The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) on obtaining the debate. I gather that he was supposed to be having a debate in Westminster Hall on the Arpley landfill site but lost the opportunity when the House prorogued. I am pleased to have the chance to respond to the serious points he has made, and to recognise how diligently he has represented the interests of his constituents, including as he rightly said, holding a meeting with my noble Friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach. In regard to my hon. Friend’s invitation to me to visit Arpley, I am sure that I would thoroughly enjoy it, but I think I must defer to my noble Friend, who is the responsible Minister, as my hon. Friend well knows. That would be more appropriate, although there may be issues of propriety, given that the application is under consideration.
As my hon. Friend may appreciate, I may fail to respond to some of the points that he has raised; I certainly cannot pass judgment on the relative merits of the proposals made by WRG because, as he obviously is aware, the proposals are largely a matter for the relevant planning authority—in this case Warrington borough council—and they must be based on the merits of the application. They are also, as my hon. Friend said, matters for the Environment Agency, which regulates the operations at Arpley landfill through an environmental permit granted to the operator. The decisions made by planning authorities and the Environment Agency are also potentially open to appeal by the applicant. It is therefore important that Ministers, both in the Department for Communities and Local Government and DEFRA, remain impartial in case they are called upon at a later stage in an appellate role.
I also emphasise to my hon. Friend that it is the planning permission that is due to expire in 2013. The licence that he mentioned is, in fact, an environmental permit and that will not expire. Environmental legislation ensures that once granted, operators cannot rid themselves of their obligation to manage the site, so permits remain in force until they are surrendered and sites are returned to a satisfactory state. However, it is likely that the planning application, if granted, would require WRG to apply for a variation to its existing permit to ensure that any risks are reassessed and that appropriate measures are put in place to mitigate that risk.
I fully recognise the concerns, expressed by my hon. Friend, of those living very close to the Arpley landfill site and who may be faced with the prospect of a 12-year extension to the operations there. I am sure that my constituents would have very similar views—and yours, too, Mr Deputy Speaker. Residents living near the site—particularly those living in new housing developments built in the expectation that the site was nearing the end of its life—will perfectly naturally and understandably worry about the continued potential problems and the nuisance from traffic movements, noise, odour and so on from tipping, although I am pleased to hear my hon. Friend refer to the applicant’s proposals to alter traffic movements.
Decisions about the grant of planning permission are always in the first instance a matter for the relevant local authority, acting in accordance with national planning policy. It is during the planning process that concerns, many of which my hon. Friend has expressed, such as the height and the contouring of the site, should be considered, as well as issues such as the routing of traffic, the positioning of site entrances from the public highway and the opportunities for alternative transport by road and rail.
The Environment Agency is charged, along with other bodies, to protect human health and the environment, not just during the operation of the site but also for many years after the site closes. Modern-day landfill sites are subject to stringent technical standards to provide long-term containment of pollutants. Pollution control monitoring of such things as leachate—contaminated water on the site—and the capture and treatment of landfill gas produced from the breakdown of biodegradable waste are all part of that. Sites will remain regulated by the agency after final closure to ensure that the pollution control systems remain operational for the long-term aftercare period needed for landfill sites.
Tipping at landfills is carried out to achieve optimum waste densities in a site, so that its slopes are stable and encourage even settlement of the contours over time. Many factors, such the nature of the waste and the moisture content, determine the rate of landfill gas production. It is not just the issue of pressure, which my hon. Friend mentioned. It is important to capture and treat landfill gas—first, because it reduces the harmful greenhouse gas emissions of methane, and secondly, because it is a form of energy recovery from waste that can be utilised.
As my hon. Friend rightly said, the proposed restructuring of the site would involve over-tipping of some areas previously tipped and completed, but contrary to his understanding, we understand that this would definitely not involve disturbance of the Birchwood area where the carcases of cattle suspected of having BSE were deposited under direction from the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. If there was such a prospect, clearly the Environment Agency would have to consult partner agencies, such as the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency, in assessing any risk from the disposal of suspected BSE cattle in the early 1990s.
The Government consider waste planning authorities to be best placed to create and to deliver waste management strategies for their areas. That means making sure that waste plans inform and are informed by relevant documents, such as the municipal waste management strategy, as well as by the relevant waste collection and disposal authorities working together—and demonstrating how they have done so under the duty to co-operate provisions of the Localism Act 2011—so as to provide effective and sustainable cross-boundary arrangements to meet their needs.
My hon. Friend challenged the Government’s record on landfill, but I assure him that we have been reducing landfill for some time. The number of operational landfill sites in England and Wales has fallen from more than 2,000 when the landfill directive was implemented in 2002 to fewer than 500 now. The amount of waste being landfilled has continued to fall year on year since 2002-03 and is now about 45% lower than a decade ago. We are already meeting our 2013 target to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill. As my hon. Friend rightly said, considerably reduced landfilling helps to explain why many of the landfill sites that remain in operation are not being completed and restored within the time scales originally envisaged, or, as in the present case, are seeking extensions to their period of operation.
Landfill should be the waste management option of last resort and be used only for wastes for which there is no alternative use. The measures outlined in our “Review of Waste Policy in England”, published last June, will play a significant role in pushing wastes up the hierarchy and away from landfill by encouraging the right infrastructure, markets and culture to enable us to treat waste more fully as a resource. I have often said that one man’s waste is another man’s raw material.
Prevention also has a great part to play, and the amount of waste produced is 6% lower than in 2006. The landfill tax—£64 per tonne now, rising to £80 per tonne in 2014-15—remains a key driver to divert waste from landfill, but we want to do better than just diverting waste. We can be more optimistic about recycling—according to the latest figures, we recycle 42.5% of waste. We should also be using a range of alternative methods, including, as my hon. Friend rightly emphasised, energy from waste and anaerobic digestion, adopting the range of options that work best locally—although, as I think he implied, we should not underestimate local opposition to power from waste or anaerobic digestion plants. I have had to deal with both in my constituency.
Even with that push, however, it would remain likely that some waste that could be put to better use would end up in landfill. The introduction of additional restrictions may therefore be warranted to achieve our ultimate aim. As a starting point, we will consult later this year on whether to introduce a restriction on the landfilling of wood waste, with the aim of diverting the still substantial tonnages that end up in landfill to better uses up the waste hierarchy, and delivering clear environmental benefits. I cannot understand why people pour wood into landfill sites.
David Mowat
The Minister says we are making progress on reducing the amount of landfill, which is true, but it still accounts for about 50% of the total, versus 3% in Germany and 5% in the Benelux countries. Will he confirm that the Government’s long-term plan is to achieve similar figures in this country? That is a long way from where we are now.
Mr Paice
I can confirm that it is the long-term plan of the Government to eliminate landfill altogether; my hon. Friend is right to challenge us on that front. On the question of why we are well behind a number of other countries, I will not make excuses for the past, but we have historically had a much larger reliance on landfill sites, because we had a high number of mineral industries, and quarries that required a form of restoration and that were obvious sites for tipping. We also had the natural protection afforded by our largely clay subsoil. We start from further behind, but that is no excuse for not continuing to do better.
I hope that I have covered a number of my hon. Friend’s points. He asked me four questions at the end of his speech. I hope that I have answered the first point, which was about our ambition for waste prevention and the waste hierarchy. Our measures are already beginning to bear fruit, and we want the pace of change to continue and increase. On the second and third points, I defer to the Department for Communities and Local Government on interpretation of the Localism Act 2011, but on meeting the proximity principle—that is, recovering waste at the nearest appropriate facility—I am afraid that there is no expectation that each waste planning authority will deal solely with its own waste.
On the fourth point, I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that the Environment Agency will assess closely any application to vary the permit, and will satisfy itself that the proposals do not result in previously deposited waste posing an unacceptable risk to health or the environment. It will ensure that the permit provides the necessary monitoring of pollutants likely to arise in landfill. My hon. Friend has asked a number of parliamentary questions on the subject. I hope that the answers given by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), have addressed some of his concerns. The Environment Agency not only takes notice of what comes from a landfill site, but studies what goes in. From that, it can derive some evidence or indication of what likely pollutants might arise. For instance, there will be dioxins only if there is a significant level of chlorine products in landfill. That is something that the Environment Agency monitors.
I would like to re-emphasise a point that is of huge concern to me as Minister with responsibility for agriculture. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South mentioned the knowledge of where carcases likely to be infected with BSE are. As I have said to him, the Environment Agency believes that it knows where they are, and it has identified that the proposed changes are not in that area. If my hon. Friend has any evidence that might disprove that, clearly I would welcome seeing it, because obviously we want to make absolutely sure that there is no risk from that.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising his concerns, which I am sure would have been raised by other Members faced with a similar situation. He has rightly, in the interests of his constituency, raised the problems, and today’s debate gave me the opportunity to provide some reassurance that we have systems that are able to strike an appropriate balance between meeting the needs of society on the one hand, and the protection of people and the environment on the other. We are making great strides in dealing with waste in accordance with the waste hierarchy—a point that he rightly reinforced—and intend to continue to do that. I hope that he can take some comfort from my remarks, and I congratulate him on the debate.
Question put and agreed to.