Environment Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 14th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 12th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

Question proposed, That the schedule be the Seventh schedule to the Bill.

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

I have a few things to say about the schedule, including some questions for the Minister about how it might best be implemented.

As I am sure all hon. Members know, how waste becomes a resource is set out substantially in the 2008 EU waste framework directive, which gives guidance to member states—to be placed into law—about how that process should be carried out. The Committee will also be aware that resource efficiency is a very real issue.

A big question is precisely when something in a stream should be defined as waste or as a resource. The waste framework directive contains a number of criteria about that end-of-waste transition, but the framework and the subsequent UK legislation have been fraught with difficulties and problems, because they have required waste to be categorised: as hazardous waste, as inert waste—waste that can be put in golf courses and so on—or as waste that must undergo various treatments, for example. The waste hierarchy, which the Committee has discussed, derives from a number of considerations not only about what waste is, but about what should be done with various waste streams.

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[Ruth Jones]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Would he agree that a good example of this is the supermarkets? In the past, food that had gone beyond its use-by date went to waste, but nowadays, thanks to important communication between supermarkets and homeless people, for example, the latter can utilise this food for their evening meals. One man’s waste is another man’s supper.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is right. We have made considerable progress on food waste, and we will come to discuss some wider aspects of food waste later in the proceedings. Nevertheless, she rightly states the principle: if a piece of waste which would otherwise be taken out and processed in certain ways is stewarded through that process, knowing that the outcome of that process is a good outcome, that process can be much more easily streamlined to ensure that what was waste becomes a resource.

For years, the Environment Agency has been trying to tackle the many instances where something that goes into a waste stream, such as bones residual to animal rendering, carcases and various other things, may well be treated as hazardous and have particular measures apply to them. However, if those bones can be transferred for the making of bone china, that industry can take the bones and steward them through the process of becoming a resource for undertaking what the industry wants to do. That allows what looked like a problem to become a solution. That is just one example—perhaps, not a terribly good example—but there are many examples of that in industry, where one industry’s waste, which may be classified in particular ways, is desperately needed as a resource for another industry, which cannot unlock that resource from it being waste. We have never properly gotten to grips with that in this country.

The concept of stewardship, whereby what is a piece of waste can be certified as being stewarded, ready for the purpose of becoming a resource, has never properly been defined in regulations or in law. Hence, often by the time we have gotten around to thinking that something is a particular resource, it has already been disposed of down a particular waste stream and is lost for that resource purpose.

[Daniel Zeichner]

As ever, my hon. Friend is making a thoughtful and interesting speech. As he spoke, I thought of some of the examples that came up in the covid-19 crisis in the food chains, where we were at risk because one part of the system relied on another in exactly the ways he is describing. What struck me is that the economies of scale are critical. Are we not much better being part of a wider, bigger system that allows us to use things that are potentially regarded as waste? With a small, narrow system, they cannot be reused, but they can be if we are part of a bigger system.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The concept of a larger system through which all of this works is key to this whole discussion. Indeed, what we have been talking about, and what the waste strategy document says about the circular economy, means that putting this into a wider frame of how we circulate products through the economy, so that we do not pull virgin materials in and that everything we are using as it goes through the economy is reusable, recyclable or replaceable in one way or another, is essential to a resource-efficient and low-carbon waste and resource economy.

In this part of the Bill, we are essentially replacing elements of the waste framework directive with UK law, but does not seem to me that what we have done allows the sort of processes that I have described to be properly incorporated in regulations so that the circular economy arrangement can be expedited. Does the Minister consider that the regulations that will be associated with schedule 7 are capable of allowing those sorts of changes to be made, to the benefit of the recycled and reclaimed resources industry in the UK; or does she consider that we have missed an opportunity here, and that further legislation and/or regulations may be necessary to ensure that that can be done?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Member for Southampton, Test for his thoughts. I shall stick to the detail of what the schedule is actually about in my answers, but I want to touch on his general points. Of course, the whole purpose of the waste and resources section of the Bill is to reduce all waste with a range of measures, and to make everything we produce recyclable, repairable and more durable. That is why we are focusing particularly on eco-design.

The hon. Gentleman touched on some issues relating to bones and various things like that. This is a slightly more general comment, but there are many health-related issues that would have to be taken into account. It takes me back to the time of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, when any food waste was banned from being fed to pigs. There were masses of knock-on effects, but as a pig keeper, I was mortified about that. He will know that such things are complicated, so one cannot go down that burrow without discussing a lot of other issues.

I want to get back to the purposes of the schedule, but I will touch on the point made by the hon. Member for Newport West about food waste. I am sure she is pleased that food waste is dealt with in the Bill—that is one of the really positive and exciting things about it. Food waste will now have to be collected from local authorities in the waste collections. Some local authorities already do it, but every one will have to do it. Clause 47 and schedule 4 will require producers that are responsible for food surplus and food waste to take action, and that includes redistributing it. Great work is already done by many people, but that will be a requirement for surplus food.

On the schedule, by applying the principle of eco-design to non-energy-related products, we can drive up resource efficiency by gradually removing the least resource efficient products from the market. That is the very point that the hon. Lady was getting at. Those requirements might relate to durability, recyclability, repairability or the sustainability of products for dismantling and remanufacture. I think the hon. Member for Southampton, Test was getting at that point; products can be taken apart and then the component parts could be reused.

The requirements might also concern the material composition of products and the way in which products are manufactured, and the pollutants emitted or produced by products throughout the full lifecycle. For example—the hon. Member for Newport West said she likes examples—that might include moving and load-bearing parts such as wheels and hinges from items of furniture, because they might wear out first. Making them removable and replaceable could be part of the design. Where that is not the case, the regulations might require that parts can be removed without damage to the rest of the product, and other wheels can be screwed back on, for example. That is the kind of thing we are discussing.

As has been explained in relation to the resource efficiency information power, we have identified priority areas for action, including clothing, furniture and electronic equipment, where we believe requirements such as this are likely to have the greatest impact.

[Dr Whitehead]

rose—

[Rebecca Pow]

I am about to conclude, but I see that the hon. Gentleman is trying to intervene.

[Dr Whitehead]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I am not particularly criticising or wishing to take away from any of the excellent things the Minister has been saying about the purpose of these provisions. What I am trying to get at is what actually happens now—the way in which things are classified while they are going through the waste stream and before they turn into a resource, and the extent to which the classification under existing legislation hinders the process by which they may be liberated as a resource in exactly the way the Minister has described in her comments. That is what I am concerned about—whether those classifications can be substituted by a system of stewardship, which would enable that passage to be much more straightforward, good intentions notwithstanding concerning how that passage can result in a successful outcome.

[Rebecca Pow]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I think he is overcomplicating the issue. Through the measures in the Bill, every single person who makes something will have to think about what it contains, what it is made of, what is going to happen to it, where it is going to go, who is going to reuse it and how long it will last. I think the issues he is worried about will solve themselves, in a way. If he wants more detail on that, I am sure we can write to him.

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[Rebecca Pow]

Amendments 68 to 70 seek to correct a technical error concerning a reference to how a scheme administrator would be established in Scotland. The amendment will enable a scheme administrator to interact, engage and make payments to a scheme administrator established through a deposit and return scheme in Scotland. It was always our intention for schemes within the UK to be able to work together, as I have already highlighted, including being able to make payments between schemes. I think the hon. Member for Newport West asked about that. The measure will help ensure that schemes are easier for consumers to use, will help to reduce the risk of fraud between schemes, and provide coherence for producers and retailers. I hope the Committee will agree to the amendment.

Amendment 68 agreed to.

Amendments made: 69, in schedule 8, page 174, line 20, leave out from “person” to end of line 22 and insert

“exercising the functions of a scheme administrator in relation to a Scottish deposit and return scheme”.

See Amendment 68.

Amendment 70, in schedule 8, page 174, line 24, leave out “that Act” and insert

“the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (asp 12)”—(Rebecca Pow.)

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 69 and inserts the full name of the Act being referred to.

Question proposed, That the schedule, as amended, be the Eighth schedule to the Bill.

[Dr Whitehead]

I welcome the opportunity to have a brief debate on the schedule, which is all about deposit schemes. As the Minister has set out admirably, the deposit schemes can target things that cause particular problems, including litter, fly-tipping and various other activities. I want to ask the Minister what the deposit schemes might consist of and the extent to which the schedule would facilitate that extent being realised.

When talking about deposit schemes, we usually think about precisely the sort of things that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge talked about, with memories of kids hanging around lidos and swimming pools, nicking Coke and pop bottles from sunbathers to take them back to the shop and get thruppence on them—not that I did that, obviously.

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[The Chair]

Order. There is too much muttering.

[Dr Whitehead]

What occurred then, and what is occurring now—or what I hope will occur now—is that the motivation to recycle, return and sort out particular items comes from a value being given to the residual function of those items after their primary function has been carried out. In the previous example, the Coke bottle has been emptied, but it still has value because the child can get some money by returning it to the shop.

We have seen that process in operation in various parts of Europe. In France, a number of supermarkets have reverse vending machines, where bottles can be inserted into the machine in exchange for a credit. The value has been secured and the product has been safely restored for recycling. The consequence of a lack of such schemes is that people dump things in the street or, in more serious instances, engage in serious fly-tipping.

On deposit schemes for larger items, some really large items have effectively got themselves into that value chain by different means. Hon. Members who were local authority councillors for any long period may remember that there was a particular passage of time when many estates and other places were plagued with burnt-out cars. People had decided that their car had no value because it was an old banger or had broken down, and that the easiest thing to do was to go and dump it somewhere and/or burn it.

That was substantially resolved by the end-of-life vehicles directive and the beginnings of the idea that even an old banger had some value for recycling purposes. The person who might otherwise have put that car into a hedge or burnt it in a car park would be incentivised to drive it on its last lap—or push it if it did not work —down to the breaker’s yard, where they would get a couple of hundred pounds for it, because it had increased value that way.

In the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive, we have a sort-of attempt to give that value to white goods and various large items. The producer responsibility elements of WEEE required that the producer have a responsibility to get those products back. The process is very indirect. At the end of the life of a particular product, the producer is not necessarily in the same state as when the product was first produced, so you may have orphan products that require producer responsibility but are without a producer responsible for them. That producer responsibility is also a mediated process because someone else has to collect the product and establish what the responsibility should be.

[Ruth Jones]

Again, my hon. Friend is making a powerful and practical point. When ordering a new washing machine or dishwasher, for example, people have to pay if they want the person coming to fit the new one to take the old one away. That is almost a disincentive to recycle and reuse things. It is similar with mattresses. Does he agree that mattresses are the bane of local councils’ lives? They are dumped on the side of the road. We should make sure that they are recycled properly.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend raises the issue of mattresses, which absolutely are the most difficult thing to properly dispose of. I was going to restrict my point to white goods, but it is absolutely true of mattresses. Even with better regulations in place than previously, we still find substantial fly-tipping, quite often of mattresses, old furniture and white goods—old fridges or whatever. It is not so much the fridges and white goods that could have been taken away when a new item is purchased. If that item has a second life and is reused after it has been taken away, at the end of its life it has no value, and we are lucky if it goes down to the council tip or whatever and back into the producer responsibility cycle.

We still have a considerable problem with fly-tipping of these particular products. One way to deal with that would be to give those items a residual value, like the pop bottles. There is no reason whatever why any hon. Member should remember this, but I put forward a ten-minute rule Bill, in about 2001, I think, to introduce a deposit scheme for white goods. That would have meant that, for a small additional outlay, the product would throughout its life have a value attached to it, even when not being used. It would be a tiny proportion of the original cost of the white good—let us say a refrigerator—and as that reduced in value over time, the proportion of the value represented by the deposit would increase. Therefore, by the end of that particular product’s life, even if it had gone through several owners, it would have a value attached to it, which might well impel someone to turn it in rather than put it in a hedge. That is the same principle as the value that was added to vehicles at the end of life.

I am not clear about whether the regulations in schedule 8 are actually generic, or whether they will actually enable that sort of thing to happen in addition to the things that we normally talk about, such as the easier recycling of small items. I think the Minister will agree that it is not just about littering, it is about these large items. We could do the same thing with mattresses. We could require a deposit on a mattress, and provided someone had a certification of the deposit, they could receive the value of the mattress at the end of its life. Mattresses actually have quite long lives in various iterations. Does the Minister think that these regulations could accommodate that sort of arrangement? Although she has said that these regulations should be targeted, does she consider that in the fullness of time, perhaps they could be expanded in ambition and scope to accommodate those sorts of arrangements for the future? Does she think that within the schedule as it stands, regulations can be made that allow that to happen, or does she consider that further work may be necessary to bring it about?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. I am pleased he raised those points, because it gives me a chance to expand a bit on a genuinely interesting subject by which most of the population are fascinated. As has been mentioned, people do want the schemes. In fact, I am old enough to remember those glass Tizer bottles that could be taken back.

To reiterate, we are talking about schedule 8, which deals with deposit return schemes and the issue of how many plastic drinks bottles we use—14 billion a year, as well as 9 billion cans and 5 billion glass bottles. A lot of them are recycled, but it is still only 65%, so we have a long way to go. That is why the schemes will be important.

We have had a consultation and we are in the process of developing proposals using further evidence and ongoing stakeholder engagement, which is important because we have to involve the industry and local authorities—all the people involved in that whole space. The final scope and model of the schemes for drinks containers, including whether it is all-in or on-the-go, will be presented in a second consultation. We are considering cans and plastic and glass bottles.

In the previous consultation, we also consulted on coffee cups, cartons and pouches, which are one of my bugbears. We seem to be forced to buy our cat food in pouches whereas most of it used to be in tins, which I can hardly find now. That is an interesting subject that we need to go into at some point.

The opportunity will be provided by the schedule, which sets out the framework for deposit return schemes, including what items would be subject to a deposit return scheme, how the deposit amount is set, the requirements that can be placed on scheme participants, and the enforcement requirements under a deposit return scheme. The crucial thing is that a scheme has to be well functioning to make it easy for consumers to use. That is incredibly important, otherwise they will not use it and it will not work.

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[Rebecca Pow]

I appreciate the focus on this issue. However, I fear that the amendment has not taken enough account of the bespoke issue of plastics or of how much of the Bill is aimed at tackling our single-use culture. Applying charges to single-use plastic items will be an effective way of reducing the impact on the natural world. The measures are designed to focus specifically on single-use, hard-to-recycle plastics.

In 2019, the Marine Conservation Society recorded that, on average, per 100 metres of beach, more than 150 pieces of plastic were found, which is a shocking revelation. That is more than triple the second most commonly listed item, which is cigarette stubs, which also contain plastic. I do not know whether hon. Members have been to the Keep Britain Tidy events, but that organisation has a big drive on cigarette butts at the moment. They contain a horrifying amount of plastic, not to mention the other toxic chemicals.

The MCS’s work showcases the prevalence of plastics in our environment and explains why this material needs a focused clause in the Bill. As we saw with our ban on plastic straws, plastics still have an important role to play in certain applications, but Government intervention is necessary to tackle unnecessary plastic. Many of our mailbags are full of messages about these items. Public opinion was demonstrated in HMT’s call for evidence on tackling the plastic problem in March 2018, which received an incredible 162,000 responses, with strong support for the use of taxes and charges to tackle single-use plastic waste.

A lot is already being done on single-use plastics. Great work is being done on microbeads and microplastics, which the hon. Member for Cambridge referred to. When I was a Back Bencher, I asked the Speaker whether he had had a shower that morning, with the intention to point out how many microbeads were in the shower gel that would have been used. We have brought in one of the toughest bans in the world. There is also the 5p single-use carrier bag charge, which has had a dramatic impact on the number of bags used. A lot of good work has already been done.

The Bill already provides a robust approach towards achieving a more circular economy. Our new powers to reform the packaging waste regulations will enable us to adapt the system to incentivise all packaging, not just plastic, to be more carefully designed and manufactured, with recyclability in mind. The eco-design measures and consumer information powers will enable regulations to be made that set basic standards with sustainability in mind and that require information provision to consumers, to drive the market towards products that are designed to last longer, perhaps through multiple uses, instead of being thrown away after first use. The House of Commons shop is selling some excellent cutlery packs, which are made of bamboo. My hon. Friends and hon. Members should all carry a pack in their pockets or bags, to cut down on single-use items.

Meanwhile, our powers to enable the implementation of a deposit return scheme and introduce consistency in household and business recycling collections will drive the capture of more material and all types of single-use items for recycling.

[Dr Whitehead]

rose—

[Rebecca Pow]

I will give way quickly, before I wind up.

[Dr Whitehead]

I am slightly concerned that the Minister is not responding to exactly what we said in the amendment. We need to make a decision on what this is about. Is it about single-use items, or is it about plastic items? In this instance, the two have been elided for the purpose of a concentration on plastic single-use items.

Schedule 9 defines single-use items in paragraph 1(3). It does not define them as a plastic single-use item, but simply as a “single use item”. The schedule enables the Government to make specific regulations. Indeed, the regulations “may specify”—that is the correct use of a “may”—single-use items, but only those that 

“are made wholly or partly of plastic”,

which narrows down the range of single-use items.

[The Chair]

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman has made his points—[Interruption.] I cannot bring in any other Members until the Minister has resumed.