Ben Bradshaw, Minister for the Environment announced this week, that the Government is to set up a statutory London Waste and Recycling Board. In response the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone has written to the Minister to object to the Government's approach to London's waste and recycling.
Defra considers that its approach will respect the strategic role of the Mayor and the delivery role of the Boroughs. The aim is to bring these together and build upon them, to enable delivery of the Mayor's strategy and the Boroughs' obligations (see MoreThanWaste article).
The Mayor has told the Government that he sees no purpose in participating in a Board which has no statutory powers to deliver ‘real change on the ground’. He says that the Board is no more than an ‘administrative mechanism to deliver a funding stream’.
Mr Livingstone’s letter to Ben Bradshaw MP points out that the setting-up of a London waste and recycling board is “no substitute for a Single Waste Disposal Authority”.
Ken Livingstone, London's Mayor
The proposed funding of £19m is a “drop in the ocean in terms of the required long-term investment needed”. Defra had suggested a possible figure of £25m which included £6m that the Greater London Authority had indicated it would make available.
The Mayor continued:
“… as such I see no benefit to London in my participating. The Board does not represent a strategic policy solution but a political gesture, and as such is no more than a fig leaf over the problems.”
Commenting today the Mayor added:
“The Board will have no statutory powers to deliver the meaningful change that is urgently needed in London. Therefore, I am again calling on the government to agree to the establishment of a Single Waste Disposal Authority to co-ordinate London’s waste.”
The Mayor has consistently argued that if there was a Single Waste Disposal Authority in London there would be a more co-ordinated system for disposing of the capital’s rubbish.
Under a single waste authority, there would be more emphasis on recycling and new technologies that would capture heat and produce bio-fuels and hydrogen from London’s rubbish according to Mr Livingstone.
However the Mayor emphasizes that it is not proposed that the he would take over waste collection or street cleansing functions which would remain with the Boroughs.
In his letter the Mayor appears to offer a way forward saying:
“The best way ahead if you continue to rule out the immediate creation of a SWDA, would be to take forward a revised version of Lord Whitty’s amendment. The amendment would expand the situations in which the Secretary of State can exercise the section 10 power to establish a single waste disposal authority for London, and would give the Mayor the power to issue guidance and directions to any such authority."
"This would make clear to local authorities that unless they significantly improve their performance, the Secretary of State will intervene to create a SWDA. (The previous version of Lord Whitty’s amendment gave the Mayor, not the Secretary of State, the power to intervene in these circumstances.) This amendment taken with your amendment to create a new Board (properly constituted) would provide both short-term and longer-term tools to address the challenges we face.”
Mr Livingstone also says in the letter:
“Whatever route we take forward, I will continue to monitor and highlight the Government’s delivery in respect of LATs, incineration, recycling, hazardous waste and litter, in order to ensure that Londoners are aware of the impact of government policies on their environment.”
Mr Livingstone has recently indicated that waste advisors were to be sent to meet senior officials of the European Commission to raise concerns that the landfill allowance trading scheme (LATS) was being sidestepped by some local authorities."