Nick Herbert, Shadow Minister for the Environment speaks to the Policy Exchange - July 2009
17th August 2009
"After seeking to prevent, reuse and recycle as much waste as possible, we must do more to try to capture the potential of energy from waste. Again the story is one of the UK being slow to recognise the potential benefits of energy from waste while other EU nations forge ahead. In 2000, 9 per cent of England's municipal waste went through energy recovery processes, but after nearly a decade this has only risen to 11 per cent.
Under the EU Renewables Directive the UK will need to generate 15 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, yet currently we only generate around 5 per cent. As the Policy Exchange report argues, given the potential energy challenges in the years ahead, any means which could help towards meeting the nation's security of supply, decarbonising the economy and shielding the UK from the impact of downturns in global energy markets is to be welcomed.
A framework for action
But what do we need to do in order to deliver our vision for waste where we truly act in accordance with the waste hierarchy? (He continued)...I believe that there are six key factors... (two of which are abstracted from his speech, below);
1. The right fiscal framework
First, we should aim for a fiscal framework which encourages the behaviours on waste which we want and discourages those which we don't. One way in which we do that most clearly already is through landfill charges. When it was first introduced in 1996, the landfill tax was designed to feed back some of the revenue in the form of reductions in national insurance for businesses and income for community projects. While the tax has increased under Labour, the original design has been altered so that it no longer benefits companies and communities to the same degree. But landfill tax does embody the polluter pays principle, and it has a valuable role to play.
So I announced at the Futuresource Conference last month that a Conservative Government will put a floor under the 2013 level of landfill tax at £72 per tonne until 2020. In other words, the tax is here to stay and it will continue to rise. That will give businesses certainty for the next decade, as well as sending a strong message to companies that they can invest in new forms of waste disposal with confidence.
Policy Exchange's report also proposed that the landfill tax should be reformed into a broader waste disposal tax. We need to think about how the fiscal and regulatory regime in waste should reflect the waste hierarchy. Clearly landfill is the most unacceptable form of waste disposal and should be penalised accordingly. But how can we also ensure that materials which should be recycled do not end up being used to generate energy - and how do we measure which is the better treatment of that waste in any case?
3. Focusing on commercial and industrial waste
Third, we need to address the key concern of how better to drive commercial and industrial waste away from landfill and towards more environmentally friendly methods of disposal. Municipal waste is the focus of most EU and UK targets on diverting waste from landfill, but it only accounts for around 9 per cent of all UK waste, whereas commercial and industrial (C&I) waste totals around 25 per cent. But apart from the landfill tax there aren't many drivers to divert C&I waste from landfill.
Currently, local authorities have a duty to provide a trade waste collection. However, this does not extend to them providing a recycling service. And much of this waste is similar to municipal and could be recycled or have energy recovered from it. So I believe that the Policy Exchange report is right to raise the issue of the boundary between municipal and C&I waste. We will need to consider carefully whether incorporating the two waste streams is the right approach, or if a market based solution would be more effective. But in any case, there is no doubt that the focus on municipal waste has tended to eclipse the much bigger issue of C&I waste. We will not make Britain greener and deal with landfill unless we address both sources".