I move:
That in accordance with Standing Order 128 (1), the Protection of the Environment Bill 2003 be recommitted in its entirety.
Standing Orders permit me to explain why I move this motion. This is a controversial Bill, as we know, which will allow county managers to increase charges and provides for transfer of the power to make charges from elected representatives to unelected officials. It also provides for very significant changes in the licensing regime.
On Committee Stage we asked the Minister to provide certain information to us, particularly on section 30, which provides for the economic cost of operating waste facilities. The Minister has circulated some information but it is inadequate and this section has not been teased out adequately in the absence of the information we need from the Minister.
Also, the Minister has circulated some very significant amendments which were not discussed on Committee Stage. Amendment No. 132 is eight pages long and relates to the recovery of end of life vehicles. It amounts to new legislation and has not been subjected to either Second Stage debate or Committee Stage discussion, yet it is being introduced on Report Stage. There is no justification for the introduction of this amendment on Report Stage. It is based on an EU directive which was signed on 18 September 2000, almost three years ago. The Government has had almost three years in which to introduce legislation to give effect to the directive but has not done so. It has been given plenty of opportunity to address this matter, as in the past three years my party colleagues and I have put down several parliamentary questions to the Minister and his predecessor asking what they intended to do with the directive and how they intended to deal with end of life vehicles. We received answers for the past three years about voluntary arrangements to be negotiated with the industry and so on. It is unacceptable to the House that at the eleventh hour – literally – the Government has now introduced a very substantial amendment of this kind on Report Stage and seeks to have it debated. It may well be that we do not disagree on the issue itself, as I have indicated that I want end of life vehicles dealt with. In fairness to everyone, including those outside the House who may have an interest in the issue and those in the motor trade, it is not acceptable that the Government is using the instrument of an eleventh hour amendment to bring in this issue. We are unlikely to reach amendment No. 132 before the debate is guillotined, so the option of recommitting the section is not open to us.
The Government has introduced a second substantial amendment which has not been subjected to a Committee Stage debate in amendment No. 112. This amendment proposes to substitute a new subsection for a subsection in the original text of the Bill. The subsection in the original text is in turn substituting for a subsection inserted by the 2001 Act, which in turn substituted for an earlier subsection in the Waste Management Act 1996. At the very least this is complex and technical legislative material which has not been subject to Committee Stage and is not appropriate to a guillotined Report Stage. Moreover, the subject matter of the amendment requires Committee Stage debate; the amendment proposes making waste management plans, which will now be made by city and county managers, supersede the provisions of development plans which are made by the elected members of local authorities. I draw particular attention to paragraph (b)(i) of the amendment, in which it is proposed that where a conflict arises between the objectives in a waste management plan and those of a county development plan, the objectives of the waste management plan will supersede the county development plan.
In practical terms, in the case of a proposal in my constituency to situate a landfill dump in a high amenity area, if that provision is in a waste management plan it will supersede the objectives of the county development plan to protect and preserve the high amenity area. This is a highly significant change in the country's planning laws which in effect will allow a closed loop to exist. A county manager proposing a waste facility can have that facility supersede the county development plan made by his elected members and, at the end of that cycle, end up being the same county manager who decides on the planning issues involved. It is a major change in planning law which the public will only discover when there is a proposal for a landfill, incinerator or some other waste facility that causes them concern. They will learn there is no protection in the provisions of their county development plan.
