Pickles on rubbish raises coalition stink

Eric Pickles, the community secretary, is promoting the public’s right to throw away as much rubbish as it likes in a move that has prompted a furious reaction within Whitehall.

The row – one of the first within the new coalition government – has come to a head over the question of which department should be responsible for rubbish collection and disposal.

Mr Pickles annoyed officials in Defra, the environment department, within weeks of arriving in his post at the Department of Communities and Local Government by announcing an end to “bin taxes” and fortnightly recycling.

The pledge was popular since many people hate politicians tampering with their weekly free bin collection. In his speech, the minister said he had prevented a “barmy” Labour policy to “kill off” weekly bin collections. Mr Pickles believes that councils should instead switch towards a “carrot” approach, paying people for how much they recycle.

The speech prompted Defra anger because garbage legislation originates from a third department – energy – but is in fact the responsibility of Caroline Spelman, secretary of state for the environment.

It has created confusion among councils pushing “sustainable” rubbish collection. “The local authorities are up in arms, heartily angry about this, they know that Pickles has no power over rubbish collection, it’s not his business,” said one Tory source. “It’s all very unsatisfactory.”

It is understood that Ms Spelman is being urged by mandarins to go ahead with her department’s green agenda. They believe it would be a mistake to abandon policies such as charging households for the quantity of waste they throw away.

Britain is expected by 2020 to have reached a “zero waste” situation whereby all garbage is turned into energy or recycled. The UK needs to build about 1,500 new facilities by then to recycle and incinerate waste, at a cost of about £10bn, according to the Institution of Civil Engineers. Obtaining planning permission for such plants can take years; in at least one case, it has taken more than a decade.

Conservatives and Lib Dems are wary of easing the planning requirements to allow the building of more such facilities, for fear of local opposition. One source told the FT that Defra officials fear that Mr Pickles and Greg Clark, decentralisation minister, may be planning to annex responsibility for waste entirely and subsume it into their department.

Ms Spelman has not yet appointed a chair or set the terms of reference for a wide-ranging and “fundamental” review of the waste issue – welcomed by the industry – which she promised over a month ago.

Tensions have rumbled for months, even in opposition, where Mr Pickles and Peter Ainsworth, former shadow environment secretary, often argued about who should be responsible for waste policy.

They took their row to Oliver Letwin, Tory policy supremo, to resolve the argument; Mr Pickles got the upper hand after producing a stack of newspaper cuttings expressing public anger over bin taxes.

“We have ended up with a structural flaw with one department responsible for waste policy and another governing local authorities, where you have a totally different Middle England agenda,” said one Whitehall source. “It’s dysfunctional.”

Mr Ainsworth told a conference a month ago that the government’s approach to waste was “disjointed” since three different departments and the Treasury were responsible for it.

David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of Sita, one of Britain’s largest waste companies, says the government understood the problem ahead. “The challenge is so big,” he said, that “the debate gets polarised between weekly or two-weekly collection when the big issue is the 50m tonnes of raw material that must be dealt with.”

Mr Pickles has ruffled feathers in other departments. “He’s running round scaring everybody,” said one coalition insider.

A Defra aide insisted that there was “no row”. The DCLG refused to comment.