Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, I accept what my noble friend says, but I do not accept that it necessarily has to be London wide. It is undoubtedly technology driven, but cultural and climate change issues are also involved, and we are running out of landfill sites. There is gold in waste and a fortune to be made there. ““Waste”” is the wrong word; it is a resource. If local authorities and their financial partners develop the right infrastructures they can earn a great deal of money, create new assets and income streams, and at the same time not mess up the environment. It is a win-win situation all round. Changes in technology will encourage local authorities to work together and nothing that I have said today will prevent that. As I said to my noble friend, either the relevant Minister or I will be quite happy in future to reinforce the fact that the benefits of a single waste disposal authority—the economies of scale in procurement and technology—can be achieved by other means within the existing governance structures. We can embrace the technological changes through the existing structures of joint working on waste. It does not matter whether that entails creating energy out of waste or developing anaerobic digestion techniques—on which joint efforts are under way in experimental plants around the country, although we are way behind our continental partners on this—nothing in the existing structures will stop London local authorities from making use of those technologies. I am wholly supportive of my noble friend’s point. If that explanation is not sufficient, I am quite happy to facilitate one in a letter.