Chamber and committees

The remit of the Cities Review states that the review process will take account of the interaction between the cities and their surrounding areas.Ministers intend to meet with the cities neighbouring authorities, to listen to any issues that they wish to raise.

The latest year for which firm data are available is 2000. During that year the UK recovered 41.9% of packaging materials and this included 36.4% recovered by recycling.

Waste paper is produced in many different forms by a wide range of public and private sector organisations as well as householders. Information on the percentage of total waste paper currently recycled is not held centrally.

Producer responsibility for packaging is already in place. The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 require most manufacturers and users of packaging materials and products to ensure the recovery of 56% and recycling of 18% of the packaging materials which they handle. It is proposed to increase these targets to 61% and 20%, respectively, from 2002. There are no plans to extend producer responsibility to the disposal of the balance of packaging waste not recovered, although all holders of waste have a duty of care to ensure it is disposed of properly.

The Scottish Executive intends to phase in a ban on the disposal of tyres to landfill from July 2003. A consultation on proposed regulations to implement these and other controls on landfills will be issued shortly.

Under forthcoming regulations a ban on disposal of tyres to landfill will be phased in from July 2003. The Scottish Executive is also developing legislation dealing with End of Life Vehicles (ELV). This will apply to cars and light commercial vehicles and will require producers to recover 85% by average weight of an ELV by 2006. It is likely that vehicle manufacturers will look to tyres to help them meet this requirement. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency will be responsible for ensuring that recovery is carried out to high standards of environmental acceptability.

The Executive aims to make regulations later this year to introduce the following:for all vehicles, a re-use and recovery target of 85% and a re-use and recycling target of 80%, both expressed as average weight per vehicle and year;for vehicles produced before 1 January 1980, a re-use and recovery target of 75% and a re-use and recycling target of 70%, both expressed as average weight per vehicle and year, andby 1 January 2015, for all vehicles, a re-use and recovery target of 95% and a re-use and recycling target of 85%, again expressed as average weight per vehicle and year.

In 1999 an average of 77% of the total weight of end-of-life vehicles in the UK was re-used, recycled or recovered, with the remaining 23% being landfilled.

Information on the website of the Used Tyre Working Group (available at www.tyredisposal.co.uk) indicates that in the UK, in 1999, about 28% of used tyres were disposed of in landfill sites.

The amount spent on bank and agency nurses in 2000-01 was £24,953,662 and £19,028,372 respectively. To place this in perspective, the combined cost of bank and agency nurses represents just under 3.5% of the nursing and midwifery pay bill.