Waste Review

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

First, I wish to make it clear that the written ministerial statement was available to Members before I spoke to the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management. Of course the Government will work with all parties to increase recycling rates, but the recycling target is a European one of reducing waste by 50% by 2020. I am confident that we are on target. This is a devolved matter for the other nations.

It is a bit rich, coming from the Opposition, who had 13 years to get to grips with landfill. They could, if they had so wanted, have got on and banned wood, materials, textiles and metals. I fear that the Opposition are still in denial about the dreadful economic legacy that they left to the Government.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asks about green growth. I have just spoken to the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and shared with them the fact that we estimate that there will be a growth of 3% or 4% per annum in green jobs through the waste industry because of the positive framework that we are setting out to help people do what they want to do—the right thing: waste less and recycle more.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I welcome the statement that the Secretary of State laid before the House today. May I share with her the fact that the district council serving my part of north Yorkshire will be well on its way to meeting the target that she has set. There will obviously be some perverse implications from abolishing LATS—landfill allowance trading schemes—because rural communities have done very well out of that.

I welcome the fact that anaerobic digestion is to be increased. It deals primarily with waste food. What are the implications for other energy from waste facilities in the next few years?

[Mrs Spelman]

I thank the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for her warm welcome for the Government’s waste review and her recognition that LATS fulfilled a role whose impact the landfill tax has largely overtaken in helping us reduce the amount that goes to landfill.

At the same time as publishing the waste review, I have published the Government’s anaerobic digestion strategy. We see the future for anaerobic digestion as very important. The Select Committee Chairman makes an important point. It is not just food waste that can be used as a feedstock for anaerobic digestion, and we must be careful that food crops are not caught as feedstock for anaerobic digestion. We should be using waste.