Landfill tax credit scheme

Thank you, Mr. Winterton. I agree with everything that has been said so far.

The landfill tax credit scheme is excellent, and it should be simplified, not scrapped. The Government should consider two issues. First, they should entrust the scheme's regulator with the task of ensuring that sufficient funds are allocated to waste management. If the scheme were abolished, the cost of financing projects by other means would be too high for most volunteers.

Secondly, the Government should consider whether their aspiration to divert 65 per cent. of resources to waste management will ultimately remain an aspiration. As the Environmental Services Association has observed, the landfill tax credit scheme makes a positive contribution, but it will never be large enough to pay for the £7 billion of new infrastructure needed to deliver compliance with the national waste strategy, or to bring the £1.5 billion annually spent on British municipal waste management services up to the £3 billion spent in France, an EU member state with an economy and population similar to the UK's.

I strongly suggest that a new scheme—I echo the remarks made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman)—is needed to aspire to waste management, but we should keep the current landfill tax credit scheme so that other environmental initiatives can be encouraged in the community. As we have heard from my hon. Friends, many valuable environmental schemes will disappear if the landfill tax credit scheme is scrapped.