§ Mr. Gareth WardellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) of 29 April,Official Report, column 470, what assessment he has made of the burdens that the proposed new waste management licensing system will place on industry; and what consideration he has given to them in the light of the deregulation exercise.
§ Mr. Maclean[holding answer 17 May 1993]: In considering proposals for new regulations, the Government place great importance on giving due weight to business' perception of the proposal's likely impact on business. To that end, the Department's consultation papers on waste management licensing issued on 10 August and 18 December contained estimates of certain costs that would arise and an invitation to consultees to provide information on additional costs that the proposals would impose on business. No usable information was provided by consultees. A compliance cost assessment will therefore be produced in due course on the basis of official estimates of additional costs; and industry will be invited to comment specifically on that.
The main consideration relevant to the deregulation exercise is the range and scope of the exemptions from licensing provided in the waste management licensing regulations. We have received a large number of representations on this point and are giving them sympathetic consideration where we can achieve our environmental objectives without licensing.
§ Mr. Gareth WardellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans)Official Report, column 470, on further revisions to the waste management licensing timetable, if he will list those technical problems which have not yet been fully resolved concerning the relationship between waste management licensing and European Community measures dealing with waste; and for what reasons these problems were not identified at the time the EC measures were adopted.
§ Mr. Maclean[holding answer 17 May 1993]: As well as considering the impact of the EC framework directive on waste (91/156/EEC) on part II of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, we have had to give further consideration to the effect of the directive on other regulatory regimes which control the handling, keeping, treatment and disposal of waste; particularly where the scope for providing exemptions from the proposed Waste Management Licensing Regulations relies on such regulatory regimes for the implementation of the directive. These are technical problems which affect the detailed 100W drafting of the regulations, and could not have been reasonably foreseen when the directive was adopted. It is regrettable that this has delayed implementation of the waste licensing provisions, but it is essential that the implications of the framework directive are properly reflected in the regulations before they are laid, to ensure both that we meet our EC obligations and that we do not place burdens on industry by unnecessarily exceeding them.