To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the implications of the High Court judgment of November 1998 on the dispute between the Environment Agency and Mayer Parry Recycling Ltd.; and if he will make contact with representatives of the waste paper processing industry on this matter. [76968]

A statement on the High Court judgment in the Mayer Parry case, which took account of judgments by the European Court of Justice, was issued by the Environment Agency on 16 November 1998. As matters stand, we do not have anything to add to that statement. We have no plans to make contact with the waste paper processing industry on this matter but we are considering representations which this industry has made about the implications of the judgment.