Greater London Authority Bill

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was kind enough to refer to the fact that I put my name to this amendment. I was delighted to hear her contribution, because she immediately acknowledged that all was not well with the current arrangements for waste disposal in London. That must be a substantial understatement. London’s performance on waste disposal is pretty appalling. It is the only major metropolitan region in England where waste disposal is not managed and co-ordinated at city level. I wonder whether that is why the performance is so poor. Instead, London has 16 waste disposal authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that one of the difficulties about the proposal is that the authorities have a number of big contracts in the pipeline and negotiations pending. That is precisely why I am extremely concerned about the current situation. I am sure that I am not telling tales out of school, but I recall that when I was a borough leader—and I discussed this with my contemporaries in borough leadership positions at the time and have done so since with borough leaders—joint waste disposal authorities were used as a convenient depositing ground for the members of the local authority who one most wanted to find things to do outside the town hall or the civic centre. They were very happy there. They paid themselves substantial allowances and went off and did things which nobody else was interested in; nobody knew what they were up to, and periodically a very large bill arrived for the local authorities concerned. I discovered that that was not confined to the particular parts of north London that I was involved with and which I knew about, but it seemed to be something which was not uncommon. I am assured that the situation has changed. I am assured by members of joint waste disposal authorities that they are of the highest calibre and are not the people whom their borough leaders and other colleagues want to get off the premises. Of course I take that at face value. I wonder about the capacity of 16 different waste disposal authorities to enter into long-term, detailed and complex contracts. Past history has not been good. I just wonder where this major change in capacity has occurred to ensure that the negotiations will be of the best possible arrangements. I find it difficult to see how the proposals in the Bill will be able to deliver sustainable and co-ordinated waste management in London. Actually, the Government propose very little indeed. There is the change in the arrangements referred to by the noble Baroness regarding general conformity, and there will be very important voluntary arrangements and talking shops. I am not sure what they amount to. Yet, we are told a step change is needed to ensure that London meets the European landfill directive targets. The Government are concerned that short-term landfill directive targets will not be met unless something substantial happens. The real risks are in failing to deliver in the longer term. London faces cumulative fines of £1.7 billion. In 2010, fines will be £35 million; in 2013, they will be £139 million; and in 2020, they will be £232 million. I want to know—and I will listen with great interest to the response the Minister gives at the end of this discussion—where the Government think this step change will come from. I do not see that the proposals in the Bill are anything like sufficient to deliver that step change. While on the subject of step change, it would be interesting to know, again from the Minister, what has caused the step change in Defra’s position? Not that long ago Defra thought that a single waste disposal authority for London was a good idea. I do not think the arguments have changed, but something has. It would be interesting to hear what my noble friend thinks has changed to convince the department that the fairly modest proposals in the Bill will be sufficient to deliver the major change in waste disposal that London needs. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said that London was a very different city, or maybe it was a difficult city—I cannot remember her phraseology.