Climate Change Bill [HL]

I apologise for that. I will see whether I can get that information on the £94 million; it was not immediately to hand. As I said, the local authorities that are in discussions at the moment will not necessarily be the ones that come forward with a pilot proposal, so there is no benefit to any of them. Let us not forget that we consulted fully on this. It is not as though the issue turned up in the Bill by accident. A full consultation on a scheme from Defra was launched last summer and ran over the summer period. It was much commented on in the media, although not all those comments were based on the facts. Modelling done in Defra showed that savings of £94 million could be available to England if around 62 per cent of households were covered by a waste incentive scheme. The figure of £94 million came from modelling. Apparently, my colleague Joan Ruddock mentioned authorities that had made inquiries for information. This was at a Select Committee hearing on 7 December. I think that she mentioned the figure 14, not 18, but I will not argue about that, as the issue is still the same and we are not going to publish any names. There will be informal guidance in the spring, followed by a formal arrangement. At the moment, local authorities have no power to charge. We want to incentivise householders. We want them to see that there is money to be gained by doing this; we are not coming in and saying, ““You’ve got to pay for this””. However, local authorities have no powers under existing legislation to do that. The chances of their treasurers and legal people allowing them to present schemes to the Government before the Bill gets Royal Assent are fairly non-existent, but we are planning for a fairly early Royal Assent, subject to consideration of the remaining stages in this place and the other place. Clause 51 agreed to. Schedule 5 [Waste reduction schemes]: