Speaking at an All-Party Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group (APSRG) event in Westminster yesterday (13 December), Environmental Audit Committee chair Mary Creagh previewed the findings of an inquiry into the Future of the Natural Environment after the EU Referendum.
The Committee’s report, which is due to be published on 4 January, is likely to warn of “some very, very rocky road ahead” according to Mrs Creagh as the UK attempts to unravel environmental legislation developed over a number of decades.
While certain provisions currently enshrined in the European Communities Act are likely to be transposed into the UK’s Great Repeal Bill, Mrs Creagh warned of a “gap” which could open up between the EU and UK’s interpretation of the directives after the UK has left the EU.
She said: “We have questions about whether the Waste Framework Directive will continue to apply. What we are getting to in all these debates is the complex and messy part about directives. What has been revealed to us in the course of this report is between a quarter and a third of legislation cannot be neatly incorporated.
“That is where we need to focus our attention. What we don’t want to end up with is 40 years of EU law which turns into zombie legislation.”
Laws
Also speaking at the APSRG event, Stephen Shergold, a partner at global law firm Dentons, added that while there are “only a handful of key pieces of regulation” the waste industry needs to focus on, it “will need independent new laws if we are to have business as usual the day after Brexit”.
He added that a problem will be how the UK refers to directives that may no longer exist. He said: “We may need to replicate and match the Circular Economy Package because it won’t necessarily follow though the in the Great Repeal Bill. We may have a very different interpretation of what certain terms mean.
“If guidance and reference notes are moving forward at an EU level, this will become more disconnected from what [UK] businesses want. This could result in guidance which is a better fit for the UK overtime, if Defra takes the initiative.”
Defra
Commenting on other observations made over the course of the inquiry, Mrs Creagh revealed she was “worried” by Defra minister Therese Coffey’s evidence submission earlier in the autumn.
The minister told the Committee the government felt that a 65% recycling rate by 2030 “is too high to be achievable when combined with proposals to amend the way in which recycling is measured” (see letsrecycle.com story).
“13 years to get to 60% [recycling] should be achievable if the government is willing to regulate.”
Mary Creagh, chair
Environmental Audit Committee
Mrs Creagh said: “I am worried about that statement; 13 years to get to 60% should be achievable if the government is willing to regulate.”
Calling on the waste industry to ensure it is on the agenda in Brexit discussions, she added: “You need to be punching above your weight; this is a Cinderella industry. Much of the Brexit action is taking place in David Davis’ Brexit department, the Treasury and BEIS [The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy]. That’s who you need to be going to.”
Debate
Mrs Creagh was speaking as part of Policy Connect’s Brexit Series on a ‘Sustainable Future for Britain’. Organised by the All Party Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group, the seminar also included brief presentations from former Environment Secretary Lord Deben and Dr Colin Church, newly appointed chief executive of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM).
Asked for his opinion on what Brexit would mean for UK resource policy, Lord Deben said the decision to leave the EU will mean “less convenience, less sensible structure and less influence”.
He said: “We have to recognise that very serious organisations will want to use Brexit as a way of getting rid of regulations. We are going to make this a very easy country to trade with because we won’t ask questions about where the materials come from and where the waste goes.”
Speaking from the floor, Roy Hathaway of the Environmental Services Association presented an alternative outlook, arguing that in 2014 the ESA had highlighted the EU’s trend towards “more and more prescriptive directives” as well as the “slowness of decision making” among Member States.
Lord Deben replied: “If you want to see slowness try Defra. I think it’s a matter of bureaucracy of government and ours is no different.”
Devolution
Offering his view, Dr Church, a former Defra civil servant, said it was important to look at the future of resource policy in the UK in the context of devolution, as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland pursue their own agendas.
He added: “There are a number of reasons why the UK government may end up deciding still to implement the Circular Economy Package because that’s the only way we can guarantee a level playing field. Those other devolved administrations will want to follow the plan to the full.”
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