My Lords, I originally put the question to my noble friend of whether he would be prepared to meet us. He said he will and I thank him for that. I will take up his offer as soon as we can so that we can try and get some sense into this before Third Reading.
I have stood in the same position as the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and I have at times thought that the brief in front of me was absolute rubbish. I have to say that I think that this falls into that category. This is not about one person putting a bit of rubbish into somebody else’s recycling bag. This is about bringing into the whole country a decriminalised system of enforcement of waste in relation to receptacles, dustbins and whether or not you put your rubbish out in plain bags. If the five pages plus five pages of schedule on this legislation are intended to amend the problem of one unknown person putting one bit of rubbish into another bag, I think deregulation has lost its meaning.
I will not say any more. I am extremely disappointed with the noble Lord’s response. London has its own legislation on many fronts and it always acts responsibly. It has led the way with the decriminalisation of waste collection and changes to the Environmental Protection Act. It is not just being unfriendly and prosecuting people unnecessarily. The whole nature of what I was concerned about in the noble Lord’s briefing has been misunderstood. I hope that that was what it was. I look forward to meeting him and we will make sure that that happens. In the mean time I will withdraw my amendment.