HL Deb 25 May 1989 vol 508 cc572-82

3.49 p.m.

Lord Gregson

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. This Private Member's Bill was sponsored in another place by the Member for Lewisham and Deptford, Ms. Joan Ruddock. We should all be grateful that she used her early place for Private Members' Bills in that way.

I wish to thank the many people and organisations that have written in support of the Bill. I look forward to the co-operation and support of the Department of the Environment in attempting to get it through the various stages in your Lordships' House. I am pleased that there was such strong all-party agreement in another place on the need to control the illegal dumping of waste, or fly-tipping as it is more commonly called. Fly-tipping is the dumping of waste or rubbish on land without the landowner's consent. It also includes the dumping of waste on ground even where there is consent but the site is unlicensed.

The public concern which culminated in the Bill arises from the dramatic increase in the dumping of builders' rubbish. Although that increase has occurred all over the country, it is in London that the problem is particularly acute. While the visible evidence of widespread fly-tipping of building rubbish is obvious, there is, I am afraid, a more sinister side to the problem. Along with the dumped building rubbish is a good deal of hazardous and toxic waste. That problem has been discussed in the House on a number of occasions and I shall deal with it later in my remarks.

In London, the boom in building work, particularly around Docklands, has expanded fly-tipping of building rubbish on an unprecedented scale. Up to 90 per cent. of the fly-tipped waste in London comes from construction sites. It may be dumped on roads, open spaces, car parks, industrial estates and even into people's back gardens or outside businesses. It is a cheap way for builders to get rid of unwanted rubble but very expensive for the landowners or the local authorities that have to clear it up. The cost of disposing of waste in the proper manner is now about £200 a tonne. It is clear that the financial incentive to break the law is very strong.

In London, the scale of the problem is almost beyond belief. The London Waste Regulation Authority estimates that there are now more than 1 million tonnes of fly-tipped waste on the streets of London at any one time and that the cost of disposal for local authorities will be about £5 million. That is an enormous burden on ratepayers. I must stress that, although I have used the example of London, the practice is widespread throughout the country, in towns and even in the countryside. Birmingham has estimated that fly-tipping costs £300,000 per year to clear up. In Surrey, rubbish was dumped in the green belt to a height of 25 feet.

To deal with the problem of fly-tipping, local authorities try to prosecute. But the law is inadequate in several respects. Unless fly-tippers are caught in the act by the police, the authority or a reliable witness, it is impossible to prosecute. If, at the time of the offence, the vehicle registration number is noted down and traced, the driver may not be caught. If the driver is apprehended, but runs away, there is no proof that he is responsible. Even when the responsible person is caught and successfully prosecuted, the fines are often minimal and do not act as a sufficient deterrent because the money paid to the court is more than recouped in another day's illegal activity. The number of prosecutions is disappointing. There were 66 in 1984, 53 in 1985 and 70 in 1986. There is still a great deal of work to be done.

The purpose of the Bill is to provide a better framework for control of fly-tipping. It does that in two ways. Clauses 1 to 5 introduce a system of registration for carriers of controlled waste; that is, household, industrial, commercial and any of the more hazardous wastes. Clauses 6 and 7 strengthen the enforcement provision of the Control of Pollution Act. Clause 6 authorises the impounding of vehicles suspected of being used for illegal waste disposal when it has proved impossible to trace the owner of that vehicle. Clause 7 makes new provision for disclosure of information.

I must stress that the Bill does not replace Section 3 of the Control of Pollution Act as a means of prosecuting fly-tippers. It acts as a deterrent by enforcing registration procedures. Under the Bill, a fly-tipper may be prosecuted for not being registered, although it might be difficult to catch people in the act of fly-tipping. If a person were caught fly-tipping and found not to be registered he would suffer the double penalty of being prosecuted for non-registration and for fly-tipping. I hope that the Bill will bring the operators of illicit disposal trucks under much closer scrutiny and therefore reduce fly-tipping, which brings the legitimate waste disposal industry into disrepute.

I should like to emphasise that the Bill applies to individuals and companies who run a business or make a profit by the carriage and disposal of waste. Therefore it raises no issue of civil liberties. There is no question that someone moving personal domestic waste would be affected by the Bill. We seek to deal with people who profit from moving waste.

The registration scheme will greatly aid the identification of illegal carriers of waste. In time and given the diligence of the authorities, it should reduce the number of illegal operators. As I have said, vast sums of money are involved in these illicit operations. I believe that the huge profits to be made from fly-tipping will still induce some criminals to continue the practice. Those who persist are likely to be the most unscrupulous operators.

I should like to turn briefly to the subject of fly-tipping of toxic and hazardous waste. The London Waste Regulation Authority estimates that around 15 to 20 per cent. of present fly-tipped material could be toxic. It is extremely concerned that it contains asbestos waste, with which it is most difficult and very expensive to deal. One must remember that it was the fly-tipping of cyanide waste in Nuneaton in an area used as a playground by children that led to the enactment of the Control of Pollution Act in 1974. It will be obvious that the money to be made from illegal tipping of special waste such as asbestos and cyanide compounds is many times that to be made from building rubble, and such people must be the most unscrupulous of all.

In 1981 your Lordships' Select Committee on Science and Technology looked at hazardous waste disposal and the working of the 1974 Act in an inquiry which I had the privilege to chair. Among the many issues that gave rise to recommendations from your committee was the lack of control over the carriers of the various categories of waste. Your committee recommended that carriers should be licensed, with proof of the necessary qualifications, and your Select Committee has vigorously pressed this case since that time.

Recently, the Select Committee re-opened its inquiry to review the up-to-date position. It was necessary because of disturbing reports by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Hazardous Waste, a body which was brought into being as a result of the recommendations of the 1981 report. In the meantime the Government have also issued consultation papers proposing legislation some time in the life of this Parliament. Those papers proposed registration of carriers as a supplement to the duty of care that the Government intend to place on producers of waste.

The right honourable Member for Lewisham and Deptford quite rightly judged that the urgent subject of this Bill could not wait for some time in the future life of the Parliament and therefore, with government support, this Bill is before us today.

The report issued last week by your Select Committee did not consider that simple registration was sufficient to contain the problem of fly-tipping combined with the dumping of hazardous waste. The committee recommended that registration should be dependent on evidence of technical competence and financial soundness. The Government propose a similar requirement for the disposal site operators.

The committee supports the Government's proposal for the duty of care on the producers of waste, since it reinforces the principle of control of hazardous waste from the cradle to the grave. The public need to feel reassured that waste disposal is being carried out safely and under firm control. Legislation to provide for a duty of care is not before the House at the moment. I hope very much that we shall see it in the next Session. However, registration of carriers, which we are considering today, is an important contribution toward introducing the duty of care. Perhaps I may refer to what the Minister in another place said on Third Reading of this Bill. She said that we need a register of carriers of waste so that those who have a legitimate wish to continue their business feel secure that the people to whom they have entrusted their waste will satisfactorily meet the necessary standards. That is exactly my view. I feel sure that the Select Committee would also endorse those words.

Responsible producers will want to know that carriers are reliable. They will want the assurance that the employment of a registered carrier is evidence of the producers' compliance with the duty of care. An effective register of carriers is therefore in the interests of both the public and the waste producers. The register will be necessary to reduce the number of cowboys operating in this field to an absolute minimum.

I understand from the Department of the Environment that existing regulations controlling the carriage of goods and dangerous substances also control the transport of waste and provide for the competence of carriers and their financial soundness. I shall be glad to receive confirmation of that fact from the Minister this afternoon. I therefore invite noble Lords to agree that fly-tipping is a menace that we should prevent so far as we possibly can. For this purpose we need a register of carriers. We also need more effective enforcement of existing legislation. That is what the Bill offers.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Gregson.)

4.1 p.m.

Baroness Robson of Kiddington

My Lords, it is not often that one is present during the Second Reading of a Bill in which there is such universal agreement in the Chamber about the purpose of that Bill. On behalf of these Benches I wish very warmly to welcome the Bill and congratulate the honourable Member in another place on bringing it forward and the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, on introducing it in this Chamber.

The Bill deals with a growing problem which, as has been explained, is perhaps greatest in the large conurbations, and probably greatest of all in London. I happen to live in the rural countryside. I would not say that the problem does not exist there, because it does; it is a problem nationwide. The Bill deals with and concerns only waste that is removed and dumped for profit. When the Government later this year, or early next year, bring forward their own suggested strengthening to the Control of Pollution Act 1974, I hope that they will also deal with the duties of waste disposal authorities inasmuch as that duty is to collect waste.

I have sat on the bench for a number of years, and frequently ordinary individuals have appeared before me who were prosecuted for polluting the countryside by throwing rubbish in the hedges or in the woods around where they lived. Very often this had happened because of the refusal by the waste disposal authorities to collect the rubbish from their homes. I hope that that matter will also be considered when the Government bring in their Bill.

I agree with, and welcome, the strengthening of the Control of Pollution Act, which makes it necessary and easier to catch the offender in the act. Once a registration system exists, the problem will be partially solved. All of us know that illegal fly-tipping is largely carried out by cowboy operators who often operate at night. They are in and out of a site in a matter of minutes. It takes literally a minute or two to tip a lorry. To catch someone in the act of illegal fly-tipping requires very good eyesight and the capacity to read the registration number of a vehicle. It is not something easily achieved. The environment committee in another place therefore suggested that registered carriers should have their names clearly written on the sides of their vehicles. So far the Government have not agreed to this suggestion, but perhaps we can return to this problem at a later stage.

Alernatively, we may perhaps have an assurance that it can be dealt with under the regulations which the Government will make when the Bill becomes an Act. Section 93 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 established the power of authorities to obtain information and to establish a fine of £400, or two years' imprisonment to be imposed. All of us agree that that fine and those penalties are wholly inadequate, particularly in view of the fact that a legal waste disposer makes on average, so I am told, £400 per week, but an illegal tipper can make as much as £1,300 to £1,500 per week by shorter runs to unofficial tips. Thus, a fine of £400 is obviously totally inadequate. We therefore welcome in the Bill the increased penalties of £2,000 for ordinary tipping and an unlimited fine for poisonous tipping, with up to four years imprisonment.

I believe that the most important deterrent in the present Bill is the danger of the seizure of the vehicle, inasmuch as it interferes with the operator's capacity to carry on his business. It is quite right, however, that the Bill also includes various safeguards for the operator: if he is transporting waste in an emergency, if he is not aware that it is controlled waste or if he is acting under instructions from an employer. But we are delighted that the onus of proof will rest with the operator to prove that he did not know what his load contained.

The strengthening of the Bill by the Government in their proposal for the imposition of a duty of care is obviously welcome. What is certain is that every legitimate operator in this field will welcome the Bill. I was recently involved in having to clear the whole of a basement of waste in a large London building. I called in a legitimate operator who quoted me the sum of £250 for removing the rubbish out of the basement. Looking at the rubbish in the basement, I felt that it was rather a lot of money. I do know how the word got around, but within two hours I had two other operators at the building offering to do the work for £100 instead of £250. I made some inquiries about the other operators and found that they were not legitimate. That is why I am saying that the legitimate operators will be delighted with the Bill. I have taken some trouble to ascertain that they approve of it.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

We are on tenterhooks. What did the noble Baroness do?

Baroness Robson of Kiddington

I paid £250.I am a law-abiding citizen.

Lord Gregson

Duty of care.

Baroness Robson of Kiddington

My Lords, yes, duty of care. The other firms did not seem reliable. I have used that example because it constantly happens to legitimate operators and it interferes with their business.

I sincerely hope that the Bill will be read a second time, and that, after perhaps one or two amendments have been made at later stages, it will become an Act. I hope that the Government will, with the utmost urgency, come forward with the regulations required under the Bill. I support the Bill.

4.10 p.m.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, the House will wish to congratulate my noble friend Lord Gregson on bringing forward this valuable Bill which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, said, received unanimous support in another place. It has been supported by all the responsible authorities. On reading the Second Reading debate in another place I noted in particular the support of Sir Hugh Rossi, the chairman of the Select Committee on the Environment. He is also my Member of Parliament although I do not have the privilege of voting against him.

The Bill has the support of the environmental health officers and the London Waste Regulation Authority. It is more surprising that it has the support of the Road Haulage Association, which is clearly concerned with the problem of cowboy operators. It also has the support of the Royal Society of Chemistry, which is particularly concerned with the issues of hazardous waste.

A number of Members who spoke in another place on Second Reading spoke partly as Members of that House and also as ex-members of the Greater London Council. I was also a member of the Greater London Council. In the 1970s when the council was responsible for a number of significant developments I was well aware of the problems which it faced. Having cleared a site for redevelopment for housing or whatever, and despite the precautions which had been taken such as providing strong fencing, it was highly likely that it would be broken down and tipping would take place on the site. As the noble Baroness said, tipping can take place in a matter of minutes. In one night the same vehicle can tip many loads of waste materials. It can so on a number of different sites and often get away without being seen by even one witness. The problem with the law as it stands is that one witness is not enough. There must be a witness who takes a note of the vehicle number and also someone to support that in order for the evidence to be effective in a court of law.

It is universally recognised that the Control of Pollution Act 1974, however well intentioned—and there was no controversy about its intentions—is seriously defective. The first step which the Bill proposes is the registration of those who have the right to carry what are defined as "controlled wastes". Obviously it makes the carrying of controlled wastes without being registered an offence. That must be right.

Apart from dealing with other ancillary matters of registration, the Bill goes on to deal with penalties in Part II. I suppose that in that area there remains some controversy—not among those who do not share the objective of the Bill, because everybody shares its objectives, but there are differences of opinion about how it should be made most effective. The view has been expressed in another place that the only really effective way of penalising those who are caught fly-tipping would be not simply to detain or impound the vehicle but to confiscate it. I do not know whether there is an experience of long-term confiscation without compensation, but certainly the City of New York has introduced an effective impounding scheme where vehicles are impounded for significant periods. I understand that within a few months of introducing that scheme, 175 vehicles were impounded and that was found to be an effective and valuable deterrent.

This is not a question of imprisonment. No one wants to fill our prisons in that way. However, as has been very clearly said, much money is to be made from fly-tipping and the only way to hurt people who make money in that way is by hurting their pockets. The penalties should be related to the potential for profit and should substantially exceed that potential if they are to have any effect at all. Therefore, seizing, impounding and detaining vehicles is a valuable step because it prevents the people from operating while the vehicle is in detention. In other words, it is a financial penalty and that is the basis on which it should be welcomed.

There are a significant number of health issues connected with this Bill which cause concern among local authorities. Of course there is the issue of hazardous waste to which reference has already been made. However, there are also issues where local authorities feel that they do not have adequate resources, even if they have adequate powers, to deal with the environmental health problems caused by fly-tipping.

The danger of fly-tipping is made worse because there are so many vacancies for environmental health officers as local authorities, particularly those in inner urban areas, do not feel that they have the resources to recruit and retain the services of enough environmental health officers not only to provide enforcement but also to provide remedial action when there are health hazards.

There is also the problem with which the Minister will be familiar because we have talked about it in discussing sewage matters in Committee on the Water Bill; that is, that the rat population tends to be based in the sewers and unless it is adequately controlled in the sewers, rats will escape via the manholes and will be encouraged to do so by any rubbish lying around which is attractive to them. Clearly that could be the case when certain kinds of substances are disposed of by fly-tipping and when they are not adequately protected.

As noble Lords have said, the core of the matter is that someone has to have a duty of care to see that the menace is minimised. It is encouraging to know that the Government have recognised the duty of care and that they have given their virtually wholehearted support to the Bill as it has gone through another place. When the Minister replies, I should like to know what has happened to the commitment made by his honourable friend Mrs. Bottomley on Second Reading on 24th February, when she said that the Government are committed to introducing measures which will effectively and responsibly deal with the problem. I am sure that she is rightly making the point that the scope of a Private Member's Bill is limited and that further government measures will be necessary to deal with the problem as a whole. Can the Minister give the House any further indication of what other measures will be introduced and when they are likely to be put before Parliament?

This is not only an uncontroversial Bill, but one which has been widely, indeed universally, welcomed. It deserves the support of this House. I am delighted that it has received support from Members on other Benches and, I understand, is supported by the Government. We wish the Bill well and we wish my noble friend an easy and rapid passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House.

I say only this to my noble friend about the possibility of seeking amendments to the Bill in Committee. If amendments were to be added to the Bill in Committee there is always the risk of the Bill not finding parliamentary time in another place. I know that my noble friend will bear that risk very much in mind because it is clearly Better to get the Bill on to the statute book, even if it is not perfect in everybody's eyes, rather than risk losing the whole Bill. I add my wholehearted support to the Bill.

4.21 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Hesketh)

My Lords, this Bill is welcome. As its title suggests, it contains a set of amendments and additions to the system set up in the Control of Pollution Act 1974. These changes are modest in scope, but they foreshadow a very much larger government measure to come that will bring the waste controls of the 1974 Act up to date in a form that should last us into the next century. It is especially heartening to see the extent of all-party, indeed all-round, support for this Bill. I hope that this accord is something that can be built upon when we come to government legislation on environmental protection.

I am pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Gregson, is in the singular position of being both grandfather and godparent to the Bill: grandfather, because in 1981 it was under his leadership that your Lordships' Select Committee on Science and Technology first proposed a system to control carriers of waste. Such a system is the core of this Bill. It must give the noble Lord some special satisfaction to act as god-parent at this Bill's baptism, so I hope that no one will be pouring too much cold water on it.

The noble Lord has already clearly explained the main provisions of the Bill. I should only like to add the Government's view: what these provisions are all about, what they are not all about at all and how they fit into the wider picture of controls on waste. The Bill covers two subjects: the register of carriers and the powers to seize vehicles. The register of carriers is best thought of as a list. It is a complete list of persons in business carrying other people's waste, minus only convicted villains.

This list will help both waste authorities and waste holders. For the authorities it offers an aid to tracing waste movements and detecting offenders. For holders of waste the register is a list of legitimate outlets to whom waste may be given. The key point is that a registered carrier will be identifiable. The authority or the holder will know who he is and will be able to find him again; for example, to ask what he did with a particular consignment of waste. That is where the register paves the way for the duty of care on all waste holders that will be part of the main government legislation to come.

The register is therefore a register of persons who carry waste. What it is not is a register of vehicles or a control on the means or manner of carrying waste. Those are matters for transport law: things like how waste should be packed and sealed; how a hazardous load should be labelled or documented; the qualifications of the driver; his hours of work; the condition of the vehicle and the route it takes. The Government quite deliberately do not want waste disposal to get into that sort of area. I am happy to give the noble Lord the assurance he asked for: that the Department of Transport's legislation and regulations already fully cover the control and carriage of waste in the respect that concerns him.

The second subject of the Bill, in Clause 6, is the power to seize vehicles. That sounds very impressive, indeed rather alarming, but once again I must emphasise what the Bill is not about. Clause 6 is not about punishment, it is about detection. The Government accept that in organised fly-tipping operations it is often hard to identify the person responsible, even though the tipping has been witnessed and the vehicle spotted. We are therefore prepared to live with the rather unusual idea of detaining the vehicle until some person comes out of the woodwork to claim it. The procedures may look cumbersome, but the London Waste Regulation Authority believes that it will be able to make them work. The idea of detaining suspect vehicles started in the LWRA. It deserves every credit for the work it has put into this Bill as its main backers outside Parliament. I hope that the resulting power in Clause 6 will be a modest but useful addition to the weapons of waste authorities. If it does anything to make enforcement more effective and reduce the dreadful effects and costs of fly-tipping, it will be worth while.

There will always be a difficulty in proving complicity in fly-tipping, let alone catching the actual tipper red-handed. The best way is, if you can, to cut off a fly-tipper's supply. He cannot tip it if he cannot get hold of it. Waste comes in the first place from reputable sources—industry, commerce or building contractors. Those persons must be given a responsibility for their waste. That responsibility, which we call the duty of care, must extend right through the chain from the producer to the disposer.

That is why we are working up the new integrated system of waste regulation ready for a major government Bill. This new system will cover waste from the producer right through to the carrier and the disposer and until after the disposal site is itself closed. Our objective throughout is to set a system for control that imposes no unnecessary burden on industry or the public but minimises the risks to the environment and pulic health.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, I am very interested in what the Minister has just said. I am not familiar with the phrase "working up" a Bill. Can he tell us how far the Bill has been worked up and what the timescale is likely to be?

Lord Hesketh

My Lords, I have pencilled in a little further down in my few modest words the noble Lord's name in response to his earlier remarks. I hope that I shall be able to come to that in a moment. Though the words "working up" are a novelty to him, that is what we are attempting to do. There are few opportunities for primary legislation, as the noble Lord will be well aware. The 1974 Act has had to last for 15 years as the basis for waste control. We need to produce a new Act to last us well into the next century. That means that we must get it right.

That is why we have been going about our preparations systematically: first draft proposals, then consultation, then settled proposals, then legislation, then regulations and finally implementation. Consultation papers and announcements have been issued in a steady stream since 1986. The Government's programme of action is now bearing fruit. The register of carriers to be introduced in this Bill is the first component of the new legislation. With this Bill before us today we shall be able to create a register of waste carriers to be publicly available before the new duty of care comes into force.

Producers and holders of waste will have a ready list of legitimate carriers to give waste to. That will allow us to bring the main legislation into force much earlier than otherwise. The nobile Lord, Lord McIntosh, asked about time. We shall be looking to bring this Bill into force as soon as possible.

The life of all Private Members' Bills hangs but by a thread. Nevertheless, given the strength of support for this measure, I hope that we shall see it passing into law this summer so that the Government can move quickly to public consultation on the necessary regulations. I wish this Bill well for a speedy, unamended and unobstructed passage through your Lordships' House.

Lord Gregson

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for confirmation of the communication that we had earlier this week from the department. Secondly, I thank him for his good wishes for the passage of the Bill that is now before the House. I also thank the noble Baroness and my noble friend for their support. I look forward to future co-operation and support from all parts of the House in getting this Bill through its further stages and back to the other place for final clearance. Therefore I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

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