Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, my noble friend was kind enough to refer to my noble friend Lord Greaves. I must confess that I am standing in for him with even more trepidation on this set of proposals than I did on the previous one, where I had had some role in the passage of the marine Bill.

I think that the first thing that my noble friend would have said is that it is rather unfortunate that all this paper before us appears not to be recycled. I do not know whether my noble friend the Minister can confirm this. The symbol that usually appears on documents of this sort to show that they are on recycled paper is not present. It may be that the emblems have been mistaken, but we all have an increasing responsibility to try to make sure that we practise what we preach.

I have one or two questions. First, will my noble friend confirm that the long period since the European Court of Justice decision of, I think, 2005 that is referred to in some of the notes before us has been put to good use in dealing with the issues then raised? It is quite a long delay. I accept that these regulations deal with the directive on waste of 2008-09, but it should surely have been the concern of the previous Administration to deal with the ECJ judgment previous to that.

Secondly, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Greaves would have been able to cope with the concept of co-mingled collection much more adequately than me because it is new to me—I have no doubt that the Minister is all too aware of it—but there is a real dilemma here, of which I shall give just one illustration. My own local authority insists that the transparent windows on window envelopes are detached from the envelopes and disposed of in a completely different way. It is the first time that I have come across that anywhere in the country. It may be perfectly acceptable under these regulations for co-mingled collection, but in my locality it is not. A huge number of envelopes have such windows, as I am sure other Members of your Lordships' House will know from the mail that they receive. Every time I go home, I find myself spending quite a long time detaching windows from envelopes. The regulations do their very best, with what is described as a light-touch approach, to marry the objectives of consistency through the whole country with localism—my noble friend the Minister has referred to that. However, it is a real dilemma for the householder who, perhaps like Members of your Lordships' House, has to dispose of refuse in different parts of the country on completely different bases. Co-mingled collection is obviously an interesting issue.

I understand from what the Minister said, as well as from the briefing that I have received, that the Government are very properly insisting on trying to avoid overregulation and on giving local authorities the opportunity to take their own decisions. However, on these matters, it makes for a postcode lottery, with businesses and households through the country faced with quite different concerns and costs. It should be a constant concern of any Government to try to get that balance right. I would like to be reassured that, under the regulations, the avoidance of gold-plating and the insistence on a light touch will not result in a plethora of quite different policies in different parts of the country. That is an inevitable dilemma.

I have one other point, on timing. I note that, under the directive of November 2008, it was intended that the Government should achieve this transposition by 12 December 2010. I understand that, as a result of their failure to do that on time, an infraction letter was issued which I presume the Government have had to take note of and respond to. I just wonder where that matter stands and whether the Minister is confident that the Commission will not be able to, or will not wish to, take further action since we are some two or three months behind time on that.

I cannot pretend to be a great expert on these regulations, and no doubt I will be subject to the inevitable scrutiny of my noble friend Lord Greaves afterwards, but he would at least be concerned that these proposals seem to have been quite a long time in gestation. It so happens that they appear to have been printed on paper that has not been recycled, but I trust that when it is collected in waste bins around your Lordships' House will be appropriately recycled in the future.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, these regulations are important. As the Minister pointed out, they transpose the Waste Framework Directive. Indeed, as the Explanatory Memorandum points out, in one way or another the fulfilment of the directive's objectives is of interest to everyone in the country—householders, local authorities, businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises, NGOs, consumer groups and so forth. I am grateful that we have had the opportunity today to look at these regulations. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for representing the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, whose knowledge we miss on these occasions. I know that he has taken a deep interest in these issues for a long time.

Despite the fact that not many noble Lords are present for this debate or have spoken, these matters are of ongoing concern. I am sure that we will return to them at many points in the future on the Floor of the House and in Grand Committee. Certainly, the Opposition will be watching progress on this important matter carefully.

We are fortunate in that the Minister is in charge of this subject within the department. He is smiling—I hope that he is pleased to be in charge of it. Therefore, we are able to ask the relevant Minister the pertinent questions that need to be asked today and as this matter progresses.

The Minister reminded us that the regulations re-enact, repeal or revise three predecessor directives. With the EU, it is not always a case of adding new regulations. Sometimes, it involves repealing and scrapping previous regulations. I welcome the way that this has happened.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, mentioned that we were somewhat late in not complying with the deadline. He mentioned the infraction letter. I note that the Minister in the other place said that this was partly due to wanting to have as thorough a consultation process as possible. Obviously, I welcome the fact that a consultation has taken place. I note that the Minister in the other place also mentioned the point that was reinforced by the Minister here: that they had not wanted to gold-plate the regulations. However, I somewhat share the concern raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. We are really just introducing the minimum requirements under the directive and keeping a light touch, as the Minister said. But we need to be assured that that light touch will be effective. We also want to be assured that encouragement to go beyond these requirements will be part and parcel of the system.

The last time that the Minister and I discussed environmental issues, his noble friend Lord Deben was present. He gave the Minister a hard time in terms of wanting an assurance that we could move faster in future. Many of the points that he made in the debate on the draft producer responsibility regulations should be borne in mind for this debate, such as the possibility of an earlier review if necessary.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, the Minister said in the previous debate that the timing and circumstances of the waste review meant that two years was an acceptable period. None the less, if there are ways in which standards can be raised more quickly, that would be of great interest to us.