My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Hanham very strongly and very warmly. I have no particular London interest to declare now, other than that as a resident of London for many years. I was until last May, when I took voluntary retirement, a London borough councillor for 40 years and leader of the council for 13 of those years. If I learned anything from that experience, it was not to mess around with the waste collection system unless it really needed it.
The very simple question to the Minister is: why do the Government feel that London’s system—which, as far as I am aware, has worked extremely well for the last six or seven years and meets all the Government’s requirements in this Bill—is so in need of change that it requires what is in effect eight pages of primary legislation, if you include what is in the Bill and in the schedule, to correct it? What is so wrong with it? The current system is decriminalised and has an appeals system. In fact, it is working so well that there has never actually been an appeal on waste, but the system works well because it is the same or a similar system to that used for parking appeals. There have been just a few parking appeals over the years, so we can say that the system works well and would work well should there ever be an appeal within the waste system.
The other purpose may be to bring London into line with the rest of the country. Why is that necessary? As my noble friend said, there are many issues—two of which we will be discussing next week—on which London has different and separate legislation and provisions to those of the rest of the country. This is one that has existed since the 2007 Act. As we have said, it has worked well and I am not aware of any difficulties, although perhaps we might be about to hear them, so why not leave well alone? This is a system that is tried and tested, is working well and is hugely less cumbersome, time consuming and cost consuming than that proposed in the Bill.
If the Minister is not in a position to agree to these amendments tonight, may I echo the request from my noble friend that he at least agree to meet with us, try to understand our concerns and see whether we can, at least, reach a sensible solution that does not bring such lengthy, cumbersome and unnecessary burdens on London, which already has a much better system that is working? This is not deregulation; it is excessive regulation and does not belong in a Deregulation Bill.