HC Deb 31 January 2002 vol 379 cc412-4
4. Mr. Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne)

If he will make a statement on the cost to (a) local councils and (b) individuals of implementing the EU Directive on the recycling of refrigerators and freezers. [29539]

The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Michael Meacher)

I understand that the current charges levied by waste management companies for the storage and processing of fridges are in the range of £22 to £35 per unit, but that these are likely to fall once additional recycling facilities are operational. There should be no significant increase in costs to members of the public.

Mr. Waterson

Will the Minister confirm that in the UK we dispose of some 3 million fridges a year, and that the fridge mountain is reckoned to be growing at a rate of 6,500 a day? Does he also accept that the funding currently available to local authorities is woefully inadequate? Why should my local council have to raid other budgets to find the estimated £700,000 of new costs to deal with this problem in East Sussex?

Mr. Meacher

The hon. Gentleman is approximately right: about 2.5 million—perhaps up to 3 million—fridges enter the waste stream each year, either for scrapping and decommissioning or for refurbishment and selling on to the domestic market. On funding, in December we announced a £6 million package to cover the cost to the end of the current fiscal year. We made it perfectly clear then that we are urgently considering what further funding might be necessary for the storage and processing of fridges in the next fiscal year. We believe that that is perfectly adequate. I would also point out to the hon. Gentleman that, in the current three-year spending period—spending review 2000—we have provided for an increase of £1.1 billion for environmental protection and cultural services, which includes waste management.

Malcolm Bruce (Gordon)

Will the Minister tell us when he expects the new capacity to be on stream to deal with the problem of removing the chlorofluorocarbons from the insulation material in fridges? The longer we have to wait for that, the more the costs will grow. Does he acknowledge that we are in this situation because the Government have been led by the nose by the EU directive rather than initiating their own programmes, and failed to recognise that the directive had a mandatory requirement, which they discovered only three weeks before it came into effect? Is not the same problem going to arise with the disposal of cars? Does the Minister not recognise that it is not the job of the EU to tell us what to do? [Interruption.] It is our job—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. Let the hon. Gentleman finish.

Malcolm Bruce

Hon. Members should contain themselves. What the EU is telling us to do is highly desirable, but we should not be waiting for it to pass directives. We should be implementing our own policy and shaping EU policy, rather than being the late followers-on behind initiatives that have been taken by other countries. Does the Minister admit that we have left it too late in this instance, and that that is why it is costing us so much?

Mr. Meacher

The hon. Gentleman's first point is perfectly sensible, and he is right to say that storage costs will continue to mount up until we can get the recycling plant in place. We have made every possible effort to obtain that technology, which is not currently available in this country, since we realised in June 2001 that it would be necessary in order to extract CFCs from insulating foam. A number of companies are investing in new plant; I am aware of up to a dozen which have expressed a strong interest, and I expect some of them to introduce it shortly. I certainly expect a number to be operational in the spring.

On the second point, the hon. Gentleman should not get so excited about being led by EU directives, which are introduced by member states as a result of agreement between them all. In this case, an EC regulation drafted in 1998 required the extraction of CFCs from the coolant gases in fridge motors, but not from insulation foam. However, just before the regulation came to the Environment Council in 1999, a change to article 15 caused uncertainty as to whether it applied to insulation foam.

From that point, late in 1999, my officials made repeated requests to the Commission for formal clarification of that article, and I have a record of every such instance. We did not get a formal reply until June 2001. We were badly let down by the Commission, and that is not the way in which EU legislation should be passed. However, since we finally found out about insulation foam in June 2001, we have taken every step to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

Mr. Jonathan Sayeed (Mid-Bedfordshire)

After speaking to local authorities, I can tell the Minister that it is clear that, due to Government incompetence, the extra costs are £30 to collect an old fridge, £30 to store it and at least £10 a fridge for bulk delivery to a recycler—that is, when they start to operate. For 3 million fridges a year, that is an unnecessary and unbudgeted cost of more than £200 million.

On 14 January, the Minister said: We are … taking the realistic view that if extra duties are imposed"— on local authorities— they should be reasonably funded. That is the Government's policy."—[Official Report, 14 January 2002; Vol. 378, c. 125.] Will the Minister confirm that central Government will pay that £200 million? When will local authorities get the bulk of that money?

Mr. Meacher

First, as I thought I had made perfectly clear—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was listening—the incompetence is nothing to do with the UK Government; it is entirely the responsibility of the Commission. Secondly, I do not accept the figures that he produced. The cost will not be £200 million a year, or anything like it. I have made clear, and I repeat, that the reasonable costs of local authorities will be met by the £6 million available until the end of March, and we will make a further announcement in due course on what we believe are the reasonable costs that need to be met beyond that.

The most appropriate way to distribute the £6 million to the local authorities is through the rate support grant mechanism, so they will receive it in their standard spending assessments, as they have generally made clear that they want grant aid paid in that way. Local authorities should have their reasonable costs covered; we are trying to minimise those costs by securing investment in new technology and new plant as soon as possible, and we have protected householders from any interruption in the buying and selling of fridges.