Climate Change Bill [HL]

All this talk about one's bins outside one's house makes me feel very homesick, when I think about walking up my garden path and seeing my lovely bin and my recycling stuff outside. I hope that I will be able to see it this evening at some point. On the question of charging for bins, I pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about people's behaviour: that once the pilot comes into force, everyone will start putting all their stuff into everyone else’s bin. We need to give people slightly more credit than that. It is possible, through a pilot, to make available lockable bins, should people want to access them. In schemes that have already been up and running overseas, that has been an option. The lockable bins have not been very expensive; I think that the equivalent here would be about £3. Take-up of lockable bins has been very low. We need to be careful about pre-empting the findings of the pilots. The whole point of this is coming up with incentives for people to change their behaviour. I do not accept the noble Lord’s analysis. I hope that I can answer the significant points raised in what has been an important and useful discussion. New paragraph 5 allows authorities to charge in relation to the amount of waste produced. That could be done by weighing or measuring the volume of waste, as the Committee is aware. Under those sorts of scheme, data on how much people throw away may not be available for some time. In addition, it is neither effective for changing behaviour nor fair to residents for the authority to wait for months and months before beginning to collect any charges or pay out rebates. We are talking about a scheme to change behaviour. Obviously, it will depend on what works in the pilots, but there must be a link between cause and effect. If people have to wait a very long time to see the cause and effect on charging, local authorities would benefit from the option of handling the charging differently. Instead the local authority should be able to use existing sources of information to estimate how much waste different households will throw away. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, made a point about people moving. People do move and obviously an effective scheme will be able to deal with that fact. Assessments of likely waste produced will have to be done much more often, I would think, although the pilots may prove me wrong. But payments would be adjusted as necessary in future rounds of the schemes to fit with actual amounts of waste produced. This is exactly how utility bills work. Similarly, local authorities working closely with their communities should have the flexibility to determine how payments are made. This will enable them to administer the scheme efficiently. This is why we want to give them powers in new paragraph 5 of the schedule to specify payment methods. Amendment No. 183R would specify that charging for the amount of waste meant charging by weight. In fact, charging for amounts of waste could cover more possibilities than simply charging by weight. For example, it could mean charging in relation to the volume of waste—we have talked about large bins and mini-bins. This provides an important flexibility for local authorities that reflects the diversity of systems across the country. Similar schemes are operating successfully overseas, in both Europe and the United States, and we want to give local authorities the freedom to trial them here. It is important that we are able to pilot a wide variety of schemes to see what works well in different areas. Amendment No. 183T would remove the possibility for estimating waste levels in advance and billing households accordingly. It would also prevent the authority from requiring, even after the event, payments on account or by instalment. Amendment Nos. 183TA and 183TB together have the same effect as Amendment No. 183T. We know from consulting with local authorities that being able to bill in advance or specify payment on account or by instalment could be very important for administering waste reduction schemes effectively. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked about people on low incomes. We have already debated the question of taking into account the needs of disadvantaged groups. I made the point earlier that their needs could be taken into account by varying the arrangements for payment or reimbursement. We are, I hope, talking about changing people’s behaviour so that they can receive reimbursement. I hope that would be one of the main effects of these schemes; it certainly would be the effect of a successful scheme. The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, asked who would make the estimates in putting together the arrangements for advanced payments. Of course it would be the local authority. We will come on to appeals in later groups and my noble friend is about to come on to the connection with council tax in the next debate. The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, talked about the need for people to have access to recycling. I have said many times that we do not want to put too many requirements on pilot schemes, but one of the requirements is that they have adequate roadside recycling. We are talking here about giving local authorities the powers that they need to go about billing and, most importantly, reimbursing residents who are part of the schemes in the way which fits most suitably with the needs of their communities and the scheme that they are piloting on our behalf.