Local Authorities: Recycling

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, this is intriguing, because in South Oxfordshire, for example, it is 66.6% and in the London Borough of Newham, it is 14.7%. One issue that my colleague Thérèse Coffey is dealing with is that many councils in urban areas of all political persuasions are finding recycling much more of a challenge, so we need to work on that.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, we need to be realistic about the overall recycling rates. The fact is that in England, recycling levels are falling according to the latest WRAP figures. We are now in danger of not even meeting the 50% recycling target by 2020 in England. When we talked about this before, the Minister agreed that we could learn a great deal from the Welsh Government, where rates are already at 63% and rising: they are going up in Wales and down in England. What lessons has he taken from the Welsh Government about how we could improve things in England?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

It is certainly important that we learn from where there are good examples. I referred to good examples in England; there are indeed good examples in Wales. We need to listen and learn from them. In Wales, a single blueprint is published; in England, there are three suggestions in the consistency document. This is all about how much we mingle—I gather that that is the word—recyclable produce. In some areas, it is easier to mingle it all and in others it is easier to separate it. The problem with that is that you might get five bins or you might get three. That is the issue that we need to wrestle with.