Bill is clear that there are other ways of disposing of waste, and we should campaign to ensure that people know about them. Making specific provision for incineration in the Bill at this time is a mistake.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

During the course of our debate on Report thus far, the Minister has tried to persuade hon. Members that the Government have a coherent strategy and that the Bill is just one part of it. We are told that the other parts of the strategy will mesh together comfortably to provide a series of policies that fulfil all the environmental aims that we all share. I have to tell the Minister that he has not persuaded the participants in the debate, and in respect of his particular assertion that the Bill will not encourage incineration, he has very clearly not persuaded some hon. Members. Furthermore, neither he nor his predecessor has been able in the past to persuade Committees in which his own party has a majority.

What we do know is that incineration is already cheaper than recycling, thanks to the perverse tax breaks that it receives from schemes such as the climate change levy and the renewables obligation, as well as enhanced capital allowances and exemptions from business rates. With co-incineration plants also receiving tax breaks to burn waste, incineration operators could reduce their gate fees to compete even with landfill. That would make the prospect of incineration even more attractive to local authorities.

I am indebted to Friends of the Earth, which has conducted a series of case studies, which provide us with evidence from outside this place that seems to indicate that some local authorities are already planning to reduce the amount they send to landfill and intend instead to resort to incineration. For instance, Brighton and Hove and East Sussex councils, in a confidential report to the cabinet dated 12 March 2003, have identified that their contract with a major incinerator company, Onyx Aurora, will enable them to sell surplus landfill permits, generating extra income for the councils. Onyx then plans to build an incinerator in Newhaven with a capacity of 250,000 tonnes. The councils intend to recycle just 14 per cent. by 2015.

Norfolk county council has voted for a policy of landfilling nothing by 2010. That sounds great, but it has also rejected the recommendation of a 50 per cent. recycling target. How will it fill the gap between recycling just 36 per cent. and landfilling nothing? I suggest that some of it will go in incineration. A report to the county council's cabinet on 14 July 2003 acknowledged that the council

"may be able to buy and sell tradable landfill permits for 'unused' landfill space. This would allow [Norfolk] . . . a possible 'windfall'".

We know, and the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) is right to say it, that incinerators remain a contentious issue with the electorate, who foresee enormous plants with a long lifespan that will despoil the landscape, consume waste that is not just locally generated, create more traffic—not just local traffic—and demand a steady stream of rubbish in order to operate efficiently and fulfil the terms of their contracts. Local people will not want incineration. However, if they are faced with the alternative of having no way of disposing of 64 per cent. of their rubbish, they may be forced to accept it.

As I told the Minister, I believe that some incineration is necessary, but I believe that tests should be undertaken before we reach that stage. For the avoidance of doubt, those tests are that where it is economically possible waste should be dealt with at the higher end of the waste hierarchy, and only when it is not economically possible should one be looking lower down the waste hierarchy for a solution.

We know that some European countries have proved that high levels of recycling can go hand in hand with certain forms of incineration, but what do we know in this country? We know that small-scale energy-from-waste plants that deliver energy to the local community, coupled with incentives to minimise waste, should help us to develop policy that leads to sustainable consumption and resource management. We also know that local authorities have a pivotal role in that, but what does the Bill say about it? It is silent. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary to support new clause 17, as it will force the Government to face up to reality.

The new clause does not go far enough. We need to ensure that the Bill encourages local authorities to provide a market for recyclables. Part 2 uses a market mechanism to produce an emissions trading scheme. It is rather odd that such a mechanism should be accepted as a way to get rid of waste, but not to encourage the better use of that waste. The Bill could, and should, have used fiscal measures to encourage a market for recyclable materials. It should have contained the mechanisms, drivers and signals to encourage the right type of design, production, consumption and investment. In that way, more of what we produce could be recycled.

The Bill also fails to provide the raw materials that allow us to recycle more efficiently. One of those raw materials is source-separated waste. The Bill is silent on that. We have shown that environmentally friendly councils could produce source-separated waste that could be mixed again to produce the right mix for an incinerator. That is another opportunity that the Bill has missed.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

The Bill is yet another example of the Government transposing a European directive into law without taking the opportunity to introduce some sensible legislation to support the environment. Amendments on packaging waste and the WEEE directive could have been incorporated in the Bill, and we have not even touched on the subject of hazardous waste. Only last week, members of the sustainable waste group heard Sir John Harmon of the Environment Agency say that we are nowhere near ready to deal with the hazardous waste directive. That is another matter that must be resolved.

The problem is that we are not looking at waste in an integrated way. The Minister probes us about Liberal Democrat policies on incineration, but the Bill deals only with biodegradable municipal waste. It does not cover hazardous waste, or clinical or construction waste. It contains no strategies to help councils avoid the pitfall of incineration.

People worry about incineration. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) implied that councillors were unelectable if they were keen on incineration, but incineration is part of Surrey county council's waste strategy.

There are major problems associated with incineration. Surrey has encountered a great many, but the council leader, wearing his regional assembly hat, has proposed it as a possible strategy for the whole of the south-east region. In that regard, the figures produced by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) in relation to councils' intentions to go for incineration when there is no real alternative tell their own tale.

Taxation is another problem. The fact that landfill waste is taxed and incineration waste is not is a cause for concern. The Select Committees have pointed out that if we taxed materials that are currently being destroyed we should promote the recycling market. That is what we are really talking about. It is not merely that we are unhappy about incineration and the health risks and problems; it is sheer folly to build incinerators to burn materials that could have a further use. There is so much in the waste strategy relating to re-use and minimisation that implementing a policy that pushes such matters right down the waste hierarchy seems completely perverse.

The public are worried about incineration and we need some good studies on the impact of incineration, fears about dioxins and other health concerns. One problem is that even the monitoring of dioxin emissions from municipal solid waste incinerators is unreliable. Two years ago, the Environment Agency told the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee that it did not believe that viable, continuous monitoring systems existed, yet in Belgium such systems have been implemented with no great increase in either the capital costs of incineration—the figure is about 0.2 per cent.—or the running costs. The laboratory costs have been driven down; market forces have had an effect and more samples can be taken at lower cost.

The Belgian experience shows that when there is continuous monitoring—every two hours or so—the result is different from the snapshots that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) pointed out, might be taken when the incinerator was just being started up. Overall, the recording of dioxin emissions in Belgium was much higher—50 per cent. higher—than had been experienced previously, because the sampling system that had been used was so unreliable. That should become a thing of the past; we have improved water sampling so that it is statistically viable, but we do not seem to be able to do the same with incinerator sampling.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Was that unexpected result due to the fact that when certain materials are incinerated there are peaks of some types of dioxin emission? People tend to ignore those peaks and consider only the mean figure, so continuous monitoring and closure of plant may not be the best idea, even though it was suggested in the report to which the hon. Lady referred.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information. The report, which was published in 1998 in the Journal for Organohalogen Compounds, identified several long and technical reasons and suggested that continuous monitoring equipment could give dioxin emission readings that were up to 50 times higher than when measurements were taken only twice a year. There were many factors involved in those low readings, many of which were identified, but the fact remains that our current sampling method is not based on sound statistical science and it is high time that the public received the information that they need about the health risks from dioxins. Our decisions must be based on sound science rather than on information collecting methods that are widely mistrusted by the public and thereby add to their concerns.

On the provisions relating to collection and disposal authorities I welcome the amendment. In an area where a council of one political persuasion is responsible for disposal while another is responsible for collection, it would be tempting when drawing up a countywide waste strategy to place the incinerator where people would not vote for the ruling party in any case. That is why it is so important to know whether the Conservative party will support holding real consultations between county and district or county and borough, so that there can be a co-ordinated response and local wishes can be taken into account. The wishes of people living in the collection authority area must be considered, whatever their party view, as that is important for local democracy.

In Essex, it is well known that the Friends of the Earth group in Mersea has got recycling up to 60 per cent., yet the Essex waste strategy still includes the possibility of incineration. One group is saying, "We can do it" and another is saying, "We'll use incineration." The authority in Colchester signed the zero-waste pledge. We have heard about the problems in Surrey and those experienced by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes.

Many of those problems could be avoided if the Government were to adopt a coherent waste strategy that took into account fiscal measures, the economics and the number of jobs that would be produced by a sustainable waste strategy. We have been talking about lots of jobs in recycling—for example, refilling ink cartridges—but that is not what the Bill is about, so I shall not detain the House further, except to make the essential point that, even if the Bill does not explicitly promote incineration, by golly, that is what it will do.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

Interesting contributions have been made by a range of hon. Members—the hon. Members for Lewes (Norman Baker) and for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin), my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), and the hon. Members for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) and for Guildford (Sue Doughty)—and I was very interested in what they had to say. I appreciate that incineration was a major issue in Committee, where it was discussed in some depth. People feel very strongly about it, but I make no apology for probing the Liberal Democrats on exactly where they stand.

The hon. Member for Lewes took a bold stand on water metering when debating the Water Bill and he was perfectly reasonable about that, but his position on incineration is a bit weaselly—although I do not know quite why weasels always get that reputation—and I am still not absolutely clear about it. I thought that we had moved forward a bit.

With regard to the points made by the hon. Member for Guildford, I do not think it coherent to have a waste strategy that apparently rules out one strand whatever the circumstances and whether or not it is justified. That is not a coherent strategy; it is just populist pandering, without trying to weigh up properly the advantages and disadvantages of each strand of the hierarchy.

In all fairness to Conservative Members, I do not disagree with their position on incineration. They want to consider the options as part of the hierarchy—which has been established, as we all agree—and, occasionally, there just might be a case for some form of incineration or, indeed, some form of thermal treatment. I do not say that I advocate incineration; all I am saying is that it should not be ruled out of consideration.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

We have been consistent about incineration in the context of the Bill and municipal waste. We have been thinking out a coherent waste management strategy, and it seems a bit rich for a Minister of a Government who do not have a coherent sustainable waste strategy to criticise any other party.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

That is just a load of old nonsense. I have just gone through in great detail a range of work streams and strategies, including "Waste Strategy 2000", the strategy unit and the waste and resources action programme. Incidentally, in respect of what was said by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, that programme provides a range of support to develop markets for using recyclates, which we regard as an important part of the overall strategy. We have strategies coming out of our ears. It is important to make them work effectively, but part of doing so involves considering the range of options available—not ruling them out, without consideration, in the way that Liberal Democrat Members suggest. I repeat that the Bill is not in itself the principal deliverer of the waste hierarchy; it is part of the delivery of the waste hierarchy. It is one of a number of elements in relation to the Government's strategy and approach.

The aspect of new clause 5 on which I do not particularly disagree with the Liberal Democrats relates to the potential health and environmental effects of incineration and the concern that incineration could crowd out other forms of waste disposal. That is a serious point that we should examine, and a full national environmental impact assessment of existing incineration capacity should be carried out, on which I will touch in a moment. I do not agree, however, with the press release from Friends of the Earth, which I have looked at in some detail, in relation to the assumptions being made about this Bill and its potential to increase incineration. In that sense, I do not agree with the hon. Member for Leominster. I am not saying that there may not be further incineration in this country, because the Government's approach in relation to the joint strategies in the Bill, while not advocating incineration per se, is that people should look at all the options. I return to the point that incineration is above landfill in the hierarchy, and in some circumstances that may be the more preferable approach. Local authorities, as part of their strategy, will determine whether they think that that is appropriate.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The Minister's point is genuine, and none of us has questioned that the Government's approach is well intentioned. However, will he tell the House exactly how many incinerators he accepts must be built? If more than that number are to be built, will he reconsider whether the Bill has been successful? The Opposition are worried that we will see an explosion in the number of incinerators. If he is prepared to say that that will not happen, will he set some parameters?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I certainly assure the hon. Gentleman that we will not see an exploding number of incinerators. The answer is that I cannot predict how many incinerators may be constructed. I do not believe that such an incentive is part of the Bill. Let us look at the situation on mainland Europe in relation to recycling, as one of the concerns expressed is that the Bill might crowd out recycling as part of an increase in incineration. Where there are no restrictions on incineration on the continent, no evidence exists of recycling being pushed out. In Flanders, for example, in 1999, the recycling rate was 62 per cent., which I would be very pleased to see in this country, and the incineration rate was 22 per cent., whereas ours is 8 per cent. There is a very large difference between the recycling rate in Flanders and in this country. No evidence exists that looking at incineration as an option necessarily pushes out recycling.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The situation in other countries in Europe is different from that in this country. Over a long period, those countries have stopped landfill and have grown recycling as a desired option, as well as incineration. In this country, however, we must move off landfill very quickly, and that is the difference. Local authorities are faced with that quick, stark choice. Under the circumstances that Liberal Democrat Members have described, local authorities will opt for incineration more than we would like, because they are not starting with a strong recycling base in the way that other countries are.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I certainly accept that we are not starting with that strong recycling base, although we are making increasing progress in relation to accelerating the process of improving the percentage of recycling and re-use in this country, and we will continue to do that. I return to the point that statutory targets exist, which local authorities must meet, that incineration cannot remove. Some examples have been given of authorities that have high rates of recycling, and I do not necessarily believe that, with incineration, those rates would go down.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud made a good point about the difficulties of the planning process in relation to incineration. Incineration is very unpopular—no two ways about that—as is landfill. These days, even applications for large-scale composting are not popular with people. None of those things is popular. It is absolutely right that local authorities will have to reduce landfill under the Bill's obligations—that is its objective—but there are several ways in which they may do that. They will not necessarily have to go down the route of incineration because that is unpopular with local people and local democracy means that that must be taken into account. Although this is not an argument put forward by the Department, the point made by my hon. Friend shows that understandable local concerns will put enormous pressure on local authorities to up their levels of recycling and re-use rather than going down the road of incineration and landfill. That pressure will be on, so I do not accept for one moment that the wonderfully easy route to incineration that has been spelled out will exist.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Will the Minister deal specifically with the case of Norfolk, where the authority intends to recycle only 36 per cent. of waste by 2010? It has pledged to stop all landfill, so what will happen to the other 64 per cent.?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I do not know all the details of what the authority in Norfolk is planning. Part of the approach is for local authorities to determine the best way in which to deal with waste in their areas. We expect them to consult and have a joint strategy, and that will apply to Norfolk as much as any area. Any decision that authorities reach must be made on the basis of what they think the most appropriate approach, and they will be accountable for that to their electorate and local communities. It is for them to justify the choice that they make. Local authorities should have the right to determine the best steps that they can take on waste minimisation with regard to the measures that we introduce.

On the potential impact from incinerators, the hon. Member for Lewes fairly recognised that things have changed greatly during recent years. Indeed, the most modern incinerators bear little comparison with older ones. Directive 2000/76/EC replaced earlier directives on hazardous waste incineration and the prevention and reduction of air pollution from municipal waste incinerators. The 2000 directive imposes stringent operating conditions on incinerators. It was partly transposed into UK law through the Waste Incineration (England and Wales) Regulations 2002 and remaining provisions have been transposed in directions to regulators. That led to the closure of several older incinerators and a two-hundredfold reduction in dioxin emissions from incinerators compared with five years ago. I know that the hon. Gentleman conceded that.

We want to go further. We need more information to compare the impact of incinerators with landfill. The Department has commissioned an independent review on health and environmental effects, as I briefly mentioned earlier. The review will cover all waste disposal options because they all have associated risks. It will include an assessment of the potential risks attached to incineration, and will especially consider the latest science and technology. The review is nearly complete and we expect it to be published in the near future. We are taking seriously the points raised by the new clauses tabled by the hon. Member for Lewes and addressing them, as the House will discover when we publish the report.

We are not actively encouraging incineration as a waste management option, but it is part of the hierarchy and people should be able to consider it. We have been through the hierarchy—there is no need for me to go through it again—and hon. Members know that minimisation and recycling are at the top of it and that we are putting measures in place to encourage that.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Will the Minister support an incinerator tax?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

All financial instruments should be regularly reviewed. There may be a case for reconsidering them whatever the waste route. That is a possibility. We have no plans to do that, but financial instruments are an important tool, especially in terms of environmental outcomes.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

There is considerable sense in what the Minister advocates. However, I am struck by the fact that local authorities are deciding to have incineration today and that could tie them in to long-term disposal methods. That approach by local authorities will bind future generations, will not allow best technology to be used in future and could have an impact on re-use, recycling and minimisation strategies. Surely the Minister must share some of the concerns expressed.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I understand why hon. Members raise that point. Again, I return to the thrust of the Government's approach. We have confidence in local democracy and such decisions need to be taken locally. People will have to weigh up the capital costs of long-term contracts. I do not dispute that.

Even if we make good progress on recycling and re-use, which I am confident we will, and achieve a recycling rate of 50 per cent.—I would be more than pleased to hit that target, which would be pretty good in this country—14 million tonnes of municipal waste would still need to be disposed of each year. We could reduce that by using waste minimisation measures, which we have to address, but we would still need to dispose of a similar level of waste. Some of that could be dealt with in other ways, but there is a limit to the amount of material that is biodegradable and can be composted. The choice is to use landfill or incineration to dispose of that residue. Incineration may be the most sensible option, especially if it involves energy recovery, which the Conservatives mentioned. We agree that we need energy recovery if we are to benefit from the waste.

Simon Thomas (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

What proportion of the current waste stream would fall into that category? I accept what the Minister says about local democracy, but would he not be well advised to give guidance to local authorities on the letting of contracts so that they do not tie the hands of future generations?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The latter idea goes a bit far on the legitimate role that central Government play in the decisions that local government makes on contracts. Local authorities are issued with guidance on a range of issues in relation to financial and practical matters. The waste implementation programme that we established also provides advice and support to local authorities on a range of waste strategies. That support is in place. The proportion of energy recovered from incineration is very low, although I do not know the exact figure. We need to increase that percentage if further development is to take place.

New clause 6 requires continuous monitoring of dioxin emissions for all waste incinerated by 2006. I am not unsympathetic to that approach. Work is being done on the technology to achieve that. I am not sure that the technology has been established or proven to the extent that I could be confident that it would be robust enough to put in place by 2006, but it is coming and we think that it has a role to play.

That technology may not be appropriate for all types of incinerator. The material that goes into municipal solid waste incinerators is very homogenous, so the pollutants produced during combustion tend to be more predictable than hon. Members have suggested. Nevertheless, we do not rule out the use of such technology in future.

Amendment No. 59 and new clause 17 would allow the waste collection authority to direct that the waste disposal authority shall not dispose of that waste by incineration. That goes a little too far for the waste strategy because it would rule out what might be the most appropriate option, so we cannot accept those amendments.

I hope, although I am not confident, that I have given a detailed explanation, because this is an important issue that the Government take seriously. I genuinely do not believe that the Bill, in itself, is a stimulus to large-scale incineration. We have established the waste hierarchy, within which, all hon. Members agree, incineration should be considered if it is the safest, most environmentally sound and most appropriate option. However, given the problems with planning, local opinion and the views of local councils, I cannot see that there will be a massive expansion of incineration capacity. I do not believe that the Bill will in any way upset the targets that we have set for waste minimisation, recycling and re-use, which are far above incineration in the Government's hierarchy of priorities.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I shall be brief because we have had a long run round the course. The Minister is genuine in his desires, but I simply do not accept his analysis in one crucial respect, because the honestly held view on this side of the House is that the Bill will engender further incineration.

I refer the Minister to a parliamentary answer given by his predecessor on 10 March to the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), who had asked what incinerators were planned. This also picks up on the point made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who thinks that incinerators will not happen because local opinion is against them; that is not the case. The planning status is as follows: Grimsby, granted; Portsmouth, granted after appeal; Southampton, granted; Capel, Surrey, planning withdrawn and new application expected; Slough, granted; Chineham, granted; Hull, application refused and planning appeal in progress; Neath, Port Talbot, granted; Maidstone, granted; Bexley, public inquiry pending; Derby, granted; Sheffield, granted; Cornwall, application submitted.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

The hon. Gentleman is right about the long list of planning applications, and it would be interesting to consider its historical antecedents. But how many of them does he genuinely think will proceed? I think that very few of them will proceed.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I have no reason to think that any of them will not proceed. After all, if someone has gone to the huge expense—it is probably millions of pounds—of getting together a planning application and meeting all the Environment Agency's requirements for pollution prevention controls, which are also being determined, although I did not read out that part of the parliamentary answer, clearly they will proceed with that application.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that any company considering making a planning application for an incinerator, rather than investing in other, more sustainable technologies, will only be encouraged by the Minister's words today? The Minister may be ambivalent towards incineration, but it is a huge, lost opportunity in the Bill.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Companies may not be encouraged by the Minister's words—that is a little harsh towards the Minister—but they may reasonably conclude, after reading the Bill, that they can proceed with incineration because that is the direction in which the Government are pointing, whether or not they want to.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

Will not barristers at planning appeals use the words that have been used today in their arguments that the Minister should decide in favour of a planning application?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Barristers looking at the Brighton and Hove waste plan chided me for daring to try to include waste minimisation. They did not see a role for it, as they believe that the priorities should be recycling and incineration. That, I am afraid, is what is happening on the ground, irrespective of the Minister's best intentions.

I refer the Minister to comments made by his colleague, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test in Standing Committee B on 8 April 2003, at column 174:

"The ultimate conclusion is that if nothing else happens by the end of the decade, some 70 per cent. of waste disposal authorities will be involved in some form of incineration."

The hon. Gentleman had talked to councils and conducted a survey of their methods of waste disposal. He continued:

"Perhaps we need measures outside the Bill on incineration tax and different ways of dealing with incineration, and perhaps we need incentives on how local authorities work."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 8 April 2003; c. 174.]

The hon. Gentleman is very good on these matters, but the Minister has not given us the definitive assurance about incineration tax that we would like. Once landfill has been excluded, or at least made difficult, which is what the Bill rightly does, there are no further incentives to prioritise the waste hierarchy, so local councils will go for the easiest option. They will follow the money and choose incineration—a matter about which the hon. Member for Stroud asked. Councils will follow financial pointers, so the Government must change those pointers to stop them doing so. Unless the Government take an active interest and introduce change, the right decisions will not be made at local level.

I am grateful for the Minister's comments on DEFRA's work on the health and environmental review, which I mentioned in my introduction. He was right to highlight that welcome Government development. I am grateful for his comments on new clause 6, to which he was sympathetic. I am not sure that I agree that the technology is not proven, as there is continuous monitoring in Denmark and other countries. That is a minor point, but at least he will look at the matter.

I am not convinced, however, that the conditions set out in new clause 5 will be met in the assessment of transportation, emissions and alternative methods of waste disposal. It is important that the House send a signal that it does not want incineration unless that is a last-gasp effort, according to the Minister, in the waste hierarchy. However, we are going to get it as the Bill is currently constructed, so I shall seek to divide the House on new clause 5.

New Clause 17 — Directions to Waste Disposal Authorities

Clause 1 — Target Years

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 1, line 8, after 'waste', insert

'municipal solid waste, commercial and industrial waste and construction and demolition waste'.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 27, in clause 9, page 7, line 11, after 'waste', insert

'municipal solid waste, commercial and industrial waste and construction and demolition waste'.

No. 60, in clause 21, page 14, line 43, at end insert—

'(1A) In determining whether waste is biodegradable for the purposes of this Chapter the following is to be excluded—

(a) waste that has had its biological activity significantly reduced through accelerated decomposition technologies or other non-incineration technologies that the Secretary of State may specify by regulations; and

(b) is within statutory limits of biological activity that the Secretary of State may specify by regulations.'.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

Amendment No. 10 not only highlights the Bill's glaring inadequacies but tries to amend it positively and constructively. That means that the definition of biological or biodegradable would include all the different components of the municipal solid waste stream. That includes commercial, industrial, construction and demolition waste.

In his previous speech, the Minister talked about Flanders. I urge him to be careful when using European examples because European countries measure waste and recycling differently from the United Kingdom. The European Union is trying to amend the definition of waste and recycling to establish a uniform European standard of measurement. That will be constructive but before it happens we must be careful about citing examples from other countries. They do not necessarily measure the same thing as we do.

We cannot be proud of the UK's recycling record, although Conservative councils are making the greatest inroads into achieving the Government's targets. It is especially difficult for me to listen to the Government emphasising the extent of progress when I know that Conservative councils are responsible for it. The amendment would increase the small amount of waste that the Government try to cover in the Bill and therefore have a greater impact on society and the environment.

There is a second advantage, because construction and demolition waste is not combustible so it would not be appropriate to incinerate it. That would have a positive effect on local authorities because the weighting is currently in favour of incineration. Widening the waste stream would render that method of dealing with waste less appropriate. We need to widen the Bill to increase the amount of waste that we recycle, re-use and recover, and to move away from incineration.

I would also like to draw the Minister's attention to the amendment passed in Committee which took away an improvement made in House of Lords. That improvement would have ensured that all biodegradable waste, having been composted, was sterilised by heating it to 90° C, which would have killed the pathogens in it. It would also have killed some of the positive elements resulting from the composting, but the important point is that the noble Lords were seeking to prevent another outbreak of a disease such as foot and mouth, which can be spread on the fields. The Government have taken a risk in removing that provision, and they must be comfortable with that; otherwise they would not have done so. I hope that they will monitor closely what is going on, in case we are unlucky enough to have another outbreak of a disease such as foot and mouth. If that should take place, I hope that they will immediately review the rules set out in the Bill. We have put it on record that we are aware of the risk that they are taking, and we recognise that what they are doing has been considered.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I want to deal with this point now in case I forget to do so in my main reply. I recall the House of Lords amendment. It set specific maximum temperatures in relation to composting. I understand that it was intended to deal with pathogens, but they are dealt with under the Animal By-Products Order 1999. We believe that the regulations that have been set will bring about a temperature that will kill the pathogens. The problem with the House of Lords amendment was that its provisions would not only have killed the pathogens but set the green waste on fire. The waste would have been incinerated. The temperature for the biological waste would have been so high that it would have killed all the microbes, and all that would have been left would be a nasty black sludge, rather than biodegradable waste that could be used for soil conditioning.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I think that the Minister is exaggerating. He will recognise, perhaps more than any other Minister, the real risk from foot and mouth. He is perhaps not being himself in taking such a light-hearted approach to such a serious disease. Let me remind him that the smell of burning sheep in Bromyard was so overpowering that residents there had to close their guest houses and hotels, thanks to the way in which the Government handled the foot and mouth outbreak. It is most unlike the Minister to take a light-hearted approach to this issue. He is wrong to do that, and he has missed the serious point that the Lords were seeking to make.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

It is not like the hon. Gentleman to paint me in such a way. He knows very well that I do not approach these matters light-heartedly. I take them very seriously. It is only fair to say, however, that amendments have to be workable, and that one was not.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The Minister smiles as he says these things, but I know that he takes this matter seriously, and I am prepared to forgive him for his earlier comments. He is right: to some extent, it would have been extremely difficult to make the amendment tabled in another place practically applicable. But I am asking him not to ignore the spirit of that amendment. We are worried that a disease such as foot and mouth could be spread on the soil because a certain temperature was not being achieved, and the Minister should look again at that.

I have not sought to bring back that provision here, however. The amendment that we are debating simply widens the types of waste that would be dealt with under the Bill. I merely wanted to draw the Minister's attention to the risk that has been put into the Bill by ignoring the amendment passed in another place. That is all that I sought to do in this amendment. However, I think that he now realises how important the noble Lords' amendment was, and I am sure that he will monitor very carefully the biodegradable waste that is spread on fields.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

Amendment No. 60 is about a problem of definition. The Minister may wish to make a statement or at least take note of it. People need a clear guideline or steer on what is or is not biodegradable waste. Anaerobic and aerobic treatments, worm digesters and all sorts of things take biodegradable waste and move it into a more inert form. I cannot say that those treatments move it into an inert form: it remains slightly "ert", one might say, which is where the problem lies. The question is about the level of activity within the treatment process, when something stops being biodegradable and whether it needs to go to landfill.

This is an important matter. It is important to the people who produce materials from these plants and it is important for standards. In a fairly robust previous discussion of incineration, the Minister feared that we were not looking at the wider approach to waste disposal. The approach that councils or disposal authorities take is important. Treatment must be acceptable and to known standards; objectives have to be fulfilled and they should be measurable in terms of the stability and change of the materials produced as a result of the process.

I and other members of the Committee received a letter dated 29 April 2003 from the former Minister for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) to the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin). The letter said that some treatments of biodegradable waste

"could result in a reduction in the biodegradable content of the residue waste . . . For biodegradable waste to change its nature totally and become inert waste, it would be necessary for it to meet the strict definition of inert waste in the Landfill Directive. It is unlikely that any treatment of biodegradable waste, other than perhaps energy recovery"—

incineration in this case—"will achieve this." The question is whether the Government believe that, unless treatment applied to biodegradable waste is thorough enough to ensure that the residual waste meets the definition of inert waste, it must by definition be biodegradable waste. It is either inert or biodegradable.

According to the simple definition in the landfill directive, biodegradable waste

"means any waste that is capable of undergoing anaerobic or aerobic decomposition, such as food and garden waste and paper and paperboard."

Important issues are at stake about what one does after mechanical biological or other biodegrading treatments. We need to know whether, if mechanical biological treatment leaves a residual waste, it will be classified as biodegradable waste.

The Environmental Services Association is concerned because it believes that the correct interpretation of the directive is that processes such as MBT can be sufficient to prevent the residual waste from being classed as biodegradable for the purposes of the directive. I am sorry about the technical nature of this matter, but it is important.

The draft European directive on biowaste also sets out to clarify the position. It concerns whether something continues to degenerate. It says:

"If residual municipal waste undergoes a mechanical/biological treatment prior to landfilling, the achievement of either a Respiration Activity"—

meaning continued activity—

"after four days . . . below 10 mg O2/g dry matter or a Dynamic Respiration Index below 1,000 mg O2/kg Volatile Solids"—

that is, fats, carbohydrates and proteins—per hour,

"shall deem that the treated residual municipal waste is not any more biodegradable waste"—

in other words, one definition says that it is and the other that it is not—

"in the meaning of Article 2 (m) of Directive 1999/31/EC."

In other words, mechanical biological treatment—even where the resultant material is landfilled—becomes a legitimate route for local authorities to pursue in seeking to meet their landfill directive targets.

Amendment No. 60 would allow the Secretary of State to anticipate the arrival of that directive by putting in place a similar measure that would make clear the standards that mechanical biological treatment or other treatments must achieve to be legitimate approaches to meeting the landfill directive targets. It is all a matter of what is done with the waste afterwards.

We should like to know whether mechanical biological treatment and the landfilling of the residual waste from the treatment are a legitimate approach to meeting the landfill directive targets. That is the reason for tabling the amendment. It is horribly technical, but it does have a bearing on the industry, which needs to be dealt with at this stage.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

On that last point, the hon. Lady made an important, very technical argument. She could have simply asked, "Can biodigestion be part of the process?" That would have been a bit quicker, but she was making a serious point and I shall deal with it in detail in a moment.

Amendments Nos. 10 and 27 would vastly extend the scope of the landfill allowances scheme established by the Bill to include not only biodegradable municipal waste, but municipal solid waste, commercial and industrial waste and construction and demolition waste. Amendment No. 10 would require the Secretary of State to specify the maximum amount of each of the waste streams that can be landfilled in each target year. Amendment No. 27 would place a duty on waste disposal authorities not to landfill more of any of those waste streams than the allowance they hold for that year.

I appreciate the need to tackle the wider issue of sustainable waste management but, as the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) knows, it is not the purpose of the Bill to go as wide as that. All those wastes are covered by Waste Strategy 2000—we will not ignore them, because they are important—and that is the starting point for those streams.

The Bill is designed to provide the United Kingdom with an innovative and workable system that will allow it to meet the reduction targets in the landfill directive. There is a lot of interest in the Bill and in that concept, arising from the Bill. The EU has taken a particular interest. The targets relate to biodegradable municipal waste, as it is known. That is the waste stream that is the subject of the landfill targets and the allowance scheme set out in the Bill; the targets are restricted to that. That is not to say that I shall ignore the other arguments that the hon. Gentleman made.

Each country in the UK has already put in place a comprehensive strategy covering all waste streams. In England, we have Waste Strategy 2000, which has set a target to reduce by 2005 the amount of commercial and industrial waste sent to landfill to 85 per cent. of that landfilled in 1998. The landfill tax has had an impact on commercial and industrial waste. The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 have also had an effect on commercial waste. Those policies are not lying dormant. The Chancellor announced in the Budget that the landfill tax escalator would increase to a minimum of £3 per tonne from 2005–06, increasing the tax to £35 per tonne no later than 2010–11. The packaging directive is also under review.

Provisional Environment Agency data, based on returns from licensed landfill sites, suggest that the amount of industrial and commercial waste going to landfill may have decreased by about 8 per cent. between 1998–99 and 2000–01. The Environment Agency is carrying out a new survey and we should get the results in 2004. We shall see then which way the trend is going. However, the trend on the commercial side is encouraging.

A large proportion of municipal solid waste is already covered in the Bill because the bulk of that is biodegradable municipal waste. Much municipal solid waste is also household waste, which is targeted through statutory household waste recycling and composting targets for local authorities. Those have been backed up by an increase in funding to local authorities for recycling, both through the block that local authorities get—the environmental protection and cultural services block—and the national waste minimisation and recycling fund. That is another way of encouraging waste minimisation, incidentally.

I have briefly outlined how we are dealing with this part of the Bill. My comments go broader than the provisions of the Bill, but I want to assure the hon. Member for Leominster that these are important issues; we take them seriously and are trying to address them as part of our strategy.

Amendment No. 60 would alter the definition of "biodegradable waste". The hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) explained in some detail the definitions involved. The amendment would exclude from that definition waste that has had its biological activity significantly reduced through accelerated decomposition technologies or other non-incineration technologies that the Secretary of State may specify by regulation, and if it is within the limits of biological activity specified by the Secretary of State.

I understand the intention behind this amendment. The hon. Member for Guildford made it clear that she seeks clarification that mechanical and biological treatments are acceptable alternative ways to deal with waste. She has also written to me, and I will make sure that she gets a reply on this point. I understand that her concern is that local authorities will conclude that incineration is the only way to meet their targets under the landfill directive—a point that relates to our earlier debate. I can assure the House that that is not the case, and that amendment No. 60 is therefore unnecessary.

The Department has held a series of roadshows nationwide to brief local authority officials and others. During the roadshows, it was made absolutely clear that mechanical and biological treatment is a perfectly legitimate operation in respect of meeting the requirements of the directive, when it reduces the biodegradable activity in the waste. We must be a little careful in this regard, as operations that merely reduce the water content of the waste but leave the biodegradable activity unaltered would not be legitimate, as that would still result in methane emissions, whether or not the waste was landfilled.

It has also been made clear that when legitimate mechanical and biological treatments have been carried out, the waste disposal authorities should get the benefits of any reduction in biodegradable content of the waste in landfills. That would count in respect of reduction. Although such treatments may not result in zero biodegradable activity, they can make a considerable reduction. The mass balance monitoring system that we intend to implement will be designed to pick up that reduction. The extent of any reduction will be determined on the basis of a research project that will set out the reduction in biodegradable content achieved by each treatment type.

That information will be very useful. If a waste disposal authority can then demonstrate that its residual waste was subject to a particular treatment, it will be credited with the biodegradable content reduction assigned to the treatment. I know that local authorities are very interested in biodigestion, for example, and that one or two schemes are being put in place that would use it on quite a large scale. We think that that is perfectly legitimate in respect of meeting the target. I hope that that reassurance will meet some of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Guildford.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I am very interested to know how standards will be set. How will the Government determine what has been happening? The Minister told me what I wanted to hear, in the sense that merely removing liquid will not be sufficient. Will a specific body be established to set the necessary standards?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The guidelines will be set by DEFRA. As I mentioned, we are setting up a research programme to look at the reduction in biodegradable content achieved by each treatment type. We lack that information at present, and we need to have it. That is why we are setting in hand research to address that matter.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. As I noted in my opening remarks, I thought that the Government would be unlikely to accept my amendment, but I think that the Minister has accepted its spirit. He certainly made it clear that the Government are mindful of the importance of reducing the quantity of all types of wastes that are consigned to landfill. With that in mind, I am content that my amendment has achieved all that could be hoped for.

I am also grateful that the Minister took on board the very serious point made by the House of Lords. If we have achieved nothing more today, then ensuring that there is never another outbreak of foot and mouth disease will represent a genuine service to the nation.

I was also interested in the points made by the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty). Just outside my constituency, at Wooferton, there is a plant where it is proposed to carry out biological and mechanical waste disposal of the type that has been mentioned.

With those comments in mind, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I beg to move amendment No. 36, in page 2, line 9, at end insert—

'( ) Subsection (4) may be satisfied by consultation before, as well as by consultation after, the coming into force of this section.'.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendments Nos. 37, 38, 41 and 42.

Amendment No. 5, in clause 23, page 15, line 34, leave out '2019' and insert '2015'.

Amendment No. 6, in page 15, line 35, leave out '2013' and insert '2009'.

Amendment No. 7, in page 15, line 36, leave out '2020' and insert '2016'.

Government amendments Nos. 43 and 47.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I hope that I shall not have to detain the House too long, as these amendments are largely technical. I shall deal with them only briefly, but if hon. Members want to question me on the detail, I shall be happy to try to answer.

Amendment No. 36 amends clause 1 so that the requirement to consult the devolved Administrations can be satisfied by consultation before, as well as after, the coming into force of clause 1.

Amendment No. 38 makes a similar amendment to clause 3 in respect of the requirement to consult the devolved Administrations about the amount of biodegradable municipal waste allowed to be landfilled for the "notional target year" ending on 16 July 2004.

Amendment No. 43 allows a requirement on the allocating authority to consult bodies or persons who may be affected by regulations before making them. As hon. Members know, it is the Government's view that allocating authorities should have the ability to begin their allowance schemes as soon as possible. For that reason, substantial work has already been undertaken with the aim of achieving a 2004 start date. That has involved considerable consultation with the devolved Administrations, local authorities and waste facility operators. The amendments will allow those consultations to "count" in respect of the Bill's provisions.

Amendment No. 37 is merely technical. The remaining Government amendments are also technical and mainly relate to changes in the schemes and the target years. If hon. Members have any questions, I shall be happy to try to answer them.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

My amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7 are designed to urge the Government to hesitate before taking advantage of the four-year derogation available to comply with the EU landfill targets. The earlier target years should give a long enough time to meet the demands; those deadlines should be achievable.

The Government's lack of ambition in their landfill policy and their indecision has led to uncertainty in the waste management industry, where there is a singular lack of willing investors. That is important. The Government have failed to address the serious problems of landfill and they take advantage of derogation after derogation. We must get them to stop and think before they sign up to such things. They should ensure that their ambitions are fulfilled within the time available.

Of course, derogations are useful, and the Government should take advantage of them if they are necessary. However, the Government should be more ambitious in achieving targets that are important not only for the country and for people who care about recycling but for the future of the planet. That is why we are undertaking this legislative process.

It is extraordinary that the Government, who have a pressing legislative programme, should be so unambitious in the Bill. However, this is not the time to discuss that.

The UK should take a position of environmental leadership and aim to comply by 2016, not by 2020. The Government should invest the necessary additional resources, enhance regulatory certainty and improve the speed of the planning process, all of which would make it much easier for us to comply.

The Netherlands already complies with the 2016 biodegradable municipal waste diversion targets of the landfill directive, as do Austria and Denmark. The Government are merely shying away—again—from tackling the problem of waste. Both their approach and their strategy are inadequate, and I hope that they will adopt our amendments and buck up their ideas for dealing with biodegradable municipal waste.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I will be brief. I have a query about Government amendment No. 36. Will the Government allow further consultation, or will they say, "You've had your consultation, and we're going to do what we want"? We would like to have more information about that consultation process and about why the Government want to amend the Bill in that way.

I support amendments Nos. 5 to 7. It is clear that the Government are choosing the easy options. The target years should be the same as those in the landfill directives, and the Government should not use the four-year derogation. We want a Government who are confident about meeting their environmental targets, not a Government who allow an opt-out before they have started. We have a lot of catching up to do, compared with our continental neighbours, and the Bill provides a splendid opportunity to do that, but it is such a pity that, yet again, we are tiptoeing forward, rather than walking forward with confidence.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I do not accept those points. The Bill's provisions on landfill are, frankly, pioneering. I accept that we have a lot of catching up to do. I do not hide that fact or dispute it. That is why I am so strongly committed to the range of measures that we have been discussing in considering the Bill, as well as those in the Bill itself.

On the point made about Government amendment No. 36, a range of consultation will take place on the Bill's implementation, but a lot of consultation work has been done, as I have mentioned. If we have held detailed consultations on aspects of the Bill, it is not unreasonable for that work to count, rather than going through all that again, which people would find bureaucratic and would slow the implementation process. That, simply, is why we want to include that provision. In no way is it designed as a short cut or to cut out the opportunity for people to comment on a range of measures in the Bill.

I understand the reasoning behind amendments Nos. 5 to 7, tabled by the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin). We have to give local authorities as much certainty as possible to plan for such strategies. I understand that such issues were discussed in Committee and I thought that our explanation had been accepted at that time, but I wish to say briefly that we cannot leave the position open-ended. To assist local authorities in planning for the scheme, we plan to operate the scheme on the basis that the three target years for the UK will be 2010, 2013 and 2020, and local authorities are aware of that.

There is a quirky technical issue: under amendments Nos. 5 to 7, we would have to plan to take advantage of the derogation for the first year, but not for the second and the final target years. The unusual consequence of not taking advantage of the derogation for the second and third target years, while doing so for the first, is that the second target year—2009—would fall before the first target year, 2010. So those amendments would have a strange effect, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that we are committed to the implementation and that we are trying to act reasonably and pragmatically.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I wish that I could accept that, but when we consider—

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. I am sorry. This is not the hon. Gentleman's group of amendments. Government amendment No. 36 has been moved. My apologies, but the hon. Gentleman cannot speak for a second time.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2 — Non-target Years

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in page 2, line 18, leave out 'with the agreement of' and insert 'following consultation with'.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 14, in page 2, line 20, leave out 'with the agreement of' and insert 'following consultation with'.

No. 15, in page 2, line 23, at end insert—

'(5) The power under subsection (1) is exercisable following consultation with the relevant local authorities.

No. 17, in clause 5, page 4, line 9, after 'may', insert

'with the agreement of the relevant waste disposal authorities'.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

One can but try in this business, Madam Deputy Speaker.

This group of amendments seeks to ensure that physical consultation, not just things involving vague terms such as "agreement", takes place between the Secretary of State and all allocating authorities before any decision on targets is made in regulation by the Secretary of State. It also seeks to ensure that regulations are not enforced, without proper discussions, by the affected UK countries that limit the Secretary of State's power over devolved authorities. This is one of the most important areas of this Bill, and I hope that the Government will take our points seriously. What we are seeking to do is ensure that the Government, who, as the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) rightly pointed out, are tiptoeing forward in a timid fashion—

It being one hour before the moment of interruption, Madam Deputy Speaker, pursuant to Order [20 March], put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of proceedings to be concluded at that hour.

Government amendments Nos. 37 to 58 agreed to.

Order for Third Reading read.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I start by putting on record my appreciation of the generally constructive way in which Members on both sides of the House have approached the Bill at all stages. I am only sorry that I did not see the Bill through in Committee, and that I was not involved with the whole process. It is an important and interesting Bill, which raises a number of key issues that I have been happy to debate with Members on both sides of the House.

I appreciate that one of the major areas of concern has been the potential impact of the Bill on incineration. I have had a difference of opinion with some hon. Members on that, and we will have to agree to disagree on the matter. Even on that subject, however, I accept that some issues, such as the health effects, need to be considered carefully. I also accept that independent research is necessary. These days, research on health effects of any kind must be done by independent bodies, which is important.

I also believe that the statutory recycling and composting targets that have been set by the Government will reduce the pressures on incineration, to which some Members have referred. I repeat, however, that it is important that local authorities, through their joint strategies, consider what is the best way forward within the structure of our waste hierarchy, which I am glad to say has received universal support from the House.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

Does my hon. Friend accept that authorities such as mine in North-West Leicestershire, whose recycling levels are low, are being encouraged by the Government to increase those levels and to introduce schemes that are significantly more expensive, while having fairly low levels of grant settlement? Does he believe that a more sympathetic approach to authorities of that kind is likely?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

Whatever resources are available, they are never enough, whatever organisation is involved. The block in terms of the resources available to local authorities for waste and environmental protection, however, has increased significantly and substantially in the last few years. A lot of additional money has therefore gone to local authorities to reflect the fact that we want to see progress on waste and recycling. I said earlier that I have been heartened by the progress made in the last few years by local authorities, some of which have dramatically increased the rate of reuse and recycling. Apart from the increase in the cultural and environmental protection block, additional money has been made available through the challenge fund, and assistance and advice is available through the waste implementation programme. A range of measures has therefore been put in place to assist local authorities to meet their targets. Of course, when money goes to local authorities through the block, it is for them to decide how they allocate resources according to their priorities. As my hon. Friend knows, we have set local authorities targets and although the targets are ambitious, we expect them to be met. That is because a more sustainable approach on waste management is important both nationally and locally.

Increasing the amount of re-use, recycling and waste minimisation will give financial advantages to local authorities—the Bill provides for such an advantage. Local authorities will be set limits on landfill and if they make fast progress in getting below the limits, they will receive tradeable credits that will give them a financial advantage. We have a comprehensive package of measures to encourage and support local authorities to meet targets.

The relationship between waste disposal and waste collection authorities has understandably featured strongly in the debate. Successful waste management depends on close and constructive relationships between those authorities, although we acknowledge that there can be tensions, not least political ones, from time to time. We have touched on that during our consideration of the Bill. It is in the interests of both parties and the people whom they represent for them to work together and co-operate, which is why we are trying to encourage that through the joint municipal waste strategies that we agreed on Report. I know that those issues were of interest to hon. Members during the Bill's progress and we have honoured our commitments.

Hon. Members have a range of interests in waste and recognise that the Bill represents an innovative step forward on the handling of waste. By making use of economic instruments, the Government recognise that prescription alone is not always the best way forward. It is sometimes better to supply the means by which to achieve the ends, and it is sometimes valuable to introduce financial instruments to provide levers for local authorities. We have had a broader discussion on other possible financial levers and it is always worth considering them. The examination of the range of incentives and financial instruments that we could use to achieve our waste targets and a generally sustainable approach is ongoing rather than static.

We are sometimes accused of merely following the European Union's lead on waste rather than taking the initiative, but the Bill's provisions on landfill and the scheme that will follow provide evidence to the contrary. Although it is true that many European countries have a longer and better established system of recycling than our country and we are pushing forward to catch up, the Bill will introduce what we understand to be the first trading scheme in the world involving waste. Moreover, the European Commission has expressed a strong interest in the scheme and has asked for views on the use of waste trading schemes in its communication on a thematic strategy for waste prevention and recycling. We expect our ideas to be studied closely by Commission officials. I believe that the Bill will introduce pioneering new techniques that will influence other countries.

We have spent little time discussing emissions trading, but its impact should not be underestimated. The Bill supports the world's first economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme with statutory penalties. Climate change is the subject of an important international commitment that we have made, especially through the Kyoto protocol, and the Bill will help the UK to deliver on its commitments.

There is a clear link between the two main aspects of the Bill. One of the principal reasons for tackling waste generation and management is to reduce the production of greenhouse gases. The Bill addresses such challenges with the use of economic instruments that will stimulate reductions in the emission of pollutants and make us less reliant on landfill in the most economically efficient manner.

The Bill is important. It will have a strong impact on our approach to sustainable development and the various targets that the UK must meet. Opposition Members have not opposed the principles behind it. Most of the discussion has focused on whether it could go further and do other things. That is legitimate and we need to consider those issues. I hope that I have convinced hon. Members that although the Bill is not an appropriate vehicle for all the proposed measures, I do not disagree with many of the points made, and I hope to address those within the work streams that I outlined.

I believe that progress will be made on all issues raised. They are important. Hon. Members on both sides of the House agree about what we must do to minimise waste and to take a more sustainable approach to waste management. The process is dynamic and ongoing. We intend to build on what we have put in place and to review those measures. Some ideas, suggestions and points raised may be incorporated in that process.

As I said, I am grateful for the constructive and thoughtful way in which hon. Members approached their work. The Bill is better than when it started. We have taken into account the issues raised and it has been amended accordingly. It is only right and proper to put on the record my appreciation of the work by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), who was involved in the Committee stage. Like him, I am deeply interested in showing that protecting our environment is a high priority for both DEFRA and the Government. I accept that the problem is not merely DEFRA's responsibility. It cuts across Departments and influences the shape of Government policies on sustainability, both nationally and locally. The Bill will make a major contribution to achieving that end.

I thank Committee members, who worked hard on the Bill, and all hon. Members who contributed to the debate, especially Labour Members. I also acknowledge the work of DEFRA officials and their enormous commitment to the Bill. They have been involved in all its stages and have shaped it so that it is a pioneering Bill that sets the pace on how we use financial instruments to deal with landfill and to construct a sustainable agenda. It will influence many other EU countries.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

I associate myself with the Minister's remarks on the work of the Committee and extend my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed), for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) and, of course, for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who led us in Committee. The Minister made some important points, especially on how we found ourselves in agreement on much of the Bill. He has been extremely agreeable and it is always a pleasure to debate such important issues with him.

I do not oppose the Bill's content, but its potential impact on the whole waste policy is a huge wasted opportunity. It does not provide a strategy for all types of waste, which is what the UK really needs. The Government have failed to piece the waste issue together despite their move to commit us to numerous EU waste-related directives. We are fast on our way to missing all our immediate waste targets. We are supposed to reduce landfill to 75 per cent. of the 1995 levels by 2010, but last year approximately 91 per cent. of our waste still went to landfill. The target to recycle 25 per cent. of municipal solid waste by 2005 will not only cause us embarrassment but is likely to cost us more than £180 million a year in fines.

The Bill is a step in the right direction to compliance with the landfill directive, but it does not begin to address how we can deliver on the waste electrical and electronic equipment, end-of-life vehicles, and packaging waste directives, not to mention the encroaching hazardous waste disaster.

The fundamental flaw in the Bill is its narrow, inadequate scope. I think that the Minister recognises that; he touched on it in his comments. There is no connection between all waste legislation, so the Bill is an inadequate response to all the EU directives that influence different waste streams. Our priority should be the minimisation of waste as well as its final disposal.

In a letter to me dated 29 April, the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) wrote:

"The overall intention of the Bill and indeed our waste strategy is to move waste up the hierarchy so that resource use is improved and less waste is just dumped."

The amount of waste produced is growing, which, combined with the fact that the amount sent to landfill is massively more than the amount allowed, makes the reality of fulfilling the landfill directive a mere dream.

Rather than aiding local authorities in minimising their waste at source, the Bill will penalise them in their disposal. Again, a broader context to waste management and landfilling is needed to come to terms with the complexity of waste policy. The Bill's penalty system will not encourage best environmental practice, but may instead drive local authorities to concentrate on avoiding fines for breaches.

There is no freedom in the Bill for local authorities to offer households incentives to recycle more and to minimise waste in the first place, and that is a great shame. Exactly the opposite will happen: a system of penalties will prevent local authorities from concentrating on diverting waste from landfill to recycling, as they will have to meet statutory targets in non-target years. Incentives work better, and the Bill neither encourages nor allows for best environmental practice.

Any money from fines or landfill tax must go straight back to local authorities to finance recycling schemes instead of lining the Chancellor's pocket. Waste disposal authorities need all the assistance they can get. If the Government insist on waste disposal authorities achieving set targets, even in non-target years, they need capital to afford the required waste management infrastructure. Available funding for local authorities and the necessary expenditure for compliance with waste objectives is unbalanced. The Government must recognise in legislation that the current funding is inadequate.

Another point of contention is that although there is no attempt in the Bill to deal with the energy from waste, fly tipping or planning procedures, it will inevitably have a knock-on effect on all those issues. Ignoring them by exclusion will not mean that they disappear. We must come to a point in the very near future when the Government have to deal with all waste legislation in a comprehensive way; we have not seen that in the Bill.

Incineration is undoubtedly unpopular with local people, but is not the reality that it offers the only way for local authorities to meet their stringent targets on time? The Government cannot have it both ways—setting such targets with penalties but not giving any support or assistance to the local authorities that have to achieve them. Sweden and the Netherlands are examples of countries with large-scale incineration policies, yet both have a serious commitment to the environment. They use only incinerators that recover energy from waste. The Minister knows how strongly I feel about that. A decision in legislation must be made on incineration soon, and I suggest that we take into account the experience and lessons of other European countries with far better waste management track records than our own rather dismal one.

The Bill fails to consider landfill, recycling and incineration together. Fly tipping should possibly be made a criminal offence, as I suggested to the Minister in Committee. That matter is important, and we need not only to deal with the fly tipper but to introduce a duty of ownership of fly-tipped waste. There would then be a duty on people to behave responsibly in dealing with their waste.

Why does the Bill deal only with biodegradable waste allowances when such waste makes up only 7 per cent. of the total? What about hazardous waste? When will the Government get round to dealing with the end of co-disposal of hazardous waste, which is supposed to happen by 16 July 2004—in nine months? I shall not mention the failure to transpose the new EU hazardous waste list into national legislation. That, along with the WEEE, end-of-life vehicles and packaging waste directives, will add to the duties of local authorities. The Bill does not, in its landfill targets, account for the further costs, rules and penalties that will result from those. Consequently, the assessed regulatory impact is an underestimate.

Mention of the impact of removing the very high temperature necessary to kill pathogens in composted food was also removed from the Bill, and if another foot and mouth crisis is to be avoided, the Government must realise that they have created a serious risk of food waste harbouring disease being spread on our fields as compost. I hope that if there is any further evidence that suggests that such waste carries a risk, the Government will review that gamble very carefully.

The implications of the borrowing and banking of landfill allowances in clause 6 are also a concern as they may act as a disincentive for local authorities to make the immediate decisions and improvements necessary. That will reduce the inclination to trade. A longer-term vision is necessary, and a realistic assessment of the cost of implementing the Bill is essential.

We are concerned about what is omitted from the Bill. The landfill directive is treated in isolation, and other waste management directives and problems are ignored. The chance to provide the best overall waste management policy in the Bill has been lost, leaving waste management as vulnerable, uncertain and unconnected as it was before. Thanks to the Government's piecemeal approach to EU legislation and targets, the Bill is a potential environmental, legal and financial catastrophe.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am not quite as downbeat as the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin), although I do not disagree with the thrust of his comments. It was interesting to see how much common ground there was between Conservative, Liberal Democrat and, indeed, Labour Members in Committee, although they voted different ways on amendments and new clauses.

I thank the Minister for his conciliatory, helpful and courteous summary, a welcome approach that he nearly always takes. I thank his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), who tried to engage with serious issues in the Bill. It struck me that he always wanted to go slightly further than the civil servants wanted, which may be one reason why he is no longer in a ministerial position. I thank the plethora of Conservative spokesmen who have shared Opposition responsibilities with me, including the hon. Members for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin), for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) and for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed). There may have been one or two others, but we certainly got through a few during our proceedings. I thank other Committee members who made the Bill worth while and approached our discussions in a serious but friendly way.

I will not claim that the Bill is much improved, but it has been helpfully tweaked at the end of its progress. It still has a big fault, which I shall not labour, as it has been referred to by other Members today. It deals with only one strand of the waste hierarchy, and was introduced for no purpose other than to fulfil an EU directive on the implementation of the landfill directive. Another of the Bill's failures concerns the fact that is not possible to change one bit of the hierarchy without considering the effect on the rest of the hierarchy. It gets landfill provisions right in line with the EU directive but goes wrong by failing to ask what will happen to waste that is not landfilled, and whether we should try to encourage particular schemes. The Bill does not discourage incineration, which is now officially a disposal technique. Unfortunately, for reasons that have been given today, it encourages it.

To return to comments that I made on Second Reading, we shall not oppose the Bill. In fact, we welcome it as far as it goes. It is innovative and right to use financial instruments to achieve environmental ends. The Liberal Democrats are keen on that, and we want to see more of it. The scheme created by the Bill is innovative—let us be honest about that—and the environment will be marginally better as a consequence. We shall therefore support the Bill as we did on Second Reading. However, our criticism is the same as criticism levelled at the Water Bill—as the hon. Member for Leominster rightly said, it is not what is in the Bill but what is not that is of concern to Members. It has been argued that we cannot discuss the Water Bill without looking in parallel at the water framework directive. Similarly, it could be argued that we cannot discuss the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill without considering, in parallel, effects on all parts of the hierarchy. I am afraid that the Government have not undertaken such a consideration.

The Minister said that the environment remains a high priority for DEFRA, and I believe that. However, in the period of just over a year in which I have been an environment spokesman, there has not been a single oral statement by the Secretary of State on an environmental issue. There has been one on hunting, but not on environmental issues. The Minister may therefore need to think about DEFRA's priorities. He does not need to convince Opposition Members of the need to take action but his colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry and the Treasury. My honest judgment, as I have told the Secretary of State, is that DEFRA's instincts are, by and large, right, and it tries to do the right thing. However, it is a small player compared with the DTI and the Treasury, which will not play ball. I am keen not to attack DEFRA, which I genuinely want to help, but the Minister must punch above his weight when dealing with some of his colleagues in the DTI.

Earlier, I discussed printer cartridges in relation to the WEEE directive. All the evidence that I am getting from all sides of industry and elsewhere, and from my contacts in the European Union, suggests that DEFRA is making the right noises, the DTI is making the wrong noises, and the DTI is going to win. That is one small example. The Minister must make sure that DEFRA starts winning some of the battles in which the environment should come first, and he must put the DTI and the Treasury in their place, if he can do that, to some extent at least. I say that to the Minister in all sincerity; I want to see him and his colleagues in DEFRA doing it.

There are a number of omissions from the Bill, but I will not run through them. The hon. Member for Leominster touched on those. Fly tipping is a serious issue and I am not convinced that the Government have got hold of it. The Minister will recall that in Committee we tabled a new clause to deal with that, which the Government did not accept. However, the Home Secretary is to introduce some proposals to deal with part of the problem, and there have been improvements in the sentencing guidelines. I hope that will help. As the Minister knows, 600,000 tonnes of material was fly-tipped in the country in the last year for which figures were given in a parliamentary answer to me, so fly tipping is a big issue.

I hope that the Minister will—I think that he will—take away the comments made not just on Report and Third Reading, but in Committee. Even if the Government do not want to accept amendments from the Opposition, it is important that they understand why they were tabled and try to find ways of ensuring that the Government's own waste hierarchy is delivered. That is what we all want. We want the Government to succeed with their waste hierarchy. The amendments that we tabled, and those of the Conservatives too, I think, have been designed to achieve just that. They were not wrecking amendments, but supporting amendments.

I thank the Minister for his summing-up. I hope that he will take these comments on board, that the measures that the Government have implemented will bring about the waste hierarchy that he wants, and that he will consider further measures, hopefully in a holistic way.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I would call this a two-cheers Bill—one cheer for the fact that it is right in principle, and another cheer because it goes some way in the direction in which we all want to proceed, but it lacks the third cheer because it is rather incoherent. It does not link up with all the other levers of action that are essential if we are to enhance the environmental protection of our country and start dealing with waste as it should be dealt with.

The real problem is that the Bill is far too narrowly drawn. It does not provide a comprehensive strategy for all forms of waste. I know the Minister said that he intends to introduce legislation later to do that. I regret that, during the exhaustive consideration in Committee, the Government seemed incapable of understanding that a single portfolio Bill would send out signals to local authorities that were much more coherent, much easier to follow and far more powerful. I hope that we can all agree that legislation is at its best when it is formulated as a vehicle to drive forward a vision that is long term, holistic and sustainable. The Bill gets only two cheers because it is a singular, isolated and panic-stricken reaction to a European demand that the UK is unlikely to meet.

Angela Watkinson (Conservative, Upminster)

Does my hon. Friend agree that one omission from the Bill is that it does not deal with developing uses for recycled materials? Would it not be easier for local authorities to encourage people to recycle more if they knew what would be done with the material and could see that there was some point to recycling—that there was an end-product? The markets need to be developed.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is one of the points that I made on Report, which is why I think it is such an excellent one.

The Bill could have, first, established a system for collecting waste that makes it easier and cheaper to recycle, but it does not. Secondly, the Bill could have included incentives to assist those who use recyclates. There could have been tax incentives or demands that certain products contain a specific percentage of recyclates. The Bill does not contain any such incentives. It makes demands of local authorities and imposes penalties on them, but it does not give them the means to undertake all the expensive work that will be necessary. It also fails to encourage local authorities to take the most environmentally friendly option.

I am sure that the Minister will have read the record of what occurred in Committee, where I proposed that money that the Government raised through penalties should be hypothecated back to local authorities to enable them to invest in the recycling plants that they would need. The Government ignored that proposal. I also proposed that, instead of going to the Chancellor to assist him in filling part of the £9 billion, £12 billion or £17 billion hole that he and his policies have created, part of the considerable increase in landfill tax should go to local authorities to enable them to do what we want them to do—deal with waste in the most environmentally friendly manner. They also ignored that proposal. That is profoundly regrettable, because we all agree on what we are trying to achieve. We all agree that we produce too much waste, that we do not deal with it properly and that the waste that we produce is poisoning us. The Bill does not give local authorities incentives to deal with the problem, to ensure that we leave behind us a cleaner society and country than we inherited.

The Minister tried to persuade us that the Government have a thoroughly coherent strategy, but he certainly failed to persuade Opposition Members and probably failed to convince some of his colleagues. There is no doubt in my mind that the effect of the Bill—we have exhaustively explored the reasons why—will be more incineration. I suggest that he read the Friends of the Earth briefing about Norfolk having voted for residual waste treatment for 64 per cent. of its waste. Together with the example in Sussex that I cited, that pamphlet demonstrates that local authorities will not be able to deal with their waste except by incineration.

As the Minister believes that the Government are operating in a coherent fashion, perhaps he can assist me. The Government have imposed tens of thousands more houses on Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire intends to build some of them on a brownfield site.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

Excellent.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I agree. The houses will be built at a place called Elstow. However, the intention is to locate a landfill site alongside them. The Minister believes that the Government are coherent, the Government have said that they want all these new houses, and he says that he does not like landfill—and I agree. In that case, can I be assured that, when I come to see the Government and complain about the landfill site that is being established next door to a brand-new development of many thousands of houses, they will say no to that site?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that the decision on the landfill site and, indeed, the houses, will be taken by the local planning authority.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

But the Minister knows that a Secretary of State can, if he wishes, take such a decision if it is sent up the system. I trust that the Minister, who tells us that the Government are so coherent, will ensure that we do not have a landfill site that we do not want next to houses that the Government do want. That would be extremely helpful and a genuine example of coherent government.

The Bill does deserve two cheers. Ministers have, on occasion, been helpful—the Minister's remarks at the start of Third Reading were particularly so. He clearly recognises that this extremely narrowly drawn Bill might have been better had it had been drawn rather wider, although I realise that he cannot admit that. I hope that, in the near future, the ends of the strings will be tied together and we will get a series of measures that send the right signals to local authorities in dealing with waste—namely, that they should follow the hierarchy and encourage less waste to be produced, then deal with it in the most effective, environmentally friendly manner, provided that that is commercially sustainable. If the Minister can promise the House that that is the Government's aim and that they will fulfil it in the very near future, I shall be a happy man.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed), particularly as he made such an important contribution in Committee. I, too, served on the Committee and found its proceedings instructive, good-humoured and valuable. Although, sadly, few of the amendments that we discussed found their way into the Bill, our discourse was extremely worthwhile. There was a fair degree of unanimity on the importance of the subject matter, and we heard some remarkably eloquent speeches. It proved to be the swan song of the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), who will be greatly missed following his departure from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Nevertheless, the Bill is a missed opportunity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire said, it is welcome as far as it goes, but simply does not go far enough. That stores up real problems for the future. Every month, all over the country, serious decisions are being taken on waste, particularly with regard to incineration. Those decisions cannot be lightly reversed in the future. Often, they result in council tax payers or the local community that is responsible for feeding the incinerators being saddled with long-term contracts of up to 20 years.

I am disappointed that the Government, who, especially in their early years, did a significant amount for the environment, should throw away this opportunity because they have lost their interest in, or appetite for, the wider environmental agenda. Having made progress early on, they are willing to rest on their laurels.

That has been borne out by my experience on the Environmental Audit Committee. We have a Secretary of State who, when she last appeared before us to discuss this subject, seemed at best complacent and at worst unwilling to address the issue. The one bright spot on the horizon is that since the Committee sat the Government have reconsidered, and have accepted a private Member's Bill piloted through the House by the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock). It is not to the Government's credit that they fought that Bill to the end, and that only all-party pressure—including pressure from Labour Back Benchers—forced them to accept it, albeit in a much watered-down form. Unfortunately, that Bill plugs just one of the holes that are apparent in the Bill that we are discussing.

This Bill singularly lacks ambition, and a holistic approach to an issue that really does require big thinking. It is ironic that so few of us are in the Chamber tonight, given that waste is an issue guaranteed to fill a village hall or community centre anywhere in the country. Go to a constituency, threaten to put an incinerator there, offer to install a landfill site in an inappropriate place, and you will see the public thronging in. The issue is not obscure, or unrelated to people's everyday lives. In my constituency we are fighting tooth and nail against an incinerator and against an inappropriate landfill site, in order to improve recycling and the waste hierarchy.

I am pleased that the Minister, in his new role, has grasped the importance of the waste priority. I was encouraged by his reference to the need to minimise and to re-use. That, however, is empty rhetoric if it is not matched in the Bill, not just by a strategy, but by a strategy that is properly resourced and backed up—a strategy with real teeth. What we see in the Bill is no more than a wish list. The Bill has no guts: it is not equipped to ensure that we make the improvements that are so desperately needed. England currently recycles 13.5 per cent. of its household waste, which is one of the lowest rates in Europe. The United States recycles 31 per cent., while just across the channel Germany and Austria recycle 48 per cent. The Government have set targets requiring our rate to rise to 25 per cent. by 2005 and 30 per cent. by 2010—and, rather unambitiously, to 33 per cent. by 2015.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Would those targets not be much easier to meet if the Government expressed the targets for local authorities in the same percentage terms, rather than in terms of weight? Authorities often go for the heaviest product, rather than that which is most valuably recycled.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

My right hon. Friend is spot on. I would expect nothing less from him. Volume is also an important consideration. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire mentioned in Committee that something that is light in weight may have a large volume in landfill terms. I am sorry that the Government have not taken up his pertinent points.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

When asked about the weight-and-volume issue in Committee, the Minister's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), said:

"I am pleased to say, without commitment, that we will seriously consider the hon. Gentleman's idea. I will write to him when the Department has had a serious look at the proposal." —[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 3 April 2003; c. 18.]

Would it not be helpful if the Minister could tell us what consideration the Government have given to the idea?

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

It would indeed. I am looking at the Minister now to see whether he will adhere to that commitment.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Is not it amazing that a Minister should consider it a bright new idea when it has been pressed on the Government for their entire period in office? It is simply a sensible idea that any sane person would implement.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

That assumes that the Government are heavy on common sense, but they are not.

The Government have set targets that are not especially ambitious. It is therefore troubling that it appears that those relatively unambitious targets will not be met. The Environmental Audit Committee stated in its most recent report that the UK "will not come close" to meeting any national targets for recycling. In its view, the targets for 2010 and 2015 will be missed by a "wide margin". Since that report was published, my colleagues on that Committee have seen little to change our minds. The Minister's fine words in the debate, encouraging though they are, are not matched by anything that could be described as a credible strategy backed with resources.

My greatest anxiety about the Bill is that it pushes waste from landfill to incineration. The Minister said that he does not believe that he is promoting incineration, but such an even-handed policy is not enough. Market intervention is needed to promote recycling and level the playing field because the renewables obligation and other tax breaks make incineration a more attractive commercial option than recycling. Unless we tackle that with market mechanisms to jump-start the recycling industry, we shall simply pour more rubbish into incinerators. The Minister may be equivocal about that, but I believe that it is a bad thing. There is no greater disincentive for local communities than knowing that they are doing their bit to recycle, compost and minimise while their local authorities are signing long-term contracts for huge new burners. The number of planning applications for new burners is disturbing.

It is not good enough for the Minister to say that he is open minded about fiscal incentives to redress the economic imbalance in the waste hierarchy. He needs to hold urgent talks with his Treasury colleagues and present a genuinely environmental solution that is not simply a back-door stealth tax to raise money for the Exchequer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) said, any further revenue that is raised must go back to the environmental economy.

We urgently need the Minister to confer with his colleagues, because the Bill is not a response to a blank sheet of paper. Communities are already saddled with contracts and more are being prepared as we speak. That requires urgent action. If we are to make the progress that the public ask of us, we must deal with the whole subject and not simply cherry-pick the easy bits and leave the more difficult options for another day.

Today, we can support only the Bill, not items that it does not contain. It constitutes a wasted opportunity that speaks of a Government who have run out of ambition and ideas. We know that Governments who run out of those qualities are ultimately overtaken by events.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

With the leave of the House, I shall make a few comments.

A few events have overtaken the House tonight. The competition outside the Chamber might explain why attendance has been a little thin. [Interruption.] I must admit that that applies to all parties—we are competing with other entertainment.

The entertainment does not detract from the fact that a range of sensible points has been made in the debate, and I do not accept that the Bill constitutes a wasted opportunity. It is important that the issues have been addressed in this way.

I would like to reply specifically to some of the points that have been raised by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed), but first I shall deal with the concerns about incineration raised by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker). I quite understand that if there is an application for an incinerator and a landfill site in his constituency, his constituents are bound to be concerned. As we have already discussed, incineration and landfill are not exactly popular measures. They are the kind of provisions that everyone understands we must have, but that everyone wants in some other place. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the way to reduce this problem is to concentrate on the waste hierarchy, on minimisation and on re-use and recycling. He is wrong, however, to say that there are no financial instruments in place to encourage that. The way in which we have re-allocated landfill tax credits through the waste minimisation fund is among a range of measures that have brought about changes in relation to the minimisation of waste. We hope to see further progress in that direction.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Could not the Minister have done much more had the Chancellor not made sure that increases in the landfill tax did not count towards the Minister's environmental aims? Will he have a word with the Chancellor about stealing this money from the environment to pay for other things?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

There is clearly an argument about the rate of increase being applied to the landfill tax. I happen to think that the rate of increase is an important issue, and that £35 a tonne is about the right level. I would like to see us get there as quickly as possible. The right hon. Gentleman will understand better than most people in the House, however, that the Treasury will want to weigh up the effects on industry of those fiscal measures. Nevertheless, I have every sympathy with his general point.

The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire asked about fines. Subject to developing an acceptable system for applying this, the Government will recycle back to local authorities any civil penalties that are incurred as a result of a failure to meet the targets set in the Bill. There will, therefore, be a recycling of money. I hope that answers the hon. Gentleman's question.

Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

May I just thank the Minister for that?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I hope that that counts as a third cheer to add to the two that the hon. Gentleman has already very generously given us.

The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) made a constructive speech, and I take the points that he made. We need to take a holistic approach to all these issues. I understand his point about printer cartridges, an issue that has come up a few times. One of the problems involved in applying the WEEE directive to printer cartridges is that they are not classified as electrical equipment. There might, however, be other ways of dealing with the issue in terms of European directives. Discussions are under way, and I am not unsympathetic to his point. If we can make some progress on this, I would be only too happy to do so.

I was a bit disappointed by the contribution from the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin), who has been a diligent member of the Committee and Opposition spokesperson, along with the hon. Member for Lewes. He has generally been constructive and approached the issues in a useful way. I have to say that I think that the hon. Member for Lewes was a little evasive on the incineration issue, but we will not go too far down that road now, as we are in constructive mode at the moment.

I say sincerely to hon. Members who talk about wrapping everything up into one Bill that I genuinely understand the logic in what they are saying, but there are serious practical issues that I would ask them to consider. Much as I enjoyed my discussions with Opposition Members in Committee, their proposal to wrap up in one Bill the various packaging directives, the landfill measures that we are dealing with here, and all the other work streams that I have emphasised are in progress would produce a Bill that would put the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" in the shade and would lock us up in Committee together for the next two years. Much as I enjoyed our discussion, there is a limit, and there is also the practical issue of how to scrutinise particular issues. We have approached the various directives in different ways at different times, so that they gain the proper scrutiny that they deserve.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Let me try once more, just five minutes before Third Reading finishes. The point is that the implementation of the landfill directive will move somewhere else more than half of the waste currently in landfill sites. The criticism is that the Government have not planned where it is going. That is the main issue: where is that waste going? The Government should incentivise the waste hierarchy to ensure that it goes to the right place, but they have not done so.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The waste hierarchy is incentivised to a certain extent. We can argue about the level of those incentives and whether we need further ones. I am not averse to that. I have acknowledged that our approach is dynamic. We do not expect the measures that we are taking now to stand still. We expect them, including the targets for waste and recycling, to be reviewed. We shall examine them again in due course.

We have not disagreed about where incineration is in the waste hierarchy. The Government are not advocating incineration or any particular approach, apart from stressing the importance of minimisation and recycling in the hierarchy, which is where we are putting resources. All I am saying is that we sometimes have to opt for the best environmental solution on environmental grounds, but the best environmental solution may not always be the most popular one. That is an issue for organisations such as Friends of the Earth to take into account if they are serious about environmental issues, minimising the impact on the environment and finding the best solution. As I say, it may not always be the most popular, but people should argue for what they believe is the right solution in the circumstances. The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire made a similar good point about how particular issues should be judged.

I think that we have had a useful and good debate. Obviously, the Government cannot accept all the amendments, but we have made a big effort to deal with the points that hon. Members have raised. I have already said that not all of them are appropriately dealt with by this particular Bill, but they remain important issues. We are addressing them through such means as the packaging directive, implementation of various EU directives, recycling landfill credits and the waste and resources action programme. We are investing millions of pounds of support through the challenge fund for local authorities. We have made a significant increase of more than £1 billion, I believe, for the application of that fund. All those important measures demonstrate that the Government take environmental issues seriously.

We have freely acknowledged that waste and recycling in this country starts from a very low base—we have no argument about that—but I genuinely believe that we have made more progress in the last few years than in the previous decade. We have seen heightened awareness from all parties and all sides in the debate of how to apply environmental measures.

I repeat my thanks to hon. Members for their constructive contributions. The Bill will make a difference. I do not believe for a moment that it represents the only measure that we can put in place. I have demonstrated to the House the various other work streams that are in progress. We will have a continuing debate and I do not disagree with many of the points that have been made during the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with amendments.