Officially, Downing Street is now denying it ordered the halt to an expected announcement from Defra of its intention to give councils the powers to penalise residents who do not recycle and reward those that do.
The final decision must be made by local councils in response to local need and in consultation with local people.
Cllr Paul Bettison, LGA
Defra has now said it never intended to make such an announcement, despite saying on Monday that an announcement was “imminent” (see letsrecycle.com story).
Yesterday saw the government responding to a Parliamentary Committee report on refuse collections, stating that local authorities should be able to set recycling incentives “at a level that they judge to be suitable to change behaviour locally”.
The Local Government Association said it now wants the government to clear up its position, but commenting yesterday, it accepted that there were difficulties with the image of incentive schemes as a “stealth tax”.
Cllr Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA's Environment Board, said: “After all the recent speculation about financial incentive schemes, it is time now for the Government to clarify its position and give councils the powers to tackle England's growing waste mountain.
“If ministers do give local authorities the power to introduce financial incentive schemes, it will be to promote recycling, not to generate extra cash through an extra stealth tax,” Cllr Bettison said.
Downing Street
At a press briefing yesterday, the Prime Minister's spokesman said the waste charging or incentives issue was “very complex” and it was important the right balance was struck with the right mechanisms. He said the government still needed to consider the responses to the consultation, a summary of which was published on Tuesday (see letsrecycle.com story).
Once the government was in a position to make an announcement, it would do so, the spokesman said.
When asked whether Downing Street was “putting the breaks” on a decision being made – and whether the statement on the plan was simply delayed or not going to be given at all – the Prime Minister's spokesman replied that there was “never a decision made on there being a publication today and he had never suggested that people should anticipate any announcement when alerting the press to future Government business”.
Defra
Defra ministers are said to remain hopeful this week that incentive schemes will be launched at some point in the future. The government believes evidence from overseas suggests that “relatively low levels of charges” can change household behaviour on waste.
The Department's head of waste strategy, Daniel Instone, has spoken at a series of events over the summer and autumn stating that incentives are one of six cornerstones of the new English waste strategy. He has said schemes are predicted to bring a 15% drop in landfill rates.
Responding yesterday to the Communities and Local Government Committee's report published in July 2007 (see letsrecycle.com story), the government said it wants incentive schemes separate from the Council Tax, with councils setting incentive levels themselves.
The government said it would not make waste a utility – meaning householders will not get a separate bill for waste collection, as they get water, gas or electricity bills.
It said of its intentions for household incentives: “All the revenue collected by local authorities must be returned to residents so residents as a whole will not be paying any more.
“It is not intended as a measure for authorities to raise additional funds, in fact under the proposal they would not be allowed to do this. Rather, financial incentive schemes are another tool for engaging the public in waste minimization, composting and recycling,” the government explained.
LGA
Commenting on the government's view on incentives as published yesterday, Cllr Bettison insisted that there is “strong public support for schemes that reward people for recycling”.
The LGA is trying to promote the use of incentives as “save as you throw” rather than “pay as you throw”, emphasising the reward aspect rather than the charging aspect of schemes.
Cllr Bettison said: “Councils, not central government, should have 'save-as-you-throw' powers, but it is vital that any authority thinking of introducing save-as-you-throw should first make sure there'll be no overall increase in council tax, it has public support and measures are in place to prevent fly tipping.”
The councillor, who leads Bracknell Forest district council as well as the LGA's environment board, accepted there would be parts of the country where incentive schemes were not appropriate, but added: “The final decision must be made by local councils in response to local need and in consultation with local people.”
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