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Refuse Collection

Does my hon. Friend agree that it has been difficult for local authorities of all party political persuasions to introduce revised arrangements against the backdrop of the middle-market national tabloids jumping on a bandwagon, suggesting that AWC is the end of civilisation as we know it and conflating it with taxation and electronic chips in the bins at work, which, according to them, can track—in the south-west, for example—every last cider bottle, pasty and ““Focus”” leaflet that people throw away? It is difficult for local authorities to operate in that climate, is it not?