HC Deb 17 June 2003 vol 407 cc189-91W
Mr. Robert Jackson

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list waste sites, with their addresses, which have submitted hazardous waste landfill conditioning plans to the Environment Agency. [111796]

Mr. Morley

A list of all those landfill operators who have submitted a conditioning plan to the Environment Agency for hazardous waste sites, broken down by region and including addresses of the sites, has been published on the Agency website at: www.environment-agency.gov.uk

Ms Walley

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) if she will list the landfill sites that have expressed an interest in receiving(a) hazardous and (b) non-hazardous waste in the last two years; and if she will make a statement; [119696]

(2) what estimate she has made of the number of landfill sites receiving hazardous waste that will be in operation when the Landfill Directive comes into operation; [119697]

(3) if she will list landfill sites in England. [119698]

Mr. Morley

The Landfill Directive was agreed by the Council of Ministers in April 1999 and came into force in July 2001. The main requirements of the Directive were implemented in England and Wales by the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002.

The number of landfills, taken from the Environment Agency's July 2002 conditioning plan exercise—covering England and Wales, is as follows:

Region Non-hazardous Inert Hazardous (post 2002) Hazardous (post 2004)
Anglian 43 60 47 9
Midlands 50 74 42 4
North East 89 58 39 11
North West 49 37 27 8
South West 39 46 16 1
Southern 30 35 13 1
Thames 31 49 19 0
Wales 23 30 15 3
Total 311 329 218 37

Details on these landfill sites are available on the Environment Agency website (www.Environment-Agency.gov.uk).

Mr. Sheerman

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether money received by environmental organisations from the Rump Fund, designed to ease the transition between the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme and any successor scheme, will be classified as public or private finance when used to bid for further funding from other sources. [105757]

Mr. Morley

As indicated in the Economic Secretary to the Treasury's written statement to Parliament on 3 February 2003, the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme (LTCS) Legacy Fund is a public expenditure scheme funded by Defra. Its aim is to replace LTCS funding for eligible projects for 2003–04 which had been agreed prior to the announcement in November 2002 that the LTCS would be reformed. It should have no affect, therefore, on funding packages put together for those projects.

Mr. Stephen O'Brien

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 2 April 2003,Official Report, column 765–66W, (1) by whom administrative support is being provided for this panel; and how much has been budgeted for this support; [113232]

(2) what the different elements in society represented by the panel are; [113233]

(3) whether members of the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme Sustainable Waste Management Legacy Fund Independent Assessment Panel are paid from her Department's budget; how much has been provided for this expense; and whether the £350 honorarium is on a per diem basis per panel member. [113231]

Mr. Morley

[holding answer 13 May 2003]: Administrative support for the independent panel assessing applications under the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme Sustainable Waste Management Legacy Fund is being provided by ENTRUST. The cost of this service is included in the fee that ENTRUST receives to administer the fund which comprises 2 per cent. of whatever funds are distributed.

The three panel members are representative of women, ethnic minorities, charted institutes, academia, industry and the self employed.

The one off honorarium paid to each panel member will be a minute fraction of the total budget (£54 million) set aside by Defra to meet the cost of the scheme. The honorarium that each panel member is to receive has been increased to £1,000 to take account of the additional time taken by panel members to ensure that the decisions taken on the eligibility of applications are fair and reasonable.

Mr. Bill O'Brien

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make it her policy to find a mechanism for distributing funds formerly flowing through the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme categories C and CC that will classify them as private rather than public sector in order to allow leverage of further funding from other sources. [106460]

Mr. Morley

The new public expenditure programme on sustainable waste management, which is being funded from the cessation of categories C and CC of the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, will be used in England to support action to help households reduce the amount of waste they produce, increase access to doorstep collection of materials for recycling, promote the development of new and viable waste management technologies and provide local authorities with the support they need to deliver best practice.

Details of the delivery programme including the type of financial assistance being provided for these activities will be announced next month. While we expect some parts of the programme to draw in funding from other sources, this will not be appropriate for all activities.

The aim of the new programme is, however, to provide highly targeted and thus effective funding to improve performance on sustainable waste management.