However, MPs have stressed that it is still too early to tell if the 500+ page document and policies governing waste are to become part of a Conservative manifesto with the potential to be implemented in the UK.
It is radical but practical, pioneering but realistic, and shows how the next Conservative government can deliver the change we need.
Review vice-chair Zac Goldsmith on his group's findings
The recommendations will now be considered by shadow ministers for inclusion in proposals for a possible future Conservative government.
Launching the findings of 18 months of research, policy review leader Oliver Letwin MP said the report recommending increased producer responsibility over waste and higher Landfill Tax (see letsrecycle.com story) was a “symptom” of the Conservative commitment to “improve the quality of life in Britain.”
In particular, the Quality of Life review called for Conservative policies to use market forces to help create positive change, and find ways to help individuals to change their behaviour.
It also carried a strong theme of seeking to make industry use resources more efficiently.
“Revolution”
Quality of Life group chairman John Gummer MP, said today that the document sought to link environmental improvements with economic growth in a “green revolution.”
He said: “We come forward with a blueprint for a green revolution and I want to make the parallel with the industrial revolution.”
Zac Goldwmith, vice chair of the Group, claimed that it was the “most thorough review of environmental policies ever conducted by a political party”. The Ecologist editor and prospective Tory parliamentary candidate said: “It is radical but practical, pioneering but realistic, and shows how the next Conservative government can deliver the change we need.”
However, Mr Letwin emphasised that the proposals were not yet policy – and would not necessarily be adopted by the Conservative front bench.
He said: “They are all things we will study and consider and will form the background for our eventual plan for government.”
Manifesto
Essex county councillor and recycling expert Kay Twitchen, who has lead the work on waste in the report, said that she hoped the recommendations would eventually form part of Conservative policy.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com following 18 months of work on the project, she said: “I hope they will regard it as a template for a Conservative Party manifesto.”
Cllr Twitchen claimed the proposals were important as they laid out a “fundamental” change in the way waste was approached – by looking at its entire life cycle.
She said: “It is fundamentally looking at waste in a different way as not a waste but a resource. We have to be more responsible to the way we think about resources towards more recycling, less packaging and think more clearly about the way things are made.”
For more details on the recommendations for waste policy of the Conservative Quality of Life review, see this letsrecycle.com story.
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