Greater London Authority Bill

Since I have now missed my last train, I assume that it is open to me to respond at length to the various points that have been made in the debate. I could, for example, differ from my noble friend on what the preferred position of Ministers, if not the announced policy, was two years ago, or even more recently. I could argue with him that the basis of the KPMG report, which I have at least glanced at, seems to differ substantially from earlier analyses that were made to Defra and the GLA on the possibility of efficiencies in waste disposal through contracting and through more efficient regulation, and for the driver that it would produce in relation to better collection and recycling methods in the boroughs. I could certainly argue with him on some of the statistics, and probably will. Everyone has assumed and stated that we need a step change. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, has sort of implied that we already have one. I do not think that the figures bear that out. We have doubled recycling, but still 64 per cent of waste goes to landfill. It is way off target. We have improved recycling levels in a number of boroughs. I tried to obtain the latest information on what actually happened in 2006-07. I could not get it for all the boroughs, but six out of the seven boroughs for which it was available showed a very small improvement, a slow down in improvement, and one borough showed a significant retrogressive move. So I do not think that we have achieved the step change. The question is how do we achieve the step change to meet the 2010 and 2013 targets or get anywhere near them, let alone the longer-term ones. Most Members of the Committee who have participated in the debate suggest that some improvement is needed in the structure. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, in moving an earlier amendment, indicated that we need a better strategy, a better allocation of funds and a better approach to how we pay for infrastructure and innovation in this area. I am surprised that KPMG reached the conclusions that it did. When you have 16—shortly to be reduced to 12, as I understand the south-west London arrangement—different waste authorities, there must be some economies of scale in going larger than that, and at least approaching the contracting arrangements in a more coherent and systematic way. That is, indeed, what earlier studies concluded. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, I think was commending the new south-west arrangements, as the Minister appeared to be. That contradicts the rest of his opposition to having a two-tier authority in London and separating out disposal and collection. If memory serves, about 20 years ago we were talking about a new authority within south-west London, which has now been achieved. I am very pleased that it has been. Would it not be much better if we could achieve that across the whole of London? The argument for a two-tier authority seems to apply quite effectively in the areas where the Government are not proposing to do anything about it; namely, in the county and district areas. It is an entirely different issue where waste is not dealt with within an individual borough area; people are driving their own waste. The waste disposal companies and the waste disposal authorities are moving waste across borough boundaries the whole time. The new facilities being developed have to be developed and justified on the basis that they serve more than one borough and more than one waste disposal area. There is a huge outflow of waste from London into its neighbouring counties, which has to be dealt with by those counties on an authority by authority basis. All of that leads to inefficiency. That does not, I admit, prove that if you put a new, publicly accountable, statutorily based authority in there that that would, de facto, improve the situation. Something needs to be done. The cost of establishing that seems likely to be less than the efficiencies gained by so doing. Nevertheless, I agree with my noble friend Lord Warner that these things need to be looked at. I do not think that KPMG goes far enough. However, I make the point that if, as we go further down this road, those step changes have not been achieved by 2010 and 2013, and we are maintaining the present structure of delivery and the present rather nebulous arrangements for the forum proposed by the Government, hopefully enhanced slightly by the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, we will have no statutory base for actually rectifying the situation. I said just now that we only got around to creating a south-west London authority in the past few months, whereas it had been discussed—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will agree with me—for the past 20 years. If we have no statutory authority, no ability to use this legislation—which is the most important legislation since we established the GLA—and we do not use this to at least provide on a contingency basis the ability to establish an alternative structure, our ability to meet the later targets will be severely damaged. So if the Minister is prepared to accept neither the amendment in this form nor the arguments that the Mayor should be able to trigger a single London authority, in conjunction and co-operation with the boroughs—we do not have a statutory base for creating such an authority—we will have missed the boat. The proposal includes a majority of representatives of the boroughs, which, as the Minister has said, will no longer be those on which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, used to dump environmental and waste management concerns, but those who are interested in them. I therefore argue that if the Minister cannot accept the amendment, he needs a plan B. Plan A—leaving it to the boroughs and the present structure—is frankly not working. I, for one, have no faith in its ability to continue to work. This legislation should have at least the possibility of a plan B, and I ask the Minister to consider that. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.