§ Mr. Peter AinsworthTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the contribution to meeting the Government's recycling targets to date of the PFI credits announced in the last comprehensive spending review. [38827]
§ Margaret Beckett[holding answer 28 February 2002]: The Spending Review 2000 allocated £220 million of PFI credits for local authorities waste projects (£50 million for 2001–02, £70 million for 2002–03 and £100 million for 2003–04).
Three projects have been approved so far for this period. The local authorities involved are East London waste authority, Leicester city council and a joint project for East Sussex and Brighton and Hove. The outputs in the approved outline business cases for these three 72W projects are to achieve a minimum of 25 per cent. recycling rate of household waste by 2005, in line with the national target published in Waste Strategy 2000.
We published revised criteria for waste PFI schemes in September 2000. These make clear the central place of recycling in PFI proposals. Where proposals include incineration, they must demonstrate that all opportunities for recycling have been considered first and that there is no barrier to the future development of recycling.