Packaging Waste (Hansard, 21 November 2000)

§ Mr. Meacher

The Government are proposing to make two changes and have laid before Parliament the draft "Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2000" which are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.

The first targets to be met under the EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste fall due in 2001. The recovery and recycling obligations placed on producers under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations (`the Regulations') are to enable the UK to meet its obligations under the Packaging Waste Directive, in particular, to meet the recovery and recycling targets—that is at least 50 per cent. of packaging waste to be recovered, at least 25 per cent. recycled and 15 per cent. of each packaging material recycled.

The recovery carried out in the first three quarters of this year suggests that we are on course to make further progress in 2000 towards the directive targets and I am placing a copy of a "Note on 2000 Packaging Data" in the Library of the House.

The Government published a consultation paper in August 2000 on targets for 2001 and proposed, on the basis of the data available at the time, and taking account of estimates for the additional tonnages which were expected to be obligated in 2001, that there should be a recovery target of 58 per cent. and a material-specific recycling target of 18 per cent. for each material.

However, because there are now more recent data available from industry, my Department has reviewed all the figures that were used to inform the development of the targets in the consultation paper. The revised figures suggest that a recovery target of 56 per cent., together with a material-specific recycling target of 18 per cent., would allow the UK to discharge its targets under the Packaging Waste Directive, and these are the targets which I am proposing, subject to parliamentary approval. These targets are expected to achieve recovery of 51 per cent. against the 50 per cent. target. We estimate that a cushion of 1 per cent. (which is around 96,000 tonnes) should be sufficient, provided that the underlying data and assumptions are broadly correct. I think it is only prudent to provide a small safety margin to allow for error in the Department's assessment of the additional tonnages which have to be brought within the scope of obligated packaging by 2001 and also to take account of the possibility that the tonnage reported by the smaller businesses (with turnover between £2 million and £5 million) who were obligated for the first time this year may decrease in their second year of obligation, as their figures improve, as was the case with the data provided by the larger (turnover over £5 million) businesses in their second year of obligation.

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The national targets for next year need to be seen as leading on to higher targets and they need to be high enough to sustain a tighter PRN market and avoid a repeat of the imbalance between supply and demand of reprocessing capacity that has recently prevailed.

In the responses to the consultation paper on targets for 2001 a number of comments were made about the UK system. I will be discussing these with the Advisory Committee on Packaging and will be considering with them what issues need to be looked at once the targets for 2001 have been met and once we know the outcome of the review of the packaging directive next year.

The Government is also proposing to change the mechanism according to which the registration fee paid each year by members of compliance schemes is determined. I am proposing to replace the previous sliding-scale system with a flat fee of £460 per scheme member per year, regardless of the size of the compliance scheme. The flat fee more accurately reflects the enforcing authorities' monitoring costs and takes account of concerns about a system that was perceived by most compliance schemes to be unfair and anti-competitive. I believe that a registration fee based on an equal-for-all principle will provide for competition between schemes on the grounds of their performance and operational efficiency, rather than on the grounds of a regulatory fee differential.