Planning Bill

My Amendments Nos. 154 and 155 are grouped with the government amendment. I was fascinated by what the Minister said about the reasons for changing the figures with regard to Amendments Nos. 152 and 153. Although he said that arguments had been produced, he did not actually tell us what the arguments were, except to mention the possibility of one case every 10 years. I suppose that that is an argument, but whether it justifies national significance I have no means of judging, if he will forgive my putting it that way. When he responds to my amendments, perhaps he will deal with the matter in more detail. My amendments relate to Clause 29 on hazardous waste facilities. There are two sorts of hazardous waste. The Minister has to some degree answered the question of my noble friend Lord Jenkin, who is no longer present, about nuclear waste. I looked at these figures and wondered whether hazardous waste facilities included nuclear waste. I could not see nuclear waste producing anything like these figures annually, so I wondered what we were talking about. I accept that there are other forms of hazardous waste. We used to have a very large hazardous waste disposal facility in my part of the world many years ago. The trouble was that it was so effective and efficient that it drew waste from about half the country, which caused immense angst among local people who knew about it, because the hazardous wastes were being transported on ordinary roads in ordinary transport. It would arrive at a particular point in Essex, and local people would ask, ““Why should we have to dispose of other people’s hazardous waste?””. It was a question which was very difficult to resolve, but the fact was that a facility was there that could deal with large quantities of such waste, and did so very efficiently and effectively. Of not least interest about the establishment in question was that the biggest part of the waste disposal operation consisted of taking somebody’s waste and finding that it was somebody else’s raw material. It transferred an immense amount of materials because it had a wide circle of contacts. It was able to dispose of a lot of the waste either by making use of it or at least finding others to do so. My amendments probe the figures in the clause. One hundred thousand tonnes per year of deep storage is roughly 100,000 cubic yards. If one is disposing of material in solid rock in permeable foundation, it amounts to a fairly heavy mining commitment each year. Exactly what does one finish up with after 10, 15 or 20 years of that kind of establishment? Will the Minister explain that? Thirty thousand tonnes per year in any other case is understandable, because people become very concerned about the materials if they are disposed of on the surface and there is some merit in limiting the scale. Even so, after 10 years, you are talking about 300,000 tonnes of such material being disposed of and the heat would keep growing. Will the Minister explain why he has lifted the figures and what lies behind the change that the Government are proposing?