§ Ms. WalleyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will make a statement concerning the role of waste regulation authorities in carrying out visits to industrial and chemical waste producers; and what plans he has to extend the advice set out in waste management paper No. 4 to include visits to industrial and commercial waste producers;
(2) what advice he has given and to whom concerning the frequency of site visits to producers of industrial and commercial waste;
(3) if he will make a statement about the financing of inspections of industrial and commercial waste producers in respect of duty of care provisions as currently outlined in the Environmental Protection Bill;
(4) what assessment he has made of the number of producers of (a) industrial and commercial waste in London and England which will be covered by duty of care provisions under the Environmental Protection Bill;
(5) what is his estimated cost for regulating producers of waste (a) in London and (b) in England.
§ Mr. TrippierThe Environmental Protection Bill places waste producers under a duty of care to take all reasonable steps to ensure that their waste will not be dealt with illegally. The duty will apply to all persons who produce or hold waste in the course of a business. There are around 800,000 registered companies in England and Wales, and considerably more non-registered businesses. The duty of care imposes no additional regulatory duties on local authorities, nor will it require them to visit waste producers routinely. We have no plans to include advice on visits to producers' premises in any revision of waste management paper 4, which deals with the licensing of waste management facilities, not the duty of care. General advice on the implications of the duty of care has been published in the form of a draft code of practice, to be issued under clause 33 of the Bill. It will be open to any authority or individual to prosecute any producer or holder of waste whose actions constitute a breach of the duty of care. Further advice on the steps to be taken by authorities to follow up a suspected breach of the duty will be issued in the form of a circular when the duty of care provisions are enacted. The effect of the duty of care on waste regulation authorities will be to provide, for the first time, an effective sanction against producers of waste who collaborate in the commission of existing offences. I do not foresee any need for significant extra resources to deal with this new provision.
§ Ms. WalleyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give a revised timetable for the introduction of regulations necessary to bring into effect the powers of the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989.
§ Mr. TrippierThe regulations necessary to implement the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989 are being prepared with a view to their being issued for consultation later in the summer and coming into force early in 1991.