Waste Incineration: Regulation

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan]

I, like the hon. Gentleman, am looking forward to the Minister’s remarks. As I said, I do not think that the Environmental Agency has done nearly enough to enforce that waste hierarchy, to which all parties are committed.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend knows that I have a long-term interest in the sector. Indeed, he can check the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I have always been interested in energy from waste. He should be very cautious about calling it “incineration”. Energy from waste is at its best—looking at Sheffield or the new power plant in Leeds—when, for most of the town or city, it not only feeds into the electricity supply, but is a large contributor to it. On the other hand, if the heat is retained and heats the whole of the centre of Sheffield, as it does, it is a very valuable part of the balance that we need. We can never recycle everything, and if we do not have that balance between good quality energy from waste, recycling and minimising throwing stuff in holes in the ground, we are lost. I would love that sort of facility in my constituency, where we have an old-fashioned incinerator, but all the heat goes out into the atmosphere.

[John Grogan]

I say to my hon. Friend that I used to chair the last but one coalmine to close in this country; Hatfield Colliery, in Yorkshire. Incinerators actually emit more CO₂ per megawatt-hour generated than any other fossil fuel source, including coal. On CO₂ and global warming grounds alone, we must consider that.

I will go back to my remarks about whether we have enough incinerators. Only one independent analysis is widely respected: Eunomia’s. It is an environmental consultant with expertise in this area that has issued 12 reports, the last of which was published in July 2017. The analysis clearly demonstrates that operational incineration capacity has grown rapidly, from 6.3 million tonnes in 2009-10, to 13.5 million tonnes in 2017. Additional capacity is assessed to be 4.8 million tonnes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sheerman]

Before my hon. Friend moves on from recycling, will he give way? He is a good friend of mine.

[John Grogan]

Just because my hon. Friend is a very good friend: I have only a few minutes left, so I can take a short intervention.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend knows that his local authority’s recycling is pathetic, as is mine. My challenge for him is, if energy from waste is stopped, what will we do with the non-recyclable plastics that are pouring into every town and city in the country?

[John Grogan]

The way I would help local authorities to recycle more would be to tax incinerators, just as landfill is taxed, to give them the money to increase recycling rates. That is being considered by the Treasury at the moment. The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury said recently that the Treasury

“would be willing to consider a future incineration tax once further infrastructure has been put in place to reduce…the amount of plastics that are incinerated, further improving the environment and reducing the amount of throwaway single-use plastics.”––[Official Report, Finance (No. 3) Public Bill Committee, 6 December 2018; c. 299.]

[John Grogan]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. There are precedents that can be looked at, such as the landfill tax. However, I hope that the Government—any Government—will rapidly bring the matter to a conclusion, to give certainty. Instead of just flirting with the idea of taxation it is now time to act on it.

If the House will indulge me, in my remaining couple of minutes I need to refer to the outstanding application in the Keighley area. I commend the work of Aire Valley Against Incineration, which has campaigned hard on the issue. There is planning permission. It is quite unusual to apply for planning permission and not to apply at the same stage for an environmental permit. I do not know whether the Minister would have a comment to make on that. The application for an environmental permit bears little resemblance to the original planning application. Fifty per cent. more waste is envisaged. There is planning permission for 100,000 tonnes, and an extra 48,000 tonnes is now being added. The layout of the buildings and chimney stack has changed. The nature of the waste that might be burned has changed. The planning committee was told that only residual waste in the form of refuse-derived fuel would be included. Now the Environment Agency is being told that the facility will accept residual, commercial and industrial waste of a similar nature to unsorted municipal solid waste.

There is therefore great concern in the community. We hope that the Environment Agency will do a rigorous job. There is even more concern because of the nature of the company involved—Endless Energy, which is not even a member of the trade association. It is based in the Isle of Man. It has two directors who have been named by the Environment Agency. One of them, Rajinder Singh Chatha, was the controlling force behind Oddbins, which has recently gone into administration. A tax tribunal recently found that he was

“intentionally misleading about some of the explicit lies that the tribunal has found were told to HMRC”.

It decided that he was not a fit and proper person to be allowed to sell or distribute duty suspended alcohol. He is not a fit and proper person to sell alcohol! Despite the pleadings of my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) that this industry should be given a fair chance, these people are cowboys. Until recently cowboys were running Keighley Cougars, our proud rugby league team, but they have now gone. I will be writing to the chair of the Environment Agency to ask how it can possibly trust a man who the tax authorities say cannot be trusted.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will my hon. Friend give way? He did mention me.

[John Grogan]

I will not give way to my hon. Friend for a third time, but I look forward to having a cup of tea with the chair of the all-party group for Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire, and restoring our friendship. In the meantime, I hope the Front-Bench speakers will be robust about this. Obviously the Opposition Front-Bench speaker cannot speak on this occasion, but there is a chance that we could reach agreement on incinerators, perhaps even before we reach agreement on Europe across the House.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) on securing this important debate. It has clearly attracted a lot of attention from Members across the House.

The hon. Gentleman has particular concerns about the growth of incineration and the potential for overcapacity, and the negative impact that that might have on the drive for increased recycling. In the waste hierarchy, incineration is only above landfill, and we want to ensure that we reduce, reuse and recycle. Whether that involves promoting resource efficiency and moving towards a circular economy, the actions taken will allow us to extract maximum value from resources, and recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of their lifespan. We set that out clearly in our resources and waste strategy, which also set higher recycling ambitions. Those include delivering a 65% municipal waste recycling rate by 2035, and a minimum 70% recycling rate for packaging waste by 2030.

Hon. Members will know about the increase in recycling rates between 2001 and 2017-18, and local authority recycling has more than tripled, increasing from 12% to more than 42%. Over the same period, waste sent to landfill has gone from 79% to 12.5%. Policies aimed at diverting waste away from landfill have meant that the volume of waste being treated at energy-from-waste plants has increased, but that growth must not hinder recycling ambitions. Even after delivering higher recycling levels, there will still be waste that we cannot recycle or reuse, either because it is contaminated or because there are no end markets for the material. Our overarching ambition is to manage that waste in a way that maximises its value as a resource, while minimising the environmental impact of its management.

We currently deal with such waste in three main ways: landfill, incineration with energy recovery, or export as refuse-derived fuel. Landfill is the least favoured option for waste. We have been clear in our strategy that we wish to reduce the level of municipal waste that is sent to landfill down to 10%—or less—by 2035.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I was about to answer the hon. Gentleman’s point so I will not give way. He has already contributed twice to the debate.

Energy from waste or incineration with energy recovery should not compete with greater waste prevention, reuse or recycling. England currently has enough capacity to treat around 36% of residual municipal waste, and the projected increase in recycling thanks to our resources and waste strategy measures will reduce the future level of residual waste treatment infrastructure that is required. However, energy from waste will continue to have an important role in diverting waste from landfill—that is the point that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) tried to make clear.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Minister has just mentioned me. Will she give way on that point?

[Dr Coffey]

I will not. That is the best management option for most waste that cannot be reused or recycled, in terms of environmental impact and getting value from waste as a resource.

Energy-from-waste plants are regulated by the Environment Agency in England and must comply with the strict emission limits set by the industrial emissions directive. Every application for a new plant is assessed by the Environment Agency to ensure that it uses the best available techniques to minimise emissions, and that it will not have a significant effect on local air quality. The Environment Agency will not issue an environmental permit if the proposed plant will have a significant impact on the environment or harm human health. Once operational, energy-from-waste plants are closely regulated through a programme of regular inspections and audits carried out by the Environment Agency, which also carefully checks the results of the continuous air emissions monitoring that all plants must do.

Hon. Members should also note that Public Health England’s position remains that modern, well-managed incinerators operated in accordance with an environmental permit are not a significant risk to public health. The Government have been clear that we want to maximise the resource value of waste, including residual waste. That is why we are working to drive greater efficiency of energy from waste plants by encouraging the use of the heat those plants produce.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I am trying to respond to the hon. Member for Keighley, who brought this 30-minute debate. I am conscious that other people have made points, but I will deal with his points first. He specifically referred to the Aire Valley incinerator; I am aware of what is being proposed, and I understand that City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council has granted Endless Energy, formerly known as the Aire Valley Energy from Waste facility, planning permission to develop such a facility for the recovery of energy from non-hazardous waste, to be built on the site of the former gasworks east of Keighley. The proposed facility will use standard incineration technology to generate electricity.

Endless Energy has also applied to the Environment Agency for an environmental permit, which it will need to operate its facility. The agency is carrying out a full technical assessment of Endless Energy’s proposals to determine whether a permit can be issued. The Environment Agency has consulted the public as part of its determination and has received more than 2,000 responses. It also consults Public Health England and the local government director of public health on every energy from waste plant application that it receives, and takes their comments into account when deciding whether to issue a permit.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I am trying to respond to the questions that have been posed already—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister has made it clear she is not giving way.

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr Betts—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I hope it is a point of order, Mr Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, I have never been in a Westminster Hall debate where a Minister has refused to give way, even when she has mentioned the person who wants to intervene. I have never known a Minister fail to give way and just read her speech and ignore the fact that this is a debating Chamber.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that that is not a point of order.

[Dr Coffey]

As I say, I am trying to answer the points made by the hon. Member for Keighley, whose debate this is. He referred to a planning application, but he will be aware that it will not be a matter for the national Government in this instance to determine whether the changes to the planning application are appropriate. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) have a planning application that is under way as a nationally significant infrastructure project, I believe. They will be aware that again, I cannot comment specifically in that regard.

However, it is important that we recognise that one of the things we are doing in the resources and waste strategy is effectively removing this condition, which I believe is where the hon. Member for Keighley has a problem, of TEEP—technically, environmentally and economically practicable—exemptions, which allow exemptions based on technical, economic and environmental differences. Under the proposals that we have put out in the consultation, which we hope to include in the Environment Bill in the next Session of Parliament, there is a specific removal of that TEEP exemption on what councils will be required to collect for recycling. It will determine not how they collect it but what they collect.

Therefore, that situation will no longer arise; if the responses to the consultation agree with what the Government believe is the right policy to take forward, councils will no longer have the ability to simply say, “It is not economically viable for us to do this anymore.” That is quite a revolution in the resource and waste strategy.

Returning to the point about the Environment Agency’s being more robust, there are some challenges relating to how the EA can implement the TEEP exemptions with councils in its considerations. That is an important part of why we are pushing forward that proposal in our consultations, which I hope will be in the future Bill.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I am very conscious of the quality of people being considered. That is another reason why we are starting to make changes, which I hope the Environment Bill will strengthen, that will allow the Environment Agency to assess the different offences that people may have committed. At the moment, it is restricted specifically to issues surrounding waste. We are broadening that out.

I do not know how that would apply to the issue to which the hon. Member for Keighley referred about somebody not being licensed to sell alcohol. I do not know what that would mean with regard to offences, and whether such a condition would be introduced. I assure him that the industry is fed up of cowboys taking this on, but it is important that the district council and the Environment Agency have different roles in the assessment of energy-from-waste plants—one is about the planning, the other is about the environmental impact and keeping in line with the industrial emissions directive.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Member for Keighley has suggested an incineration tax previously. As he pointed out, tax policy is generally a matter for the Treasury. Although energy from waste can play an important role in reducing the amount of waste going to landfill, in the long term we want to maximise the amount of waste used for recycling. Again, wider policies are set out in our resources and waste strategy. Changes that we will introduce to the extent of producer responsibility will effectively incentivise the design of products that are much more straightforward to recycle.

That is an opportunity, but I am also aware that industry and the Environmental Services Association are concerned that, if we do not reach 65% in that time or do not make progress more quickly, there will be a lack of incineration. In effect, that will be a commercial decision for them to consider, but, as was mentioned earlier, we want to encourage the use of the heat that plants produce, and to work closely with industry to secure a substantial increase in the number of energy from waste plants that are formally recognised as achieving recovery status R1. We will ensure that all future EfW plants achieve recovery status.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) rightly talked about transparent information for residents. I am conscious that some environmental assessments are very technical. That is why we have the Environment Agency to make that judgment. However, there is still an opportunity for residents to table questions either directly to the developer or to the Environment Agency during its consideration.