Mary Creagh

The right hon. Gentleman asked about a couple of things in his speech, so I will respond to those first. He asked about composition analysis—we are getting into deep technical detail—and it is about what is actually being incinerated. What is being burned? The right hon. Member for Islington North asked why we do not just put plastic in the ground, as it would just sit there, inert. What is going into incineration? My understanding is that the emissions trading scheme was consulted on under the previous Government—that bringing local authority energy-from-waste facilities into the ETS from 2028 was consulted on in 2024, so it was an in-flight proposal—but I am very happy to be corrected if I am wrong. The residual municipal waste composition study, covering the period from May 2024 to May 2025, will be published later this year, and I know we cannot wait. It will be interesting, because it is essentially the baseline. It is where we will see if the changes are going to start feeding through. We said in our manifesto that we would reduce waste by transitioning to a circular economy, which is one of the Secretary of State’s five priorities for DEFRA. I am really proud to be the Minister responsible for that. The right hon. Member for Islington North asked why we cannot just landfill waste plastics, but there are wider environmental impacts from landfilling plastics than simply carbon emissions, including the issue of microplastics. We do not yet fully understand how plastics degrade in landfill in the long term. Emerging research is exploring the potential of plastic-degrading bacteria in landfills, which could break down plastics and in turn impact greenhouse gas emissions. However, I gently say that we cannot solve today’s problems by storing them up for future generations. The UK emissions trading scheme is minded to expand the scope of the emissions trading scheme to include energy-from-waste facilities. A consultation on this was published in 2024, which included a call for evidence on incentivising heat networks. With the energy-from-waste plants, there is electricity generation, but there is also a massive excess of heat. Most of that heat just dissipates, but it would be much more efficient to use it, as Coventry city council has with its mile-long pipe under London Road, which heats the local swimming pool or Coventry University’s buildings. I understand that the authority will respond in due course. At the end of last year, we set out that we will require proposals for new facilities to demonstrate that they will facilitate the diversion of residual waste away from landfill or enable the replacement of older and less efficient facilities. This position reflects the evidence and analysis we have published. It also reflects the waste hierarchy and is congruent with the transition to a circular economy. Even after the successful delivery of our recycling reforms, there will be sufficient residual waste capacity to treat forecast municipal residual waste arising at national level. On that point, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South is correct. However, there are five areas in England where more than half the residual waste collected by local authorities was sent to landfill in 2023-24. Landfill was also still relied on for an estimated 5.4 million tonnes of non-municipal, non-major mineral waste in 2022, which is the most recent year for which data is available. We know about the waste that goes into our bins, but there is a lot of other stuff coming out of construction sites, and so on. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) and I had a chat about this issue in the Lobby, but the analysis the Government published at the end of last year sets out the regional disparities and the regional capacities. It is a good read.