States Meeting Transcript - 16/03/2011

STATES OF JERSEY OFFICIAL REPORT WEDNESDAY, 16th MARCH 2011

PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption ...............................................................5

1. Green waste from commercial operators: introduction of charge (P.20/2011)..........5

Senator J.L. Perchard:..........................................................................5 1.1 Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire of St. Helier : ...................................................5

1. Connétable M.K. Jackson of St. Brelade:................................................7
2. Deputy R.C. Duhamel of St. Saviour:....................................................8
3. Connétable J.M. Refault of St. Peter:...................................................10
4. Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier:.......................................................11
5. Deputy D.J.A. Wimberley of St. Mary:.................................................11
6. Deputy P.J. Rondel of St. John : ........................................................13 Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier:.....................................................14 Mr. T.J. Le Cocq Q.C., H.M. Attorney General: ..............................................14 Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade:..............................................................14 Senator S.C. Ferguson: .......................................................................14 The Deputy of St. Mary:......................................................................15 Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: .....................................................................15 The Attorney General:........................................................................15
7. The Connétable of St. Helier:...........................................................15
8. Deputy T.M.Pitman:...................................................................16
9. Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade:.......................................................17
10. Senator S.C. Ferguson:..............................................................19
11. Connétable P.F.M. Hanning of St. Saviour:..........................................20
12. Connétable J.L.S. Gallichan of Trinity : ..............................................20
13. Connétable K.P. Vibert of St. Ouen:.................................................20
14. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier of St. Saviour:............................................21
15. Deputy M.R. Higgins of St. Helier:..................................................21
16. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:............................................................21

2. Ratification of the Agreement for the Exchange of Information Relating to Tax Matters Between the Government of Jersey and the Government of Canada (P.8/2011)................................................................................24

2.1 Senator T.A. Le Sueur (The Chief Minister):...........................................24

1. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................24
2. Senator T.A. Le Sueur:.................................................................24

3. Geneva Conventions: Additional Protocol III - extension to Jersey (P.9/2011)........25

3.1 Senator T.A. Le Sueur (The Chief Minister):...........................................25

1. Senator S.C. Ferguson:.................................................................26
2. Deputy I.J. Gorst of St. Clement:.......................................................26
3. Senator T.A. Le Sueur:.................................................................26

4. Draft Banking Business (Amendment No. 7) (Jersey) Law 201- (P.10/2011)..........28

1. Senator A.J.H. Maclean (The Minister for Economic Development):...................28

1. The Deputy of St. Mary:................................................................29
2. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:................................................................29

2. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:................................................................29

5. Draft Public Elections (Amendment No. 4) (Jersey) Law 201- (P.14/2011)............30

1. Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee): .........................................................................................30
2. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................31

3. Draft Public Elections (Amendment No. 4) (Jersey) Law 201- (P.14/2011) - Amendment (P.14/2011 Amd.)..........................................................31

1. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................31
2. The Connétable of St. Ouen:............................................................32
3. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ...............................................................32
4. Deputy F.J. Hill of St. Martin : ..........................................................32

5. Deputy T.M.Pitman:...................................................................33
6. The Deputy of St. John:................................................................34
7. Deputy J.A. Martin:....................................................................34
8. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................35
9. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................37
10. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:...........................................................39
11. The Connétable of St. Helier:........................................................40
12. Senator T.J. Le Main:................................................................40
13. The Connétable of St. Saviour:......................................................41
14. The Deputy of St. Mary:.............................................................41
15. Senator S.C. Ferguson:..............................................................43 Deputy M. Tadier : ............................................................................43 The Attorney General:........................................................................43
16. Deputy I.J. Gorst :....................................................................43
17. Deputy S.Power:....................................................................44
18. Senator P.F. Routier:................................................................44

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED..................................................44

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT................................................................45

19. Deputy G.P. Southern : ..............................................................45

5.4. Draft Public Elections (Amendment No. 4) (Jersey) Law 201- (P.14/2011)............46

5.4.1 The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................46

5. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................46

1. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................47
2. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................47
3. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................47

6. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................47

1. Deputy T.M.Pitman:...................................................................48
2. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................48

7. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................49

1. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................50
2. Deputy M.R.Higgins:..................................................................51
3. Deputy T.M.Pitman:...................................................................51

4. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................51
5. The Deputy of St. Mary:................................................................51
6. Connétable D.W. Mezbourian of St. Lawrence:........................................52
7. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ...............................................................52

8. The Deputy of St. Martin:..............................................................53
9. Connétable L. Norman of St. Clement:.................................................53
10. Deputy C.F. Labey of Grouville :....................................................53
11. Senator P.F. Routier:................................................................54
12. The Connétable of St. Mary : ........................................................54

8. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................56

1. Deputy T.M.Pitman:...................................................................56
2. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ...............................................................56
3. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................56
4. The Deputy of St. John:................................................................56
5. M. Tadier : ..............................................................................57
6. The Deputy of St. Martin:..............................................................57
7. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................57

9. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................59

1. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................59
2. Deputy T.M.Pitman:...................................................................61
3. Deputy A.K.F. Green of St. Helier:.....................................................61
4. The Deputy of St. Mary:................................................................62
5. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ...............................................................63
6. Deputy J.A. Martin:....................................................................64
7. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................65
8. The Deputy of St. Martin:..............................................................68
9. The Deputy of St. John:................................................................69
10. Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour : ..................................................70
11. Deputy M.R.Higgins:...............................................................70
12. The Deputy of St. Ouen:.............................................................70
13. Senator A. Breckon:.................................................................71
14. Senator S.C. Ferguson:..............................................................72
15. Senator J.L. Perchard: ...............................................................72
16. Deputy C.H. Egré of St. Peter : ......................................................73
17. Senator T.J. Le Main:................................................................73
18. The Connétable of St. Mary : ........................................................75

10. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................76
11. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................76
12. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................77
13. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................77

1. Deputy T.M.Pitman:................................................................77
2. The Deputy of St. Mary:.............................................................78
3. Deputy M. Tadier :...................................................................78
4. Deputy G.P. Southern : ..............................................................79
5. Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré of St. Lawrence:..........................................80
6. Deputy J.A. Martin: .................................................................81
7. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..........................................................81
8. Senator J.L. Perchard: ...............................................................82 Deputy M. Tadier : ............................................................................83 The Attorney General:........................................................................83 Deputy G.P. Southern :........................................................................83 Deputy J.A. Martin:..........................................................................83 The Deputy of St. Mary:......................................................................84 Deputy M.R.Higgins:........................................................................84

9. The Connétable of St. Saviour:......................................................84
10. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ..........................................................85 The Attorney General:........................................................................85 The Deputy of St. Mary:......................................................................87
11. The Connétable of St. Ouen:.......................................................88
12. The Connétable of St. Mary:.......................................................88 The Attorney General:........................................................................89

ADJOURNMENT................................................................................91

The Roll was called and the Dean led the Assembly in Prayer.

[09:34]

PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption

1. Green waste from commercial operators: introduction of charge (P.20/2011)

The Deputy Bailiff :

We now return to the Order Paper and it was agreed by the States yesterday to take P.20 - Green waste from commercial operators - and I will ask the Greffier to read the proposition.

The Greffier of the States:

The States are asked to decide whether they are of opinion - to request the Minister for Transport and Technical Services to introduce a charge for the reception of green waste from commercial operators. Deputy Le Claire?

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Before Deputy Le Claire makes the proposition I think I need to declare an interest in this, unfortunately.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Very well. Noted. You declare an interest, and you will withdraw, Senator. Deputy Le Claire.

1.1 Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire of St. Helier :

Good morning, Sir. Thank you. Members have been here before with me, so I do not intend to take too long with them this morning. Many Members who have not been here before do not need to endure a long speech about the history of green waste in Jersey. I am certain that the coverage in the media over the last few years has probably given them an insight into it as well. The reason why I brought the proposition was because I asked questions and I have been asking questions for a number of years about the costs and the operation of the green waste facility and I have been trying over the years to keep a comparison going so that we could keep a handle on the costs, and in questions I asked on 1st February this year I determined from the answers of the Minister that the costs have increased and that the operation is continuing to increase in cost. First of all can I say - and I need to be quite clear about this - this is no criticism whatsoever of the excellent work that the department undertakes and that the personnel who undertake this work, some of them working on a voluntary overtime basis, undertake. It is no criticism whatsoever of their work and their efforts of which I would like to commend those in this speech this morning. It certainly is not a criticism of the current Minister or his Assistant Minister who worked on this issue with me, the Assistant Minister that is, in tabling my composting report a few years ago. Both Members have been nothing but supportive to me on many issues. However when I look at what we are spending on this operation and when I see and understand that this is something that we do not need to be doing as a statutory obligation it does get me a little upset. I recently - and it is coming to a finish now - managed to secure from the Parish of St. Helier some funds to help the Transport and Technical Services team deliver a better exit to Garden Lane in terms of pedestrian safety. Something that I had been asking for since the previous Minister changed the direction some 4 to 5 years ago and the sticking point was not that we did not have the plans and the sticking point was not that we did not have the expertise, the sticking point was that we did not have the money. Yet for 4½ years what I consider to be a very unsafe exit for children and mothers with prams was left unattended because of a lack of funds. Meanwhile in my district 80,000 vehicles a year were trundling backwards and forwards to La Collette to a site that was estimated in 2006 to be worth £3 million to £6 million in W.E.B.'s (Waterfront Enterprise Board) estimations of alternative value to deliver compost to the site. I thought this morning I could do a Dragon's Den speech and come into Members and say: "Here I am in the Dragon's Den, I have got this great idea, let us take £1 million a year, create a really big nuisance, sit on a site that is worth £6 million and produce £50,000 worth of compost a

year." Would I get the support of the panel? I do not think I would. There is an issue surrounding all of these things in terms of what we can do with the waste. We can add it to our recycling totals and the 13,000 tonnes a year representing something like 26 per cent of what we do, or a third of all we recycle looks good on paper. We can mush up and turn around all that compost and we can use it to bury the asbestos and ash pits and cover the ash pits that are going to be coming out of the new incinerator, because the ash pits are going to be continually needed because we are not treating the ash properly, and it will help to build up banks to protect the residents from any possible explosions from the fuel farm. We can give it to the agricultural industry because they need our support, but the agricultural industry, as I have mentioned before, are quite amazed to learn that this £1 million a year operation only gives them £14,000 worth of subsidy. So struggle as I have over the years to try to get the States to make the decision to rationalise this, I spoke to the Minister for Transport and Technical Services, the Constable of St. Brelade, who I have found refreshing in his approach to concerns of Back-Bench Members in this Assembly. Unlike his predecessor I feel that he is a can-do Minister, and it was with his blessing that I brought the proposition in the first instance. Unfortunately by the time he got up to South Hill, having told me that there was no way because he is a can-do man that they will say no, his final journey obviously ended up on the roundabouts because he did a complete U-turn and swings and roundabouts since then. So unfortunately I do not have his support this morning. He continues to have mine as a Minister, I think he is doing an excellent job and I congratulate him and his Assistant Minister in the department for many of the things they are doing. I do not like some of them, but that is neither here nor there. That is in reflection to the incinerator. We will park that one. £900,000 or £1 million a year, a £308,000 increase in 5 years, a £162,000 increase in staff costs in 5 years, £1 million and we have got no money to do anything. Yet we are doing this. There was a States agreement that the nuisance caused by this site was going to be tackled when money set aside for an in-vessel composting facility was identified and rather than continue to just argue with the department and get nowhere, because I am intending to continue to argue this, I have said before in the past and I say again, let us invest to save. Let us engage with the private sector, let us invest in the in-vessel composting facilities, let us help them to get into the industry, let us produce better compost, let us start selling different qualities of compost, let us stop selling poor quality of compost, let us stop importing all of the other bags of compost we are importing and let us give real benefit and support to the agricultural industry in a meaningful way. I am asking for us to request the Minister to introduce a charge for the reception of green waste from commercial operators. It is unlikely that if we agree to this the Minister will come back and say no, but if he does come back and say no there will be a robust argument as to why he is saying no. At the moment there is just no argument. I am very disappointed with the comments from the Minister for Treasury and Resources, which Members have on their desks or should have with them. The Minister for Treasury and Resources comments: "The Minister for Treasury and Resources supports the view of the Minister for Transport and Technical Services that the department consider this matter in putting forward their C.S.R. (Comprehensive Spending Review) proposals and is committed to reviewing waste charges on a strategic basis. Should this proposition be approved however the Minister for Treasury and Resources wishes to make clear that any additional income received would not necessarily be available as of a right for T.T.S. (Transport and Technical Services) to use as it sees fit if it is not included in the States-approved Business Plan. In the first instance the income would need to be applied to any additional administration costs for collecting that income. Any receipts in excess of that requirement may need the approval of the Minister for Treasury and Resources before they can

be spent in accordance with financial directions." There is no financial analysis of what is going on and no financial analysis in relation to the timeline of events and the operations and no cost benefit analysis.

[09:45]

If it was approved and in the Business Plan if you were to say to the Minister: "You can keep this money" then perhaps he would have money for some of the issues like potholes in the road, pedestrian crossings, traffic signs around the Island which the Minister for Home Affairs  has pointed out recently and no doubt other things that Members are thinking of. I find it remarkable that we have all of these Ministries making all of these monies and in certain circumstances under the private hospital provision the private hospital monies can be reinvested within Health, but you cannot reinvest the rents within Housing and you cannot reinvest the money that might be accrued in this example into the Ministry for Transport and Technical Services. Just before I sit down, there is always the argument that there is going to be fly-tipping. Fly-tipping is illegal and if fly-tipping is going to occur, as it does certainly occur at this time - at the moment it occurs - then the police and the courts need to deal with that illegal activity. It is for them to decide how to deal with that illegal activity based upon the circumstances of that activity, whether it pollutes the water or whether it is rubble thrown on the beach. The laws have been put in place, they are not there for us to police, they are there with maybe some exceptions of the Minister for Home Affairs brief, they are there for the Police to police and they are there for the courts to adjudicate upon. But for us to say we should not be introducing a charge for the commercial aspects of this operation when we have got no money for school milk and everything else, I just find amazing. These are in my view operations that are making commercial gain and are not paying any money for the disposal of that product. If it was infill they would be paying £11 a tonne. In St. Helier the vast majority of people who live in St. Helier do not have gardens. In fact we do not have many trees, so the vast majority of this waste is occurring outside of St. Helier yet it is being processed by the vehicles driving in and out of it every day into the heart of St. Helier . It is not fair on the ratepayer that has to maintain the roads and the taxpayer who has to pay for the adverse health effects from airborne particulates from the lorries, et cetera, because this operation is occurring. So let us get some money back from the commercial end. They are not operating their businesses for free for their customers, and if

there is a gardening service that happens to be supplying a gardening service to a family who has a large house with a large garden then they can create an in-house or an on-site composting facility. We offer throughout the garden centres  many opportunities to do this through the subsidised availability of composting bins and with the help of the department and the help of the real knowledgeable gardeners this can be achieved. So I would ask Members for us to get real about this issue and for us to stop seeing these escalations in cost, without there being at least an attempt to address the matter. In my view, and I am sorry to say this to the workers, but maybe we can privatise them and give them good futures, the whole operation in its entirety needs to come out of St. Helier back into the countryside and it needs to be privatised away from the States, away from the final salary pension schemes, away from the nuisance that it has caused and make it wash its face, because it can commercially. It is certainly not washing its face at the moment. £1 million a year for £50,000 worth of product. I make my proposition and ask for somebody to second it

The Deputy Bailiff :

Is the proposition seconded?  [Seconded] I call on the Minister for Transport and Technical Services.

1. Connétable M.K. Jackson of St. Brelade :

I would like to start by saying that as I have indicated to the Deputy before, that I do support the principle for this proposition and agree that charging for waste services has a very important part to play in waste policy in the near future. In other jurisdictions charging for the use of waste facilities such as landfill or energy from waste is almost standard procedure, particularly for commercial customers. Gate fees for waste disposal not only generate income but can be a powerful tool for influencing behaviour such as discouraging unnecessary waste or encouraging recycling, and these are key objectives as we continue to implement our solid waste strategy in the Island. We have already met our first recycling target milestone of 32 per cent in 2009, which has been the result of hard work on the setting up of new collection systems and outlets supported by successful

community education. Recycling and composting is now well on the map and a key part of how we deal with the Island's waste with around one-third now managed through one of these methods. But there is much to do and we need now to be heading towards 40 per cent if we are to stay on track with our objectives. Our solid waste strategy was approved in this House over 5 years ago and I have asked my officers to review it this year with particular attention to the option of the use of fees and charges as a mechanism for influencing positive behaviour and funding more recycling services. It is my view that new charges for waste must be carefully considered and we must think carefully about how best to use this tool, which waste streams to target first, what level of charging, what will the short and long-term impacts be? We must avoid the wrong kind of behavioural change. There are points which the Deputy brought up, particularly with regard to splitting-off the collection throughout the Island which has been mentioned and I think there was a report in October 2006 which my department responded to. The difficulty is, and I think it is an ideal solution to provide collection areas throughout the Island, because the question arises where they are going to be, and the department has worked hard to try and establish the principle of having several composting site facilities. This attractive idea would make them more accessible to users, reduce the overall journey and transportation distances and so on. But it is not necessarily going to be a cheaper option. They would need to be managed, that means staff and increased costs, and once you split the staff facilities into multiple units it multiplies the cost of those staff. Once again the Deputy mentioned land values, but I think it must be noted that it is easy to compare the valuation of the La Collette site with that of another. Now the valuation down there must be based on a site that really is undeveloped with no infrastructure, roads or anything like that and that is why principally it has been used for this purpose. If it were to be a developed site we would not see a composting site down there, I have no doubt whatsoever. I think the Deputy did conflate domestic waste with that of commercial. We are going through a process whereby the implementation and the commissioning of the new incinerator at La Collette will allow us to decommission the existing one at Bellozanne, thereby releasing space for us to develop the recycling centre down there and certainly enhance the reception for domestic waste. In the short term we are still taking commercial waste at La Collette. I expect as time goes on as the site is redeveloped that will change and it could well be that may end up at Bellozanne as well, but of course it is early days. So there are a lot of variables. With regard to implementing the proposals of the Deputy straight away, there are some upfront costs which the department would have to incur such as the building of a proper weighbridge. There is a sort of a weighbridge down there but I have been assured that it is inadequate for the purposes required to link into charging. There is the vehicle flow element which we have to consider and my suggestion is that, as I have said before, I do fully understand and empathise with the Deputy 's wishes and I can assure the House that I will be implementing charges as soon as I can. I am not one for not charging where there is an opportunity. I am also conscious of the effect that the Deputy intimated of fly-tipping. It is all very well saying that fly-tipping is illegal, which quite clearly it is, but there is a resource attached to controlling that and quite candidly there is not the resource to deal with it, and I am apprehensive of the result of adopting this position. So I am not going to continue any longer. For the reasons I have explained, I would urge the House at this point not to support the Deputy and his proposition but accept my assurance that the wider issue of waste charging will be reviewed by my department

and brought back for consideration here in this House later this year.

2. Deputy R.C. Duhamel of St. Saviour :

I think it is a real shame that when Back-Benchers or other Members bring forward propositions they are met with an element of negativity. We have heard that the Minister for Transport and Technical Services will be looking at charging, but that is as far as it goes. I would have personally liked him to have said - and maybe he can say it at some future date, or even today - that he was not only supportive, as he did say, of a charging structure perhaps if it was applied to particular materials and it was possible to do, but I would have much preferred him to have said that although the Minister for Treasury and Resources has suggested that his department is looking at the whole

issue of composting under the C.S.R. process he was supportive or more supportive than perhaps he has mentioned so far of perhaps looking into privatising the whole operation in order to get more value for money. This is not a particularly new idea, it was mentioned as one of the ways forward in the compost reports that were written a number of years ago. One of the key financial things that we really have to address is that we were promised - a number of years ago - in-vessel composting. In-vessel composting would have enabled the Island to reduce its cost overall, because you need less staff than the wind-drying methods that are adopted by the department at the moment. Nobody can deny that the products that are being made are useful, but that does not necessarily mean that we are making the best use of the materials that are being delivered to the department in terms of value adding to the extent that perhaps the goods could displace the peat and other compost products that are coming into the Island. When we looked at the composting review all these years ago there were a number of private farmers and other businessmen, landscape gardeners and whatever, those very persons who have been delivering their materials to T.T.S. over the years to have it processed for nothing, who were quite willing to embark on the diversification of the economy, if you like, and to set up a company to make the things that the department were making and perhaps to adopt more up-to-date methods. But one of the things that was stopping them was the high cost of the investment. The point is this, if over the years we spent over £5 million in revenue costs and other capital costs for running the system as it stands now, and the cost of the in- vessel composting containers and units was of the order of £3 million, then you do not have to be an economic genius to realise that had we embarked on that as the particular method and endorsed any of those persons who were wishing to set up a private company to operate the service we could have gifted £3 million out of the £5 million to that particular company to assist them in doing the job for us. Now a lot of people would turn around and say: "Do not be so naïve, if the department cannot make any money out of the composting exercise how will a private company be able to do so?" But that is where this idea of positivity and negativity in approach comes to the fore. Private businesses have to make a profit. That means they have to be a little bit more nimble on their feet, they have to be receptive to new ideas and they have to be able to make money, but not necessarily

just by charging subsidy monies, if you like, for the delivery of the raw materials. [10:00]

If indeed we did have a privatised service I am pretty sure that within a short period of time, as I mentioned earlier, there would be a drive to eliminate the importation of all those peat and compost materials coming into the Island that are sold in vast quantities at the existing garden centres. If we could do that, in terms of our recycling credits or our green brownie points, so to speak, I think the Island would be able to go up several notches because we would be displacing a particular commodity by substituting a home-grown one, and that has got to make economic sense, financial sense, green sense, environmental sense across the board. And not only that, it would be fulfilling the Minister for Economic Development's aim of trying to diversify the economy and to get us moving in the area that all other countries around the world are beginning to move in, which is green businesses. So I would like an assurance from the Minister for Transport and Technical Services that he will not only look at charging for the delivery of materials from the gardeners who are delivering there free of charge at the moment, and have been for years, but he will also take a deeper look in terms of the Comprehensive Spending Reviews to see whether or not the time is right to offer States assistance - our assistance, the taxpayers' money, which is being spent at the moment for a short period of time - in order to offset or to assist other businesses to set up, to deliver better services in different places to the Island's greater benefit. One other point about fly- tipping is that it has been mentioned, and again this is the negative element coming forward, that fly-tipping is a reason for not encouraging anybody to do anything but when we think of the materials, they are green materials and green materials rot, so what is the problem even if we did have fly-tipping or an element of that on our fields providing it rots down? Nature will do its bit, the materials will disappear and that is what happens naturally at the moment, so I do not think the

fly-tipping element is such a big issue. The other thing is that we saw in the evening newspaper just recently that even the definition of fly-tipping is different depending on who you talk to. Members of the department were mentioning that people were fly-tipping materials like electrical goods or whatever at a local site that was set up to take materials to be recycled. That is not the fly- tipping that I understand. I thought fly-tipping was the indiscriminate disposal of materials in places that were not specifically set aside for their particular disposal. The public are interested in recycling. The public are interested in getting value for money. The States have said that they are interested in both those things as well, so I think the way forward is pretty clear. Let us have a Comprehensive Spending Review to see whether or not just a charging mechanism will deliver the goods in a better way or indeed if we can square the circle, so to speak, and move ahead to develop smaller businesses that can accommodate the practices that T.T.S. are doing at a loss at the moment but in a fashion that makes them money then perhaps that might deliver a betterment that is worth paying for. I am in 2 minds given the comments from the Minister for Transport and Technical Services whether or not we should support the introduction of a commercial charge. In some ways I find it strange that the Minister has already said that he supports the idea of charging and yet he is not supporting the proposition which strikes me as a little bit odd. So I think before I decide how to vote I will listen to other comments and maybe other speakers can elaborate on how the Minister can say one thing and do another.

3. Connétable J.M. Refault of St. Peter :

I am slightly confused with the proposition insomuch that the proposition simply asks for the Minister for Transport and Technical Services to introduce a charge for the reception of green waste from commercial operators. However in making the proposition Deputy Le Claire went on to say that he was looking for private enterprise to take on this issue and also to outsource it, and it does not chime with the proposition itself, so that gives me my first problem with supporting the proposition, in that there is something else within there which we may well be voting on. It made me think more about the difficulties involved, and the difficulties in quantifying what would be the net gain when we take into consideration the administration cost of collecting the charges that were being yielded, bearing in mind the Deputy Le Claire said in his proposition that the infill waste is being charged at £11 per tonne. If we charge green waste at that similar sort of price I know where it is going to end up, and it will not be down at the reclamation site, it will be somewhere else. It will be at sites out in the Parishes, and even if some of the operators decided that they wanted to recycle on site there are a number of neighbour issues. Obviously in St. Peter we had an issue in Clos Saut Falluet where the original reclamation site was, and the rats issue and the smells that emanated around about the airport, which then had it moved into La Collette and then we had the problems with La Collette with people at Havre des Pas also suffering from the smells and spores coming from the waste tip there. So it is not a good neighbour, and to try and suggest to move it back into Parishes to private operator sites is probably, in my view, not the best way to do it. But equally if we look into the report going along the proposition and some of the comments we note that the yield from doing this recycling is very, very low. We are talking a gross yield of less than £100,000 a year that they are making on selling the soil improver. I really cannot think of an entrepreneurial person with 2 men and a lorry going to try and make that a thriving business that is going to expand in the fullness of time. Added to that we already know that T.T.S. are under a certain amount of financial pressures in having to fund farmers to take the soil improver they cannot sell via the normal mechanisms, so I really do question the arguments being put forward about being a viable private enterprise because at the moment the numbers just do not stack-up, unless somebody can show me where I am in error, then I would be prepared to give way. So coming back to the Minister for Transport and Technical Services, he is under considerable pressure - as are all Ministers at the moment and some Assistant Ministers - in producing some considerable savings in C.S.R. and I feel certain that the Minister for Transport and Technical

Services and his officers would have been very, very focused in looking at that as an option. However I note that Deputy Le Claire's proposition is one the principle of which is supportable insomuch as a user pays charge it is a levying of that charge which does create in itself a further problem and whether it does produce a positive yield. That is the conundrum I have got, and at the moment there is nothing in the proposition and report that gives me the confidence that to support this proposition today is the right thing to do. Thank you very much.

4. Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier :

It is always a pleasure to follow the Constable of St. Peter and we will probably have another 10 speeches if they all speak today of where will it be, and it will not be in my Parish. I really cannot agree with what he is saying. He cannot support the words on the proposition because of Deputy Le Claire's speech? What are the words on the proposition? To request the Minister for Transport and Technical Services to introduce a charge for the reception of green waste from commercial operators and it does not say, by the way, Minister for Transport and Technical Services, it does not say do it tomorrow. It does not say when to do it, and in principle they all agree with it. I feel even more sorry for a Back-Bencher, because it will be done, but it has not come from the centre. This is this control at the moment. It is a good idea, it will be done and it should be done, because for those of you, when you read the comments: "Oh, it should not be just financial, there must be a sound, scientific reason for doing it." Well, what is going to concentrate big commercial operators than to, as Deputy Duhamel says, thinking more and doing things more nimble and less? They are laughing all the way to the bank. We have created - we use them, Education use them, Housing use them, T.T.S. use them - some 2 or 3 massive big companies over here, and for anyone who does not believe they are making masses of money watch Dispatches that was on, on Monday night. This is exactly where we are going, we are paying these people with taxpayers' money and if any of the Parishes are using them you are paying ratepayers' money, and people want to be asking questions. Why are they then allowed to take lorry loads of green waste for free down to a site that is owned by the States? They are laughing at us. A lot of these companies, and one of the companies are over here that were on .. a section of them are over here. As the Minister said, in no other place is a commercial operator not charged. They charge for it in their contract with us, but they laugh at the end of it. They are laughing at us. As I say, the comments from Treasury are not about really whether he supports it, he just wants to know where the money is going to go, and all this. It will happen and for Deputy Duhamel, who says he now has to think about it, what Deputy Le Claire is requesting is sensible. The Minister has done all his research in his speech. In the first two-thirds of his speech it was in support of the proposition. Everything has been done, he knows the problems. Being a Constable he will also know the problems if private companies .. I mean the

Constable of St. Peter is worried about 2 men and a van. Well, it would not be that, and they are not a good neighbour, but in-vessel is a good neighbour. There are things out there if there is money to be made, but my more annoying part is big companies over here are making money out of the taxpayer, out of the ratepayer, and they are getting a free ride at the end. It has got to stop, it really has got to stop. This is supportable, it does not give a date, in fact it is completely open- ended. Completely open-ended. If you cannot support it you really are saying: "Well, come on, big business, rip us off, bring it on more, take your waste down there and you can dump as much as you like." That will really concentrate their minds, will it not, for doing a bit less and doing a bit more environmental thinking. Of course it will not, not at all, and they are not doing it and it could halve the green waste and it may be there are other solutions. But for me and I know that we are looking at every penny the taxpayer is putting in, somebody ought to be asking about these contracts and what they do ask is where they are putting their waste, how much they are charging us, in the contract, to dispose of the waste that they are getting free. These are the questions you should be asking and this proposition is totally supportable because it does not say when. On that note I will sit down. Thank you.

5. Deputy D.J.A. Wimberley of St. Mary :

I have taken an interest in this issue for quite a while because we have a valuable resource in terms of all the green waste in the Island and then when I found out it costs the States £750,000 a year more or less to process this waste and we do not seem to get much back for it, that really raised my interest. Why are we in this situation? It really poses the question, and I am glad that we have this proposition and I will come closer-in to the proposition later, but I think the background is important. There is a real opportunity here and we are talking about making a charge on people who go down there, the commercial operators who go down there. That charge will be insignificant compared to what we should be earning out of this resource. The first thing is retail. I did a very quick survey just now of a couple of garden centres, I did not have time to do more but even from just a couple you get a very clear picture. The first thing is that T.T.S.'s soil improver is good stuff, the product is fine and it flies off the shelf. Well, not the shelf, the ground. But it flies, anyway, and it sells well. So that is a pointer, is it not? They are producing something that sells well. There is a problem of quality. The pH varies, it goes up and down, the amount of lime that has gone on to the various crops and ends up in the compost makes the pH wobble and if you are going to have sustainable business over a longer period then you are going to have to remedy that. But they both said that the supply had stopped in the last 2 years, that there was a point at which they went to T.T.S. and said: "Can we have the next lot?" and they said: "We are not doing it anymore." I just do not get it, because how can you be selling a good product that is flying off the shelves and then you stop doing it? Businesses need continuity of supply. So there are a sort of range of issues there.

[10:15]

The other thing that they said was that it was very competitively priced and that is why it sold well, and that it was a good product. So there has got to be an opportunity there. Then on the commercial side this business of the growers and the farmers and the fact that they are paid to take this material and put it on their land, we looked at this in the Rural Economy Strategy review and in fact if you look at the figures on page 7 of the proposition the amount paid to the farmers is insignificant in terms of costs at £17,000, it is £10 a vergée, I think it is more now. But the main costs are the preparation of the material and the haulage, hire of pay loader, the bagging and the haulage of the compost. It adds up to £200,000 a year to take this material and give it to the farmers and growers for nothing, or rather pay them to take it. I have here the key findings and recommendations of our review, of the Rural Economy Strategy review and the first one, the response to the Minister: "It is considered that this is a highly cost-effective method of waste disposal", that is to haul it to growers' land and put it on the land. Highly cost-effective, £200,000 a year with no income at all. Then we had a finding that: "There is concern among the agricultural sector as to compliance issues arising from using the green waste produced by T.T.S." and the response, and this is the interesting thing because there is a pledge in here: "Correct. There is

evidence that in some cases the quality of the green waste would jeopardise compliance with industry assurance schemes. The environment, management and rural economy section will liaise with T.T.S. reference the quality of the fertiliser and soil conditioner and help ensure it is able to meet the relevant industry standards in order to alleviate the concerns of the agricultural sector" and this is the important bit: "enhance its value and minimise the costs of waste disposal to the public purse" and that task is supposed to be finished by September this year to sit around a table, talk about why the quality is variable, to make sure the quality is good enough and then to look at the whole financials around it, why we are paying out £200,000 a year instead of generating an income from improving the land of the growers. So that is the background. There is a big opportunity here, we are missing a trick. To come more closely to the proposition, if charging is introduced for commercial operators, in my view that would encourage the operators, and I am thinking of the people who come and do large gardens or who come and do the grounds of hotels or whatever it might be, I would have thought that would be an incentive not necessarily to fly-tip, because they might end up with a hefty fine, but it might encourage those operators to talk to the proprietors of the hotels or the big gardens, and say: "Why do we not do this a different way, why do I not set up a compost heap around the back there?" and of course some big gardens do that. I think there is an

incentive to localise the composting in that way, to do it where it is generated. The second option of course is to do it on a localised basis and we have heard 2 views. We have heard Deputy Duhamel say: "Why do we not do it on a localised basis? Why do we not have in-vessel composting on local sites? It is completely controlled, the quality would be fine and there is a commercial aspect to that as well, so why do we not do it?" Then we have heard the opposite view from the Constable of St. Peter which is: "Well, it is all too difficult and it cannot be done." I really do think that we should be more positive and I think the charging, which has been accepted basically by the Minister, is a kind of spur to making these other changes happen. My last remarks concern the statement by the proposer that the States does not have to do this. I do find that a bit difficult. He says that the States has no legal requirement to deal with green waste. Well, that may be so, we do not have a legal requirement to do lots of things that we do do, and we do them because they are right. I support the Minister for Transport and Technical Services in his comments when he talks about a behavioural change, a change that will benefit the environment, and the objective of recycling organic matter into the soil instead of burning it. Those are correct objectives and I am not sure the proposer is right to say that because there is not a legal requirement therefore we should not do it. I do not think there is a legal requirement to fill in potholes, but my goodness we heard yesterday, there is not even a liability. If a cyclist hits a pothole, falls under a bus and is killed or maimed then there is no liability, there is no case to answer. It is quite extraordinary, so we fill in the potholes because it is the right thing to do. So I think that part of the argument of the proposer is flawed, but otherwise this is a step in the right direction I believe, but there are many other steps. There is a lot of money going missing here, we are missing a big trick. We should be using the opportunity that green waste represents, as Deputy Duhamel pointed out, and he made all the other points necessary, so that is all I have to say. Thank you.

6. Deputy P.J. Rondel of St. John :

Yes, it is always good to follow my vice-chairman. I recall when I first came to the States they had a problem with disposing of potatoes by hundreds of tonnes. I think they were disposed of in the Parish of St. Brelade, which cost this Island a fortune for many, many years. What do we do with potatoes now? We do not put them in our green waste, the farmers keep them and they put them on the land. They put them about this deep on the land and they found a way of returning their crops back to the ground or their waste back to the ground. I must say what is wrong with doing that? Why do we as taxpayers have to pick up this bill? It was quite interesting when I heard the Minister's comments, the T.T.S. recycling targets. I do not mind if it goes down by 4 per cent, Minister, because it will still be recycled. The targets may not come through the Minister's department, but that recycling will still be happening if we tell growers, farmers, gardening contractors, to do their own recycling on the land that the waste comes from within that particular area. When I was a youngster each farmer had its own recycling area. It was called a manure heap or whatever. We had also .. the Parishes used to collect their own bannelais, which would be sold on to a farmer, all recycling in its own way, the old-fashioned way, and some of the old things are still probably better than what we are doing today. I do not want to tell the Minister that because he has got a 40 per cent target, or that is his aim at the moment for recycling, that he should be looking at 36 per cent because the other 4 per cent, or 34 per cent and the other 6 per cent, those figures should not be set in stone, if there is a better way of doing things. We have heard from the Deputy of St. Mary about green waste and what we pay farmers, £28 a vergée to receive green waste which then we spend additional monies on having to deliver it and spread it. If savings can be made Deputy Le Claire is absolutely right, it might give us the impetus to do things in a different way, but do not let us get tied-up in trying to look at numbers. Recycling can be done in the home. We do not need to know that 1 per cent is being done of recycling in people's gardens. We do not really need to know those numbers, but we know that the numbers will not be passing through your green waste plant. That is the way I would say we should be looking at recycling. I am green, I think we are all green to a point. Some are different shades of green. If I look at my 2 colleagues in the Deputies benches across the way here I would say they are dark green. I would put myself somewhere in the middle. I do not know where Senator Le Main is on that, what colour green he would be, but I think we all want to do what is right for our Island. What really worries me I think it was in 2008 when I was looking at the tax returns for the agricultural industry, were somewhere in the region of just below £5 million a year and yet we were spending something like £14 million to £16 million a year in subsidies in that area. Really we have got to get our thinking caps on and come up with something better. Deputy Le Claire here I think is right in bringing this to the House, because I think there is a way around just accept it, we know it is going to happen. But really is it because this has come from a Back-Bencher and therefore there will not be a press release on it as we see on a daily basis from the Ministers - a press release, this is going to happen, that is going to happen et cetera - this comes from a Back-Bencher so there will not be a press release, therefore the Minister or his department cannot claim to have thought of this idea. I think we must do what is right and I believe this is the right way forward, but please do not get hung up on these statistics that you want 40 per cent recycling when the recycling would still go ahead. All right, it would be a number out of your box. So what? Just think forward, Minister. I am supporting this proposition.

Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier :

Before speaking I wondered if I could seek advice from the Attorney General on whether this proposition falls foul of the Bellozanne Covenant, which to my understanding means that a charge cannot be levied for waste that is generated in St. Helier ?

Mr. T.J. Le Cocq Q.C., H.M. Attorney General:

I am not sure that it could be said that this proposition as such falls foul of what I understand the Bellozanne Covenant to be. I think it is intra vires the Minister, if he is able to do so, to introduce a charge of this nature. Naturally if there are pre-existing contractual arrangements then one would expect the Minister to honour those contractual arrangements, but I am not able to comment, I am afraid, on the validity or enforceability of any contractual arrangements without the opportunity to study the precise terms and the circumstances in which they came into effect.

Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade :

Sir, may I make a comment on that? Another speech?

The Deputy Bailiff :

You can ask the Attorney General further questions, not another comment.

Deputy S. Power:

That is what I wanted to do. It is a question, thank you for correcting me. Would the Attorney General not agree that the Bellozanne Covenant - I think it is 1948 - applies purely to the ratepayers of St. Helier , so therefore it does not really apply to the other 11 Parishes?

The Attorney General:

My understanding, and again I am sure Members will appreciate I have not had very much notice of this question, is that indeed the Bellozanne Covenant does only apply to the Parish of St. Helier if it applies at all, and therefore none of the other Parishes would be affected by it. So to that extent at least this proposition would be intra vires were it to be adopted by the Assembly.

Senator S.C. Ferguson:

Sir, may I ask a question of the Attorney General?

The Deputy Bailiff : Yes.

Senator S.C. Ferguson:

Presumably the covenant will apply to official vehicles of the ratepayers of St. Helier. There are 2 types of business; the business that operates out of St. Helier which is a private business and is cutting trees out in St. Ouen, or you have the business from St. Ouen which is cutting trees in St. Helier. Does the covenant differentiate between the private and the public in this respect?

The Attorney General:

I am afraid that as I am not familiar with the full details and terms of the covenant I am unable to assist very much. As a matter of my understanding, and that understanding may very well be imperfect, it relates to the Parish of St. Helier and I would take that to be the municipality as opposed to people merely resident within St. Helier , but I am not able I am afraid to be definitive in that without the opportunity to consider the documentation.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

I do have a further question. He has opened a can of worms, has the Constable of St. Helier, but my understanding of the Bellozanne Covenant was it applied to materials taken to Bellozanne and therefore it does not apply to La Collette, but I am seeing heads shaking so maybe the Attorney General could confirm that is not the case.

The Attorney General:

I am afraid I cannot. I understand that it may be the case that whatever the arrangement was for Bellozanne it has been transferred, I think, to meet the current arrangements, but I am not able to say with certainty that is the case because as I say I simply have not seen the documentation.

[10:30]

Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

I am sorry to ask a question of the Attorney General but I think the position needs to be made quite clear and I will preface a lot of this by saying from the speech this morning, from the Minister for Transport and Technical Services, it looks like overall charging of waste will be introduced in the future, so I will be tabling questions on the Bellozanne Covenant in the near term as a heads-up. But just as a point of clarification, if I could please, to Her Majesty's Attorney General because now I am confused and I know it does not take much, but there we are. The Attorney said that it would be ultra vires to introduce a charge, if this was agreed, am I right, to the Parish of St. Helier ? Because if that is the case and if I am not mistaken then I would like to follow that up by asking how is it that we can charge at the moment for infill being delivered to La Collette?

The Attorney General:

The expression: "ultra vires" simply refers to the powers available to someone to do a particular thing. Do they have the power to do it? My advice in saying that it is intra vires for this Assembly to pass this proposition merely is to the effect that the Minister for Transport and Technical Services or the appropriate Minister would in my view have the power to introduce such a charge. Whether that would be consistent with pre-existing understandings or contractual relationships of course is a different question. The vires question simply goes to power, not to in effect whether it can be done as a matter of all the legal issues that apply to it.

Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: Thank you.

7. The Connétable of St. Helier :

I think it is important to keep this matter alive. First of all can I say that if this proposition does not go through I foresee problems for the Business Plan later this year. Surely the States have a job to do to make savings, we have heard a lot about that, but the other side of it is to increase charges where those charges do not go to the taxpayer but go to the person who is making use of a service.

We have already agreed that in principle, when a long time ago now there was an agreement about not increasing charges over inflation. We do not even have a charge here, so we do not need to worry about it being more than inflation. It is quite clearly a basket case at the moment and that needs to be put right, and there are no excuses for inaction that we heard from the Minister. He spoke of a lot of variables, we need to build a weighbridge and stuff like that, and Deputy Martin said very rightly that the proposition simply asked the Minister to agree to introduce the charge. It does not say how, it does not say when and I hope the Minister and the Council of Ministers will change their minds on this and put their support behind this. Because if we cannot save money where we are wasting it, if we cannot introduce a charge where a charge is quite clearly required, then how can we take away school milk and other things like that? It may surprise my colleagues to know on the Constables' benches, I am not going to pursue the hare that I think has been set running possibly by the Constable of St. Peter when he said that composting is not a good neighbour, therefore let us leave it in St. Helier. I am not going to pursue that because what we are talking about today is not where composting takes place, but whether we should charge the companies who avail themselves of this service. Let us not turn over those spore-rich compost heaps about the siting of the compost thing, and indeed I think it is unfortunate that so many Members have been talking about privatising the service. My first thought was how do the people feel down there at La Collette who are doing a very good job for T.T.S. processing green waste? How do they feel without any consultation States Members saying: "Well, we are going to privatise it" and arguing about whether there is a private sector interest. We have a very good public sector capacity to create this compost and I want to reassure the staff that if this proposition is accepted it is not tantamount to saying that we are going to privatise T.T.S.'s composting operation. There is a very good reason in many manual work areas to keep those services under direct employment. Of course that reason is profit, that the States does not have to make a profit but for goodness sake, the States has to start charging for a service when commercial operators are imposing enormous charges on the people whose gardens they are currently working on. So what I believe we should do is we should approve this proposition. This gives the Minister the ability to announce that thanks to Deputy Le Claire he is going to impose this charge and he can begin a process of consultation - that is important too - with the landscape architects and the other companies that currently use this service. He can consider whether it would be fair to charge them and not to charge for example the householder turning up with a boot full of clippings. That in fact of course happens with inert waste and of course you can get round the charge there, you do not need a covenant. You can get round the charge by simply putting all your building waste into the back of your car and taking it down. It is not particularly good for the springs, I have discovered. So what I am saying is I think we should get behind this; we should not get involved in a town versus country debate, we have been satisfied that this is not a problem with the covenant. Let us give the Minister clear direction that we want to see him imposing charges for this service which we are

offering certain members of commerce and let him begin that process of consultation with both his staff and with the businesses so that hopefully by the time the Business Plan comes around we can see a charge being levied at that time. Thank you.

8. Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Senator Routier will be pleased to know that I am not going to even use up my 15 minutes because there are a lot of people who know a lot more about this than me. However listening to the Deputy of St. John and as we are talking about compost, all this discussion that we are all being different shades of green, I have to use the joke that all politicians apparently come in green, although unfortunately many quickly turn yellow and soon end up rotten. I think it is probably quite appropriate for this subject. I support the principle of the proposer, Deputy Le Claire, and as he tells us the Minister himself supports this principle. The only difference it seems to me is that I support confirming that we are going to do something about this now, and the Minister, much to my surprise because I also think he is a can-do Minister, appears to want to take something of a mañana approach and I do feel quite surprised at that. So my real issue I suppose is why does the

Minister feel the need to oppose the proposition and I think that it has probably been touched on by a couple of other  speakers,  we must  not  give  Back-Benchers that credit  for  coming up with something and that is a shame, especially from a good Minister. After all Deputy Martin said it very clearly and the Constables echoed it, Deputy Le Claire is simply asking the Minister to state that he is going to be doing something. There is no deadline, there is no sell-by date, it is really about sending out the message and confirming to the public and those big businesses out there that this is going to happen, it is not always going to be put off. So I have to say to the Minister where is the problem and politely suggest to him that as Deputy Le Claire said to him he does another U- turn on the roundabout at South Hill and withdraws his opposition and gets behind this, because really I think it is just strengthening his hand as a Minister with the House showing their support for him. The Constable of St. Helier did not want to do it, but I do feel I have to say something on the Constable of St. Peter 's highlighting of the process not being a good neighbour, because the people of St. Helier No. 1 who put up with an awful lot on behalf of the rest of the Island, they deserve good neighbours too. What is good enough for someone in the country should surely be good enough for these people. It seems to me, as Deputy Martin has said, there is this constant attitude among some that we must not touch profits of big business and I am afraid this view seems to be absolutely endemic for this Council of Ministers and it is something I believe has to be stopped. Where charges are appropriate I think they should be made and really I leave it there other than to echo how pleased I am to hear the Constable of St. Helier confirm for the staff that if we support this it is not about privatisation and taking away jobs. It is about making things more effective for the Island and I really see absolutely no problem why the Minister cannot support this and would urge him to do so. Thank you.

9. Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade :

I was reassured by the speech of the town Constable because I too have reservations about privatisation as was alluded to by Deputy Le Claire, which I will address in my speech. I find it remarkable that we start off again with the Minister for Transport and Technical Services saying that we agree with this principle, we have heard that he supported it initially as a politician when he was talking to a fellow politician and then on a short drive up the hill when he managed to talk to some civil servants they managed to talk him out of it, so interesting dynamics going on in that relationship. We also heard arguments about the short term costs from the Minister for Transport and Technical Services. Clearly I think he knows that this is not a strong argument. He realises that of course there would be costs, if you need a new weighbridge that would have to be done, it is an invest-to-save', which I know the Minister voted for, giving extra money to finance to set up offices in the Middle East, et cetera, because he realised that for him that was an invest-to-save', so it was not money that was being wasted, it was money that would generate an income. That is exactly what is happening here, so I think that argument again is a red herring. This reminds me of speaking to a civil servant recently in the Treasury Department - it was in one of the sub- departments of the Treasury, if I can put it that way- an experienced officer who says that there are so many barriers to innovation within the current Civil Service and within departments. One example that he gave was that in Education money and revenues could be made and accrued, for example if they rented out car parks after hours. This idea was explored on a very superficial level, it was raised and said: "Why do we not just rent these car parks out? We can get X thousand a year which we can put to other uses" but he said the reason that these ideas do not get progressed is because there are no incentives for the department because that money is not ring-fenced and it gets taken out of their budget the next year. So they can spend all their time finding innovative ways to make savings, and of course at the moment under C.S.R. they are obliged to do that, but there is no real incentive for them to make savings because the hassle for them to do it and the department for no net saving in the long term or no net increase in their revenue in the long term encourages laziness, or it discourages innovative thinking. I think there is definitely a parallel going on here. I do also think that it is very strange we have not had any comments issued by the Environment Department, as it is now called. We have had the speech from Deputy Duhamel, which I suspect is

not representative of the Environment Department. There have been no comments submitted. I suspect that were the Minister for the Environment here he would not agree with the proposition of Deputy Le Claire and my concern is that the personal relationship between these 2 Deputies is clouding the Assistant Minister with responsibility for the Environment's judgment when he would not necessarily support this, or certainly the department would not necessarily support this as a department. It is very strange that we have heard comments from the Treasury Department, we have heard comments from the T.T.S. Department but nothing officially has been put forward from Environment. That certainly is noteworthy, although it is difficult for us to judge what the real comments would be, but it certainly would have been helpful. There are points which concern me however about this proposition. The first one is I think the fly-tipping comments, my colleague, Deputy Duhamel I think was slightly dismissive about the risk of fly-tipping. He said that it does not matter if fly-tipping occurs anyway because it is compost materials, it is materials which will break down, so even if somebody for example dumps a load of branches in a farmer's field in St. Ouen or in Trinity it does not matter because they are going to break down. Well, yes, they will break down but perhaps it might take 10 years rather than 6 months or a year for a banana skin or orange peel. It is completely different and I think also the arguments about composting and home composting have been conflated slightly here. We are not talking about the same thing. You cannot put branches and more hard core materials into a composter because they do not break down. That is why when you are at home you do not put pieces of wood in your home composter, and even banana skins we need to chop up, et cetera, we know that because they do not break down that quickly even though they are organic. So I think that is clearly an issue which needs to be looked at but I do take into account the wise words of the Deputy of St. Mary who said that it might encourage more entrepreneurialism among perhaps the small gardeners or even the bigger garden contractors to come up with their own areas. But again that seems to me to tie-in with the whole privatisation idea. The point of having a centralised system which is run by the Government for the

Island is because that works, that is the most cost-effective way to do things. [10:45]

You have a centralised system and maybe you have more than one site where people can go and dump things, but it is because Government for all its flaws can organise things on a mass scale, whereas individuals I am not saying they cannot do it but they will not necessarily do it. There is a presumption that they will need to communicate first of all which is not always the case from people running around being busy. So I think if it was not for the fact that Deputy Le Claire had focused so heavily on this privatisation angle that we need to currently send out a system which is not making us any money, and maybe there is a reason for that, because this is, at the end of the day, a public service, then I would be more likely to support it. I think the issue for me, the argument to do with privatisation versus public ownership of this particular thing is exactly that, it is one of ownership, whereas I think what we should be focusing on is the economic model on which it is based. We should be able to, I believe, quite rightly introduce charges. If there are big garden operations that are making vast amounts of money with big turnovers, it is quite right that they should be charged for using those facilities. But what I would ask the Deputy in summing up is what safeguards are there in place for the small operators, the man with the van or the men with "ven" as someone once put it, which do not necessarily make massive margins in their operations. Sometimes they might be a one or 2-man or 2-woman operation, they are running around the Island and they are not making huge profits, they are really existing from hand to mouth, so to speak, and I think we would need to make sure, and I appreciate the fact that this proposition does not specify but I would like to know who is classed as a commercial operator. Because clearly somebody with a van who is doing jobs for £10 an hour for a couple of people in his Parish or her Parish is not going to be making vast amounts but it is clearly providing value for money and if they are going to have to be charged say £100 a vanload they are simply either not going to do it, they will either fly- tip or they will have to find another way to get that material out or they will just simply say: "Well,

I can no longer work and maybe I am better off not working and I can claim income support." So as long as those safeguards are in there and as long as we can extract the maximum for those who are getting the most value out of these sites then that is fine, but are we going to introduce a sliding scale and are we going to ask to see people's turnover when they come with a van? That does not seem to be particularly equitable. If you have got a big vanload, surely you pay per vanload but I get the argument that those who are producing more waste are probably going to be those with most income, but it does not necessarily always follow. So these are areas that I need to be reassured about. I think I have covered the main issue, but I am generally supportive. I wait to be convinced from the Deputy but I do think it is good that we have a Back-Bencher coming forward and doing something which the Minister and the department agree in principle with, and I do suspect if I am being slightly cynical though, that it is really just because it was not thought of by the department and these arguments that we want to wait for the right time in the Business Plan to make sure that it is working does not really wash. I think if it is the right thing to do it needs to be done, we can decide the principle here today, and although I am wary of detail coming later, because we do not know what we are voting on in that respect, I think that certainly the principle of those who are commercial operators at the very high-end who have lots of contracts, who are making profit and can afford to pay them, I think that is ultimately right.