National Infrastructure Commission: Baseline Report

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Randerson, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on securing this debate and on his excellent introduction. This is an extremely wide subject of great importance to be covered in just a one-hour debate, but we have had some excellent contributions from all sides. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned road and rail connectivity, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, understands the national infrastructure network across the board and spoke eloquently.

Given the breadth of the baseline report, I shall concentrate on the areas within my spokesperson’s role—wastewater management and flooding. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA. Before I do that, I will just mention the issue of access to gigabit-capable broadband. The increase of coverage to 85% connection across the UK is to be welcomed, and the target of 95% connection by 2026 sounds excellent. However, this masks the dark areas of the country where there is no connection and where this is unlikely to be remedied by 2026.

Remote rural areas, especially in the national parks and deep rural hamlets, suffer from poor or no connectivity. The numbers affected are small but should not be overlooked. They will be the children struggling to do the homework that their friends in towns are easily able to complete, and the farmers trying to fill in the innumerable Defra forms. We have seen in recent days how storms can so easily bring down power lines and, again, deep rural areas are the last to be reconnected. As there is no government rural strategy, and various Ministers have repeatedly stressed that one will not be forthcoming, I make a plea for these areas not to be forgotten in the gigabit connection programme.

I turn to flood resilience and wastewater. During the passage of the Environment Act, flood resilience and waste were debated fully. Communities up and down the country have been flooded more than once. The misery that flood-water brings is truly heartbreaking; the slime and smell caused by overflowing sewage systems is difficult to describe if you have not experienced it yourself. It can destroy a lifetime’s possessions, many having emotional ties. The Government are due to invest £5.6 billion over the next six years to reduce the risk of flooding. Is the Minister able to tell us where this money is likely to be invested and the areas of the country that will benefit from this investment? I expect it to be in areas where the most difference can be made for businesses and homes, but this is likely to leave some smaller communities still at risk.

Despite recognition of climate change and the effects of building on flood plains and tarmacking over green fields, local authorities still build houses in areas where doing so will increase the risk of flooding. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned this. Inadequate attention is often given to how surface-water drainage will be tackled through properly engineered SUDS. Urgent attention needs to be given to how surface-water management is dealt with to prevent increasing the risk of flooding. Can the Minister give reassurance on this aspect?

Also during the passage of the Environment Act, and twice this week during Oral Questions, the issue of raw sewage being discharged by water companies has been raised. Due to the excellent work of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, the Government have given commitments that water companies will in future have to be stringent in how they operate. There will be heavy fines for companies that discharge wastewater and sewage into our lakes and waterways. However, the ability to fine water companies has been in place for a while and has not deterred them. Investment in their infrastructure is long overdue, but it seems that shareholder dividends loom larger on their agenda than the Environment Agency fines. Can the Minister say exactly what conversations have taken place with water companies about improving their infrastructure to prevent future sewage spillages?

I turn now to waste, a great passion of mine. I first became aware of how important it was to reduce waste as a county councillor, when the landfill tax was introduced. This tax concentrated the minds of councillors and officers immediately, as it rose year on year. Much has been done on the recycling front during the intervening years, with many councils having doorstep collections of recyclable materials. However, many of these recyclable collections are not processed in the way the householder imagines they would be but sent for incineration. Although this can and should be through a waste-to-energy plant, supplying electricity locally, this is often not the case. Councils that ask their residents to separate their recyclable waste and collect it through a single-pass vehicle with different compartments for glass, aluminium foil, cans, paper, cardboard and plastic have much higher rates of true recycling.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that we urgently need a single system for every council across the country to make this important change in recycling rates?

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

I do indeed, and I am coming to that.

Each of these items can be dealt with in its own way and recycled into reusable articles, thus helping a circular economy. When I lived in Somerset, this system had been up and running for a long time. In Walthamstow, where I rent a flat, all recyclables are in one bin and much of what goes in is not currently recyclable. I know the Government are keen for this system to be rolled out countrywide. Wales has such a system, which has operated for some time, and has the second-highest recycling rate in Europe and, obviously, the highest in Great Britain. Can the Minister give an indication of when the rollout of doorstep separated recyclable waste collections will take place?

My noble friend Lady Randerson spoke passionately about transport and congestion. Reducing emissions and congestion will improve productivity. I welcome the NIC report. Much has been achieved but, goodness me, there is still an awful lot left to do.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville

Report stage
Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I have campaigned against plastic and support most of the Government’s plans because of the permanent damage that plastic can cause, especially to our seas and rivers. I support the wide powers that the Government are taking in this area. However, focusing on single use is not sensible. I remember that, when I was in retail, a single bag for life needed to be used 80 times to match the efficiency of the light single-use plastic bag. We also need to think about the consumer. I feel there will be similar nonsenses if we try to ban the single use of other items. What is wrong with a coloured paper straw or a paper spoon to eat an ice cream? It will rot afterwards. I am also happy to see cans of Coke, especially if they can be recycled, as they would be if we made it a great deal easier for people to recycle. So I may be in a minority of one, but I think this amendment goes too far.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, on single-use plastic and other single-use material. As I indicated last week, we have become a throwaway culture and seem unable to motivate ourselves out of this. We as a country, therefore, need additional help for this to happen.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, has introduced this amendment with her usual depth of knowledge and experience. On Monday, we had an extremely informative debate, with contributions on a number of aspects of the harm caused by different types of plastic to the environment. There are amendments for later days, when we will return to some of these aspects. Then, as now, we will refer to other single-use items that cause harm to us and our environment. Great care is needed in finding alternatives to single-use plastics so that we do not create a greater problem of carbon creation. The problem is with the throwaway culture, not with plastic alone.

According to a 2018 study by the Danish Ministry for Environment, environmental and social impacts associated with the paper supply chain are considerable, and include ozone depletion, human and ecosystem toxicity, and air and water pollution. The study found that a paper bag would have to be used 43 times to have an overall impact lower than that of the average plastic bag. Although its degeneration rate is far higher than that of plastic, it is the creation of the paper that has the carbon impact. It is important to be clear that we cannot move away from plastics to other non-sustainable, one-off alternatives, such as paper, without fully assessing the consequences.

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, speaking on behalf of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and in her own right, made some very powerful points. The Government are currently consulting on banning further single-use plastic items, such as plates and cutlery. What are the Government intending to use in place of plastic? Will it be bamboo? What effect will using bamboo in this way have on the supply and growing of bamboo? This is just one example.

I support completely the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. We as a nation should have regard to the overall impact of single-use items, such as disposable nappies, which we will debate later. If we are to be a world leader on environmental issues, as the Government want us to be, reducing the use and impact of single-use items is key. We on these Benches fully support this vital amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which will ensure that the overall impact of the Environment Bill has a chance at being successful.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I rise to speak to this amendment in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. This is because I agree with them that it is important that local authorities are prepared to deliver the many new duties provided for in this Bill; they will, of course, be key to its success. I am always pleased to follow the energetic noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but more particularly to have my first opportunity to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, who is adding a great deal to our proceedings, especially in his knowledge of how things actually work in local government.

The proposers of this amendment appear to want to see a review, three months after the Bill’s passage, of the funding and staffing required and of how additional costs should be covered. I am afraid that I am more impatient; I would like to hear now from my noble friend the Minister how the burdens on local authorities will be dealt with. Will it be through the rate support grant? Will special funding be provided from the Defra budget, and will it be ring-fenced, as my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering asked? Does he have a feel for the total likely to be needed, in terms of hundreds of millions of pounds?

Improving skills is probably more important to productivity growth than any other investment we can make. There is already a skills and staffing gap in local government, partly because of the needs of environmental measures in planning and building, at which the Built Environment Committee, on which I sit, is already looking. The Bill will make that gap a great deal bigger.

The noble Lord, Lord Khan, mentioned ecologists and recycling but there is, of course, a broader challenge. Competition for talent, from Natural England and others, as the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said, is also likely to cause problems. What is the plan for gearing up the skills we need in local government in preparation for their new duties? Also to return to an earlier theme of mine, how will this be communicated?

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.

Whether local authorities were likely to be prepared for the implications of this Bill for their operations was discussed briefly on Monday evening, when the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, opened a long debate which featured mainly the need for more trees. Although the debate was long and extensive, I fear that the issue of whether local authorities were likely to be properly resourced to carry out their functions as described in the Bill was somewhat lost in the debate about trees and tree planting, vital though that was. The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and co-signed by the noble Lord, now stands alone and we have an opportunity to debate to what extent local authorities can fulfil the expectations that the Bill places on them. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, asked exactly how the money will be provided and just how much will be required. These are vital questions.

The last 16 months have not been great for local authorities. Their councillors have been meeting for the most part remotely, and this has meant that the public have not had the same access to their decision-making as previously. Their staff have been redeployed to other tasks: in some cases, it was making up food parcels for families and children; in others, it was helping to staff vaccination centres and adjoining car parks. Others were ensuring that the homeless were removed from the streets to places where there was shelter and they were safe from Covid. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, congratulated local authorities on the excellent work they do. I echo that.

Now that councils are beginning to return to some form of “normal” working, whatever normal is for each council, the Environment Bill, long trailed and expected, is about to pass into law with requirements for local authorities to step up to the mark. They are, of course, willing to do this, as reinforced by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin. It is their ethos that public service should come first. However, a lot is expected of them.

Local authorities are expected to create local nature strategies. Due to previous funding cuts, it is estimated that only one in four currently has access to an in-house ecologist, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Khan. If those ecologists are spread evenly around the country, those without may be able to buy into the expertise of their neighbours. But such even distribution is rare, and it is likely that some areas of the country will have no access to an in-house ecologist. I can see a burgeoning market here for budding ecology entrepreneurs.

The Environmental Audit Committee’s recent report, Biodiversity in the UK: Bloom or Bust?, indicated that a lack of funding along with a shortage of ecologists meant that some authorities would struggle to produce their biodiversity net gain and local nature recovery strategies, as the noble Lord, Lord Khan, indicated. Similarly, on the changing rules around waste measures, many authorities do not currently have separated recyclable waste collections. Others may have it in place but are seeking to widen the variety of items collected, and this will place added burdens on already stretched budgets. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, raised the issue of long-term waste collection contracts.

As the Minister will know, the minimisation of waste is very dear to my heart. Local authorities which collect all their recyclables together are likely to be those that bundle all their plastics together and despatch them to what they believe are licensed disposal plants. As debated earlier, this is often not the case. I have spoken at waste conferences on the need to have a single-pass vehicle that collects the majority of recyclables—plastic, glass, paper, cardboard, aluminium cans—which the householder will have separated and put out in different containers for collection. This has not always been welcome, as the cost of changing collection vehicles is often prohibitive. The public want to play their part and local authorities want to play their part, but adequate funding for them to be able to make the change is vital for success. Those authorities which have been collecting separated waste for some years are in a much better position to ensure that each item of waste is recycled appropriately or disposed of safely and to maximum benefit.

All this requires funding, as the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, made clear, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, raised possible local authority bankruptcies. The noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, has given an excellent exposé of just what the impact could be for hard-pressed local authorities. I fully support his bid to ensure that the Government properly assess the effect of the measures in the Bill on both the staffing and the financial resources of local authorities at this critical moment. We all want the measures in the Bill to succeed, but this will not happen unless sufficient funding is provided. I know the Minister is keen for the Bill to be a success, and I look forward to his positive response to this amendment, which supports local authorities to play their part.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for whom I have a great deal of respect, is about the REACH directive, which brings us back to the vexed issue of Brexit and how we take things forward independently. This is a part of the Bill—especially the wide enabling provisions for regulation tucked away in Schedule 20—that really shocked me. On this occasion, I do not agree with most of the noble Lord’s amendment.

My criticism is not to do with animal welfare and testing, which was dealt with at an earlier sitting. My concern is that the REACH directive—short for the grand-sounding registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—has had a damaging effect on our industrial base since its implementation in June 2007. The directive has had a burdensome impact on most companies, including the most responsible. It applies to all chemical substances, not only those used in industrial processes, but also to those used in our day-to-day lives, such as cleaning products, paints, clothes, furniture and electrical appliances. If you handle any chemicals in your industrial or professional capacity, you may have responsibilities. REACH is compliance heavy and has made many UK companies operate in very different way. Again, the Roman system of law prevails over a more objective-based common-law approach. We have apparently had that in spades with the dual system that has been adopted since Brexit, described by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

I remember visiting an excellent small paint company in the Midlands, serving the advanced engineering industry, when I was a Minister. They were tearing their hair out over rules that were slowly bankrupting them, partly because of the heavy-handed way in which the big multinationals they supplied were loading all these new EU costs and responsibilities on to them. I raised their concerns with Defra, but to no avail. The attitude that the environment must take precedence over every other concern lives on, and that is unbalanced. Companies established outside the EU have not been bound by the obligations of REACH, even when exporting to the EU. Registration and everything else is the responsibility of the importer, and that makes life easier for third-country competitors. That sort of unfair, burdensome regulation helped to fuel Brexit.

What amazes me is that, now that we have left the EU, I have heard nothing about steps to help our industrial sector on this sort of detailed regulation; indeed, very much the reverse, as today’s debate suggests. Will the Government agree to a business-led review of REACH with a view to using the new powers to improve productivity and competitiveness without, of course, undermining essential environmental safeguards? Although we come at this from a different direction, this might actually appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, because it could be a constructive way of getting rid of the problem that we have. The grace-period provisions in REACH that the Minister alluded to on 28 June are not enough and are probably no good to the innovators and new entrants that we need in our engineering industries. The Minister might become very popular with small businesses in the Midlands and, indeed, in the red-wall industrial areas, if she agreed to a new post-Brexit review of this burdensome regime and how we can make it better.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be taking part in this debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his knowledgeable introduction to this amendment, which seeks to provide safeguards for the vital REACH section of the Environment Bill. Many of his comments will be reinforced by my contribution.

During the run-up to Brexit, my noble friend Lord Fox and I had a meeting down at Marsham Street with the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, and Defra officials on the implications for the UK of not transferring the REACH regulations from EU to UK law. We were assured by officials that a better regime covering Great Britain—excluding Northern Ireland, which would remain within EU REACH—would be established. I regret to say that we were not convinced, and I am still not convinced. This landmark Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to alter the UK REACH system. This could cause deregulation and instability. Despite reassurances that the UK would not diverge from EU protections just for the sake of it, divergence looks set to widen over time.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has already referred to that fact. During the debate on the use of pesticides, reference was made to the mixture of different chemicals and the cumulative effect that these have, which far outweighs the damage that the individual chemicals do on their own. The EU chemicals strategy has powers to restrict the cocktail effect, in order to reduce the exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Can the Minister assure us that the Secretary of State is not likely to relax the UK REACH standards, which could enable exposure to this risk?