Greater London Authority Bill

I agree with my hon. Friend. The argument is fundamentally not about bureaucratic neatness, but about what is best placed to deliver on the considerable challenges of truly sustainable waste management in our capital city. The Government say that local authorities in London are on track to reduce their landfill use, and are not therefore at risk of incurring the fines that would apply if they do not meet their objectives. That is prayed in aid in arguing the need for the significant, radical change of a single waste authority. I do not accept such arguments. London has two large-scale waste incineration plants, which manage 20 per cent. of London’s waste between them. That is significantly more than any other region, which has led to false confidence in London’s ability to meet landfill targets, particularly after 2010. The real tipping point with landfill targets will come between 2010 and 2013, but many London authorities have neither plans nor procurements to ensure that an infrastructure will be in place to cope with that. The GLA estimates that four fifths of London authorities are at high or medium risk of not meeting their landfill obligations, and even the construction of the Belvedere incineration plant will not alter that. Currently, about two thirds of London’s waste is buried in landfill sites, and most is taken to sites in the surrounding counties. The Mayor has set a target that London should be 80 per cent. self-sufficient in managing its municipal waste by 2020, and by that date London will need four times its existing recycling capacity and three times its existing waste treatment capacity. While the Government are concerned in the short term about changing governance arrangements and the risk of failing to deliver on early landfill directive targets, the real challenge is in the medium to long term, when estimated fines for landfill could rise to £35 million in 2010, £139 million in 2013 and £232 million by 2020. Both the amount of landfill and the risk of incurring fines could be reduced in several ways. First and foremost among those is investment in recycling and new technologies. At present, London incinerates 20 per cent. of its waste, and that is set to rise to 38 per cent.—a substantial and unacceptable proportion of the UK total. Incineration can drive out the scope both for new technologies such as gasification and pyrolysis and for recycling. Those new technologies are at the cutting edge of alternatives to landfill and incineration, and have a number of beneficial side products, which among other things permit the creation of heat and energy and provide scope to produce hydrogen—one of the key fuels of the future. Clearly, on the basis of current developments, the scope for investing in new technologies and plants to boost recycling is at risk of being driven out by the emphasis on incineration. Recycling as it stands is unsatisfactory and London’s performance is poor. Some London boroughs are performing well, as we have discussed, and others are not. Overall however, London is the poorest performing region for recycling of household and municipal waste, with just 21 per cent. of household waste recycled, as against the English average of 27 per cent. Just one London borough is in the upper quartile of local authorities on their recycling performance and 18 London authorities are in the lower quartile.