Clinical Waste Incineration

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend is right to identify the concern there has been following comments on social media and certain media reports about incineration and the nature of this clinical waste. As I said in my statement, I am happy to confirm that there is sufficient capacity, as Mitie has demonstrated. It is worth reminding the House that just 1.1% of the waste under discussion is anatomical, and many of the media reports do not reflect that.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

The business concerned, Healthcare Environmental, is based in Shotts in my constituency. Waste incineration—where and how it happens—is always an emotive and controversial issue, and it is imperative that we get strong regulation right. But it appears that the UK Government have influenced—shall we say?—that regulation to deal with an issue that the company claims was contained and it had a plan to deal with.

Can the Minister confirm whether special dispensation has been granted to a municipal site in Slough that apparently does not have a licence to deal with hazardous waste, to incinerate this waste in a way that would otherwise have been inappropriate? Can he confirm that the waste has been handled by unlicensed individuals and been moved against normal regulations? Can he clarify what role the Cabinet Office has had in this issue and whether the UK Government have had any relationship with Healthcare Environmental’s competitor, Stericycle? The focus last week was on Healthcare Environmental, and now the focus appears to turn to Government actions. With 400 jobs under threat across the UK and 150 in my constituency, is it not time we had an independent inquiry into this whole mess?

[Stephen Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman is right to recognise that there is a significant impact in Scotland, given the services that HES supplies, and it is worth reminding the House that HES is still trading and clearing waste from a number of NHS sites. However, given that it has been subject to a series of actions by the Environment Agency and is subject to a criminal investigation, it is worth treating HES’s claims with a degree of caution.

The Environment Agency is of course an independent agency, so it is for the Environment Agency to look at how waste is being processed, and a strict legal framework applies to that. The specific concern about Slough has not been raised with me, but I am happy to take that away and write to the hon. Gentleman.

The Cabinet Office has been in active discussion with the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care, as have Scottish officials, who have worked very constructively with officials in England. This has been seen as an issue that affects Scotland as well as England, and it is one on which officials have worked collaboratively.