Proposed National Policy Statement for Hazardous Waste

Debate between Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Addington

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I broadly welcome this draft national policy statement. Perhaps across your Lordships’ House there is a certain degree of consent by absence, judging by the attendance in the Committee today, although it may be that the planning wonks in the House are distracted by the business in the main Chamber, which will certainly be in the planning arena. I very much welcome the scrutiny that this statement is receiving from the Select Committee in the other place. I mostly enjoyed using the wonderful facilities of Parliament TV to watch the evidence that the Minister gave yesterday to that committee.

I welcome the four principles set out in Part 2 of the draft statement in terms of the principles in forming government policy on hazardous waste: to protect human health and the environment; the implementation of the waste hierarchy; proximity and self-sufficiency; and then climate change. I welcomed what the Minister said to the Select Committee, and this almost seemed to be a fifth principle, that the statement should be as unambiguous as possible so that those seeking to operate within this consent regime can do so with a degree of certainty and flexibility.

Those are all things that I welcome but the nature of debate in this Committee and in your Lordships’ House means that we tend to focus on the things that we disagree about more than on what we agree about. I have, on the latest count, five issues to raise that I hope will be addressed in the final policy statement when it is published by Defra, and that does not include my assumption that the current reference to the IPC will be replaced by the Secretary of State, assuming that the Localism Bill that is being debated in the Chamber achieves Royal Assent, in which case the Secretary of State will take on the powers that the Infrastructure Planning Committee currently uses.

The first of those issues is around the consent regime itself. I know that there are one or two voices saying that in—I would anticipate—virtually every case where an application is made under this regime there will also be an application for a permit from the Environment Agency, particularly in respect of the pollution effects of hazardous waste processing. One or two of those voices have raised the question of whether it is worth there being a single consent regime for the sake of simplicity for the applicant—and for the understanding of the public.

It is worth exploring that further. If my understanding of this is correct, the consent regime that we are discussing in the context of this policy statement is around land use planning, with all the various criteria that the Minister set out in his opening statement. However, a lot of the public concern would inevitably be about pollution as a result of hazardous waste processing taking place in their backyard—to use the vernacular. I do not know that members of the public would be that patient with explanations along the lines of, “This is an issue that should be raised in respect of the Environment Agency”, and “That is an issue that should be raised in respect of the hazardous waste consent regime under the Planning Act”. I should be grateful for any comments from the Minister on whether some negotiation can be had with the Environment Agency, the MMO and any other part of the consent regime so that we could have a single consent regime.

The second issue follows on from that. Assuming that the Minister and his officials have thought about this—which is a fair assumption to make—and resist the temptation to agree with me and go for a single regime, and we then have a split regime, my concern is that we make sure that the timing and the sequencing of that regime work well for applicants. The Minister expressed concern about unnecessary delays in processing applications in the regimes that we have been using, which I agree need to be streamlined. In that case, how will he make sure that the sequencing and timing mean that things go through smoothly, as applicants potentially need to get consents from the Environment Agency and the Marine Management Organisation, as well as any other consents that I have not clocked? That sequencing is very important to streamline the process.

The third issue, which is not unrelated to how those various regimes in the consent process might work, is localism, which I know was raised with the Minister by some of his honourable friends on the EFRA Select Committee in the other place yesterday. I understand, and support, there being a national regime for large and significant infrastructure. There is a strong case for taking some of these strategically important and difficult decisions at a national level, because there are times when it is very difficult for a local planning authority to be able to deal with them in a way that retains the objectivity that one needs when one is making quasi-judicial decisions of this kind. However, I would again be interested in hearing on the record the Minister’s view on how this interacts with the localism being debated in the main Chamber at the moment. I have my own doubts about how well the new localism and planning regimes being debated elsewhere will work in practice, and whether members of local planning authorities under those regimes will be able to resist the nimby tendencies that are often quite powerful at the ballot box. I am perfectly comfortable with the approach that Defra is taking, but I just want to hear from the Minister how he reconciles that with the approach to planning being taken by CLG.

The Minister will not be surprised that my other two issues are around definition and thresholds. My understanding is that the definition of hazardous waste—and the statement is clear about it—is that set out in Regulation 5 of Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005. Those are derived from the European Union’s definitions of hazardous waste. Do the Government have to be constrained by the European Union definition? I understand that the Government have to deliver on items that the EU defines in the directive because it is a directive. But if the Minister wanted to add some additional items to the list for his regime in the UK, could he do so? Then it may be possible, in respect of the questions around lithium or emerging technology that he was asked yesterday, to anticipate some future needs in terms of hazardous waste regulation and, by including some of those items that the EU have not got to yet on the list, provide some encouragement for them to move up the waste hierarchy, to which I know the Minister attaches a considerable importance.

Finally, on thresholds, particularly given the fifth principle that I have attributed to the Minister of being as unambiguous as possible, I should like some clarity from him around the flexibility that there appeared to be from the evidence session yesterday. It is clear that there are two thresholds—one of 30,000 for most hazardous waste and one of 100,000 for hazardous building material going into landfill. As he said in his opening statement, that applies with new build and with those facilities increasing capacity. What was then said was that the Planning Act 2008 gives provision for amounts less than that to be considered under the national policy statement process if the Minister thinks that that is appropriate. Those listening, or those who read the final statement when it is agreed, need more clarity so that they understand when the Minister is likely to use the flexibility that he has so that it is predictable and, in his words to the Committee, “unambiguous”. If I can get some reasonable responses either now or in the final statement, I would be extremely happy with some very good work from his department and his officials.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I come in as the stand-in for those whom the noble Lord, Lord Knight, describes as planning wonks or geeks, not that I would describe any of my friends like that—not if they were within striking distance, anyway. Looking through this draft proposal, I found myself thinking, “How could you possibly object to it in principle?” The “Summary of Government Policy in Part 2” lists protecting human health and the environment, the implementation of the waste hierarchy, the proximity of self-sufficiency and climate change. All of these things seem to be like motherhood and apple pie. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, once again beat me to the draw—he is clearly better versed on this subject than I am. But one of the questions raised will be the nimby tendency which runs through this. There is always an excellent reason for doing oneself a good turn at the ballot box. If someone wants a facility moved one mile down the road or at least out of sight, nimbyism will be there. A clarification of the process and some sort of national strategy is undoubtedly required. Unless we gain a good description of why this should happen now and guidance on how all the various factors pull together, it is going to create an unnecessary degree of resistance. It is always going to be the case that you inconvenience somebody when you do something positive. That is just a principle that runs through everything.

We should state clearly and categorically that we are going to have to accept that occasionally certain people will be inconvenienced, although hopefully as little as possible, if we are to do things like dealing with our own waste, not transporting it across the world. Indeed, let us take transport somewhere whose regulations are not as good as ours, pull it into the ecosystem and put some more carbon into the atmosphere by transporting it in the first place—hey, there’s a great long-term strategy. If we are dealing with it ourselves, it is a good idea to have a coherent strategy. Greater clarification on how that all pulls together would be helpful. All of us who are involved in any form of national politics will have to come back and defend this. Today, when we have not had camaraderie of spirit throughout the processes of the House, it would be good to have that now and to hear how we are going to achieve this.