Beauparc Utility Group, which has its headquarters in Ireland, owns a number of waste businesses in the UK including B&M Waste, AWM and Mid UK Recycling, employing more than 1,500 people.
‘Serious concerns’
Brian McCabe, the chief executive of the company, has now written to the House of Commons committee scrutinising the bill to raise “serious concerns”.
The Retained EU Law Bill aims to revoke certain retained EU laws, included those negotiated in the EU withdrawal act of 2018, which in effect ‘copied’ almost all EU law and ‘pasted’ it into UK law.
For the waste management sector in the UK, the EU’s wide-ranging legislative framework for waste primarily via the Waste Framework Directive, has been the instigator of a move to greater recycling and energy recovery as well as waste reuse and minimisation.
In his letter, Mr McCabe highlighted the UK’s plans now with regard to the EU Waste Framework Directive as an area of concern.
Mr McCabe pointed out that businesses such as Beauparc have invested “tens of billions” in the last two decades as a result of the certainty provided by legislation, including in waste processing, energy from waste and recycling. Scrapping the legislation risks the investments, Mr McCabe suggested.
Targets
He wrote: “The waste framework directive and other related EU derived environmental law set clear targets for environmental improvements. In response to the policy certainty provided by these regulations, industry deployed capital into the required infrastructure.
“This investment has created significant environmental improvements and contributed to the UK economy. Rapid revocation of the WFD and other EU laws is likely to create a significantly uncertain environment for investment in our industry over the coming decade.”
Mr McCabe added: “A business such as ours, with existing large capital investments in infrastructure and commitments to invest further in infrastructure, needs certainty.”
Businesses such as ours need policy certainty in order to make investments
Deadline
The bill is current progressing through the committee stage in the House of Commons and a provisional target to scrap certain EU laws has been set for the end of 2023.
The letter has been sent to a public bill committee set up by the House of Commons. In the letter, Mr McCabe said his company is concerned that the rules and targets that have provided regulatory certainty to the industry for the past two decades could disappear by the end of 2023 or be replaced with new as yet unseen laws.
“Businesses such as ours need policy certainty in order to make investments. It is our concern that a rapid revocation of EU law could dramatically change the investment environment,” he concluded.
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