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Greater London Authority Bill

I thank the Minister for widening the debate as this subject is enormously important. I was put in touch with somebody last week who is talking about a new system that uses plasma and which heats things up to an enormous heat. I havenot had a chance to look at it. I think it is based at Milton Keynes. I am well aware that many companies and individuals are specifically looking at the matter. My point, and I am grateful to him for coming back to me on it, was that really the whole question of waste should be included. That is why I am happy that ““green”” is in, although it is not quite the right word. One of the problems we have—in many ways it is clearly defined by the Bill—is that we have local government, Defra and the DTI, which is the other side of the equation. Fuller provision needs to be put in place in the future so that things do not fall between departments. At the moment it is quite difficult because Defra takes the lead on certain things, the DTI leads on others and then local government tries to implement it. There are real question marks against that for the longer term. Again, I thank the Minister for coming back to me, particularly regarding Germany’s 3,000 anaerobic digestion plants. We are way behind in some cases where I think we should be way further ahead.