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Refuse Collection

I have some sympathy with that point. We need to look further at the issue of garden waste. I am a keen gardener—I have given up my lawns because they are too much—and many homes produce huge amounts of waste from lawns, shrubs and so on. We should look further at whether collection is the best environmental option, and whether there should be more emphasis on it. There has been a great deal of work and WRAP has been heavily involved in home composting arrangements. The hon. Gentleman said that it is not possible to compost meat waste, but I have a food digester in my garden in which I can put all my waste food every single day. I am glad to say that it disappears and that those awful bugs that we complain about can be productive. The hon. Lady made a number of points on commercial waste and recommendation 29. The Government have no evidence of deliberate evasion of responsibilities. DEFRA wrote to all local authorities, as I said, to remind them of their duties to collect commercial waste if they are asked to do so. Local authorities must also report all the waste that they collect, including commercial waste. We have not been able to find evidence of the things of which some local authorities in London are being accused, particularly by the Greater London Authority. However, the Environment Agency was asked to do some auditing as a result of recommendation 29 of the fifth report, which suggests that London local authorities need to be audited because of their current waste disposal programmes and the"““higher-than-average proportion of non-household waste collected and disposed of in the capital””." The agency states:"““There is no evidence that London boroughs are deliberately evading their reporting responsibilities. There are however a number of lessons learnt from the audits that will improve the consistency and quality of future reports…We are in the process of publishing additional guidance to ensure that local authorities are in no doubt as to our views on what should be reported as collected municipal waste. From 2007/8 onwards we will use this guidance in the audit process…We intend to audit all remaining authorities over the next two years, which will include the remaining London authorities””." On that basis, we can see that it has not been possible to substantiate whatever suspicions there are on the matter. The hon. Member for North Cornwall asked questions about DEFRA grants to WRAP and NISP, which was the subject of a previous debate in which I was involved. I was unable to comment then because we did not have the final settlements, but we now have them. Perhaps it would be helpful if I quoted what WRAP has said about its final settlement. It says:"““The final budget of £43.2 million remains a substantial sum with which we will deliver our important and stretching work programme geared to help lessen the impact of climate change, maximise resource efficiency and help deliver Defra's Waste Strategy””." I value the work of WRAP and NISP, which has undertaken some extraordinary innovation. NISP's budget will be somewhat more than £5 million—it would have liked more, but I am confident that it will be able to continue its important work with that amount.