Dangerous Waste and Body Parts Disposal: NHS

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

On the split to which the right hon. Lady referred between clinical waste and other waste at the Normanton site—she rightly focused on that for her constituents—just under a third of the flow of waste to the site is clinical. Just over two thirds, in my understanding, is non-clinical. It is not the case that all the waste on the Normanton site is clinical waste. As I have mentioned, some media reports about what the term “clinical waste” constitutes are slightly different from the reality.

As for notification, I set that out in my written ministerial statement and in my comments today. The key focus is on maintaining the continuity of operations and service within the NHS trusts so that we are not in a position where clinical waste cannot be cleared from them. That is the focus, and that is why, given the commercial negotiations and the contingency arrangements that have been put in place, we came to the House today, and not at an earlier point.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In the end, the system has worked. There has been no back-up of clinical waste in hospitals—it has just been overstored in these sites. However, it is worrying, if it is true, that 13 warning notices and two compliance notices were issued to the company. Does the Minister think that he should be alerted earlier by the Environment Agency if this sort of thing happens in future?

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the lessons to be learned from this. Part of what I would expect to look at as we move forward are questions about when the NHS was first made aware of this and what powers are available to enforce at an earlier stage. As I have mentioned, enforcement notices cover a spectrum of risk. Some of those risks are more technical in nature than others, so while there have been 13 notices, their enforcement encompasses a range of severity.