Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2008

The noble Lord is absolutely right that we need to keep a watch on this. I take that on board completely. Parliamentary scrutiny of the effect of the regulations will be pretty crucial. I gave some figures when I talked about the targets, but I did not say what is being done and what is being sent abroad, although I gave rough locations. I shall give round figures. In 2007, 2.26 million tonnes of packaging waste—the regulations apply only to packaging waste—were exported for reprocessing, as were 1.5 million tonnes of paper, 217,000 tonnes of glass, 19,000 tonnes of aluminium, 164,000 tonnes of steel, and 320,000 tonnes of plastic. The figure is zero for wood, which I find difficult to understand. Perhaps it is not packaging, but it is on the list. Forty-two per cent of all aluminium was destined for recycling, as was 43 per cent of all steel. We have a long way to go in many ways. I have no idea about the weight of aluminium cans, although I once did my sums for Parliamentary Questions. I had to work out how much energy recycled drinks cans would save to power a light bulb for a bit because we did not have to use the energy to smelt the bauxite. There is a big bonus here, but we have a long way to go. I am told that by and large, without the regulations, we do not have a prayer of meeting our targets on metals. We are not shifting the goalposts, we are bringing the rules more into line with the original intention, but I fully take on board the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that we need to see how the regulations are implemented and what their effect is. As he said, the stuff is being exported, but we want it to count towards our targets. On Question, Motion agreed to.