Edmonton EcoPark: Proposed Expansion

Greg Hands Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change (Greg Hands)]

It is pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Hosie. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing this important debate.

The Edmonton incinerator was given development consent in February 2017 after the consideration of relevant issues, including potential environmental and health impacts. The Government have no statutory or financial basis for undertaking a cost review of the Edmonton project. That would be a matter for the local auditors, but I have listened carefully to my right hon. Friend and, having heard what he said today, if I were a council tax payer in his constituency, I would be concerned about whether there is value for money in the project. He reports costs increasing from £650 million to £1.2 billion, which is a huge increase. I am not surprised to learn from him that local people are testing whether the North London Waste Authority has the necessary robust practices in place.

Let me lay out the process. All large energy-from-waste plants in England must comply with strict emission limits and cannot operate without a permit issued by the Environment Agency—in this case, the one granted in 2017. The Environment Agency assesses the emissions from new plants as part of its permitting process and consults the UK Health Security Agency on every application it receives. UKHSA’s position relating to incineration is that modern, well run and regulated municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health. I will come back in a moment to the arguments about weighing them up versus other means of waste disposal and waste avoidance. The concerns raised by my right hon. Friend’s GPs could usefully be directed towards the UK Health Security Agency, if he thinks that there is evidence that their conclusion does not abide with what is going on locally.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I want to make some more progress. I am going to describe the policy, and then I will respond to the points raised in the debate and, if I have time, I will take some interventions.

In relation to the Edmonton energy-from-waste plant, the Environment Agency issued a permit for the new plant in 2017. Once the plant becomes operational, the Environment Agency has pledged to perform regular inspections and audits to ensure that the plant is complying with the requirements of its permit.

I will now turn to the debate itself. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green is coming up to 30 years in this House. He has had a wide variety of roles, including six years as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and has always been an extraordinary champion for his part of London. He is a fellow London MP and has been a brilliant representative on a huge number of fronts, not least this issue, working with local campaign groups. He has raised the issue with the Prime Minister, various Secretaries of State and me. He made some very strong points on value for money and the process.

A number of Members made the point about recycling falling short, and I agree with them. I represent two local authorities, and Hammersmith and Fulham has one of the worst recycling rates in the country, so I have every sympathy with my right hon. Friend and every other Member, including the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), when it comes to recycling.

My right hon. Friend said that there was only one bidder. It is not right for me to comment on the operation of the process, but I think he reported that the winner of the bid said that there was “massive oversizing”. I am not at all surprised that local taxpayers would be concerned to discover those reported comments from the chief executive of the bidding company.

The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) also spoke. Waste incineration with energy recovery should not compete with waste prevention, re-use or recycling. We do not see them as being competing technologies. Notwithstanding new technologies, which he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green raised, the evidence available shows that it remains the case that the carbon impact of most mixed waste streams is lower if sent to energy-from-waste plants than if sent to landfill. Obviously, that is not a comparison with recycling or waste reduction, but in terms of the strict comparison with landfill—I think that the right hon. Gentleman and I agree on this—energy from waste is better than from landfill. I am not suggesting that he was making an alternative point. I think that his point was that recycling is better. We do not disagree with that at all.

The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) talked about the doubling of incineration. I am afraid that I do not recognise that figure. That is not our understating of what is in the planning pipeline. In line with the commitment in DEFRA’s resources and waste strategy to monitor residual waste capacity, officials are currently assessing planned incinerator capacity against expected future residual waste arisings, so that we can understand what future incineration capacity may be required following the implementation of key commitments in the RWS. There is, therefore, an assessment of our overall waste capacity vis-à-vis the incinerator capacity. That is being carried out by DEFRA, which is the policy lead on the waste element, while I am the policy lead on the energy element.

The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) rightly drew attention to the tragic case of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah and her mother Rosamund. We London politicians are all keenly aware of the findings in that case and the reverberations that it has had across London and the country for public policy on air quality and air pollution, which has been improving significantly in London since 2010. However, it is still not satisfactory for any of us as Londoners or London MPs. We still have a way to go, and the tragic case of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is a stark reminder of the important work that has to be done.

Carbon capture, utilisation and storage at the incinerator is a matter for local decision making, but the Government have very ambitious targets on CCUS, including 6 megatonnes of CO₂ equivalent by 2030, rising to 9 megatonnes by 2035. We have an industrial decarbonisation and hydrogen revenue support scheme to fund our new hydrogen and industrial CCUS business models. The Government take our air quality obligations extremely seriously, and we are already taking significant action to improve air quality. The Government absolutely recognise that there is more to do to protect people and the environment from the effects of air pollution, and that is why we are taking the action set out in our world-leading clean air strategy, which includes proposals to reduce emissions from domestic burning.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the Minister accept that the doubling of incineration that I mentioned is predicated on the 50 consent orders that have been given by BEIS—his Department—for new incinerators? The 2022 standards of technology and health, rather than those of 2017, should surely be applied to the Edmonton EcoPark incinerator, but the main point is that his Department is giving out development consent orders.

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, and I will go back and check that. My understanding is that that is not consistent with the consent orders that have been granted, but I will write to him on the detail as to whether we have the same set of figures and whether we are arguing at cross-purposes. I am very happy to write to him and give him some more detail.

Our clean air strategy includes proposals to reduce emissions from domestic burning, industry and farming, alongside stronger powers and an improved framework for local government to tackle more localised issues. The legacy of our reliance on landfill is responsible for around 75% of the carbon emissions from the waste sector, so it is not simply a matter of switching back to landfilling any non-recyclable waste. That is why we have been clear in the resources and waste strategy that we wish to reduce the level of municipal waste sent to landfill to 10% or less by 2035, and why we are actively exploring policy options to work towards eliminating all biodegradable waste to landfill by 2030.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has raised some serious concerns about the North London Waste Authority, the finances of the incinerator at Edmonton EcoPark, and whether it represents value for money. I have listened very carefully, and I am sure local taxpayers will be very concerned at what he reports to the House. I hope the waste authority responds in full, as I have done, to the points that he has raised today. In the meantime, I commend him for securing this important debate, and I hope I have laid out the Government’s views on the overall national policy behind waste and energy.