Waste: Incineration

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to implement the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation to pause permission for new incineration plants to allow for a review of the treatment of residual waste.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to transitioning to a circular economy. We are considering the role of energy from waste in the context of circularity, economic growth and reaching net zero. As part of this, we are giving consideration to the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation. This year, Defra will publish an analysis of energy-from-waste capacity in England to inform future policy. We continue work to implement packaging reforms, drive up recycling rates and take material out of incineration.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the Minister, but I am deeply dissatisfied. This Government, in whom I had a lot of trust, have made the deeply irresponsible decision to allow the Portland incinerator to go ahead. I declare an interest as a resident of Dorset, although nowhere near Portland. Incineration and energy from waste is not a practical way forward; it is very damaging both in terms of public health and environmentally. I beg the Minister to speak to her department and suggest getting better advice on energy?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, it does say in the Companion that you should not thank a noble Member for their Question—so, on this occasion, I will not. The environmental permitting regulations prevent the incineration of separately collected paper, metal, glass or plastic waste, unless it has gone through some sort of treatment process first. Following that treatment, incineration is seen to be the best environmental outcome. We know that the recycling rate is too low, that we burn too much waste and that, for too long, recycling rates in England have plateaued. The way forward is to look at the whole big picture and our circular economy ambitions are designed to address this.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 9th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, but it is also daunting, because she can speak without notes for eight minutes. I cannot do that because I have so many complaints about the Bill, so excuse me for reading notes.

We have heard about the organisation River Action a couple of times; I am on its board and it will be playing a role in giving advice to the Government on how the Bill can be improved.

I know that the Minister knows how much I admire her and trust her as a Minister and in her role today. But, at the same time, the Bill is deeply disappointing. It is disappointing to the point of being almost a joke, because it does not do what the majority of people would like it to do. It is about the regulation of a capitalist monopoly and the good management of a privatised cash machine that water bill payers subsidise. The money just goes straight out and we do not get a benefit. The Bill tries to regulate by using the same people and organisations that have failed for the past 30 years. How can that change? I do not see that that is possible.

The Bill also tries to threaten the top people with jail time using the same tools that have been failing to work for 20 years. What it does not do is get back the billions of pounds that these company shareholders have pocketed for decades, or even stop those same shareholders from pocketing billions of pounds of our money in the future. Nor does it stop the water companies dumping sewage in the waterways. Instead, we hear about Ofwat making backroom deals that will keep the private companies in business by weakening the enforcement of regulations. I do not understand how that can be happening.

We should enforce the regulations—if the businesses fail, they fail—and let the companies know that this Government want the work done. Ofwat has made clear that the water companies have had the money they need, so they must either get the job done or give us a refund. What the Government should not do is allow these companies to run up more debts in order to pay out more dividends. Those debts and dividend payments have already cost us four months-worth of water bill payments. In what other area of life are consumers paying out four months-worth of bills each year but getting nothing back in return?

We are not even being offered a guarantee of clean water or that the leaks will be fixed. In fact, we have the insanity of a country soaked in record rainfall arranging a deal that would use tankers to import Norwegian water in the event of drought. That is so lunatic that I cannot even finish my sentence about it. As other noble Lords have said, water is a basic of life. We need water—all life needs water—so why is it in private hands and subject to profiteering?

Much of this Bill is about what happens when a water company fails and goes into a special administrative regime. Ministers have said on several occasions that they will not bring water companies into public ownership because of the cost. They have been quoting a six year-old Social Market Foundation report, but they ignore the very recent calculations by Moody’s and the S&P credit rating agency that these shares are junk. Their estimate of how much it would cost is very different.

Professor Ewan McGaughey of King’s College London said:

“Special administration would not cost the Treasury or taxpayers anything ... special administration enables the Minister to put a plan before”


the High Court to cancel a company’s debt

“if continued payments to banks would interfere with properly carrying out the water company’s sewage or clean water functions”.

So why does the Minister not just do that? Special administration sounds great and very cheap. As Professor McGaughey said:

“The best way to clean our water is with more investment. Forty percent more investment would be possible if we stop bailing out banks and shareholders with billpayer rises. It will cost us over £12.5 billion this Parliament to keep paying shareholders and banks. … The right way to close this black hole is to make failed companies lose their licences, cancel the debt and transition to public water … This is all possible under the existing law”.


As for the debt that was accumulated to pay shareholder dividends, I understand that the Thames Water debt is now being traded by hedge funds. They are buying this debt on the cheap because they think this Government are stupid enough, or corrupt enough, to compensate them at a higher level. As much as I hate the idea of rewarding the parasites in our water industry with compensation for worthless shares, I dislike even more the idea of hedge-fund managers making a profit from a Labour Government’s ideological rejection of public ownership, so will the Minister give me an assurance that minimal compensation will be paid to the creditors of failed water companies and that our water bills will not be used to line the pockets of the hedge funds?

The Minister mentioned in her opening statement that this Bill had public support. I knocked on a lot of doors during the general election—I spoke to a lot of people in their homes and on the streets—and I think that a huge number of people, if not the majority, would support the following criteria for a more radical water Bill: no compensation for shareholders, minimal compensation for creditors, and public ownership being one of the options for these failed companies.

I will bring forward amendments to ensure that this Bill does not simply allow these failed zombie companies to continue extracting bill payers’ cash while loading huge amounts of debt on to the balance sheet. The Government need a serious look at the opportunity to bring these companies into public ownership, and this Bill should give Ministers the option to nationalise these companies where it makes sense.

Environment and Climate Change Committee Report: An Extraordinary Challenge: Restoring 30 per cent of our Land and Sea by 2030

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for securing the debate and getting so many people together to speak on the environment. It was a very clever thing to do. The report is also good, and I thank the committee.

It is an extraordinary experience for me to agree with virtually everything that everybody has said in this debate. That is highly unusual for a Green—even among Greens in the Green Party. I thank your Lordships for the wonderful things that have been said. It is also interesting to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, with whom I mostly agreed—mostly.

If I get irritable during my speech, it is because the Green Party has been saying this sort of thing for 50 years. I have personally been saying it for only 36 years, but it still gets a little repetitive sometimes. In essence, when we look at the basics of human life, without nature, we cease to exist. Without life in our oceans, the whole planet goes awry, and we cease to exist. Nature is not just something to enjoy—although that is a good aspect of it—it is our life support. Nature is resilient but, with humanity’s decimation of our species and habitats, life has become more fragile and precious.

We have conservation programmes across the UK and the globe, but climate change puts them all under threat. There are fewer birds in our skies, fish in our seas and bees on our crops. One in six UK wildlife species is now at risk of extinction. As Britain heats up, plants, insects, birds, animals and people will all need to shift north. That is happening right now and, unless we hit this 2030 target, it is possible that green corridors, the right soils and suitable spaces will not be there for many species.

A report by Wildlife and Countryside Link estimated that just 3% of land and up to 8% of sea are effectively protected for nature in England. I hope that the new Government have not been fooled by the rubbish we had from the last Government about our being on track to meet the 2030 target. It is absolutely clear that we are not on track and have a real problem.

Obviously, the Green Party offers big solutions to these big challenges. First, we need an independent commission for nature, which would protect nature and ensure the restoration of wildlife habitats. This new watchdog should be created as part of a new rights of nature Act that would enshrine the intrinsic value of nature in law. I am so sorry if I am stumbling; I can write with only my left hand at the moment, which I am not very good at, and I am having trouble reading my writing.

This independent commission for nature would set up targets for nature protection and restoration, and would enforce them through the courts; that is a very important issue. This would give individuals, communities and conservation groups the opportunity to take legal action on behalf of nature. We need legislation that sets standards for soil quality and phases out the most harmful pesticides immediately as we move towards regenerative farming methods. Only pesticides that pass this test and demonstrably do not harm bees, butterflies and other wildlife should be approved for use in the UK.

Of course, one quick win would be to stop the use of peat for horticulture. Let us ban imports of peat. Let us stop using it and understand that the damage we do to peat bogs—including peat bogs in other countries where imported peat comes from—is unrecoverable.

I hope that the Minister will do everything that she can to prevent any rollback of the existing protections for the green belt, national landscapes and sites of special scientific interest; I am sure that she will because I know that she cares. Those protections should be strengthened, not weakened. Having clean water in national parks should be obvious but it is not there. Will the Government change the rules to make it compulsory and tell the water company bosses that they will be given community service orders if they dump sewage in Windermere and every other precious waterway? I would love to see some water company bosses on their hands and knees restoring the rivers that they have absolutely trashed, and I know that my friend Feargal Sharkey would love some help with the chalk streams that run through England.

While the Government consult on that, can the Minister urgently publish the regulation and guidance needed to enforce the recent legislation that Peers helped to pass on water companies having duties to further national park purposes? Further, can the Minister promise legislation to make it absolutely clear that national parks are nature designations as well as landscape designations? There is something cold and disconnected about knowing that a beautiful landscape is a poisonous, no-go area for wildlife.

Now we come on to money. The Government will have got off to a bad start if they cut £100 million from their annual budget for nature-friendly farming in England. This cut will mean at least 239,000 fewer hectares of nature-friendly farmland, according to research from the RSPB. The Green Party argues not only that we can afford to promote nature-friendly farming but that—here, we agree with the National Farmers’ Union—a big increase in the budget is an essential step towards promoting havens for wildlife, as well as cleaning up our water supply. The Government want to protect our coastlines and oceans but there is no money to monitor progress or even establish a baseline to work from.

Of course, a ban on bottom trawling is another essential; I really do not understand the delay in making that happen, but the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, covered this issue absolutely fantastically. Could the Minister perhaps make a statement on the appointment of a Minister with a portfolio of responsibility for the international marine environment?

Finally, can we please ratify the Global Ocean Treaty agreement, which seeks to conserve marine biology? I realise that this would be a huge task for a new Government but, if the Government do not come up with the right policies, it will be to all our disbenefit.

Water Companies: Financial Resilience

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I too welcome the noble Baroness to her new post; I am sure she will be superb. How many water companies are currently financially resilient?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her welcome. I am sure she has seen the environmental performance assessment that came out today. It reports that most companies continue to underperform and there continue to be a lot of concerns in this area. On the specific question she asked, I will write to her with the proper information so I know I am accurate.