Environment Bill

Bim Afolami Excerpts

Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 26th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) on her excellent maiden speech. I was pleased to hear that she is, or was, a local councillor and so, like me, will appreciate the importance of local democracy and local government. In this place, we must ensure that the voices of local communities are being heard and that our local government is resourced properly.

I also welcome the fact that one of the first pieces of major legislation that we are discussing in this new Parliament is on the environment, as it is one of the most urgent issues of our times and has to be a central focus of all our future decision making. But it is worth reminding the House that this Bill is necessary only as a result of our leaving the European Union, which was, until now, the best protector of our environmental standards. Although the Government have claimed that Brexit will mean enhanced—

[Bim Afolami]

On her point about the European Union being the best protector of our environmental standards, does the hon. Lady not accept that this country’s environmental standards and, indeed, our food standards are some of the highest in the world, not just in the European Union?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I absolutely agree. The European Union has been a team effort to which Britain has made a large contribution. It is a shame that we can no longer be leaders in the European Union and direct its future.

Although the Government have claimed that Brexit will mean enhanced environmental standards for the UK, the Bill does not really deliver much on those promises. We are facing a climate emergency, a fact that the Government acknowledge but are less willing to act on. We need to tackle the climate emergency immediately, with legally binding targets included in the Bill.

I am pleased to see that the Office for Environmental Protection has had climate changed added to its remit, but the OEP needs independence and teeth to hold the Government to account. Unless and until it can independently impose hefty fines, the OEP cannot match the EU as an enforcer of environmental regulation.

I wish to focus my remarks on part 3 of the Bill, which concerns waste and resources, and on the amendment that I will table in Committee. I will also mention the Government’s commitments on the deposit return scheme. Unfortunately, I will probably not get a place on the Bill Committee, so I will depend on cross-party support for my amendment. I believe it will strengthen the Bill and make it better, and I very much hope that the Bill Committee will consider it.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to establishing a deposit return scheme—a policy that the Lib Dems have been pushing for many years. However, there are several questions about how the scheme will work in practice. It is important that the scheme is both independent from Government and not for profit. The Department should work to ensure that the scheme is as wide as possible, incorporating cans and all types of plastic and glass bottles. I am concerned that as Scotland is introducing its own deposit return scheme two years earlier, DEFRA’s scheme for England and Wales might not be compatible. It should be. I am looking forward to hearing more from the Government on the detailed proposals. People who come from different backgrounds—I was born in Germany, where deposit return schemes have always operated and never been stopped—know that it is a particular challenge to rebuild the infrastructure needed for a proper scheme. Nevertheless, it is the right direction of travel and I very much look forward to the debate and hope that I can make a contribution.

I shall be tabling an amendment on waste traceability that will require waste collection and management authorities to publish the end destination of all municipal waste products. I am deeply concerned about the transparency of waste management in this country. I was a local councillor for three years and the cabinet member for the environment, and my responsibilities included bin collections and waste disposal, so I know quite a lot about the subject, and I know the difficulties that councils have in making recycling really work and making sure that people engage in recycling schemes. For that reason, it is important that local councils disclose not just where they send their waste after they have collected it but the end destination, so that nobody can say, “Well, you have sold it on to a management company somewhere in the midlands and we do not know where it goes then.” We would instead know what that company did with the waste and that it did not sell it on to some country abroad, so that it might eventually end up in the oceans.

We would also know whether we were sending our waste to waste incineration facilities. Although people talk about energy from waste, I remind the House that it is not a net zero solution. Incinerating plastic is no better than burning fossil fuels. If we are looking for a net zero solution for this country, incineration from waste is not it. We need to look at that urgently. My amendment would make sure that those who diligently recycled could be confident that their waste was recycled and not shipped abroad or burned in incinerators. Incinerators need a certain calorific value in order to burn. For example, burning wet food waste is best done by adding plastics. It is perfectly possible that waste companies are burning recycled plastic waste from local authorities.

It is crucial to understand that energy from waste plants is not a net zero solution. Burning plastics, as I have just said, is no better than burning fossil fuels. Plastic should be recycled where possible, and energy from waste facilities create a counter-incentive to recycling. A small change in the law to require waste to be traced to its end destination will make the system more transparent and waste authorities more accountable. In this way, everyone will know where their waste is going when they put it in the recycling bin. We owe it to our residents to give them that transparency.

Although this Bill brings forward some important changes to waste and recycling, there is still not enough focus on waste prevention and how the waste industry will contribute to a net zero Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow some excellent maiden speeches. The themes of this debate are clear, with a general acceptance that this is a good Bill. Some like it a bit more than others, but in general it is seen as a good Bill. Some Opposition Members seem to want the EU or certain other non-Westminster bodies to have more of a say, whereas some Conservative Members want them to have less of a say, but I think the balance has been struck reasonably well by the Government and I commend Ministers for that. This is a landmark piece of legislation, and not just for this country, as we see if we compare it with what is in place in other countries. It is important for us in this House to look sometimes to see what other countries are doing. What we are doing here is admired, not just in this country, but outside it. We should commend the Government for being so forthright. That does not mean we cannot improve the Bill and improve what we do, but let us call a spade a spade and say where we have done a good job—this Bill is a good Bill.

The OEP has rightly attracted a lot of attention because it is one of the most significant things established by the Bill. We will find out in the coming weeks, months and years how the OEP develops and interacts with this House, DEFRA Ministers and devolved Administrations, and how that all works. However, it strikes me that we have almost set up a sort of environmental National Audit Office. That is how the OEP could end up developing—[Interruption.] I see the Minister nodding on the Bench, so I hope I am right about that and that she will address it in her remarks. As a former member of the Public Accounts Committee, I know that, if there is anything like the professionalism that we see in the National Audit Office, we will be very well served.

We all need to be a bit more realistic. We need to wake up because the Bill is actually more significant than we realise. The enabling powers in the Bill give us the foundation to start to deal with the huge changes that are coming across our economy, society, Government and Parliament as a result of the action taken to combat climate change. Earlier in the debate, I intervened on the shadow Secretary of State to talk about the target of net zero by 2050. Yes, some people want it to be net zero by 2040 or 2030, and I understand that, but until we can get a handle on what we need to do to get there by 2050—which may seem like a long way away, but it is only 30 years, and in policy terms that is not a huge amount of time—we need to get our arms around this subject. We need to realise the number of levers we have to pull to get there by 2050. The Bill will allow us to do that.

Let me give a couple of examples. We all know that we cannot solve climate change in this country alone. It is an international effort. To accompany this Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill—a whole framework of how to look at the environment—the Government need, in the run-up to COP26, to set out an ambitious international strategy that includes not only spending from our aid budget, as the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), mentioned, but diplomacy and high-level Government commitment around the world. Frankly, if we cannot convince other countries to take the sort of action that we are taking, none of these problems will get anywhere near to being solved.

Another word I wish to mention is incentives. Let us not forget the power of incentives and, indeed, subsidies. The Bill gives us the framework within which we can remember the positive impact that incentives can have. Look at what we have done on wind and solar power over the past 10 or 15 years; there will be other areas in which we can use incentives. Let us use the Bill as a springboard, in the run-up to COP26, so that we can use more incentives and subsidies in the right areas to make the technological changes that we need and help our economy. The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) talked about the economy of the environment; the economy needs to flourish in order for the environment to flourish—they are intertwined—and using incentives in the right way can help us to do that.

Another word I wish to mention is honesty: a lot of this is going to cost this country a lot of money. Let us be straight about that. It will cost public sector money and private sector money, and not all of that money will be in this country. We are going to need international inward investment in the technology, in the ways we do things and in research and development, so that we can develop the technology, whether it be carbon capture and storage, battery technology or whatever, so that we have a chance of achieving the target. We all need to be a lot more honest with ourselves and, indeed, our constituents that this is going to cost a lot of money. Let us now start to have the bigger conversation about how we pay for it. I suspect that those on the Government Benches may want to do things differently from those on the Opposition Benches, but we have to agree that we have to do it. Let us have that bigger conversation; the Bill gives us a framework and basis on which to do that.

I wish to conclude with two local issues that illustrate a wider point that has already come out in the debate. The first is Luton airport, which is next to my constituency. Many of my constituents are concerned about the air pollution impacts of an airport that is so near to a rural area; the Bill gives us the ability to look at air quality and hopefully to impose binding targets in a localised way. The second issue is chalk streams. We have many unique historic chalk streams in my constituency; the Bill allows us to deal with abstraction in a smarter way. It is a good Bill, but let us make sure that this is the beginning, not the end, of the process.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

When we consider the context in which this debate is taking place, it is important to remember that, in the 1980s, Britain was known as the dirty man of Europe for its air pollution and for its contaminated land and water. It is largely because of 45 years of European Union membership, which concluded at the end of last month, that, more often than not, Ministers had their minds focused on the issue—whether that was to make sure that they did not end up in European courts, or to make sure that Britain was not subject to fines. I guess that we come to the debate today thinking about why it is we have this issue of divergence with the Environment Bill. To be frank, this is not a Government whom I trust very well. It is a Government who said that Parliament would not be prorogued—it was prorogued. It is a Government who said that there would not be an election—there was an election. So, forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, when I struggle with this notion that we put all these powers into the hands of the UK and that, as a result of divergence, Britain will have higher rather than lower standards when it comes to the environment.

We know that that is the case because, when he was on “The Andrew Marr Show”, the Foreign Secretary spoke about the need for divergence. We know from leaked documents in the Financial Times and on the BBC that there is a desire on the part of the Government to see divergence in order to get free trade agreements over the line. That is something that is very much in the public domain.

[Bim Afolami]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is very generous of him. On the point about whether he trusts the Government on divergence and how we will adapt to these environmental challenges, is that not his party’s policy in relation to independence—that, by becoming independent, it will give the Scottish people the ability to do things differently and therefore, he hopes, better? Surely he can recognise the fact that, by having these powers on the environment, it gives us the ability as a country to do things in a better way.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. The only part that he missed out in his argument is that the Scottish National party’s proposition for independence is to be back in the European Union, where there are higher levels of environmental standards. That is the precise reason why I did not want to leave the European Union and why I want Scotland to be an independent state within it.

I want to speak about the need to improve the Bill. The Government, of course, have a whopping majority. I respect and understand that, and I accept the result of the election in December. None the less, although they have a large majority in this place, they do not have a monopoly on wisdom, so there is a requirement for us to work across the House and seek consensus.

The hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) talked about the need for us to consider the issue of the Office of Environmental Protection. Having sat through the debate, it is clear to me that that has been quite a contentious issue. The right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) was protesting about the idea of having extra quangos. He made great play in talking about Natural England, but it is my understanding that Natural England’s budget has been cut by 50% and its staff numbers have gone from 2,500 to 1,500. It is all well and good to talk about these quangos, but it is important to put on the record that that quango has been subjected to huge cuts by the British Government.

When improving the Bill, there is a need to look at the proposed timescales for the Bill, such as the 2037 target for enforcement. That is simply not good enough. UNICEF, the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research are all calling for legally binding commitments to meet WHO guideline limits for fine particulate matter by 2030 at the latest.

One issue that I wish to raise in terms of improving the Bill relates to the Nappies (Environmental Standards) Bill that I introduced in the previous Parliament. That Bill came about partly as a result of a fine factory in my constituency owned by Magnus Smyth in Queenslie, which manufactures environmentally friendly, reusable nappies. When Magnus first came to me about this issue, it was because there is not a level playing field. There are disposable nappy companies out there that talk about eco-friendly nappies that still end up in landfill. We know that, when they end up in landfill, they can take 300 years to break down. We know that 33 billion nappies per year go to landfill and that they generate 7 million tonnes of waste. We also know that, on average, one child, until potty training at the age of two and a half, will generate 550 kg of CO₂ equivalents. In many respects, the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden is right: we do need to have honest conversations about changes in consumer behaviour. The measures in my Bill were not about telling people that they had to use reusable nappies—that would be hypocrisy on my own part; we use a combination of both. But we need to look at some of the measures in that Bill, which included promoting reusable nappies schemes such as the one in Hackney in north London and making sure that we tackle the misinformation peddled by some of the companies. I would be grateful if I could pick up with the Minister that idea of trying to incorporate some of that Bill in an amendment to this Bill to make sure that we are taking action on nappies. I am taking the Government at their word that they want to have higher standards as a result of leaving the European Union, so I am sure they will have no difficulty considering those amendments, which I would certainly be happy to table on Report, if I do not manage to meet up with a Minister, or in Committee.

On having honest conversations and what the Government can do, the first point is that, when schemes are proposed, whether a workplace parking levy or three-weekly bin collections, we as politicians need to take those arguments seriously. It is all well and good for us to play party politics from time to time, but if we are to address the future of the environment, we need to have grown-up decisions. Some parties in the House would do well to reflect on that, particularly in relation to a workplace parking levy, which has caused huge amounts of consternation in the Scottish Parliament, much of which is faux outrage.

I make my final point on electric cars because I had a dinner last night with the automotive sector. It strikes me that the Government are taking a purist view on hybrid models and pure electric, and that is something that they must revisit. There is clearly a lack of support for R and D in that industry, and we know when we speak to constituents that a degree of consumer confidence is required and that is not helped by decisions such as those on charging grants.

I have spoken about the need to improve the Bill. It will not be opposed tonight and will go into Public Bill Committee, but I reflect on the point that if the UK Government are seriously saying that they want the Bill to make our environment-related regulations even better, one way of doing that is to work across the House, whether on environmental standards for nappies or many other things. If they do that, we will take them seriously. If they do not, it will reaffirm my view that the Bill is about watering down standards for a free trade agreement, and I am sure that is not a position that the Minister wants to take.