§ Baroness Wilcoxasked Her Majesty's Government:
What preparations are being made for the coming into force of the proposed Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (COM(2000)347) which requires the recycling and safe disposal of all household electrical waste.
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, the proposed directive is in draft. Major policy issues still need to be agreed between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers through the conciliation process. Detailed preparation will commence once a final text is available towards the end of this year.
The first formal consultation was undertaken by the DTI during autumn 2000. There has subsequently been significant informal discussion, and specific small and medium enterprise and retailer focus groups have been established. A series of 20 awareness seminars across the United Kingdom are planned for the summer. We are also monitoring implementation plans in other European Union member states to help to ensure a broadly level playing field.
§ Baroness WilcoxMy Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. However, does he agree that last month's vote by the European Parliament to remove a time-limited exemption of five years for the micro-businesses to which he has referred from the financing of collecting, recycling and treating electrical waste will cause great, and sometimes insurmountable, difficulties for many of Britain's smaller businesses unless the conciliation committee reinstates its exemption? If he does agree, will he tell the House what efforts Her Majesty's Government will make to reinstate the exemption?
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, we generally support the directive, but our support is for the common position taken up by member states rather than for the amendments introduced by the European Parliament. So my answer to the noble Baroness's first question is: yes, we agree with her that the amendments are unhelpful—although, of course, they are well meant. In the conciliation process we shall be working hard with the governments of other member states to ensure that we return to a point as close to the common position as we can.
§ Lord GreavesMy Lords, does the Minister accept that some of the amendments by the European Parliament were passed by huge majorities? For 282 example, the amendment to compel producers to provide up-front guarantees for the financing of the future disposal of their products was passed by 525 votes to nine, with two abstentions. In view of the overwhelming weight of opinion in the European Parliament, will the Minister accept that the conciliation process will have to be a genuine compromise, and that some of what I consider to be the excellent amendments strengthening this much-needed directive will have to be accepted?
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, that is why I said that the European Parliament's amendments were well meant. Some of them are perfectly acceptable and manageable. However, there are particular problems for this country—for example, in the amendment requiring compulsory separation of waste by consumers. It is easier in countries that have fewer personal household-to-household collection systems than we have. The European Parliament has set rather high recovery targets: 90 per cent for white goods and automatic dispensers. We are pretty close to that and it is not too much of a problem for us. However, other member states will find it difficult to achieve those targets. Again, the problem of individual producer responsibility for financing waste extraction, except where that would be uneconomic, presents difficulties. These are genuine differences. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, rightly says, they need genuine compromise.
Lord BerkeleyMy Lords, whether or not the common position is adopted, what will it mean for disposal? There is presently a "fridge mountain" in this country. European directives came in apparently without any means being available for the disposal of refrigerators to comply with them. Are we to have an electrical waste mountain, or will proper facilities be built before the directive comes into force?
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyNo, my Lords, the situation is entirely different from what my noble friend refers to as the "fridge mountain". That was a regulation, not a directive, and it had to be enforced immediately. The technology simply did not exist for the recovery of hazardous materials from refrigerators. In this case, this is a directive. There are 18 months for it to be brought into law, and the technology already exists.
§ Lord Pearson of RannochMy Lords does the Minister believe—
§ Lord Campbell of AllowayMy Lords, may I ask—
§ The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn)My Lords, both noble Lords have subsided. Perhaps we should hear the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, first.
§ Lord Pearson of RannochMy Lords, does the Minister believe that the British people would have voted in 1975 to stay in what was then the Common Market if they had known that this sort of ruinously 283 expensive nonsense and thousands of similar regulations were to be forced upon them by what has become the European Union?
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, I simply deny that this is a "ruinously expensive nonsense". This is a genuine attempt to improve environmental quality. It has to be done on a European-wide basis rather than on a national basis, because environmental pollution is no respecter of frontiers. Although we have difficulties with some of the provisions, this is a thoroughly desirable directive.
§ Lord Campbell of AllowayMy Lords, accepting that the Minister's exposition is totally right in terms of the Government's attitude, will he none the less accept that this vast directive is an obvious manifestation of the idiocy of the pretence that the Commission pays any attention to subsidiarity?
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, I have already answered that question. Environmental pollution does not respect national boundaries, so action has to be taken at European level. That has been the case not just for this directive, but for many environmental directives in the past—and I hope that it will continue to be so in the future.
§ Lord Stoddart of SwindonMy Lords, what is the status, if any, of the United Kingdom Parliament in considering these measures? Will Parliament be able to refuse consent to matters that have been agreed in Europe and which will be very costly for British firms and British people? Will it be possible for the United Kingdom Parliament to throw them out?
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, a directive has to be complied with by national legislation, so the matter will come before the Parliament of this country. If your Lordships feel strongly about it, no doubt the European Union Committee could look at the issue.
§ Lord GlentoranMy Lords, is the Minister aware that the Conservative Party supports the directive? Does he agree—and he probably does not—that the Government have got to the start line somewhat late in preparing for it?
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyMy Lords, you could have fooled me. I do not know on what basis the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, says that the Government are late at the start line. As I said in my original Answer, we have been consulting on the issue since 2000, soon after it was first raised.