I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate. The residual waste reduction target put forward in this instrument meets the requirements under the Environment Act to set a target in the areas of resource efficiency and waste reduction. As the Act requires, the Secretary of State has sought appropriate advice from independent experts and is satisfied that this target can be met. I remind noble Lords that satisfaction that the target can be met is absolutely a key requirement. Secretaries of State and their Ministers cannot just come before a committee such as this to seek a good headline or try to cut the Opposition off at the knees by having unbelievably high targets. They have to be targets that can be achieved.
I note in particular the opinion of the Office for Environmental Protection, which commends this target for its ambition and agrees with the decision to exclude major mineral wastes from it; I will come on to talk more about that in a minute. Although the data is not robust enough to set a separate target to reduce major
mineral wastes at this stage, we are continuing to look at what is needed to advance the evidence around major mineral wastes and how they can be reduced. This will allow us to assess whether it would be appropriate for a separate target to reduce major mineral waste to be set in the future. The target to reduce residual waste, excluding major mineral wastes, will focus on where the environmental impacts per tonne of waste are greatest. By meeting the target, we will deliver the environmental benefits of reducing waste.
I should have started—I apologise to the Committee —by declaring an interest. I had forgotten that my family has interests in former gravel extractions, which were filled by inert building material waste and have since been reopened. Those materials have been exploited to produce material for the building industry. That is an example of where there is a market for better reuse; it means that minerals are not being dug out of the ground but recycled.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked about exports of waste. The Government have fulfilled their obligations as a party to the United Nations Basel Convention and introduced controls which mean that shipments of Y48 plastic waste from Great Britain require the prior approval of the regulators in the country of destination as well as the relevant British regulator. Our proposal to ban exports of plastic waste, particularly to non-OECD countries, will go further than the EU’s ban as it will not be limited to just one category of plastic waste.
My noble friend referred to energy from waste and said that a lot of waste companies have become energy companies. It must be said that this is still an emitting activity but, obviously, it is much better for the waste to go to that use than to landfill. Crucially, the waste hierarchy ranks options for waste management from best to worst in terms of environmental impacts and moving to a circular economy. It is both a guide to sustainable waste management and a legal requirement, enshrined in law through the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011. Priority goes to preventing the creation of waste in the first place, followed by preparing waste for reuse, recycling and then recovery. Disposal—in landfill, for example—is regarded as the worst option.
Burning valuable resources loses them to the economy forever. For example, although our reliance on landfill has fallen over time to just 8% for all local authority-collected waste, our waste from household recycling rates have stagnated at about 45%, as I said earlier. This is because residual waste is simply being diverted to energy from waste. Our target ensures that we get waste up the waste hierarchy through reduce, reuse and recycle, and cuts the amount of residual waste we produce.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, raised Newport; I see her Newport and raise her West Berkshire, where, when I was the leader of the opposition eons ago, a paltry amount was recycled—I think 15%. The excellent management of that local authority has seen that rise much higher than the national average, to nearly 60%, and it has just introduced a food recycling scheme which will take it above 70%—so there are good examples. The noble Baroness is absolutely right to raise the point that, very often, these matters cannot be run
from the Secretary of State’s desk. There is a cultural issue in how we use waste, encourage people not to throw litter and tackle our sense of place and belief in community, protecting it from the worst ravages of a disposal society. There is a job to do locally, and local government is best placed to lead it. There are some fantastic examples as well as some laggards that we must get to move better and faster.
We have full confidence in the final suite of targets, which represents a robust analysis that has already been undertaken. The Environment Act established a robust legal framework to deliver environmental benefits and hold Governments—both now and in future—to account in delivering them.
Our record on the environment is strong: we have created or restored the equivalent of 364,000 football pitches of new habitat; restricted single-use plastics such as straws, stirrers and cotton buds; and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, cut the use of supermarket plastic bags by 97%. We have reduced waste sector emissions by nearly 40%, protected 1.5 million square miles of ocean and are leading international action to protect the environment as co-chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and chair of the Global Ocean Alliance. I mention that because it is worth reminding ourselves that we sometimes get things right.
I hope I have covered all the points about major mineral wastes. These are inert materials from construction, demolition and excavation activity. Waste from critical raw materials is in scope of the targets for waste electricals. It is very important that they are not just seen as something we can bury alongside other waste. We want to make sure that we are tackling the reuse value that lies within them.
This target is ambitious yet achievable, with the planned collection and packaging reforms getting us roughly half way towards our target. A wide suite of policies is available to meet the remaining reduction required. These policy levers will be the decision of future Governments. Together with other government commitments, such as eliminating avoidable waste and doubling resource productivity by 2050, the target will drive down the amount of waste produced. This target, alongside the suite of Environment Act targets, will ensure that we meet our commitment to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.