My Lords, I would also like to thank the Minister very much for participating in a meeting—I only managed to get to the very end of it, but the invitation was there. I also congratulate her on making what seems like a mundane statutory instrument really exciting through the enthusiasm of her reading.
However, this is an exciting issue, and it is a global issue. This whole market has fundamentally changed since the beginning of last year—almost a year ago—when China refused imports of what it called low-grade plastic, anything below about 99.7% pure plastic recyclate. Since then, that tide of waste from the developed world to the developing world has now been stopped by Thailand temporarily, as well as by Vietnam and Malaysia. We had the irony of President Trump blaming Asia for the litter that was washing up on the west coast of America, when of course most of it had already been exported from developing countries, particularly the United States, to east Asia. I will come
back to this theme at the very end, but I want to put this SI in the context of an important issue and a quickly changing world.
Perhaps I could go through a few questions about the SI itself. I understand from it that we are, obviously, already members of the OECD and tied by those regulations and agreements, but are also we signed up not just as a member state of the EU but as a member in our own right to the Basel convention, which covers this area, so that we do not have to have a treaty change for that?
I was interested that the Minister mentioned Spain and, as I understand it from her, we have got to a stage where we are agreeing to agree but have not actually agreed. I understand also that the SI’s territorial limitations are to the United Kingdom. Does the Minister have any information about the relationship between Gibraltar and mainland Spain regarding its waste disposal? I think that the overseas territory—that is its status—relies very much on Spain for that as well. I do not know whether that is included as part of the negotiations going on at the moment.
I note the Minister’s remarks on consultation, but I would be interested to understand whether waste contractors and waste exporters have now been sent precise instructions on what they have to do.
I found the actual form on page 33 of the SI rather quaint. It read a little like one of those forms you get when you go to the United States, which says, “Have you indulged in terrorist activities recently?”, as if you are going to casually tick that for yes. I was quite surprised to see such a 1950s-style document here, but perhaps it is all computerised. I would be interested to understand that from the Minister.
I want to be clear on another area which affects all these things. As we know, Defra is the department that has suffered more cuts under our fiscal regime than pretty well any other department, outside that for local government—the MHCLG, as it is now. Does the Environment Agency have the capacity to take on any additional responsibilities in this area, particularly given the rise in waste crime that there has been? Frankly, I suspect that the amount of waste crime internally in the UK is absolutely dwarfed by the amount of potential exported material that should not be exported. Despite saying that we should not export waste to countries that have lower environmental standards than us, I see no track record of that whatever.
I come back to the fundamental point I made at the beginning. I read through the resources and waste strategy published by Defra at the end of last year. Chapter 6 of that is entitled “Global Britain: international leadership”, and I could not see anywhere in it a wish to stop this trade in waste, so that we would clean up our own backyard and no longer send that waste to other parts of the world. The greatest thing about this SI ought to be that it should become absolutely redundant within five to 10 years.
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