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Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, before the noble Lord responds, can I ask the Minister a couple of things? I am very pleased with his response to this short debate and agree that we need flexibility. The pilot areas are referred to as ““areas””. Could an area be the whole of a county, or are just one or two areas linked up? Will one specific local authority do the piloting? In some cases, a greater scale would bring greater rewards than having a smaller pilot. My second question is about the exporting of our waste to be recycled. In principle I do not have any problem with that, but is there an equivalent carbon footprint to be taken into account when that sort of waste is moved? Clearly, if we are creating more pollution as a result of it, that should raise a question mark. My final point is more personal to me. Within rural areas, collection of waste of any sort—as the Minister knows so well—costs more. Therefore, I do hope that one of the areas chosen for the pilots would include a rural area.