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Metals Recycling Industry

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Chope; it is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), not just on securing the debate but on his continued interest in all environmental matters, and I pay tribute to his expertise. This has been an interesting debate. It finally puts paid to the spectre of Steptoe and Son and shady business, which once came to mind as we looked on the industry with affection. It is interesting to see that the turnover of the top three companies is £3.8 billion, £1.1 billion and £175 million respectively, so they are by no means the poor relations of the recycling industry. The Conservative party is heavily committed to the concept of zero waste. I commend our quality of life report, which runs to 550 pages and is widely available on the Conservative party website. With recycling in mind, and wishing to save paper, I shall resist the urge of copying the report to all hon. Members assembled in the Chamber, but I commend it to them. Conservatives are committed to the concept of zero waste and recognise that we have need a new mindset, moving away from the least-cost compliance to a recognition of the fact that metals are a valuable resource, as hon. Members, led by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, have made clear. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) said, that resource is a big earner for UK Ltd and a big employer, too. We are looking at policies dealing not just with landfill bans on metal, but with packaging reduction regulations and incentives for returning cans and bottles. That works successfully in Scandinavia: it gives people a vested interest in the issue, and we should explore it. During the recent recess, while canvassing in the market town of Boroughbridge, I visited the little village of Milby Island, which is regularly flooded; although the flood defences have been improved in the rest of Boroughbridge, that is the one area that still floods. There is, regrettably, in the strategic overview for waste disposal at county level, a possible site for industrial waste disposal in this village, which would seem the least appropriate place to site it anywhere in the county because of the problem of road access and because it is prone to flooding. Obviously, all the villagers at Milby and all the residents of Boroughbridge are opposed to such a site. However, when I asked whether there were any other issues that concerned them, they said that they would like more recycling, particularly of plastics, including plastic bottles. I said, ““You do not wish to see an industrial recycling plant in your own market town, but you would like to see a plastic bottle recycling plant in some other little village in the Vale of York or elsewhere in north Yorkshire.”” Perhaps there is a way forward that would cause less grief. Inevitably, recycling sites tend to be based in the little villages of North Yorkshire. Such a situation raises many planning issues not faced by other European countries, which have a much bigger landmass. The Minister and all hon. Members are apprised of this challenge. In respect of the concept of zero waste, we are wedded to the concept of revising our thinking on powerful consumer culture. For example, people expect a new mobile phone every year, so recycling should start in the home. I visited the local tip at Rufforth when an application was being considered to extend it, and I know that glass from household waste and wood from building materials such as wood frames are two of the most difficult products to recycle. However, in the present market, metal should be easier to recycle. I want to throw two challenges down for the Minister. First, in reply to a parliamentary question she stated:"““Each tonne of aluminium recycled, saves 11 tonnes of CO2”” —[Official Report, 18 February 2008; Vol. 472, c. 259.]" The arguments for recycling metals are compelling, and we are all aware of the high price of not doing so. Japan is growing increasingly prosperous, and is increasingly hungry for metal, which fuels illegal activity and theft. My first challenge for the Minister concerns EU regulations on the transhipment of waste, to which hon. Members have referred. When the regulations were going through, why did her Government not oppose those transhipments? Her predecessor, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), replied to questions about the details of the measures, particularly the commercial confidentiality of some of the information on the form. What we have learnt today flags up one of the greatest difficulties with regulations, and I submit that this debate would have carried more weight and produced more action if it had taken place in the European Parliament. If the Government had opposed the regulations or sought to revise them, I submit that we would not be in the present position. I challenge the Minister to explain why the Government did not oppose the regulations when they were being considered. From what the hon. Member for Southampton, Test so eloquently and passionately argued, that is at the root of our difficulties. I also submit that the debate has flagged up a general problem with the scrutiny of EU regulations in Parliament. We can vote only for or against them, and I plead with the Minister and, perhaps more appropriately, the Leader of the House, to enable us to amend regulations as they go through the House. It is not sufficient merely to vote for or against them. On comitology as opposed to co-decision, I am afraid that I am a bit of an anorak, or a macintosh, because not only did I spend 10 years serving as a Member of the European Parliament, I worked for the Conservatives in the European Parliament, and prior to that I practised European law in a very humble capacity. My understanding of comitology is that it is left to national officials and experts, who are well meaning and well qualified, to meet behind closed doors and agree to regulations on which Members of Parliament and MEPs, who are the real experts, do not have the right to be consulted. They may impose—I say this sincerely to the hon. Member for Southampton, Test—additional burdens on industry, particularly UK industry, of which we are not aware until the decision has been made. We should not rush through the regulations, because they may end up like the transhipment regulations to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Would it not be better to have a co-decision procedure, which is transparent, with an element of parliamentary democracy at two levels? Ministers appear before European Committees and perhaps the European Scrutiny Committee, and we could improve the scrutiny and the remit with which we task Ministers to negotiate at co-decision level before they negotiate at the Council of Ministers. We also have our own Members of the European Parliament to whom we can speak, and whom I am sure the industry will lobby before going into battle. It is not necessarily in the best interests of the UK industry to agree to comitology just for speed. I do not know many hon. Members who want the measure to go through by comitology: Conservative Members would be appalled if that happened, when we could have co-decision. I entirely support the urgent need for a redefinition of waste, and I want to challenge the Minister further. Hon. Members who have spoken are at one in wanting that redefinition, but that will not happen unless member states support us. Will the Minister tell us which member states will support us? Without that support, there is not a prayer of the measure going through, even with the greatest will in the world—and we want to give UK industry experts the greatest support—because, from what the hon. Member for Southampton, Test said and from the tone of the debate it strikes me that everything is conspiring against us. Extra regulations are required covering export to non-OECD countries such as China. We are the major exporter and beneficiary, but where will support come from if we want the redefinition to proceed sooner rather than later? We need a definition of waste that is less restrictive or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, more proportionate. Fully recovered metals must be recognised as a secondary raw material, not waste, if we are to build on, and not just maintain, the world market export position that we enjoy. I hope that after today's debate we will all contact our colleagues in the European Parliament to ensure that all the parties in that institution are singing from the same hymn sheet. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what progress has been made in the negotiating procedures. I support entirely what has been said about the burden of regulation: the one-size-fits-all approach to generic waste sites and regulators does not necessarily fit in with the market. We must provide greater clarity, and we must remove the confusion and the administrative burden and costs on the industry. We must ensure that illegal operators are rooted out, and that legitimate operators are allowed to develop this lucrative and legitimate trade. Metal recyclers should have a full review of the effect of the regulations on the industry, leading to streamlined regulation. The new environmental permitting programme and the DEFRA exemption review threaten to add to the regulatory burden, so perhaps the Minister would put our minds at rest on that. The Government have demonstrated—I say this somewhat reluctantly—a lack of a joined-up approach in the Department, as well as in other Departments. The Minister is on record as saying that there could be huge savings in CO2 emissions and natural resources through increased metal recycling, with gains for British business and, as a result of lower emissions, reduced pollution. There is no co-ordinated UK strategy to promote the industry, but is the Minister minded to produce one? In conclusion, I invite the Minister to tell the Committee why the Government did not oppose the regulations when they were being considered. What is the status of the current negotiations, and, if we are to succeed, which member states will support us? On the points that have been made about where metal and other recycling plants will go in future, is she mindful of their impact on the countryside? Such plants are a blot on residential and completely green landscapes, and can have an impact on house prices and on the general quality of life. On my canvassing excursions during the recess, great concern was expressed about where industrial waste and recycling plants are to be located. I am not going to mention it publicly, but I am negotiating on that matter and have a site in mind in the Vale of York that is more appropriate than the sites that have been given as examples. On that point, I urge the Minister to put our minds at rest, and reassure us that she and her Government will do everything in their power to support a hardworking, lucrative industry.