Environment Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 15th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 12th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

As hon. Members will recall, before we adjourned we discussed an amendment that sought to place a slightly different emphasis on elements of the schedule; we wanted to emphasise the question of single use in general, rather than just single-use plastic. The argument is that a lot of things other than plastic are single-use.

The idea is not what the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire suggested in his intervention—that we would tax everything that was single-use, which would clearly be absurd. Indeed, one would not want to tax some plastic single-use items, given that they may be appropriate in a number of circumstances. That is why, on this occasion, the use of the word “may” is correct.

Schedule 9, it appears, has been drawn narrowly in respect of plastic and therefore narrowly also in terms of single use. To emphasise that, the schedule is actually headed “Charges for single use plastic items”, not “Charges for single use items that may be plastic”. That is unfortunate because the issue is not just about manufacturers seeking to get round a ban or restriction on single-use plastic items by making single-use items from different materials; it is that the whole throwaway culture is based on single-use items in general, which may or may not be plastic.

As those who have had the pleasure of dining under covid restrictions in this building, a couple of floors down, will know, a number of throwaway items are put forward for our use, including knife, fork and spoon sets. Interestingly, those sets are sometimes made of bamboo and sometimes of plastic; that seems to depend on which night people turn up for what meal. The principle is exactly the same: people are supposed to put the knife, fork and spoon set in the bin afterwards. In the particular instance of covid-19 restrictions, I fully understand why. However, although it is the norm in a number of catering establishments to supply a knife, fork and spoon set that cannot be washed and used again, those knife, fork and spoon sets are not necessarily only plastic. They can be made of all sorts of other things; the principle is that something is being made available that is supposed to be thrown away and not used again, when it could very easily be used again, with fairly minor alterations to the spec and how things are done, thereby saving a great deal of resource and upholding the principles of the circular economy.

That is what we were trying to get at in amendment 182. There are clearly various things that fit in that category and that we as a society could do a great deal to sort out, so as not to bring virgin materials into the economy when we do not need to and to circularise things so that they go round the economy. Making the best use of those items when we can is something that should be agreed to. Indeed, we had a debate a little while ago in which the Minister extolled the virtues of recyclable nappies. Of course, a recyclable nappy is what used to be known as a nappy. That is what people did, because Pampers and all the rest of it were not available in those days. However, we now have a culture where the default is to buy a bag of Pampers and get through those, rather than even thinking about using recyclable nappies. Indeed, they are quite difficult to get hold of.

Recyclable or non-recyclable nappies need not necessarily be made of plastic; they could be made of various things. However, the principle is about moving from nappies that are used in one way to those used by default in another way, with the result—which we know, and which I am sure comes across the Minister’s desk every day—that nappies are now a substantial part of the waste stream and potentially part of fatbergs and various other things in our sewers, because of the change over time from multiple to single use.

We do not oppose the schedule, but can the Minister see circumstances in which discouraging but not necessarily removing single use could be incorporated into the schedule or introduced in further regulations, or does she think that that is it for the debate on single-use items? I cannot believe that it is; we need to take it further than just plastic items. I seek suggestions or an understanding for how we can best advance the debate, if not through this schedule, then maybe somewhere else.

In conclusion, I know personally that a number of items—some of which apply to me—including certain medical things, such as sealed eye drops, absolutely need to continue to be plastic single-use items, and it would be inappropriate were it otherwise. My view is not that we should remove all plastic single-use items—or use only single-use items—but we all ought to be seeking to give ourselves the possibility of ensuring between us that the most circularity is achieved. I hope the Minister can give us some guidance and assurances on that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

The Government are committed to tackling plastic pollution and moving towards sustainable alternatives. The schedule outlines the various provisions that can be brought forward in secondary legislation to place new charges on single-use plastic items. That will provide the incentive needed for citizens to use reusable alternatives while ensuring that single-use options are still available to those who need them—examples such as those the hon. Gentleman mentioned. The success of the carrier bag charge, which has led to a 95% reduction in the use of plastic carrier bags in the main supermarkets since its introduction, demonstrates the difference that even a small incentive can make.

I want to wind up this debate by being clear that the power in schedule 9 is related to single-use plastic items, with the reason being that single-use plastic items, as I highlighted right at the beginning, are increasingly common in daily life. They are a significant and ongoing environmental problem, in use and disposal, and given that they are not valued, they are indeed disposed of via black bins or littering. They are not commonly recycled. The measure will address that.

Other single-use items will be addressed through the other myriad measures in the Bill, including deposit return and extended producer responsibility. The general ethos of this whole part of the Bill is to drive down waste from the very beginning, and I believe that the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, has not fully taken all that into account. When he sits down tonight in bed with the Bill and goes over it and the explanatory notes, he will realise that the problem he is raising is dealt with. That has all been thought about. I am, however, grateful to him that he will not oppose the schedule.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 9 accordingly agreed to.

Clause 53 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 54

Separation of waste

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Dr Whitehead]

We do not seek to oppose the clause, but I want to ask about food waste, which we may come to when we debate later schedules.

Food waste is clearly an important issue. Indeed, it was highlighted in the resources and waste strategy for England, which came out a little while ago, in a chapter headed, “Enough is enough: cutting down on food waste”. At the time, the White Paper projected that total UK food waste was 10.2 million tonnes. Interestingly, that food waste was broken down by sector. It suggested that households produced 7.1 million tonnes of food waste, hospitality and food service 1 million tonnes, manufacturing 1.85 million tonnes and retail 0.25 million tonnes. The important thing about that particular distinction made in the White Paper is that, yes, there is a large amount of food waste, as we know, and we could have a long debate about the reasons for rising food waste, how we can suppress that rise in food waste and how we can do much better at ensuring that we use what we are producing.

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[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an important and detailed point. We do need to clarify this issue: what is written in law is written in law, and we must make sure that we fully understand it.

The Welsh Government currently have higher recycling rates than the English rates, because of the way that food waste is dealt with. Food waste is separated by the household; at kerbside, it is separated again by the collection authorities. There is food waste as well as recycling. There is an important point to be made about weekly collections. If food collections are less than weekly, all sorts of contaminations can occur, such as maggots, infestations and so on. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we clarify these points?

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that clarity is important.

In clause 54(4), immediately after the conditions that are set out on recyclable and food waste, there is a separate amendment to the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which talks about the

“separate collection of household waste from relevant nondomestic premises”.

The conditions in that proposed new section are different from those on household waste. We have an issue here about what it means to collect recyclable waste, which may be food waste, in the context of household collection; and what it means to collect food waste that is separate from recyclable waste, and appears to be collectable once a week.

Unless the join is properly made between the different provisions in legislation, it appears to me, the holes will not be completely filled. Can the Minister point me to other parts of the Bill where they are filled? Alternatively, will it be possible to fill those holes in different ways, by regulations? I would be delighted to hear from the Minister what she thinks about the idea in general and how far she thinks the clause has gone towards resolving the problems.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. In the 2018 resources and waste strategy, the Government set out their intention to achieve 65% recycling of municipal waste by 2035. Our current arrangements are insufficient to meet that, so clause 34 will make a big difference. It will make recycling simpler for everybody by requiring the same recyclable waste streams to be collected from all households, whatever their local authority. At the moment, as hon. Friends and Members know, we have myriad different systems across the country, which is clearly not the best way to get the most products collected, recycled and reused. That will include non-domestic premises such as schools, hospitals and businesses.

Through the Bill, no matter where people live in England, they will have their plastic, metal, glass, paper, card, food waste and garden waste all collected for recycling, with food waste being collected from households weekly. The unexpected consequences of leaving food waste longer than that were outlined by the hon. Member for Newport West.

Food waste should be collected separately unless absolutely not technically or economically practical, but there is a requirement for it to be collected every week. At the very least, householders will have a bin for what is called dry recycling, which are the first things I mentioned, and another bin for residual waste, as we do in Taunton Deane already; I do not know whether they have those in Southampton, Test.

[Dr Whitehead]

They do.

[Rebecca Pow]

All the district councils in Somerset join together for that scheme. It works extremely well and it is very straightforward. All other local authorities will follow a similar model, so there will no longer be a postcode lottery with one place where they do collect it and another where they do not.

For the first time, there will also be a requirement, as was raised by the hon. Gentleman, for non-domestic premises and businesses to arrange to have the same recyclable waste streams as households, separately collected, with the exception of garden waste, and for them to present their waste in accordance with those arrangements. I honestly believe that the hon. Gentleman is getting a bit muddled in his interpretation of what he is reading, because what is envisaged is clear.

[Rebecca Pow]

We have made it very clear from the beginning that burdens to local authorities will be covered. If the hon. Gentleman wants us to write to him in more detail about that, we can, but that has been made quite clear.

[Dr Whitehead]

If I am being misled, I look to the Minister to provide clarification, which I hope she is beginning to do—indeed, that is what I want, to inform my understanding of how the clause will work. There are some things that I cannot quite get to the bottom of, however, so perhaps she can point me to exactly how they join together.

I very much welcome the advances on food waste and it is essential that we take action on that, but I remain unconvinced that the clause states exactly that every local collection authority has to provide a food waste collection. If they do provide a food waste collection, it has to be collected once a week, but does the clause mean that every local authority has to provide an unmingled food waste collection arrangement and that that arrangement is not to be mingled with more general recyclable collections?

I am sure that the Minister can appreciate the distinction between putting a whole pile of food waste in a general recycling bin and separating food waste out so that it can be used for specific purposes. If food waste is mingled in with recycling, it is difficult to take it out subsequently, and it cannot be used entirely for the purposes for which we want food waste to be used: anaerobic digestion and various other things.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend, who has made a very good case for the amendment. I am puzzled about why the world is not more excited by the Bill at the moment. Given the wider world’s interest in environmental issues, one would expect it to be on everyone’s lips. Of course, Greta Thunberg laid out the challenge: she does not trust a single politician, and here was the opportunity for the Minister to respond and to become a politician Greta Thunberg might trust. Part of the problem is the lack of ambition in the Bill, and that is exactly what the amendment inserts into it—a sense of urgency.

I suspect that hon. Members have been into primary schools and talked to young children. I used to do that often, and I was struck by how many times environmental issues came up. I have had numerous letters from schools, and the issue of waste being transported elsewhere comes up time after time. So many of our fellow citizens do the right thing. In so many households, particularly in a city such as Cambridge, people go to huge efforts to recycle, but then they ask themselves where it goes. When they read—possibly even in The Guardian occasionally—that all is not well on this front, it really demoralises them. They think, “What’s the point?” They are doing their bit, but their Government are not doing the bit that only Government can do.

That is why there is an opportunity to strengthen the Bill. The Minister should welcome the opportunity the Opposition are giving her today to do that and to perhaps begin to be able to say to the wider world that these things really are worth supporting. With all the caveats, all the “mays” and all the reasons why these things cannot be done yet because they are too difficult and complicated, the feeling out there in the wider world among the people we represent is that there really is not the sense of urgency that the situation requires.

[Dr Whitehead]

I echo my hon. Friend’s claim that the amendment is very important for how the country is seen to deal with its waste, and particularly for how we are seen by our own population. Hopefully, we are seen in a positive light. All that we have discussed about recycling, single-use plastics and such things is based, to a considerable extent, on the public’s confidence that what is going to happen is actually what does happen. If the public think that none of what is being said to them is true, the chances of them co-operating—by sorting everything into different bins, ensuring that things are returned, and stopping dumping things in hedges—will be undermined.

The fact that we are seen to be dealing with our own waste properly and safely, and that we are not simply using the export of waste as a safety valve for our inadequacies in processing waste fully in our country, ought to be something that should concern us very much. Frankly, that is what has happened over a number of years with our waste exports. We do import some waste, but we export quite a lot more than we import. The waste we import is usually waste that can be used for energy from waste and various other things, such as refuse-derived fuel. The waste we export is not only of a much wider variety, but actually goes to parts of the world where, in many instances, we cannot be sure—and certainly, people there cannot be sure—that the destination for that waste is of the standard we would expect if that waste were disposed of in our own country.

The Minister has said this legislation would ensure that we do not export waste other than to OECD countries. That sounds very reassuring, until we look at membership of OECD countries. It is not, shall we say, EU members and a couple of other states in the world. It is actually a wide variety of states across the world: for example, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Turkey are members of the OECD. Therefore, that is not necessarily the quality standard route, as far as safety valves are concerned. The best thing to do is probably to ensure we have sufficient recycling collection, processing and reuse facilities here, so that we can really deal with all our waste in the UK. That is not just a practical thing; it is a moral obligation we have for the future, as far as waste management is concerned.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West mentioned, what we really do not want is repeated scenes—not just repeated scenes, but repeated extremely embarrassing scenes—of bales of waste, mainly consisting of plastic, going to countries we think will quite easily accept them and say nothing, but that are now beginning to say, “This is not good enough. The quality of this material is not right. It is not what we thought it was going to be, so you can have it back.” That is not just one instance—Sri Lanka; we have form on this. This has happened with several countries, including Malaysia, which sent back 27 bales of waste. Indeed, I put a written question to the Minister a little while ago about how that had happened, what was going to happen with that material when it came back to the UK and whether it would be properly dealt with and disposed of.

Part of the reason these things have started to happen is that some of our traditional destinations, in terms of what have historically been fairly lazy assumptions about export of waste, have drawn the drawbridge up themselves. China’s great green wall policy means that the Chinese no longer want to receive anything that looks vaguely usable that we might put in a container back to China, and that we cannot work on the assumption that they can somehow reprocess some of it and will be quite pleased to do so because that will help their economy. They do not want it. They have put a green wall up to stop these things happening.

That has meant that the waste exports have gone to other countries, which it was thought are less particular about what they want to receive and, indeed, probably happy to receive stuff that is not what it says on the tin or on the bale. One issue from this particular return of bales of waste to the UK was that they were claimed to be high-quality waste that could be reused and remanufactured by those countries for recycling purposes. However, they were not. There was all sorts of old stuff, to coin a phrase, in those bales, and it was way beyond the standard that they would reasonably accept. Two questions arise from that. First, what were we doing continuing to export in that lazy way to those countries? Secondly, why did what I thought were our internal checks and balances to ensure the quality of what we export fail to work?

We have potentially considerable work to do. If we are to continue to export waste at all, we have to get our act together and ensure that that waste is as good as it could be and is absolutely not going to the wrong places. The Opposition think that the best way to deal with plastic or mostly plastic waste is simply to say that by 2025 we will stop doing that. Yes, that gives us a challenge, because we currently do not have sufficient good-quality plastic recycling facilities in this country, particularly those that can properly separate the 25 or 26 different kinds of plastic and put them at the right level in the plastics hierarchy so that we do not end up only making traffic cones with the plastic we recycle.

With plastic recycling, the production level of the plastic going into the system needs to be commensurate with the recycling that takes place, so that the plastic can be recycled at that level. For example, food-grade plastic has to be recycled with other food-grade plastic. If it is contaminated with anything else, it stops being food-grade plastic, recycled or not. Indeed, if we are not careful, it all goes to the bottom of the plastic hierarchy, and we get massive amounts of park benches and traffic cones and nothing else.

We need better facilities in this country for recycling and reprocessing plastic that can be recycled properly, according to the hierarchy. That is partly why the amendment says:

“from no later than March 2025.”

That would give us the space to start getting our act together in this country and ensuring that facilities are available to recycle properly. We really cannot accept, and I do not think any of us would want to accept, that exporting waste should in the future be seen as a safety valve for our own inadequacies. It has to be different from that. The amendment underlines why it has to be different, how it can be different and how we can set an example to the world by ensuring that we deal with what arises from our own backyard in our own backyard and do not send it out across the world, for purposes that we do not know too much about and that the people concerned are obviously increasingly upset about when it gets to them.

This is an important amendment that we hope the Minister will accept entirely in the spirit in which it is intended. I know that she is absolutely committed to those high standards in our waste management, and I hope that she will accept it in that spirit.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank all hon. Members who have inputted, although I take slight issue with the “lost decade” for the environment. I think Labour needs to look at its own record prior to that and ask how we have come to this pass. Thank goodness we have a Government who are doing something about it. However, that is not to say that I do not welcome the Opposition’s support; I absolutely do.

Also, the hon. Member for Cambridge asked why people were not more excited about the Bill. I believe they are genuinely excited about it, and it is such a huge Bill. Other hon. Members have probably had this too, but when one meets groups of people who might be a wee bit, what I call controversial, and explains what is in the Bill, they are absolutely amazed. It literally addresses all the things that people write to us about and that fill our inboxes, so I for one am going to be that champion—indeed, I hope I already am. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me and promote the Bill, because I think it will do all the things we need for a sustainable future.

Anyway, to the amendment, for which I thank the hon. Member for Newport West and which would prohibit the export of

“waste consisting wholly or mostly of plastic”

by March 2025. However, the clause already provides powers to make regulations on a wide range of matters to do with the import and export of waste, including prohibiting and restricting its export. We will use powers in this clause to implement our manifesto commitment to ban the export of plastic waste to non-OECD countries —exactly what the hon. Member for Southampton, Test is asking for—as we recognise that some countries have difficulty processing imports of this type of waste. We are committed to dealing with more of our waste here in the UK through the measures I have been talking about today and previously. We will consult industry, NGOs and local authorities on the date by which the ban will be achieved.

[Dr Whitehead]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will, but very briefly, because the hon. Gentleman had a very long go just now.

[The Chair]

I am sure he will be very brief.

[Dr Whitehead]

I will indeed. I just wanted to correct what the Minister seemed to suggest I said about the OECD. I was not saying “Hooray for exports to the OECD!” Rather, I think we should see whether all OECD member countries keep to high standards of waste reception and export. My perusal of the membership suggests that not all do.

[Rebecca Pow]

I too looked at that great list of members yesterday and at non-OECD countries. The OECD countries represent 80% of the world’s investment and wealth. I just wanted to make a point about OECD countries and waste, though. We must not forget that waste is a commodity and that there is a legitimate global market for secondary materials. Exports of waste for recycling between OECD countries are already covered by an international agreement—the OECD decision—which provides the framework for the control of movements of waste.

Where the UK cannot currently recycle materials economically, exports can ensure in some cases that th3e materials are recycled, rather than sent to landfill or for incineration. Not all products sold in the UK are made in the UK. Waste exports can help to increase the amount of recycled materials going into new products we buy that are produced abroad. We must not forget the big picture where waste goes and what it is used for.

Making the amendment before the consultation on the date for stopping the exports of waste to non-OECD countries would pre-empt the result of the consultation. It is important that all stakeholders have a fair and equal opportunity to express their view on when the proposed prohibition should be implemented. The prohibition could have wide-ranging effects on local authorities and our wider waste infrastructure, and it is important to consider these effects fully before we set a timetable for implementing the ban.

I assure all hon. Members that the Government take very seriously the regulation of waste imports and exports, as well as the impact illegal waste shipments can have on the global environment—hence our manifesto commitments. Electronic waste tracking will help this agenda, as we will know what is going where and it will be harder to send the wrong products abroad. I reaffirm that we should be dealing with our own waste right here in the UK wherever possible. I ask the hon. Member for Newport West to withdraw her amendment.

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[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

That schedule 11 be the Eleventh schedule to the Bill.

Clause 70 stand part.

That schedule 12 be the Twelfth schedule to the Bill.

[Dr Whitehead]

I wanted to draw the Committee’s attention to schedule 11, which concerns the local authority management framework. As hon. Members will see, within that framework on air quality, an enormous amount is placed on the local authority’s plate. That is quite right because the people at local authorities are absolutely the right people to deal with air quality problems.

A little while ago there were exceedances of world standards on air quality. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs required a number of the local authorities that were in danger of infraction at that point to draw up local air quality plans and to produce proposals to improve air quality in certain areas. My city, Southampton, was one of those places. Generally, there was a good relationship between the Department and my local authority in drawing up those plans—this was before the more extensive plans set out in schedule 11 —how those were looked at by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what sums of money were put in to support the plans in some instances, and how they then went forward. So far, so good.