Waste and Recycling (Spelthorne)

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I am especially pleased to address this matter under your direction, Mr Speaker, as it is very important for my constituents. The issue that the debate will focus on is localism—the localism philosophy, as it were—and more specifically the question of the extent to which county councils in a two-tier system should be allowed to overrule the will of borough councils and a significant degree of popular opinion within a particular borough.

As many Members will know, I am the Member of Parliament for a borough: the borough of Spelthorne. It is coterminous with the parliamentary constituency, which is a rare thing in our House of Commons. I am therefore very grateful to the Minister for making time to respond to some of the issues I wish to raise. I hope he can elucidate some of the Government’s ideas about localism, with particular regard to waste disposal and recycling policy.

A waste and recycling centre is to be built in the south-east of my constituency, in the midst of two densely populated residential areas: Upper Halliford and Charlton village. More than 41,000 people live within a two-mile radius of the proposed site. Many issues have been raised in the debate, with those on one side of it saying that the technology is essential. However, it is my job as the Member of Parliament to articulate some of the concerns that many of my constituents have about the proposed facility.

A community recycling centre and a waste transfer facility already occupy part of the site, on which waste has been managed since the late 1940s. The new development, planned by SITA, would involve the construction of an additional anaerobic digestion plant to dispose of Surrey’s food waste. Most worryingly to many constituents, it would impose on the constituency a gasification chamber for the treatment of household waste. This would triple the size of the existing 4.5 hectare facility and would, most people agree, consume what is left of the adjoining green belt.

People across the constituency and across the political divide have expressed considerable dismay at this proposal, and a great deal of community spirit and co-operation has been shown in opposition to it. People have put aside political allegiances and have come together to oppose the county council’s proposal. A dedicated group of residents from in and around Charlton and Halliford have set up “Spelthorne against the Eco Park”, and I am very interested in their arguments and wish to ventilate some of their concerns. Many other people from residents associations in neighbouring towns such as Sunbury, Shepperton and Kempton have campaigned against these developments.

Spelthorne borough council, which is in charge of Spelthorne, has responded to people’s concerns, as opposed to Surrey county council, which is one tier above it. The borough council voted unanimously to reject SITA’s plans on 26 January. In response to the vote, Surrey county council chose to ignore a large measure of residential opinion and went ahead and approved the planning application. It peddled a story that this development is the best waste solution for Surrey. Other people object to this, and I want to raise some of those objections on the Floor of the House, which is where they should be heard.

Indeed, Surrey county council insists that the gasification chamber would facilitate treatment of waste in a more sustainable and eco-friendly way than the mere landfill site that currently exists. But it is difficult to see how this change to gasification would be an improvement, given that gasifiers simply burn black bag waste without first separating the recyclables. This move would not improve Surrey’s waste disposal facilities. There are severe and important concerns about the fact that it could be dangerous and could endanger the people who live near the gasification site.

Owing to the volatile nature of the gases used, the very process of gasification is risky. The Sterecycle explosion in Rotherham reminds everyone why gasifiers and facilities that produce modern electricity from waste plants are, as a rule, located in places away from populations. As people are well aware, and as I have said earlier in this speech, this proposed development would be located right in the heart of a highly densely populated area. People contend that the proposal to locate a large chemical process plant—that is what this would mean—in a public community recycling centre is putting residents’ lives at risk. If it is not putting their lives at risk, it is certainly potentially dangerous, given the possibility of explosion.

In isolated locations with severe transport problems, where waste cannot be moved with much ease, gasification might be the best, if not the only, solution. That is the case, for example, in the Austrian valleys, where gasifiers were pioneered. I know that our winter weather has been more severe in recent years and that we are facing alpine conditions almost every year, but to suggest that the Thames valley is, in any way, like the Austrian Alps in terms of weather severity stretches the definition of “a simile” too far. I am sure that everyone would agree that the Thames valley is not like the Carpathian mountains. The Thames valley benefits from a good transport network and far more environmentally friendly and sustainable waste solutions could be used there—in particular, integrated energy recovery from waste schemes. We do not have to go down this gasifier route. That is the borough council’s argument and it enjoys a lot of support in my constituency.

Why would anyone want to build this gasifier and put it in the middle of a highly densely populated area? There is a simple reason; it boils down to money. The Government are offering generous financial subsidies in the form of renewables obligation certificates for electricity recovered by gasification. That was instigated under the previous Government in 2003 to support small community projects in relatively isolated locations, such as those I have described. It was never envisaged for the south-east, Thames valley area, to which it is being sought to apply. In my constituency, such an approach is inappropriate. The Sustainable Development Commission has recommended that only high-efficiency energy from waste plants should typically receive Government support.

The approach is inappropriate is because this subsidy, like a lot of subsidies in general, has been applied in a blunderbuss fashion. No discrimination is applied; no particular sensitivity is shown to the location. As I have tried to stress, the location is of paramount importance. Of course a gasifier would make sense in a relatively isolated community, for example, in a mountainous region, where transferring waste is particularly difficult. My contention, and that of many of my constituents, is that it is simply inappropriate to build such a facility in the midst of a highly densely populated area.

Bearing in mind the size of the development site in question, the phenomenon of the subsidy being applied without any discrimination makes no sense. Gasification is simply a way in which SITA can obtain maximum profit. The company receives, I believe, a £100 bonus for every megawatt of electricity it generates through gasification on top of the £30 value to the grid. Without subsidies and that perverse Government incentive, construction of the gasification plant would, in the eyes of many people, make absolutely no financial sense because the generation of electricity through that means is far too low.

We have here the prospect of a gasifier being built in a densely populated area, largely for financial incentives. SITA, which is content to burn recyclables for profit, will maximise the Government’s environmental subsidies and would stand to gain while many people in the local community feel that they would lose out. I do not believe that that was the intention of the then Government when they proposed subsidies for gasification, but subsequent developments do not tally with current environmental policy or chime well with the Government’s stated, well-publicised and well-known localism agenda.

Only last year, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change promised that this Government would only

“support modern energy generation from waste where local communities want it and where it makes good environmental sense”—[Official Report, 1 July 2010; Vol. 512, c. 977.]

whereas his colleague, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has talked eloquently and consistently about devolving power to community groups and what might be termed the grass roots—the lowest level of the participatory democracy.

If the Government are to honour their commitment to localism and to do what they set out to do and what they preach, surely when a borough council advocates one idea and a county council advocates the diametric opposite the choice should be clear. Under the principles of localism that choice should be in favour of the borough council. The borough council has repeatedly articulated the arguments I have outlined today and many people believe that Surrey county council should have listened to its opposition to SITA and perhaps supported it. As everyone knows, the county council is at a higher level than the borough council so it seems unclear to me and many of my constituents where the localism agenda fits in. If the county council is to get its way, where does localism find its voice?

The proposal now sits on the desk of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. In the next few days, he will choose whether to refuse it, call it in for his determination or allow it. I hope this debate and some of the concerns that I have articulated on behalf of my constituents will be heeded and will have some tiny margin of influence on his decision. I hope that his decision will reflect some of the issues I have raised and perhaps, after he has looked at the debate and at some of the representations made by my constituents and by the borough I represent, he will determine that SITA’s application is wholly inappropriate.