European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), because that was an absolutely perfect speech. It had to be made and I am glad that he did it.

We have talked in general terms today about lots of the things to do with the new clause and what it might mean, about clause 11, and about the 111 things that require some attention. I want to look at how issues of waste are dealt with within the EU. The EU waste framework directive flows into the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012. The European landfill directive, the European packaging and packaging waste directive, and various other EU directives are currently implemented by the Scottish Government. The EU sets the rules within those frameworks and directives, and the Scottish Government have flexibility, as do the other devolved nations, on how they implement them.

Without any certainty over what happens on the day of Brexit, we can have no deal, no certainty and no regulation of those matters. In Scotland, we have developed a circular economy strategy and made a lot of progress towards the implementation of the EU’s circular economy action plan. We have made more progress than the rest of the UK has, and we have made different progress. The directives have given us the flexibility to take a different road. Were the matter to come back to the UK Government, we could not be guaranteed the flexibility we need to make progress with the plans that we have already embarked on.

The Local Government Information Unit recently produced an excellent briefing on waste disposal and Brexit. The briefing raises specific concerns about the future UK directive, which could well be less ambitious than our plans. We have heard a lot from various Tories in the past about cutting red tape and regulations, but doing so could have a serious impact on the interesting and important issue of waste collection. Scotland’s zero waste plan is award winning and ambitious, as we are on climate change. We should have full control over it, and we should not have to drag behind the UK if it does not wish to step forward as quickly as we do.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady says that the plan is ambitious, but, in practice, waste from Scotland is simply being transferred into England, and there is very little enforcement of the so-called zero waste plan.

[Alison Thewliss]

I would take issue with that, and our plan is ambitious. An awful lot of our plan depends on the existence of a European market for waste. Lots of waste goes backwards and forwards to Europe for processing.

There has been no clear detail from the Government about what they mean by an interim period or a temporary period before further powers are released to the Scottish Government. We already know that the market for waste exists, and taking that market away will create uncertainty. Businesses face huge uncertainty, because there is a big private market in waste; I have a large processing facility in my constituency, for example. The Confederation of Paper Industries has said that its members need to be sure which regulations they will have to operate under. If paper is going into European markets, it needs to meet the standards required by those markets, so we need the regulations in place to allow that to happen.

Hon. Members might not know that paper is a £6.5 billion industry. The UK is the world’s largest net importer of paper, and the industry is doing quite well out of the Bill, which is producing huge amounts of paper. The regulations determine our participation in the paper market, and certainty is important. We need clarity, so that we can make progress on recycling and other things that we have started on. If our ability to work under directives is taken back to the UK Government, who do not share exactly our environmental ambitions or links to European markets, where does that leave Scotland?

There is uncertainty as well for local government. If we do not have the rules or the framework, can we just throw our waste in the street and the council is no longer obliged to collect it? Those things are underpinned by EU waste directives about the processing and treatment of waste, and without them there is no framework at all.

I want to speak briefly about where the power lies in another area. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) and a couple of hon. Members who are no longer in their places mentioned food and food labelling, a lot of which is dealt with by the European Food Safety Authority. Of particular interest to me is the labelling and marketing of infant formula. I am fairly sure that the Scottish Government may wish to act to regulate infant formula further, but the UK, as has been evidenced in questions that I have raised on the issue, may not wish to do so.

The UK has long used EU law as a means to get around the full implementation of the international code of marketing of breast-milk substitutes. If we are no longer in the EU and we can set up the frameworks ourselves and make progress on the issue, why should the Scottish Government have to lag behind? Why should we have to wait while those powers are held at Westminster for an indeterminate length of time—it has been described as temporary and interim, but how long it is we do not know—when we want to make progress on policies?

The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) made a very good point about organ donation and presumed consent in that, when the Welsh Government had such powers, they made progress and had a good policy, which has led the way in the UK. In Scotland, we have had the smoking ban and other progressive health policies. If action on such policies is wrapped up in frameworks or EU directives, how can we be certain—in the context of clause 11 and of this Government not accepting any amendments that would give the devolved Administrations competence in these areas—that the devolved Administrations will be able to take the action we actually want to take, and how long will we have to wait for Westminster to give us back our powers?