Environment Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness opposite. I support all these amendments; they are very simple, very short and very small, but they do actually fix a problem. I think the noble Baroness has every right to get cross. I am furious most of the time when I am speaking to the Government, because, for example, they have falsely claimed that they have achieved their CO₂ reduction targets, when in fact—when we look at this sort of behaviour: exporting plastic waste—we are exporting our CO₂. That is why the Government can falsely claim that they have hit those reduction targets. I very much regret that I did not sign these amendments, and I certainly will if they come back on Report.

We all know that the international waste economy is a nasty, polluting system, where the richest countries are using the poorest countries as dump sites—as giant landfill sites. Many people would be outraged, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, to see that the recycling that they so carefully do is just baled up and dumped on poor countries and among poor communities, who then have to suffer the pollution that it causes.

So the export of waste is nasty, but I am also concerned about the increasing capacity of UK incinerators. From what I can see, the planned capacity of these incinerators will soon far exceed the amount of waste that the UK produces. Many local authorities are, of course, tied into 25-year contracts with such businesses. This means they will be looking around for waste to burn. So either these companies and their investors will sustain losses or—and this is a much more concerning option—they will begin to import waste from abroad into the UK. So I would very much appreciate the Minister giving us the Government’s opinion on incinerator companies importing waste from abroad. Will the Government allow it, or will they join me, and I am sure many others, in calling for it to be banned? These amendments render a very simple option: to clean up our responsibility—our pollution—towards the rest of the world. I hope the Government accept them.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I absolutely agree with her and would also like to add my voice to asking the question about the payments that go towards incinerators for waste. This also happens sneakily in the food system, and you end up with the absolute absurdity that some food companies are actually manufacturing food in order to be able to meet their commitment or contract with a waste incinerator, which is meant to have waste food—I will come to that later.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, I have also watched “Trashed” and it would make a very good film for a lot of people to see. It is pathetic that people spend their time recycling, only for it to end up being burned in a Turkish field, surrounded by little boys who are poking through the rubble on the off-chance that they will find something sellable. At least they see some kind of value in the plastic that we of course do not because, culturally, we have been told this is worthless. So I would also like to add my voice to support all schemes around bottle return. We have to see plastic as valuable: after all, it has taken air, oil, water, sky, soil et cetera to make it.

One of the things that also came out from the Greenpeace briefings was that, when we send waste out of the country, we send vast trailers. Someone attempting to check it who pulls the front down will see four bales when, in fact, the container probably has 400. So there is no possibility of knowing anything about this. The brokers are in it for the money and they do not take their duty of care seriously.

There was another point that came up. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, mentioned the Adana region, where Greenpeace was working. Greenpeace went to the Environment Agency and said, “Can we have a list of approved addresses where waste in Turkey is being sent?” It was given eight to check and four did not even exist. So we know this is a scam, and we know it has to stop. I am extremely pleased that Turkey has put its foot down—although it is a bit embarrassing that places such as China and other countries like it have put their foot down before we were able to put our foot down and start asking ourselves why we produce so much and what we are going to do about it.

It seems to me that of course we have to a good extended producer responsibility scheme. We have to ban our plastic waste—we cannot just send it away—and we have to have legally binding deposit schemes. But on a big level, on a cultural level, we need a real level of behaviour change from the supermarkets, everybody in retail and, in particular, from Amazon. It sends the most staggering amount of packaging with very small things. It seems that we shift our plastic problem from one place to the next. I do not know about other noble Lords but, certainly during this pandemic, I have had things arrive from Amazon that I am frankly embarrassed to have. Nobody ever touches that kind of area, and I think that we should. I am really glad the Government are getting on top of this. I will support these amendments wholeheartedly and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, I will support them if they come back on Report.

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[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Blencathra is quite right to point up food waste at home. Here in Eastbourne, we have a universal system to deal with that, and a pair of them is nesting on the roof above me as I speak: very little goes to waste here. But on the broader front, yes, we absolutely must not accept the idea of waste. This comes back to the point I was making on previous amendments: the necessity of looking at things in the round. One of the prime ways to reduce waste is plastic packaging. The less you use plastic packaging, the more food waste you generate. We need to look at things as a whole, not at little bits. Within the area of food that, however packaged, has reached or is reaching the end of its shelf life, we indeed need to make it compulsory that it is offered to people, particularly charities, so that they can distribute it as it is needed and that, if there is no market there for it, that it is used in the most efficient way possible. By doing that, we will generate efficient ways to use it.

The other day, I came across a fascinating company called C3 BIOTECH, which is using biotechnology to convert food waste into useful fuels and other materials. These things flourish because we create the circumstances in which they can. If we do not mandate that people deal effectively with food waste, it just gets thrown away and the opportunity to do better things never arises. It is really important that the Government take action in this area. I wish the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, well: if not in the detail of its drafting, very much in its spirit.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on their excellent amendments. They are really good but, sadly, I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. That is not something I usually do, but he is absolutely right: we must go even further on these issues. Food waste is a scourge on our society, We should be horribly embarrassed about it. Unfortunately, we are trying to get the Government to catch up, and I just do not know how we can do that; they are so far behind the general public on such issues.

I slightly disagree about how much individuals can do, because this is not an issue for individual behaviour change. A bit of education, perhaps: teaching people not to take those large packs of something that will end up with half rotting in the fridge, or whatever, but generally, this is for businesses—supermarkets—and for the Government to start legislating. These two amendments do quite a comprehensive job of covering all the issues: the waste hierarchy, practical solutions such as producing feedstock, setting targets and reporting.

I volunteered for a homeless charity for some years. Every Monday morning, I would go out on a very early tea run. Some companies, mainly cafés such as Costa, gave us their food from the day before to distribute to the homeless, which was very welcome. One Christmas, a big supermarket gave us 25 turkeys, which was a little more than we could handle and took quite a bit of redistribution. It happens from time to time, but we must make it normal to do that, so that nobody thinks it is okay to put waste food in a bin.

Personally, I think the Government would be well advised to accept these amendments. It is only by going after supermarkets and businesses that we can actually change the way we treat food waste.

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[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak specifically to the amendments in my name, Amendments 151A and 151B. I also support the other amendments in the group. As my noble friend Lady Sheehan ably and clearly set out the issues in relation to emissions and particulates from vehicles, I will not repeat what she said, for the sake of brevity, but I wish to underline the importance of the information that she has dealt with.

The purpose of my amendments is simple: to set out clear obligations on local authorities to monitor air pollution at those points where it is likely to be highest, such as near busy roads, and where it is most damaging to human health, such as near hospitals and schools—because children are especially vulnerable. They would oblige local authorities to take action as a result of such monitoring and to publicise that action plan.

Local authorities already have powers to monitor air quality, and additional powers to encourage environmentally-friendly behaviour that improves it. For example, stationary idling of a car is an offence under Section 42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. It can incur a £20 fixed penalty under the Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) (England) Regulations 2002—that penalty going up for late payment. So this is old hat, but the key point is that the fine is imposed only if the driver fails to switch off their engine when asked.

It is local authorities which issue those penalties rather than the police. As all noble Lords will know, local authorities are massively overstretched, with multiple responsibilities and inadequate funding. For many of them, this simply is not a priority, although there are some that make it so. For example, Islington Council had a crackdown on idling vehicles in 2014, and again in 2016, but it is an exception and not the norm. With a host of other powers, such as safe routes to school, pedestrianisation, 20 mph zones—as my noble friend has outlined—low emission zones, the provision of charging points for electric vehicles et cetera, some local authorities are much more enthusiastic than others, and some are simply better resourced to use the powers effectively.

My noble friend referred to the devolved Administrations. In Cardiff, where I live, we are well used to 20 mph zones, which are dotted around the capital city of Wales. Although there was a minor controversy in the early months of their introduction, it has been notable how widely effective they are and how people accept them. Traffic speeds have undoubtedly reduced as a result.

My amendments would establish a baseline which would raise the game for local authorities and ensure that the Government set the high standards and proactive approach, and provide the leadership which will be needed if the UK is to get anywhere near government targets by the dates that they have set. It should be emphasised that if local authorities are to take a uniformly more proactive approach, they need the funding to do so.

Those of us who work with these issues are sometimes surprised that public knowledge and understanding of the impact of traffic and other forms of air pollution is so poor. The tragic death of Ella Kissi-Debrah, referred to by many noble Lords, and the coroner’s ruling on it turned statistics into an understandable human story. She lived close to the South Circular road, but the link between her asthma and her living conditions was not properly understood back in 2013. There is now research evidence from a large study in Lambeth that a period of high levels of air pollution, particularly diesel-related air pollution, leads immediately to a spike in the number of people going to see their GP with breathing difficulties. That spike includes a disproportionately high number of children.

Local authorities have public health responsibilities, and a natural part of those must be to take a more proactive approach to reducing air pollution and to informing their residents of those areas to avoid because they are heavily polluted.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am extremely happy to see so many noble Lords interested in this issue, because it is a massive national health issue that we really have to do something about. I agree completely that “20’s plenty”. Reducing the speed limit to 20 mph would not only reduce emissions and improve the health of people living alongside those roads but reduce the number of casualties—the road deaths and injuries—that cost the nation a fortune in social services, the NHS and policing. Anything to do with lowering the speed limit has a lot of benefits. The only negative appears to be a few irate car drivers who think that it is okay to drive at 80 or 90 mph in towns and cities.

My amendments seek to create a comprehensive system of targets, monitoring and funding to reduce air pollution levels to World Health Organization guideline levels. I know that we are not supposed to get involved in money or government finances, but it is not possible to end this crisis without significant public spending. The Government must make the money available to local authorities to transform their communities and clean up their air.

I first became aware of the huge problem of air pollution in London when I was on the London Assembly. I lived through Ken Livingstone’s eight years and the Boris Johnson’s eight years in power; Ken Livingstone did seem to get this, and the congestion charge obviously helped. In Boris Johnson’s time, we were in the build-up to the Olympics. At that point, there were only two monitoring stations in London from which the EU—it oversaw and monitored our air pollution—accepted information. One of the stations was on Marylebone Road, opposite Madame Tussauds. It is still there, and the intake pipe is some 12 feet above the road. Anybody who understands anything about air pollution knows that it is mostly lower, and that is why we should be very careful with children in prams, but this was 12 feet up. Our air was still polluted and higher than EU levels, so that gives an indication of how dirty our air was then.

My amendments are based on my clean air Bill that I keep putting into the ballot to be debated here. It has had a lot of legal input; I clearly think it is the best, but I am prepared to discuss this. One measure that Boris Johnson put in place because of the air pollution on the way to the Olympic Park was to install quite a lot of potted plants along the roadside. They were very attractive, but I am not sure that they did much to reduce the pollution—but he had been told that they might, so he put them in.

It is obvious that local authorities also need tougher powers to clean up other dirty sources of pollution, so my Amendment 153 proposes powers to prohibit the use of fireplaces, wood-burning appliances, diesel vehicles and other sources of pollutants in air pollution improvement zones. The Government have recognised that something needs to be done on air pollution, and this is a very good Bill to do it in. It will be very embarrassing if we get to COP 26 and still have this sort of pollution problem.

In summary, air pollution is a national health crisis: it costs us billions every year. It affects the old and the young. Several of us have mentioned Ella Kissi-Debrah, who lived next to a dirty, filthy road and died at nine years old because of her asthma. It is children who will have health problems all their lives because of living near polluted roads. This Bill is an ideal opportunity to fix this problem. We know what the solutions are, and they are here in these amendments, so I hope that the Government accept them.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and co-president of London Councils, the body that represents the 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation.

I will speak to Amendments 156A to 156M in my name. In doing so, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for adding her name to them, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, who has confirmed to me her support for these amendments but sadly was a little too late to add her name.

We are starting now to consider the part of this Bill on air quality and it is, perhaps, interesting and relevant to note that today is the anniversary of the date on which Royal Assent was given to the first national Clean Air Act, back in 1956. The problem is still very much with us; indeed, in many respects, it is much worse than it was then. Air pollution is a very serious problem which affects us all. It contributes to up to 40,000 premature deaths in the UK every year, so I welcome the Government’s acknowledgment of the risk that poor air quality presents to human health.

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I see their very local input as being a great force for good. Every catchment is different and has different problems, all of which need different and almost certainly local solutions, so we need to ensure that these catchment-based partnerships are encouraged, multiplied and properly resourced.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this is one of the groups of amendments which really ought to be just swallowed wholesale by the Government. It has some excellent amendments in it.

I have signed Amendment 161, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, because it is a really good amendment with some very practical solutions for cleaning up our rivers. The way that we as an industrial society treat our rivers is one of the grossest examples of the way we trash our planet. We see rivers as little more than a dumping ground we can use to dispose of our rubbish when we cannot be bothered to sort out our waste disposal systems. It is time to stop that.

In particular, Amendment 161 emphasises the importance of nature-based solutions and other ways of separating our sewage from the clean water that falls on the surface as rain. It is absolutely absurd that we mix these two things together, instantly turning clean rainwater into raw sewage that, as far as we are concerned, is good for nothing. There are a great many nature-based solutions for treating sewage water. In the US, more than half of sewage is treated to become organic fertiliser, although some recent studies show that this can be contaminated by the inclusion of industrial waste. As long as we remove or cut out this waste, there is no reason why the UK cannot develop a well-regulated, safe industry to turn our domestic wastewater into useful resources like that. Alternatively, there are fascinating natural wastewater systems such as constructed wetlands, which use a combination of natural processes to create safe water, with the excellent secondary benefit of creating central wetland habitats.

I know that the Minister is keen on nature-based solutions, so I hope that he can expand on the Government’s plans for using nature to clean up our water and reach zero river sewage. Quite honestly, if I had to pick one amendment as the most crucial, it would have to be Amendment 166 tabled by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, which sets the essential target of zero discharges of untreated sewage into rivers. This is the level of ambition that we should be working towards as a matter of urgency.

[Baroness Redfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and other noble Lords who have spoken in support of this group of amendments dealing with sewage overflows. As I stated at Second Reading, action is needed now because time is short, particularly as we are experiencing much longer periods of heavy rainfall. It is imperative that water companies upgrade their facilities to address this issue and help improve our environment in the light of climate change. I am pleased to have the opportunity to add my voice to these amendments, which address the problem of untreated sewage and propose other measures to prevent further destruction of our aquatic environment.

We are witnessing a gradual but destructive process which is reducing wildlife habitats and choking plant life; it cannot continue. The Environment Bill should be strengthened to place a legal duty on water companies to reverse these impacts on the environment and, in particular, public health, and to help reduce the negative impacts for both young and old, who enjoy aquatic leisure pursuits.

Water companies must take all reasonable steps to prevent the flow of untreated sewage from storm overflows into our rivers, lakes and coastal waters. It has to be stopped. We simply cannot keep saying that just a reduction is necessary; we must go much further, working towards eliminating these discharges. The harm caused by sewage discharges is a serious issue and must be a priority for the Government, who manage approximately 15,000 storm overflows in England. A plan to increase the continuous monitoring of storm overflows by sewerage companies by 2025, with much more detailed data being published at the earliest opportunity, obtained in as close to real time as possible, will stop sewage being spewed into our waters.

Finally, we need to address the use of technical failures as a justification for untreated sewage discharges, which last year increased by 46% compared with 2019 figures. This cannot continue to be condoned. Time is no longer a luxury we can afford. The sewage pollution crisis is here today and needs radical action; the general public know that and support action now.