Waste and Recycling

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Vickers]

I agree wholeheartedly. Putting these plants in the right place is a very big deal—I know how hard my right hon. Friend worked to prevent that. I could not agree more. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide an update on the roll-out of the deposit return scheme and say when it is set to be delivered.

Of course, it is not just businesses but local communities that can support the Government’s goals to ensure responsible waste disposal.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. If the hon. Member could come further forward and sit back down, a formal intervention could then be made quite smoothly and quickly.

[Matt Vickers]

I would be very happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker.

On the matter of consumers taking responsibility for recycling, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the prevalence of accessible recycling centres, and having them close to where people live, is important in increasing the volume of recycling that we can achieve? One recycling centre that was used by my constituents has been closed down, which means that the nearest centre now is more than 3 miles away. Does he agree that keeping these recycling centres open and making them more effective at recycling would be a step forward?

[Matt Vickers]

I agree entirely. As we look across the piece at the challenges we face in recycling, we should be doing everything we can to make it as convenient and as local to people as possible. We have to worry about the consequences of not having local recycling schemes. Some people might dispose of their waste irresponsibly and choose to fly-tip instead of making the journey.

An estimated 2.25 million pieces of litter are dropped every day in the UK, with the consequence that around £1 billion is spent every year by local authorities and land managers to clear it up. In Stockton West, we are fortunate to have some amazing, community-spirited litter-picking groups: the Thornaby community litter pickers, the Eaglescliffe community litter project, the Ingleby Barwick litter pickers and the Hartburn community litter pick. These incredible volunteers protect our environment and restore pride in our communities.

The last Government took action and increased the maximum fines for fly-tippers from £400 to £1,000, alongside increasing the maximum fine for those who litter or graffiti from £150 to £500. What further steps are the Government taking to tackle that important issue, and what steps are they taking to support and recognise these important community litter pick groups?

The Government must allow an environment for businesses to innovate and help to create solutions that support households to reduce waste, and they must tackle the 40.4 million tonnes of commercial and industrial waste generated every year. Businesses that innovate in this space for the common social good include Amazon, whose Multibank initiative helps redistribute 750,000 items of surplus goods to families in need. We were delighted to see its most recent scheme launch in Teesside, reducing waste while improving people’s lives.

Humans waste around 40% of the food produced, and that contributes 10% of global emissions. The Government should champion enterprises such as Too Good To Go in their efforts to reduce food waste, taking excess produce and ensuring that it is put to good, value-for-money use. Currently, the Government’s target is to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030, and they must take further policy measures to ensure that we reach that target. One cost-effective measure to the taxpayer that Too Good To Go is calling for is mandatory public food waste reporting, which would deliver a vital first step in measuring food wastage and drive businesses to innovate for meaningful change and allow customers to make informed decisions. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are considering mandatory food waste reporting?

The answer to our waste and recycling challenges starts at home—in fact, in every home in the country, and how they dispose of their waste. Local authorities have the biggest role in determining that, as they decide how and where people can dispose of their waste and recycling. Although the Government can go so far directly, they also have a role in ensuring that local authorities are doing all they can to support residents and businesses to drive up recycling rates. While UK councils are required to run a service that collects recycling and garden waste separate from general waste, councils are not obligated by legislation to separate the different types of recycling. Different recyclable materials may not be collected if it is not “technically or economically practicable”.

A study by the TaxPayers’ Alliance found that many constituents and households had concerns that they would have to deal with multiple different bins, placing unnecessary obligations on households and businesses. We have seen a complete disparity among local authorities when it comes to delivering the Government’s waste and recycling strategy. Some local authorities have up to 10 different bins compared with others that have only two. Although waste collection is one of the primary services provided by councils, the inconsistent and often inefficient approach has hugely varying consequences. Good, efficient councils provide accessible, reliable, well-used services, while others less so, with real consequences for littering, fly-tipping and recycling rates.

In my constituency, Stockton’s Labour-led council provides the worst example, with poor services and even poorer value for money. Stockton’s Labour council has presided over the worst recycling rate in the region, and its rates are so poor that they are among the worst in the entire country. Local litter pickers have questioned why the council are failing to take action on fly-tippers, with Stockton being among the lowest performing when it comes to issuing penalties. All the while, the verges of the A66, one of the gateways to the town, remain covered in discarded cans, bottles and rubbish.

It is about to get a whole lot worse. Despite Labour subjecting residents to some of the highest council tax rates in the entire country, the council decided to vastly reduce waste and recycling services. It is axing weekly bin collections, and now residents will have to stack up waste for fortnightly collections. It has closed four local recycling centres, making people travel to other towns to dispose of their recycling.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

I will come on to those points later in my speech, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will intervene if he does not get the satisfaction and clarity that he seeks. Good things come to those who wait.

Let me begin with the strategy. We want to have an economy-wide transformation of our relationship with our resources, which is all about supporting the Government’s missions to kick-start economic growth, make Britain a clean energy superpower, and accelerate the path to net zero through our efforts to tackle waste crime and take back our streets. To answer the question posed by the hon. Member for Stockton West, preventing food waste is key to my Department, and we are reviewing a range of issues associated with food waste in the supply chain. We hope to make further announcements soon.

Let me address the collection and packaging reforms, which the hon. Member outlined. They are an important starting point in transitioning to a circular economy, and we are proud of the steps that we have taken so far. Over the next three years, simpler recycling, extended producer responsibility and the deposit return scheme will deliver transformational change, creating thousands of new jobs and stimulating billions of pounds’ worth of investment. Those three areas make up the three-legged stool of this Government’s plan to kick-start the circular economy, so I will briefly take each one in turn.

The first area is simpler recycling. We recently affirmed our commitment to delivering simpler recycling in England, which will be introduced for businesses from 31 March 2025 and for households from 31 March 2026. This Government inherited legislation introduced by the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) that could have required households to have up to seven bins. As the hon. Member for Stockton West rightly said, some councils have up to 10 bins, but that is because they thought they were doing the right thing, given the signals that were being sent out under the previous Government. That places an unnecessary burden on people and businesses, and unnecessary clutter in everyone’s front and back gardens. We are simplifying the rules to make recycling easier for people, while stimulating growth, maximising the benefits and ending the postcode lottery for recycling. Across England, people will be able to recycle the same materials at home, work or school.

The legislation for simpler recycling has already come into force. To confirm the final details of the policy, we laid regulations before Parliament on 3 December. The policy will support our ambition to recycle 65% of municipal waste by 2035. It is important to remember that figure, because when the last Labour Government brought in the landfill tax reforms in 2002, the original target was to have a recycling rate of 50% by 2015—a target that, sadly, was lost under the previous Government. Ten years on from that date, the target has still not been met.

The policy will also deliver an estimated £11.8 billion-worth of carbon savings between 2024 and 2035. As we have heard, local circumstances differ across the country, so we are making sure that councils and other waste collectors have the flexibility to make the best local choices. We know that local authorities may want to review their waste collection services to ensure that they provide best value for money. As is currently the case, local councils will continue to decide the frequency of waste collections in a way that suits the needs of their local community. The Government’s priority is to ensure that households’ needs are met, so we have recently published guidance to support councils in this area.

The second area is extended producer responsibility for packaging. To help fund simpler recycling, we are introducing in parallel extended producer responsibility for packaging, or pEPR, which will require obligated producers to pay the full end of life costs associated with the packaging that they place on the market. That will bring more than £1 billion of investment into local government waste collections, and incentivise producers to reduce unnecessary packaging and make what they use even more sustainable. Those regulations have now been debated in both Houses. They received unanimous cross-party support and will come into force on 1 January 2025.

The third and final leg is the deposit return scheme—DRS—for drinks containers. We have seen this work in over 50 countries around the world. The DRS will make a real difference to people’s lives by tackling litter and cleaning up our streets. Recycling rates will increase and the drinks industry will benefit from the high quality recycled materials that the DRS will provide. We are committed to delivering a deposit return scheme in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland in October 2027 and we will continue to work closely with industry partners, the Scottish Government and the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland to launch the scheme.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I worked across Europe for more than 15 years, and a DRS scheme has been in place all over Europe during all that time. I have been hearing for so long that it would arrive in the UK, but it has not, so I would be interested to hear the timescales. Also, will the Government consider putting restrictions on the use of fresh plastics for drinks bottles? Instead of them being recyclable, can we make them recycled?

[Mary Creagh]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s impatience. I am old enough to remember, as Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee in 2017, hearing several predecessors of the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire promising that we would have a DRS scheme. The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) is also right to say that there is no point in recycling if there is no end market. I welcomed the plastic packaging tax that was introduced under the prime ministership of Theresa May, which mandates a 30% recycled content. The question, where fossil fuels are very cheap, is how we drive business’s behaviour change, and that is under active consideration to ensure that there is an end market for the recyclates that are placed on the market.

On the hon. Gentleman’s question about the timescale, we laid the regulations for England and Northern Ireland before Parliament on 25 November and we plan for the regulations to come into force in late January, parliamentary time permitting. The Scottish Government will then make the necessary amendments to legislation in Scotland. After that, the three Governments will appoint the Deposit Management Organisation in April 2025, for which applications opened on Monday 2 December, so this is all hot off the press, and this is a timely debate. The aim is for the DRS to come into force on 1 October 2027.

However, there is much more to do. On Friday, I was delighted to visit Suez’s Malpass Farm facility in Rugby. Working in partnership with Cemex, Suez has provided 1 million tonnes of climafuel from non-recyclable waste, diverting it from landfill and reducing coal consumption in the neighbouring Cemex plant by 75,000 tonnes, thus enabling big industrial decarbonisation. Earlier today, I made a quick trip up to Newark to visit the Curry’s site, which is home to one of its unique repair centres. I saw how Curry’s, a great and proud British company, is using its resources and its market position to repair and refurbish broken phones, laptops and tablets, and I recommend its refurbishment website to anyone looking for a last-minute gift from Santa.

Such industrial partnerships, working together to maximise the value of resources, demonstrate the role that the resources and waste sector can play in supporting net zero and supporting economic growth. A high-performing resources and waste sector is key to driving a circular economy. However, waste crime threatens this by taking resources away from that circular economy and from the good businesses that want to do the right thing and make those green investments. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) is interested in this, and I am glad to see him in his traditional place. Waste crime costs the country £1 billion a year, and we know that 18% of waste may be handled illegally at some point in the waste supply chain. That is around 34 million tonnes of waste every year. We are committed to tackling this scourge.