Climate Change Bill [HL]

I am grateful for the Minister’s last comment correcting my arithmetic, or perhaps I misread the figure. I thought that it was £1.5 million over three years, whereas it is £1.5 million a year, which means that rather more money is available. Perhaps I may pick up that point. If local authorities do not get some government grant to introduce these pilots, I do not think that the number taking part will be five, as the Government say; I think that it will be zero, given the state of local government budgets this year. There has been a very tough settlement in much of the country—certainly for collection authorities, which are often district councils. They have been very hard-hit this year, as, I understand, have London boroughs. I do not think that people will come forward if they have to put the money up front to run the schemes. The Minister may be right that local authorities will save loads of money, but I do not think that they will. It is a pipe dream, because the savings that they make will be offset by the costs of dealing with additional fly-tipping and so on. I accept that that can be tested in pilots but I do not accept that there are no significant set-up costs for at least some of these schemes. If we have a system in which people are provided with a rebate or are sent an extra bill each year on the basis of the volume of non-recyclable refuse that they put out, there has to be a system for measuring how much refuse they put out, which will require quite a lot of investment, and there has to be a bureaucracy in place for sending out the bills and chasing them up when people do not pay. On the Government’s own figures, the bills might be only £20, £30 or £40 a year, and chasing them through the local courts is not a cheap process; it would certainly cost more than the amount of money that comes back with the bills, although I suppose people might have to pay the court costs as well. The idea that there will no substantial setting-up cost to run these pilots is totally unreasonable—indeed, it is just wrong. I notice that Mr Eric Pickles, with whom I normally do not have much in common apart from the city that we both come from, has been asking penetrating questions in the House of Commons about these setting-up costs and not getting satisfactory answers, so far as I am concerned. The Minister said that the Government wanted more flexibility and a good sample size. This is at the heart of the debate. More flexibility and a good sample size frankly do not add up to five pilots. This is an issue of principle, and we may wish to return to it at a later stage of the Bill. The Minister also said that there are differences now because there is residents’ parking. If you go putting in the park—if parks still have putting greens—you pay for the putting because you are getting an extra service. Residents’ parking is just the same; you get a parking place somewhere in your street because you pay the extra money and other people are kept out. That is what a residents’ parking scheme is. As the Minister said, it is done by agreement, perhaps by a majority vote by people living in that street. You are paying for something extra. Under the Government’s scheme, people will be penalised or given a bounty for improving or worsening their behaviour. That is the difference. They are not getting a better service; they are being told that they will have to pay more unless they improve their behaviour. If they improve their behaviour, they will pay less. That is completely different. My final point relates to wheelie bins in one area after another—a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, made. She is absolutely right; that is how councils by and large have been introducing recycling. They have introduced a pilot scheme into part of their borough and then extended it. The difference here is that there is a financial penalty, and people will have to pay more. That is what people will think is very unfair. This group of amendments deal with issues of pretty important principle, to which we may want to return. At this stage, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 183D not moved.]