Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Lord Henley

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, it is very interesting that the Opposition have chosen to table a fairly narrow amendment to RIPA to explore these issues. In fact, the criticism from the very moment that it was conceived, let alone drafted or passed into law, was that it was poorly drafted and had many problems which I shall enumerate more fully under my Amendment 128.

It is interesting that the Opposition have chosen to table such a narrow amendment. Have they ignored all the other constructive suggestions that have been made? They are focusing their attention simply on this one issue when, in fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has pointed out, it is probably the area of RIPA with the least problems.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful for that intervention from my noble friend Lady Miller.

The measures in Clauses 37 and 38, together with the changes that we propose to make through secondary legislation, will deliver the coalition commitment to limit local authority use of RIPA—a commitment we made when the coalition came into being following the last election. The Bill also gives effect to the conclusions of the counter-terrorism review which was published in January. That review recommended two changes to the use of RIPA powers by local authorities.

First, these clauses will require that the exercise of RIPA powers by local authorities be subject to prior judicial approval. The second change, which will limit local authority use of directed surveillance to the investigation of offences which carry a maximum six-month sentence, will be implemented through secondary legislation made under RIPA. That will ensure that direct surveillance cannot be used to investigate relatively low-level matters, such as littering, dog fouling and schools enrolment, while still allowing it to be used against large-scale matters such as fly-tipping or waste-tipping, extensive criminal damage and serious or serial benefit fraud cases.

In response to representations received during the review, we have decided to make an exception to the seriousness threshold for offences relating to the underage sales of tobacco and alcohol. The investigation of those offences relies heavily on the use of directed surveillance and so in these circumstances the review concluded that it was appropriate to have a limited carve-out so that trading standards officers could continue to take effective action against businesses which seek to flout the law on age-related sales.

The conclusions of the counter-terrorism review were endorsed by my noble friend Lord Macdonald, who provided independent oversight of the conduct of the review. However, the amendment seeks a rather wider review of RIPA. I will say straightaway that, although the Government agree that it is essential that people’s privacy is protected from any unnecessary or disproportionate access by public bodies discharging their duties, this is precisely why RIPA was introduced, debated and passed by Parliament. And it is precisely why the way it is working is kept under constant review—not just by the Home Office but by the independent commissioners who report to the Prime Minister and publish annual reports which are laid before Parliament.

In bringing forward the current proposals to limit local authority use of RIPA, we are responding to public concern about a specific area in which the law operates. The measures are intended to restore confidence and ensure that any fears of future misuse are unfounded. But there is no well-founded indication that there is a need for much more fundamental reform of RIPA. Indeed, any regulatory regime would need to be built on precisely the same principles and contain the same human rights safeguards as RIPA is built on.

No one should be complacent about how our right to privacy is safeguarded. The measures before us come from one review and were endorsed by a public consultation. We need to get on and deliver them, but I put it to the noble Lord that another review before we have delivered the recommendations of the first would be premature and no doubt expensive—I do not know how many other reviews he will propose during the passage of the Bill. We will continue to monitor how the new arrangements are working in practice and adjust our approach if necessary. The developments will be reported on also by the independent RIPA commissioner, whose published reports, as the noble Lord will be aware, are laid before Parliament each year. We are confident that the measures in the Bill, together with the associated secondary legislation introducing the seriousness threshold, will prevent local authorities using RIPA in a way that undermines public confidence. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able withdraw his amendment.

Agriculture: Animal Feed

Debate between Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Lord Henley

Thursday 8th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we will continue to discuss these matters with the supermarkets and others. Obviously, where it is appropriate, food waste can go to feed animals—already some food waste can do so, when it has been appropriately separated from meat and other such products. However, as I made clear earlier, any loosening of what is happening will depend on scientific evidence and consideration of these matters. I also think that it is important, as the noble Lord makes clear, that we take opinion along with us on this matter.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, would the Minister accept that traditionally fed pigs are very popular with the public in terms of the flavour of pork, and so on? They certainly were until the change in their food. Feeding pigs largely on soya has an unintended consequence, in that all the imports of soya are leading to the further destruction of the rainforests. We really must make clear that using our food waste as best we can to feed to pigs has important consequences much further away in the world.

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend is right to point to further consequences of feeding animals in this way, in terms of producing the amount of soya used. Again, I stress to her, we should not make any changes unless the scientific evidence assures us that that is right and proper.

Landfill (Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations 2011

Debate between Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Lord Henley

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I am pleased that the Government have met the previous targets. Although I do not want to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Knight, I understand that this is all about targets and that they are driven from the EU—the final target, of course, being zero waste to landfill—so we are tied in. One of the benefits of the EU is that it keeps us to targets, however unpopular they may be; it forces us to take action, and the effectiveness of that is shown by the continuing progress here.

I am particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was able to explain to us that municipal waste now includes commercial waste collected from, for example, catering outlets, restaurants and so on. Under this statutory instrument we are discussing biodegradable waste. It was difficult when there was one set of biodegradable waste collected from households and another stream that was regarded as commercial. The fact that those can now be regarded as one is a good step forward.

I am looking forward as well to the Question tomorrow. That is particularly pertinent when we are looking, for example, at traditionally fed pigs. Although we learnt a hard lesson through the BSE crisis, we need to move on and look at a much more constructive approach to what we do with what we may regard as waste—used vegetable matter, waste from the production of cheese and so on—and ensure that we are not importing, for example, soya that has forced further rainforest destruction, when we could have been using our waste to feed our own livestock that we then eat. That is the traditional way that it was done; people liked the taste of pork in those days, and there is no reason why we cannot go back to that.

Given the limited nature of the statutory instrument, those are my only comments. Were it any wider, I would ask the Minister what further responsibility the Government intend to give to producers, because producer responsibility is also an important way to reduce overall landfill. However, I see this SI as a good step on the way to zero waste, and I welcome it.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their comments. I hope to answer some of them. First, let us deal with the Question on pigswill tomorrow. Let us hope that we can have a rational discussion on it and that it will not turn into one of those Parliamentary Questions that appear on Radio 4 the next day where they try to mock this House. This House can discuss these things properly, and let us hope that we can.

Secondly, moving on to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, about targets, I gave my views earlier. In general, I am not a great fan of targets because they have a danger of distorting how people behave. Targets can play a part, though, and they appear here. We have to live with targets sometimes because they are imposed upon us, but I think we all accept that targets do not always work in exactly the way that we would like.

Thirdly, the noble Lord asked how much organic waste, food waste and all that went to landfill. Obviously, we would like to put somewhere else all of what we call in crude terms “smelly waste”, and get it out of the black bag. It is not good that it goes there; that is a bad thing; it creates methane that seeps out; and there are better ways to dispose of it. How that should be done is a matter that, in the main, is best left to local authorities to decide in their local areas, because different areas have different ways of collecting refuse and different priorities.

Fourthly, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked for my general view on the waste review. It is rather difficult to give a complete summary at this stage of what we are trying to do. Subject to the usual channels, we might have a debate on it. Perhaps I may put it in very simple terms: our view is that we want to make it easy for people to do the right thing because we believe that people want to do the right thing. We believe that institutions and local authorities want to do the right thing, but we want to make that easy for them, rather than regulating and forcing them into line. We will have to pursue that and see how it goes. The noble Lord can propose a debate on this subject in future, when we can consider it at greater length.

Fifthly, the noble Lord asked about local authorities closing recycling centres. I have seen comments about this in the press. Local authorities, as noble Lords will know, have a duty to provide the appropriate amount of recycling centres for their areas. As I understand it, those local authorities have been closing sites that they felt were superfluous. Obviously, it is a question of fact and the degree to which they are still meeting their obligations. We and others will look at that issue. It is important that local authorities continue to provide appropriate cover, as they are obliged to by statute.

The noble Lord asked whether it would be sufficient if Wales and Scotland did better than us and we did slightly less well, but overall the UK was within EU targets. I had better take advice on that before I properly respond, but one has to accept that England represents about 85 per cent of the UK and it is therefore unlikely that super performance by the three devolved Administrations would be sufficient to get us across any boundaries. We will see about that and I will write to the noble Lord, if appropriate.

The same is also true of the Treasury—that dread word that the noble Lord mentioned. I am always very wary when anyone mentions the Treasury. He mentioned exports of landfill. We will have a look at that point and I will respond in due course, if necessary.

I hope that I have dealt with most of the noble Lord’s questions. If I have not done so, I shall write further. I congratulate him because his colleague in the Commons took up all of seven lines on this subject and the debate was completed in seven minutes. We have now reached 15 minutes, which shows that the greater scrutiny of this House is, as always, working as it should be.