Greater London Authority Bill

Since I was not allowed to intervene on the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), perhaps I might start with the point that I was going to make. I was interested to hear him say that local people should be taking local decisions; that is precisely what my constituents are complaining about. London residents are taking decisions and dumping their rubbish on my constituents, so slogans such as the hon. Gentleman has been using can just as easily be used to the opposite effect. Although this may appear to be a London issue, I am speaking in this debate because, as I have just said, it is not entirely that; it has wider effects, and does affect my Milton Keynes constituency. I was extremely surprised to discover in the answer to a number of recent written questions that Environment Agency records show that more than 15,000 tonnes of London waste have been disposed of in the six months between April and September 2006 at the Newton Longville landfill, in my constituency. At the south-east regional level, there are plans to increase the amount of London waste disposed of in my constituency. That is widely opposed in my constituency, and I support that opposition. In responding to one of my written parliamentary questions, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pointed out that the London Mayor does indeed aim for London to be 85 per cent. self-sufficient in waste management by 2020. That has unleashed a rather interesting correspondence between the Mayor and the Minister for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare, which has helpfully been copied to me. The Mayor pointed out that although he does indeed have a duty to produce a spatial development strategy, the boroughs are not delivering that strategy and he has no power to make them do it. As a consequence, two thirds of the municipal waste of London boroughs goes to landfill in surrounding areas, including in my constituency. The Government have responded by saying that they are proposing new powers for the London Mayor that will deal with that problem, but they will do nothing of the sort. I welcome the fact that some new powers will be given to the London Mayor, but they will not be sufficient. He will not have any power to provide additional waste capacity within London, and that is obviously essential if London is to stop exporting its problems and dumping them on someone else. He also has no power to control how or where London’s waste is disposed of. There is another, peripheral, problem that I have not got to the bottom of yet, but I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will elucidate it for me in further correspondence. That problem is how some London boroughs appear to be shuffling off their responsibility for municipal waste by some devious privatising method, which means that although the waste is still coming from the commercial stream, it is no longer their responsibility. I suspect that more of that will end up in landfills in surrounding areas, thus visiting the problem on other people. I strongly support the new clause proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck). It is essential that London get to grips with its waste problems; it must deal with them itself and stop exporting them to other people. I understand the arguments about economies of scale, and I fully accept that it is much easier to recycle waste in a dispersed urban environment such as Milton Keynes, where most of the housing is modern and well designed, than in London boroughs—especially inner London boroughs—which have many space constraints. However, that is an argument in favour of a London-wide policy. Inner London boroughs that do not really have the ability to solve the problem would then be part of a strategic London-wide plan that could address the problem overall. I support my hon. Friend on behalf of my constituents who feel strongly about the issue. I urge the Government to consider giving the Mayor powers for a single waste disposal authority, because my constituents and others outside London should not be faced with picking up the environmental consequences of the inability of most London boroughs to deal with their own rubbish within London.