Landfill: Fees and Charges

Mrs. Spelman
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate his Department and its agencies have made of changes in the cost of waste collection and disposal to local authorities of (a) increased landfill tax since 1997 and (b) the Landfill Allowances Trading Scheme.

Mr. Bradshaw
The Government take account of the impacts of landfill tax and the Landfill Allowances Trading Scheme (LATS) when allocating local government funding. In the 2004 Spending Review (which takes us through to 2007-08), revenues from the landfill tax escalator were recycled back to local councils via Revenue Support Grant. Decisions on future funding will be taken in the context of this year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

It is not possible to simply attribute a proportion of the actual costs of waste collection and disposal to landfill tax or LATS. These economic instruments influence local government behaviour, and were they not in place, local authorities would pursue different waste management choices with different cost implications.

The net current expenditure on waste collection and disposal by local authorities in each year for which figures are available since 1997 is shown in the following table.

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|                                              |Amount (£000)|
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|1998-99                                       |1,281,919    |
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|1999-2000                                     |1,423,278    |
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|2000-01                                       |1,521,338    |
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|2001-02                                       |1,653,856    |
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|2002-03                                       |1,806,684    |
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|2003-04                                       |2,004,139    |
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|2004-05                                       |2,190,937    |
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|2005-06                                       |2,442,267    |
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|Source:Local Authority Revenue Outturn Returns|             |
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