Mr Healey made the announcement at a special adjournment debate held in Westminster this afternoon. The debate was called by Barry Sheerman, the outspoken Labour backbencher who is calling for the government to change its mind over its decision to reform the LTCS.
Mr Sheerman, MP for Huddersfield, claimed that the government would be threatening 3,000 – 5,000 environmental jobs by scrapping the present form of the LTCS.
Transition funds
But Mr Healey indicated that the government valued the support the LTCS had made to environmental projects, and said there could be funds available to smooth over the transition period to minimise any disruption.
“The government has no wish to see the projects currently funded by the LTCS going to the wall,” he said, “so the funds to secure these may be available from the public purse.”
Mr Healey stressed that there was no reason for projects to lose out on funds. He said that landfill operators did not need to stop allocating funds under the current system until the end of March. From April, he said that the LTCS successor should be in place to ensure that the same amount of money – around 47m a year – would go to projects other than categories C and CC (sustainable waste management projects).
The economic secretary's words are thought to be levelled at some LTCS distributors including WREN and Biffaward, who are considering cancelling fund allocations until the new system is in place.
Accountable
The government has decided to put two-thirds of funds from the tax on landfilling waste – expected to be around 100m a year – into sustainable waste management projects via the public purse (see letsrecycle.com story).
Mr Sheerman called the decision the “worst investment since Jack threw the beans out of the window”. He said the money would no longer be classed as private, since it would be distributed through DEFRA or “DEFRA's child”, WRAP. Projects would therefore be unable to use the funds as leverage to secure other grants and European funds, he said.
But Mr Healey said that it was more important to make sure the money was used effectively than to worry about how much extra money it could pump into the environmental sector, and that transparency was the key issue.
“Funds may be classed as private, but the money is essentially tax revenue and therefore it is the government's responsibility and is in the public's interest to ensure accountability,” he said, adding: “funds do need to produce the change in waste management that is needed.”
The economic secretary paid tribute to the work of the LTCS regulator Entrust and said there would be a consultation carried out to see that the scheme's successor could continue the “innovation and impetus” of its forebear.
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