Waste Management: Refuse Collections

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I am inclined to stick to my Question, which is about weekly collections of bins. I reiterate that householders value a weekly collection very much. It had gone out of favour with the previous Government and we see it as being of genuine benefit to local people.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, is it not time that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government spent more of his time fighting for the interests of local people and local authorities within Whitehall, rather than his apparently weekly attempts to micro-manage the local decisions of local authorities on matters such as bin collection and the level of the council tax?

[Baroness Hanham]

My noble friend knows perfectly well that the Secretary of State has been at the forefront of ensuring that local authorities are able to manage their own affairs. They have devolved funding, are able to manage their own budgets and now have the business rates staying with them. The whole way that local government finance is going is to ensure that local government can answer for itself.