Environmental Protection

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the Government’s position. Let me place on record the substantial achievements of the last Conservative Government on recycling. This Government do not like the facts, but let me give them some. In 2010, 25,000 tonnes of waste were sent to landfill. By 2022, the last year for which figures are available, that was just 13,000 tonnes—a reduction of almost half. The Conservatives introduced new, straightforward and simpler—Labour will welcome simpler—guidance on recycling by creating standardised rules on what can be recycled to deliver that substantial achievement.

Some love to talk, while others quietly act and get on with the job. In my constituency in 2023, Conservative-run West Sussex county council delivered a recycling rate of 53%. For the same period, the Green and Labour-led Brighton and Hove council, just next door, delivered a rate of only 30%. Who would have thought that socialists would struggle to clean up their own mess? Thanks to Conservatives, local authorities are now required to collect a consistent set of recyclable waste and to ensure frequent collections, underpinning a new recycling economy. Let us be clear: Labour-run local authorities deliver the lowest levels of recycling in this country, so the Government could fix this problem without coming to this place to pass legislation.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

Communities in Conservative-controlled local authorities are three times less likely to be subjected to fly-tipping than in Labour-run areas. The Conservatives have a proud record of recycling, and the hon. Member clearly wishes to applaud that, so I give way.

[Barry Gardiner]

I applaud any movement in the right direction. The hon. Gentleman compares local authorities, but does he accept that many Labour local authorities have high-rise and tenement buildings, where collection is infinitely more difficult than in leafy suburbs with individual detached houses?

[Andrew Griffith]

The hon. Gentleman knows of what he speaks, and of course I accept that there is wonderful variation across our whole country. That is precisely why I chose two neighbouring authorities. What could be easier than collecting from dense urban areas, compared with the challenges and costs of having to collect waste across far-flung rural communities such as those I represent? Perhaps later we will hear the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) explain exactly why that council, which drove itself into the ground, has such a poor record on recycling.

[Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)]

rose—

[Andrew Griffith]

Fantastic, we do not have to wait.

[Carla Denyer]

As the MP for Bristol Central, I cannot speak directly on behalf of councillors for Brighton and Hove, other than to point out that my understanding is that their hands were tied by a deal that was agreed by the previous Labour administration

[Andrew Griffith]

I hate to intrude on socialist grief, so let me move on.

Business leaders make decisions only when they have considered the context of all external factors, so it is important—I hope the Government agree—that we consider the statutory instrument in the context of the current headwinds faced by British business.

Right now, businesses across the land are working through the tough choices they will have to make to keep their businesses viable in the face of this Government’s job-killing, investment-crushing, growth-destroying Budget, because of choices this Government have made. It was this Government who chose to place enormous burdens on business with their new tax on jobs. It was this Government who chose to halve business rates relief for retail and hospitality. It is this Government who are choosing to push through their Employment Rights Bill, which will increase unemployment, as we saw today, and prevent young people from ever getting their first chance of a job. Business confidence has been knocked down and jobs are at risk, and it is no surprise when we consider that not a single person sat around the Cabinet table has real experience of running a business.

No sectors have been hit harder than retail and hospitality. The British Retail Consortium has said how Labour’s Budget will increase inflation, slow pay growth, cause shop closures—the very shops that will have to participate in this scheme—and reduce jobs. The CBI has said that retail businesses have gone into “crisis containment”. The Institute of Directors found that economic confidence has fallen for a fourth month running—does anyone know what those four months have in common? The number of businesses closing has increased by 64% since the Budget. That is the shocking reality and the context in which the Government seek to bring forward today’s statutory instrument, putting more burdens and more cost on business.

[Dr Murrison]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Government were really serious about reduce, reuse, recycle, they would put a moratorium on the construction of new waste incinerators, as we put in our manifesto in July? If we now had a Conservative Government, there would be no more waste incinerators, including in Westbury, in my constituency, which would be matching what the Welsh and Scots have already done.

[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point—I hope the Government are listening. That measure would not cost the economy anything, unlike this measure, which, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, will cost the economy. In fact, it will represent a £288 million net cost imposed on business every year, which is a £2.7 billion indirect cost over the 10-year appraisal period. It will be another unsustainable cost heaped on business, and an unwelcome addition to the growing headwinds on enterprise that this Government have created.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this measure will create not only headwinds for business, but significant headwinds for the local authorities that use the recyclable and resaleable material from doorstep recycling to subsidise the cost of expanding recycling services to all our residents? By extracting that valuable material from doorstep recycling, we risk pushing up the council tax needed to subsidise recycling services for all.

[Andrew Griffith]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a very important point. At its heart, it is a failure to identify the real harm that would justify the imposition of real costs on business at this enormously difficult time.

The scheme will also have an impact on consumers, because it is ultimately consumers who will bear the burden. It is a highly regressive cost burden that will disproportionately hit those on the lowest income. Research by the Association of Convenience Stores found that a disproportionate amount of people with long-term disabilities or aged over 65 supported the existing model of household collections, which is broadly working well, instead of the deposit return scheme.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who will hopefully speak about the aggressive nature of these proposals.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am slightly puzzled. In the Conservative Government’s response to the previous Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report, they committed to putting these measures in place by 2025. Why have the Conservatives changed their minds so dramatically? Given that it appears that the hon. Gentleman would reject these measures, how does he propose to achieve the target set under section 1 of the Environment Act 2021, which his Government brought forward and for which I commend them, which is supposed to reduce the number of kilograms of residual waste per capita by half, from 577 kg to 287 kg?

[Andrew Griffith]

When the facts change, we change our minds. The Conservative party is under new leadership and we will be unafraid to speak up for those in the economy who create the growth we so desperately need. If the hon. Member would like me to do so, I would be very happy once again to go through the impact of Labour’s Budget on business—that growth-destroying, jobs-killing, economy-sapping Budget. I would be very happy to go through that all night long, but I will make some progress.

The cost of this measure is highly regressive and the Conservatives are not alone in voicing concerns. Industry bodies, including the Association of Convenience Stores, UKHospitality and the British Soft Drinks Association, have raised objections to the cost of the scheme and its implementation. But it is not just business: the Scottish Government have also raised substantial concerns. More tellingly, the Minister’s Labour colleagues in Wales have announced that they will pursue their own separate scheme. How astonishing—nice to see two Labour-led Governments working so very well together! I was not entirely clear what the situation was in respect of Northern Ireland, notwithstanding the Minister’s attempt to clarify that, but she certainly conceded in her remarks from the Dispatch Box that the schemes will not be interoperable on day one. Well, 16 million people live within 50 miles of the border. For businesses, it is unconscionable that they are compelled to deliver multiple schemes in multiple areas without any guarantee or clarity about interoperability.

I read in the weekend papers that all Ministers received a note instructing them to cease anti-growth measures. The Minister and her colleagues will have an abundance of anti-growth measures to pick from. In fact, I cannot think of a single measure or policy that this Government have so far put forward that is at all pro-growth. In respect of this particular measure, it seems as if her Department did not read that memo, or if they did, they simply did not understand what it meant. The country needs a Government who focus on doing their key functions well rather than rolling out more red tape, however well intentioned.

As the official Opposition, it is our responsibility to speak up for businesses and our constituents when the Government get it wrong. The Conservative party is under new management and we are unafraid to champion those who take risks, generate wealth and create the prosperity to pay for the public services that those on the Labour Benches are so keen on funding so well. The United Kingdom has a strong and proud record on recycling and the environment, building on work undertaken by the previous Conservative Government, but circumstances have changed or have been changed by this Government, and when the facts change, so too must our policies. Businesses are currently being subjected to a barrage of anti-growth measures and policies, destroying investment, jobs and growth. This policy is, I am afraid, the wrong scheme at the wrong time. For that reason, those on the Conservative Benches will be opposing today’s statutory instrument.

[Several hon. Members rose—]