Greater London Authority Bill

A few months ago, I had an exchange with the Minister for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare in Question Time on the very issue that we are discussing. I had been approached by colleagues of mine who run our local authority, who, before the Bill came before the House, were in discussion with the Government about a scheme to build a good, significant new resource park just off the Old Kent road, which is just outside my constituency, but in my borough of Southwark. It was an innovative scheme, and there had been discussions with Government and other people. The Government were positive about the idea, and promised between £30 million and £40 million in private finance initiative credits to support the resource centre. That was part of a plan that would involve moving the current recycling depot, which is just off the Walworth road. It is old-fashioned and badly located, and it is adjacent to residential properties. The move would minimise journey time and disadvantage to others, and would maximise the benefits that occur when lots of different processes happen on the same site. That was a good plan. To pick up on the point that the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) made, Southwark, like Greenwich, had started to make the effort that it needed to make to improve significantly recycling among residents and businesses. We started from a very low base, as the borough’s recycling history was poor, but we have started to improve significantly. We have trebled recycling in the past few years. That is still not good enough, and we are still at the bottom of the league table. If we compare ourselves to many other authorities, among which Bexley is pre-eminent, there is a huge way to go. There are several specific and general advantages to sustaining the present arrangements, rather than changing them. That argument was made by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, too. He played a key role, as did I, in debates on the legislation that set up the Greater London authority, which my hon. Friends and I supported on the basis of what he calls the architecture. We supported it, but not absolutely; for example, there were other measures that we wanted to add, such as a strategic responsibility for health services, but we took the clear view that it was important to use the building blocks that we had to deal with waste and waste issues. I want to put the case simply. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) will put the regional strategic case, as he has done throughout proceedings on the Bill. He represents a borough that is one of the best performers, in terms of the issues that we are discussing; it is certainly one of the best in Greater London, and it is recognised across the country that it follows good practice. The Southwark arguments are, in essence, that the borough has gone a long way down the road towards integrated service delivery. It wants to make sure that all the processes are part of a chain of events, starting with the collection at the doorstep, whether that is separate collections or one integrated collection, and going right through to the processing. They are trying to make sure that there is minimal transportation of waste, too. One of the problems with a London-wide system is that it might result in more transportation of waste, and more transportation by road than by river. I have long argued for more transportation by river, as the river is out there waiting to be used. For a long time, I have had battles with Westminster city council, which transports its waste through Southwark on the way to landfill sites further away in the south-east. In this case, we are talking about sites that are not to the north of the city, but elsewhere. There is a strong argument for minimising journeys, to make sure that we keep activity as local as possible, rather than shipping things to a sub-regional or regional centre, or taking it to boroughs on the edge of London such as Bexley, where there are facilities for landfill, incineration and so on. We must allow good practice to prevail if the initiatives that have been taken are to succeed. Boroughs embarking on the process will look around the world, buy the best technology, and do different things with it. Some areas of London co-ordinate their waste disposal arrangements with those in other local authorities, but a one-solution-for-all approach may not be the best one, as it may fail to keep up with the best technology of other cities such as Berlin, New York and so on. In waiting for the best there is a big danger that we will encounter the enemy of the good. One argument against the Mayor’s proposal to take responsibility for such matters is that his interventions on making sure that we have the best proposals across London have not been helpful. I expect that my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington will refer to London Councils. I am not naive, and I accept that that group reflects the view of the majority in setting out good, strategic reasons why the majority of London councils take the same view as the Government, my local authority, and many Members of Parliament. May I make three further points? First, the issue was considered in detail by the Government, civil servants and the Government office for London. The Government rightly undertook an extensive consultation before the Bill was introduced in Parliament on changing the powers of the Greater London Authority. Democracy is not a static creation, and it is important to consider whether powers are appropriate at certain levels. The overwhelming evidence was that a London-wide strategic authority was not the right solution for the practical problems of increasing recycling and minimising waste and other disadvantages in London. We asked the Government to commission a body to look at the problem, and that body came up, not with a finely balanced opinion but a clear view, so it would be foolish to turn round at this late stage and say that we should reverse the advice that has been given. My second point is connected to debates that we shall have later this evening. If we wish to engage local people and businesses, we will receive much more attention in a relatively small community, as we will feel the heat if our performance is not satisfactory. It is rather like the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about the water and wine. The contribution of a single Londoner to London’s waste and recycling project represents a very small percentage indeed, but in each borough or, in our area, community council, those contributions are noticeable. Big businesses in Southwark are important players, so boroughs can apply significant pressure. They can see how they are doing year on year, and, to put it bluntly, they can compete with one another. My borough, for example, could compare its performance with those of Lewisham, Lambeth, Westminster and Croydon, so the desire to do better is advantageous. Politicians, too, are under pressure to do better. It is no good thinking that it is always worth taking power away from people. If we wish people to lead environmentally sustainable lives, we must engage local politicians, community leaders, builders, developers, transport operatives and so on. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington knows better than anyone, as BedZED is in his constituency, that we are most persuasive when we notice change locally. If we perceive improvement locally, one is more likely to encourage change.