Waste Management: Refuse Collections

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the £250 million found by the Department for Communities and Local Government was found from within its own budget. We are dealing with a very important area—that is, to ensure that people who already pay for their bin collections have the opportunity of having weekly collections. The analogy which the noble Lord is trying to draw and the trap he is trying to drag me into are not relevant to this particular discussion.

[Lord Tomlinson]

But if the department can find £250 million from what the Minister describes as its own resources so easily, would it not be an act of generosity and kindness to transfer £650,000 of it to the department of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, so that he will not have to get so upset at Question Time when he is questioned about cutting legal aid services?

[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.