Oral evidence: Waste management, HC 241Wednesday 2 July 2014

Oral evidence, 2 July 2014.

Witnesses

Minette Batters, Deputy President, National Farmers Union, and Anna Simpson, Environment Policy Adviser, National Farmers Union, gave evidence.

Chair

I welcome the next set of witnesses most warmly. May I invite you in turn to introduce yourselves and say who you are for the purposes of the record, if you would?

Minette Batters

Yes. Thank you, Chair. Minette Batters, Deputy President of the National Farmers Union.

Anna Simpson

Anna Simpson, Environment Policy Adviser, National Farmers Union.

Chair

Thank you. You are both extremely welcome. Is that the first female—dare we say lady—Deputy President of the NFU?

Minette Batters

It certainly is, Chair, yes.

Chair

That is wonderful. I think it is your first occasion before us. Both of you are most welcome and it is an historic occasion, so thank you.

Minette Batters

Thank you.

Chair

We are very grateful for the written evidence that you have provided us, which will also be taken into consideration in the inquiry. When it came to both the original Directive and the revision to the Waste Framework Directive—I know it might have been before your individual times—would the NFU have been consulted on the targets and the achievability of the targets?

Anna Simpson

Yes, we were consulted and we did respond to the consultation on the targets.

Chair

As far as you are aware, is there any difference between the way that farms are treated in Wales, for example, or in the rest of the United Kingdom, from the way they are treated in England in terms of waste disposal?

Anna Simpson

The environmental permitting regulations and the waste management regulations do differ slightly. We do not have the specifics with us today, but we could provide more evidence on that.

Chair

That would be interesting, if you would. In the view of the NFU, what role would you like the Government to take in waste management?

Minette Batters

It is important that we have measures put in place that are easily accessible. We have concerns that if we put too many blockages on landfill, for example, to start off with, there might be more fly-tipping. We also have concerns around incineration—there are a lot of small-scale incineration plants—and about people not having wide access to the Fallen Stock Scheme used by local hunt kennels. They are already compliant with regulation and we would certainly want those protected.

Chair

Do you believe that the Government provides a co‑ordinated and consistent message as regards waste management policy for farmers?

Minette Batters

We need to see co-ordination across all Departments and that the targets are realistic. That is very important. Anna, do you want to add anything else?

Anna Simpson

Yes. We feel that there could be more co‑ordination across the Departments, because it does affect lots of Government Departments, including DECC and the Treasury. Waste management is multifaceted. Also, when the targets are being set, these are evolving at an EU level, so whilst Defra may say, “We might take a step back from waste management at the moment”, you need to consider that waste targets are evolving within the European Commission.

Chair

Do you believe that Defra is taking a strong enough role in challenging those targets before they are agreed?

Anna Simpson

Defra does need to challenge those targets to give us the best possible advantage in meeting any targets that are set. I also think that any targets that are made need to be evidence based.

Chair

Do you believe that the message coming out from the Department is consistent?

Anna Simpson

There is one example where we feel there is a little bit of inconsistency, and that is in terms of anaerobic digestion. We feel the Government is trying to encourage anaerobic digestion, and small-scale on-farm anaerobic digestion, whereas some of the incentives, such as the feed-in tariffs, have been pulled back slightly by DECC.

Chair

You note in your written evidence that “food waste prevention is a farmer’s primary aim during food production”. What measures do you take to try to reduce food waste as much as possible during production?

Minette Batters

It is well regulated and certainly very well monitored through farm assurance that you have to sort your waste on‑farm and you have to have, I suppose more importantly, the correct procedures in place to sort that.

Neil Parish

Good afternoon. You have partly answered my question in your response to the Chairman. It is about anaerobic digestion and the small-scale plants. You made the point that there is an argument—this is DECC, really, not ourselves in Defra—about the level of support there should be; the strike price for small scale should be higher than that of the larger scale ones. What representations are the NFU making to Government on that?

Minette Batters

Dr Jonathan Scurlock heads that up for us. Anna, do you want to comment on that?

Anna Simpson

Yes. We are very engaged with the anaerobic digestion industry. We feel that the incentives for small-scale on-farm anaerobic digestion are not supportive enough. We also feel that it is quite burdensome in terms of the regulations surrounding small scale, and we think that that should be scaled back slightly to make it more cost efficient to have AD on‑farm.

Neil Parish

Also, anaerobic digestion works best really when you have a mixture of farm waste along with food waste and others. Are Defra and Government doing enough to try to co-ordinate to bring these things together? You need for an anaerobic digestion plant not just farm slurries and waste; you need other waste as well.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Can I just supplement that by asking: given your comment, Anna, about DECC withdrawing some of the subsidy, just to reinforce Neil’s question, does that mean that the NFU then has to lobby Treasury and DECC and Defra, or does Defra act on your behalf with the other Government Departments when you spot problems? How do you deal with that?

Anna Simpson

No, we have to lobby various Departments, but I do know that we try to have a co-ordinated approach and get the various Departments in the room together.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Sorry, I did not mean to interrupt your answering Neil’s question.

Neil Parish

You see, there is an argument that the money—the subsidy for these plants—would be best targeted towards the small-scale ones in order that we can get more and more on‑farm. We make the point that the digestate is a jolly good fertiliser and then we have got heat, fuel, electricity and even gas into the grid. What more can Defra do and what more can we do to change the policy? It might be a case of reducing some of the money to the bigger ones and getting it to the small ones—some adjustment. What more can we do?

Minette Batters

There are slightly mixed messages coming out. We do have challenges within the Union to anaerobic digestion—the argument of energy versus food. It is a difficult one. It does need leadership and we do need very clear messages coming out from Defra. The Secretary of State has said very openly and passionately that it must be for food waste and we do not want to see large fields of maize being grown that are pushing rents up. It needs very clear messaging and very clear leadership.

Neil Parish

As a farmers’ union, are you able to broker between those who want to grow maize to put into a gas plant and those who believe we should be using waste?

Minette Batters

It is an ongoing discussion—put it that way—because ultimately it is a form of diversification and it has to be about choice. It is never for us to say how people should run their businesses. It is quite challenging, is it not, for all of us?

Anna Simpson

If I could just add one point, one barrier to the uptake of on‑farm AD is the definition of waste. We have some examples where producers may be growing a crop of potatoes and they cannot make a decision about whether that crop is going to go into their AD plant until it has been graded, and because that crop has gone over a picking line or processing line, it is then classed as waste. It makes the process of anaerobic digestion and the regulation surrounding it much more difficult. If the flexibility of that definition of waste could be improved and made more realistic, that could be really—

Chair

Could you just pause there? We are coming onto the technology, so I would like to invite Mark Spencer to lead on this, please.

Mr Spencer

Thank you, Chair. Can I just draw the Committee’s attention to my membership of the NFU? I just wondered, in that case, whether AD is the best use of unavoidable farm waste or whether we should be looking to use it in some other area rather than anaerobic digestion.

Minette Batters

It is a really good use of farm waste because you get the two uses out of it: you get the digestate out of it, which can then offset your fertiliser costs and go back to be spread on land; and then you get the biogas, which can be used on‑farm and, if there are any extras, can be sold back into the grid and add value. It is the very best model, but it is getting a joined-up approach so that others can feed into it. It is good. The principle is really good.

Mr Spencer

What about those waste products like high-lignan type products? Take, for example, your potatoes. Would that waste potato crop be best used to feed animals, saving the production of proteins elsewhere, or being fed through an AD plant?

Minette Batters

Again, that has got to be about choice. It is often used for feeding animals, but then you are seeing less livestock in many places. Again, it is back to having the choice as to what you do. The main thing is that that waste product is utilised to best advantage.

Anna Simpson

It also depends on the location of your farm. You might not necessarily have alternative markets for that waste product.

Sheryll Murray

Is there an opportunity for outputs to provide additional income, or do farms use all the digestate and biogas themselves?

Minette Batters

No, there is definitely an opportunity for the biogas to be sold into the grid and also—the technology is not there yet—for running vehicles. That would add significant value, if it could be used for running vehicles, but the technology is not quite there. With the lack of mixed farming now, there is enormous value in the digestate waste going back onto the land, and there is no reason why there could not be a centralised AD plant that was then co-ordinating with other farming businesses around it. It would be adding value, potentially, all ways round and what was not being used of the biogas could then be sold into the grid.

Mrs Glindon

Would you support or oppose a landfill ban?

Minette Batters

We would have to have other measures in place, because there would be real concerns about the fly-tipping. We would fully support it—we all want to see an end to landfill—but it is about taking the steps to have those other measures in place so that we do not create the unintended consequences. Yes, we fully support it, but let us get those measures in place first.

Mrs Glindon

What impact could a change of policy in this area have on farms and the agricultural industry?

Minette Batters

If we had a landfill ban?

Mrs Glindon

Yes.

Minette Batters

I would like to see more accessibility. I sent all our black plastic off yesterday, and that had to go right up to north Wiltshire. That is an hour’s drive. We had a lorry from there come down and collect it. That means getting a bulk lot for us to justify the cost of a lorry coming to get it. Even if we do it in smaller amounts, there is then the cost of going backwards and forwards. I would like to see more accessibility—that through the local authorities we had more suitable services that were closer to hand. A lot of people have to travel a long distance, which then defeats the effect of recycling.

Chair

What is the extent of fly-tipping and other waste crimes on farmland at the present time?

Minette Batters

It is significant. Anna will correct me if I am wrong, but over two‑thirds of farmers are affected by fly-tipping.

Anna Simpson

Yes, that is right.

Minette Batters

It is worse in some areas than others. We ran a countryside campaign on fly-tipping and we got massive support right across the country. It really is a big problem, with people using unlicensed carriers. They just presume that if they look in the Yellow Pages or phone up the operator, everybody is licensed, and so many people are not licensed.

Chair

In your written evidence, you do say that you are concerned about the availability and the existing state of facilities and infrastructure to take anything that would normally go to landfill. Would you like to expand on that now?

Minette Batters

Another frustration we have is that local authorities do not have a very joined-up approach. Some are being incredibly helpful and taking things away at low cost, but then you will find that another local authority will not have the same approach. We would like local authorities to all be on the same page. That would help enormously.

Chair

Do you see that changing in the foreseeable future?

Minette Batters

It is in all our interests for it to change and for local authorities to make it accessible. It is the unintended cost that it creates, is it not? Some local authorities are providing a much better service, but ultimately they are having to pick up a cost by collecting the fly-tip off the edges of roads.

Chair

Are you able to say what the cost would be on an annual basis for a small or medium-sized farm of even things like removing the plastic that the haylage has been in—so the waste cost per farm? Would the NFU have that figure?

Minette Batters

To my farming business, which is a predominantly livestock one of 200 hectares, the cost is between £400 and £600 per annum.

Chair

That is not counting food waste.

Minette Batters

No, not at all. That is purely black plastic and string.

Chair

If you were able to make one recommendation to us as part of this inquiry, what would it be? If you had a single recommendation to make.

Minette Batters

That we look at a broad approach and we do not take anything out. I do have real concerns about the incineration, because the backlash of that would be huge. More accessibility—if I had a recycling centre that was closer to me, I would be able to do it far more frequently. At the moment it is very costly. That is the case for many farmers throughout the country; it is a real cost to recycle. They have to be compliant because the farm assurance holds them to that, and you have to have the certification that you have dealt with your waste effectively. It is not something that farmers can escape, because when the farm assurance inspection happens, that will be checked up on and they will have to have documentation for that.

Richard Drax

I apologise; I had to take an emergency call. You may have discussed this, but do you think there should be some more incentives? We used to get 5p back a bottle, or whatever it was—certainly when I was a child we did. Should there be some incentives? We personally suffer from fly-tipping, like all other farmers; it is a real, growing problem. Should people be given some incentive—financial or otherwise—to take that waste somewhere?

Minette Batters

There should be. I should make clear that farmers are not, as you know, responsible for the fly-tipping. I certainly do not know any farmers who are responsible for it.

Richard Drax

That is not what I was saying and nor did I imply it. They suffer from it.

Minette Batters

No, I know. They suffer from it. You are absolutely right; there should be incentives. We get a lot, as you probably do, of hedge clippings and tree trimmings. We are dealing with people who are working in an unlicensed world; they do not necessarily have road tax or insurance. Ultimately, when I speak to my local police, as I am sure you do, they just say, “There is not a lot we can do”. I wonder how we can incentivise those people to take the correct measures. It is very difficult with fewer police to police it. Ultimately, that cost then gets picked up by the farmers. Whatever it is—whether it is tyres; no matter what—the farmer ends up picking up the cost for that. They then have to comply, as I have said, with the farm assurance measures themselves. It is enormously frustrating, but incredibly difficult to get people incentivised to be responsible.

Richard Drax

Secondly, very briefly, if I may, Chair, if it lands on the landowner’s—whoever he or she may be—land, as I understand it, that person then has to pay for it.

Minette Batters

Yes, absolutely.

Richard Drax

That is hugely punitive when it was not put there by them in the first place.

Minette Batters

Yes, absolutely. Unless it is very close to the road. It has to be right by the road, does it not? If it is on farm land at all—

Richard Drax

Absolutely. Should the Government be looking at changing the law or something to make sure that farmers and landowners are not punished for doing something they have not done?

Minette Batters

It would be enormously appreciated. There are many farmers who have picked up huge cost—we know of many for whom it has been £2,000, £3,000, £4,000 or £5,000—to dispose of illegal waste. That is an unfair burden when you have had nothing to do with it. It is always done in the middle of the night; they are never caught. That would be very much appreciated.

Chair

I just heard you say that you had real concerns about incineration. Is that the public reaction to incineration? You sound quite positive about energy from waste in your—

Minette Batters

The concerns from the agricultural perspective would be that we would not want to lose any of the farm incineration services that we have. For instance, we do not have a fallen-stock scheme around us, so our local hunt kennels would do a round of picking up fallen stock and then they would take them back to those kennels. They have got a licensed incinerator, but very small scale, where they dispose of that stock. If we lost that, that would be an absolute tragedy and also add to a welfare and disease burden.

Chair

You do have small incinerators to dispose of pig and poultry carcases already.

Minette Batters

Yes.

Chair

I do not think we are picking up that they would be closed. Thank you very much indeed for being with us and answering our questions as part of our inquiry.

Minette Batters

Thank you very much.

Chair

You are most welcome. If I could invite the next witness to take his place and again just reiterate, if I may, that we are expecting a vote in a little over 20 minutes’ time or possibly earlier, so we will suspend and we will come back as soon as we can. Examination of Witness

Witness

Councillor Gary Porter, Vice Chair, Local Government Association and Leader of South Holland District Council, gave evidence.

Chair

Councillor Porter, welcome. Thank you very much indeed for being with us. I am just wondering if you would be good enough to introduce yourself and give your name and position for the record.

Councillor Porter

I am Gary Porter. I am the Vice Chairman of the Local Government Association and I am Leader of South Holland District Council in Lincolnshire.

Chair

Excellent. Can I just ask what discussions the LGA have with the Department when it comes to targets being set at EU level in Brussels?

Councillor Porter

The main point of contact is through our members of staff and the civil servants at Defra. We are lobbying to have lower targets and have concerns that Defra does not appear to be taking on board the concerns that we have expressed. As we saw yesterday, Europe appears to be flying up with even higher targets that are going to be even more punitive.

Chair

Would you like to share with us a ballpark figure—an average—of what the length of time would be for planning permission and construction of a medium-sized waste facility under planning law?

Councillor Porter

I do not have that to hand, but we can make sure that the Committee is furnished with it. Planning permission will not be the big obstacle to any provision of plant; the big obstacle is going to be the viability of the plant and the finances to build it.

Chair

Are you aware of the withdrawal of private finance initiatives from two or three waste facilities, including one in North Yorkshire? Have you made an assessment of what the impact of the withdrawal of those facilities will be on the waste management hierarchy in those areas?

Councillor Porter

There are a couple of those. The one in Norfolk is the one that I am most aware of on a personal level, given that I border Norfolk, and I am aware of the controversy that surrounded that particular application. I am going to go off-LGA-message and go to a South Holland message on this one. PFI should never have been introduced in the first place. It is not a good use of taxpayers’ money. The taxpayer ends up paying several times over for a piece of kit that would have been better off if we had built it with our own finances in the first place. Given that the Treasury takes about £1.2 billion out of the waste industry in terms of landfill tax for the private sector and landfill tax on councils, we think that money would be better off being left with councils to determine what services are necessary locally and to make sure that the appropriate infrastructure is built with that money.

Chair

But, Councillor Porter, that landfill tax will go and is already being reduced as landfill is being scaled out.

Councillor Porter

Eventually the industry will be self-sustaining because there will be no more landfill, but can you see that in our lifetimes being achievable?

Chair

From the LGA perspective, what would you like to see the role of Defra be in waste management?

Councillor Porter

If you have seen the Rewiring document that we put out, unfortunately Defra is one of the parts of Government that we would ask to be piled into a local‑government‑specific unit. There are too many different Departments that have too much influence over too many different pieces of the work that we do and, as is usually the way with large organisations, it is not very joined up. While Defra does exist, we would urge it to be more proactive in protecting the interests of British taxpayers against the effect of the EU legislation, but ultimately for the work that Defra does in relation to local government to rest with a local government department.

Chair

Do you believe that Defra should challenge the targets that are being discussed and set at EU level? Should they take a little more aggressive approach?

Councillor Porter

They should take a much more aggressive approach. Until the infrastructure is in place, setting an arbitrary target is neither helpful nor achievable, nor viable. We will be spending more money in paying tax to the Treasury, which is fine for the Treasury, but we will be getting less infrastructure built because more of our taxpayers’ money will be sitting in the Treasury.

Chair

Do you think that is the same across the European Union or do you think that we are pandering to targets that are going to be easily met in other parts of the European Union and will be slower to be effected here?

Councillor Porter

Again, I do not have the LGA perspective on that. I am sure the office will furnish the Committee with that. From my own experience of France, there is a notion of a target and there is a notion of reality about what happens on the ground, and the two are not necessarily the same thing.

Chair

Do you believe that the Government currently provides a consistent and co-ordinated message to councils and to the public on waste management policy?

Councillor Porter

Again, given that waste policy seems to sit with more than one Department, the Departments responsible for it do not necessarily appear to be co‑ordinating their approach to us. The biggest single thing that shows the Government is saying one thing and doing something else is the landfill tax and the fact that we do not get access to that money. The Treasury is the biggest obstacle. I know Defra and DCLG have a row quite often about who is in charge of what part of waste, but the Treasury really is the Department that needs fixing. We need that £1.2 billon that is in the system being spent in the system.

Chair

Do you understand that the Department has now said it is going to step back from any involvement with waste policy? Do you think that is a good decision and it is the right time to do so?

Councillor Porter

If it is going to step back, then the bits that we really do need the Government to be lobbying for in our case need to be somewhere. I personally do not have an opinion about which Department it should be, but there should be a Department that we know about that is prepared to go and argue the case for the benefit of local government and for local taxpayers.

Mr Spencer

I think it is fair to say that there have been significant improvements across England by local authorities in improving recycling rates. I just wonder if you could give us an idea of the most innovative or the most effective measures that have led to that.

Councillor Porter

You are right; local government and the people we look after have done a fantastic job of improving. In the last 10 years we have gone from something like 13% to 43% across the country, which is a huge step up. From the work that we do with our residents, simplicity of the collection regime is quite important and clear communication about what is desirable is important. I am not so sure about the previous conversations you were having about people being that bothered about end destination. The argument needs to be: “It is cheaper for you to do the right thing than it is for you to do the wrong thing. If you keep putting your recyclates into your putrescible waste stream, we are going to be paying your money to somebody else to deal with it, and that means we will not be keeping your library open, because we have spent the money on processing waste that we did not need to in that particular way.”

Mr Spencer

So, “keep it simple” is the message that you think that is the most effective way.

Councillor Porter

Yes. It does need to be done on a local basis. Councils do know their people better than any national organisation; it is just the nature of the beast. Whatever is done with the people should be done with and for them and not done to them. If residents are saying, “We would do more if we knew what we could do”, councils will step up and take that lead.

Mr Spencer

Whilst you have made all those gains, I think it is also fair to say that that trajectory has slowed down a bit and tailed off. What are the challenges facing local authorities? How are you going to meet that 50% target by 2020?

Councillor Porter

There is a greater move now towards incentivisation. More and more councils now are incentivising their residents, so the “What’s in it for me?” is direct and in people’s faces. My own council has just started giving people cash. Last week we had our first £1,000 winner for somebody doing the right thing. Hopefully, with the media campaign around that, that will encourage more and more people to do it. We have seen about a 4% increase since we have started doing incentive schemes. One of the reasons why it is getting harder to meet the target is that the amount of landfill waste in the system is being reduced. That has got to be a better outcome: reducing the amount of waste in the system in the first place.

Mr Spencer

So you think carrot not stick.

Councillor Porter

Carrot mostly; stick as a very last resort. The Deregulation Bill is taking the £1,000 fine, which is far too expensive—that is far too high—down to £60, which is far too low. The Deregulation Bill should set the fine at about £200 so there is still a financial disincentive for people to do the wrong thing, but we agree £1,000 is far too much.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Can I just follow up on the £1,000 bonus or reward for the person who is doing the right thing? You must have done a cost-benefit analysis of how much you are going to save by the increase in recycling that will be achieved. How does that work out? Is it a very big win for the local authority?

Chair

I am going to ask Councillor Porter to hold his answer until we return. I will suspend the session temporarily and we will come back hopefully in 15 minutes at the maximum if there is only one vote. Thank you. Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. On resuming—

Chair

If we reconvene the session. Could I convey apologies from Mr Fitzpatrick, who is not able to come back here? We will share the answer with him, Councillor Porter, if you would like to carry on.

Councillor Porter

The question was whether it is viable and whether we did a cost/benefit analysis. We did not, but we were confident that recycling would go up. The reason we were not that bothered about the cost-benefit analysis was that we used the DCLG money to pay for it. As I said, we are up about 4%, so we are confident it is also financially viable in its own right to do it.

Neil Parish

Good afternoon. The Vale of White Horse district has got the highest performance, with 65.1% of recycling; the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham is the lowest, at 26.8%. It is interesting; there are 40 percentage points between the highest and the lowest. Some of the lowest recycling rates are either in the urban areas or the rural areas. Why is this?

Councillor Porter

Recycling rates will be largely higher in the rural areas and less high in the urban areas. That is for a number of reasons. There is the demographic of the population. If you look after lots of houses with lots of single males in then your recycling rates are going to be extremely difficult to achieve; if you look after lots of bungalows with one-and-a-half-acre gardens and you are able to class grass as recycling, then your targets are going to be much easier to achieve.

Neil Parish

Are you saying the type of waste, or what?

Councillor Porter

Type of waste is a big chunk of that. Most dry-side recycling is about 35% or 36%; it is grass that bulks it up closer to the 50%.

Neil Parish

If you are in a rural area, you have got to go miles to collect all your waste, whereas if you are in an urban area, it is much more compact, so surely your cost of collection has got to be a lot less.

Councillor Porter

Yes, but it is not the cost of collection that improves recycling; it is the ease of the recycling and the type of population you look after. I look after a very rural area and we have got about 32% dry-side recycling, but I make it simple for my people to get on with it; we just collect it in one bag every week. You have got different frequencies, different types of collection method and different populations to serve. If you have got lots of student accommodation, then you are pushing water uphill to try to get students to recycle; if you have got lots of inward migration that makes it more difficult because of the language barrier and different accepted norms. There are a number of reasons. Deprivation plays a big part in it; I should think Dagenham will probably claim a fair bit of its lower performance is down to the deprivation suffered by its community.

Neil Parish

Is this because people do not put stuff into the recycling bins? Aluminium cans or whatever are surely recyclable. You are talking about populations that may be different in aspects, but what is going wrong that means they are not recycling? Is it the fact that rubbish is not being put in the right containers, or have those authorities not got the right containers for the recycling to go in? What is it?

Councillor Porter

The population not engaging with the process is the largest reason. It is very difficult to get certain parts of the population to engage with the process, which is why some councils, like my own, are now moving out into incentivisation on a very specific individual basis to see whether that will help as well. There is not just one answer.

Neil Parish

You talked about young people. Young people are inclined to be green, so can we not have a green philosophy? Why can we not appeal to their green-ness, if you like, in order to get them to recycle more? Where are we going wrong in the education process?

Councillor Porter

Far be it from me to say where we are going wrong with the education process for young people. I know from my own family’s circumstance my daughter is extremely good at recycling and all my grandchildren that she has look after recycling and do a really good job of it; my son is as much use as a chocolate teapot when it comes to recycling. He would not have the first idea of what can go into a recycling container.

Neil Parish

Yes, I did make that point earlier on.

Richard Drax

If more funding was made available to local authorities for the purposes of improving waste services, what would it be spent on? Bear in mind that we have heard that councils are facing ongoing budgetary pressures, are they not?

Councillor Porter

Yes. By the end of this Parliament, we will have taken close to 40% out of our budget in terms of central Government funding, so we are under continual financial pressure, and I do not think anybody is envisaging a time when that will not be the case. Certainly into the next Parliament, we will still be under financial pressure. We pay £600 million of our residents’ money to the Treasury—that is just for our public doing it—and the private sector pays £600 million to the Treasury for the privilege of putting stuff in a hole in the ground. We would like our £600 million retained by us to be spent by us on incentivisation schemes, on education schemes to make people better aware, and on improving our own collection methods, where we can do that; and we would like the £600 million that the Treasury currently gets from the industry to be spent on new physical infrastructure nationally.

Richard Drax

When you say collection, education and all these things are all very worthy but often do not necessarily work, do they, physically? I recall the NFU said that what they would like is something nearer to their home—i.e. where you can take it and dispose of it. Is that something you would like money invested in—more centres, more collection points, more bins?

Councillor Porter

More types of infrastructure. There is going to be a big push to move food waste out of the waste stream; we have not got enough anaerobic digesters to cope with it. It is all well and good having a target to get the stuff out, but there has got to be an alternative for where it can go. We need more—and more local—anaerobic digestion for food waste. In terms of closeness of facilities, from a council’s perspective that is not really the issue. That does add to transport costs, but it is having the ability to have a decent MRF that separates out the waste. The public engage more if we make it simple for them, so if we can give them a collection system where all of the waste that is to be recycled is in one receptacle and the process of sorting it out is done elsewhere, recycling rates will go up, but we do not have enough sites where that can take place. Again, coming back to the European stuff, they are going to start interfering in whether we have to do kerbside separation for collections, which is going to be counterproductive.

Richard Drax

I entirely concur with that very good point you made that if you could just put your rubbish into one bag and give it to someone and they would recycle it, we would all do it. Is the technology here? With the money and the investment, when the rubbish arrives at point X, is there the kit that would do that?

Councillor Porter

Yes. There are two councils in Lincolnshire—including my own—that recycle loads of different products. In my own council, everything goes in one recycling bag, including yoghurt pots and margarine tubs—things that are not touched in other councils. The technology is there to deal with it, but it is having access to enough of that around the country. There are too few plants around.

Richard Drax

And these plants are expensive, presumably.

Councillor Porter

Yes, and people need a long-term vision of what we are going to do nationally with our waste to make sure that people can invest and see a point to investing in the technology. At the moment we have got quite a lot of low-grade waste being exported, which is, from some people’s perspectives, not desirable.

Richard Drax

Finally, just very quickly, where you have some councils that demand certain things in certain bins, particularly if you have not got a garden or somewhere at the back where you can put these things, you walk into a street and the first thing you see is rows and rows of brown bins and green bins outside people’s homes. It is not exactly a tourist winner—or even for those who live there, for that matter. Would you argue that that sometimes is counter to the aim of trying to do what we are all trying to achieve?

Councillor Porter

From a Local Government Association perspective, I would have to argue that it is for the local council, with their local population, to work out the best methods of collection in their area. As Leader of South Holland District Council, I do not have a wheelie bin in the place. I would not have anybody with wheelie bins. I do black sack collection for putrescible waste every week and I do green sack recycling collections every week. My costs for collections are one of the cheapest in the country.

Mrs Glindon

Councillor Porter, you have talked about making things simple and incentives for people, but should compulsory household recycling across England be used to increase recycling rates?

Councillor Porter

The LGA would not support compulsory anything across the country unless all of our members supported it, and I do not think we would get all of our members to support compulsory recycling.

Mrs Glindon

Do you know how successful compulsory recycling has been for local councils that have introduced these sorts of schemes?

Councillor Porter

I personally do not have any knowledge of that, but, again, the staff in the office will furnish you with that information if we have it.

Mrs Glindon

You have already mentioned incentives. Are reward schemes more effective than imposing penalties?

Councillor Porter

It is probably going to be a mixture of both that is necessary. No matter how much you incentivise it, some people will still not engage with the process, so ultimately you do need some sanction against particularly those people who wilfully contaminate the recyclates, because they are not just contaminating their own bag of rubbish; they are contaminating the lorry full of it from everybody else. There is still going to be a need for penalties, which is why we are arguing that the £1,000 should be reduced to £200 and not down to £60. Form a normal person’s perspective, incentivisation is always better than penalties, because people are actively doing something by choice because they think there is a personal aspect that they will be rewarded for. Rewarding good behaviour is a much better way than punishing bad behaviour.

Ms Ritchie

Is there a risk that recycling schemes get neglected when local councils are tied into minimum or fixed tonnage contracts with energy-from-waste plants?

Councillor Porter

Again, from an LGA perspective, we would have to stay away from taking a position other than to say that councils, because of the tight financial constraints they are under, will be looking to see what the bottom line is on any disposal method. If having minimum tonnages is the only way they can achieve a good value for those disposal methods, then that is the route that councils will take.

Chair

Do you believe, from an LGA perspective, that the Government should do more to promote energy from waste and the whole concept of that form of energy—gasification?

Councillor Porter

Yes. We know that in comparison with some countries in Europe, as you have heard from previous witnesses, we are a long way behind the curve on the acceptability of energy from waste, and we do need as a nation to be able to start to take the lead from some other countries that are really good at it. Yes, we do need to do more, but the same is true for most of the communication around the waste agenda. Governments—this one and the previous one—do, or did, need to do considerably more to make the public aware of the benefits of different types of disposal and the benefits of recycling and what can be recycled. Local government needs to do more about encouraging people on a local level, and national Government needs to do more on a national level.

Chair

You expressed concerns in your written evidence about the powers being removed from councils to encourage councils to recycle more, so I presume the moment has passed now in the Deregulation Bill on that. The plan was to remove the powers from councils. From the Government’s point of view, there was a concern that these were being used in a very arbitrary way. Do you want to expand a little on your thoughts there?

Councillor Porter

The LGA’s position has always been the same: we need to have the ability to deal with those people who wilfully refuse to engage. Our preferred route is still incentivisation, but for the Government to take away any ability for us to deal with the worst offenders is wrong. You heard from the previous witnesses from the farming industry about fly-tipping. The Government needs to do more about forcing the judiciary to make sure that when we do catch somebody who is fly-tipping the sentence that they get is one that makes the prosecution worthwhile. There is the ability to crush their vehicles. That has never been used, but it would be a fantastic advert if the vehicle of the next fly-tipper who got caught was crushed and then put into a nice little cube and sat outside the town hall.

Neil Parish

That is an excellent idea.

Councillor Porter

That would engage the media more and you would be sure that if Jeremy Clarkson was crushing on television a fly-tipper’s vehicle you would get much more national buy-in to it.

Chair

A rather graphic example. You say that we should be doing more to reduce waste. Where do you think we are with the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive?

Councillor Porter

It has been getting better, but we all know every Christmas the amount of unnecessary packaging that sits around any of the products that we buy—foolishly buy, for some of our people—is still far too much. Again, not from an LGA perspective, but from a personal perspective, I am not sure why we have to have so many different shapes and colours of bottles in the country. Why can we not get some sort of national standards for all beer to come in a particular type of bottle so that those bottles could be reused more easily as opposed to dealing with it? It has been a partial success story. The work that the Government has done, as we have seen, has started to reduce the amount of packaging that gets into the system, but that will have a knock-on impact in terms of recycling; that will make it more difficult to meet the recycling target.

Chair

You refer to the packaging recovery and you would like to see the system reformed. Would you like to expand on how that can be reformed and improved?

Councillor Porter

Again, that is not something that I have written, so I would have to get the office to expand on that.

Chair

If they could perhaps elaborate on that. If there was one single recommendation you would like to share with the Committee in our inquiry as to how we could improve waste management, what would your recommendation be?

Councillor Porter

You have heard me complain about it several times in my evidence. We need that money that the Treasury are currently taking out of the system in landfill tax. We need our £600 million spent locally and we need the £600 million nationally spent on nationally important parts of the kit that we need to process.

Chair

Thank you very much for being here and sharing your views with us. We are very grateful, Councillor Porter. We stand adjourned until our next meeting. Oral evidence: Waste management HC 241 21