---

Waste (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2007

I thank the noble Baroness for the way in which she presented the order. I declare two interests. First, I am a landowner and farmer living in Northern Ireland. Secondly, I have had a waste disposal business as part of my responsibilities when working as chief executive of the Redland businesses in Ireland. I was pleased to hear the last utterances of the Minister that further subordinate legislation is required. My first reading of this order was ““You ain’t gone far enough””. It is and has been a huge problem, as the noble Baroness has said. I first went into business in the early 1970s in Northern Ireland, and it has been a big problem since then. It is a cowboy problem that has developed into an organised crime problem and then into an international problem. Not only is the environment at risk; waste disposal is a serious, technical and dangerous business if not done properly. I look first at Articles 10 and 12. It could be said that this is part of my interest, but I am concerned by Article 10. It is no good passing the buck to landowners. That would not achieve much, because acres and acres of land in Northern Ireland are wildernesses, as the Minister will know. Certainly in winter, when herds are not out, farmers do not walk all over their land every day or every week. Other means and deterrents must be strong enough to prevent the casual tipper in the countryside. I accept that there are landowners with disused quarries and such who have done private deals to fill them up with waste of one sort or another without planning permission. I am unhappy to some extent with the framing of Article 10. The onus of proof on everybody’s part could be near to impossible on many occasions. The buck would be passed around: the lawyers will make their money; the landowner and the farmer will suffer and have to pay, with worries and hassle; and the criminal will be wandering around with a smile on his face. The order does not do much to stop that. It is good to have Article 12, about householders and the different receptacles used for recyclable and non-recyclable waste, in here. However, a lot more thought must given to the infrastructure of that legislation. In London, where I live in the week, we have recyclable and non-recyclable bins that must go out at night, and you do not know what time the bin men are coming in the morning. Sometimes they do not come until two o’clock in the afternoon, by which time dogs—or, in my case, unfortunately, pigeons—get at it. I have had letters of summons for £2,000 fines from the authority because somebody has handed in a letter with my name on it and said that they found it outside my house. The Committee will be glad to hear that I managed to sort the matter out, but that is real life. The neighbour situation, to which my honourable friend David Lidington referred when this order was debated in the other place, is also a serious worry. If somebody has a grudge against a neighbour, they can cause a huge amount of hassle and trouble very easily. Those issues are not addressed in the legislation. More thinking, more regulation, and more infrastructure needs to go into how to interpret this law. If it is interpreted with considerable common sense and understanding, and as more knowledge is built up or more regulations are introduced when needed, that will be okay. One of the most important aspects, which is tackled to some extent, is the licensing of those who carry out waste disposal operations. I hope and assume that the licence goes to the driver of the HGV who is doing the disposal. It does not say so here, but I assume that if an organisation is licensed, the driver of the HGV carrying the waste is expected by law to carry his disposal licence. If he is stopped, it is no good just telling Joe Bloggs from the department, ““I have a licence. We are fixed””. He must be able to produce a government licence when he is stopped. I sincerely hope that that is part of this legislation. If it is not, it is not worth a great deal. Another aspect that I want to recommend is that before those licences are issued, a form of training should be compulsory to those drivers—and operators, if necessary—to have an understanding of the law and what they are allowed to do with the waste they are disposing of. They are on public roads. Sometimes they are driving tankers containing dangerous materials, so they ought to have a special licence saying that they have been trained, they are entitled to dispose of the waste, and that it is their job. Otherwise, how will it be controlled? There is more to come on that issue. I turn to the last of my key points. Finance is very important. My briefing tells me that the prices for disposal in the Republic of Ireland are considerably higher than those in the north. That tells its own story. The Republic is a very competitive place. They are good business people and they are competitive. But if the price for disposing of their waste is significantly higher than that in the north, there must be a story as to why they bring their waste across. There is no currency gain; it is purely that it is cheaper to find a disposer in the north than in the south. I suggest that the reason why prices in the north are so much less is because of the cowboy trade. No one in the industry professionally and legally can offer the prices required to carry out that business in a regulated and legal way. Waste could include arsenic, chemicals, and so on. The more technical and difficult the waste, the more likely the tenderer is to get a good price because the cowboys do not want to get into that. I have been there. People laugh at you and say, ““Oh, don’t be silly. Jim will take it away for you. Don’t worry””. There are cowboys behind the scenes, which I believe is understood by the department and the Government. This order does not go nearly far enough, but it is a start. It says that regulations will be produced that back it up as subordinate legislation. I hope that they will not be too long in coming. In principle, I support the order. It is a move in the right direction.