§ Lord Gray of Continasked Her Majesty's Government:
What proposals they have to charge operators under their proposed system of integrated pollution control.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (The Earl of Caithness)We have today issued a consultation paper which sets out proposals for a new charging system to recover the costs incurred by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP) in implementing the system of Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) of the major industrial dischargers of air and water pollutants and wastes.
HMIP's costs in granting integrated authorisations, sampling and monitoring discharges and enforcing the controls will be borne by the dischargers themselves rather than the general taxpayers, as happens at present. This is an important extension of the principle that polluters should pay the costs of protecting the environment from their activities.
The proposed charges would cover about 70 to 75 per cent. of HMIP's total expenditures associated with integrated pollution control. They would fully recover the costs of HMIP's authorisation and inspection functions under IPC. They would not cover such HMIP activities as support for policy development which serve wider government objectives.
In working up these proposals, we have paid particular attention to ensuring that the system is both practicable to administer and equitable. So a large site with a higher potential to pollute would pay substantially more than a smaller, less polluting site. Similar cost recovery charging systems are levied in other European countries (e.g., Germany and France).
The Government will finalise the details of the charging scheme in the light of the views expressed by interested bodies in response to this consultation paper.