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• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

I know Mr Duffy is keen to interfere all he can in boroughs. Some of us can't keep him out of our boroughs. Whether or not a borough has wheelie bins I would say is a matter for the borough council, and not for anybody else. Would he accept a scheme that we're about to introduce in Barnet, which is where in the past the Labour administration, if somebody phoned up for a second bin on the grounds that they needed one, just delivered it, our administration tends to send a waste minimisation officer round for advice on why they...

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

I think Mr Duffy is slightly incorrect. In Barnet, I don't care how many residents come from other boroughs and use my civic amenity sites, because it ups our recycling credit. And the Mayor is welcome from Cricklewood or anybody else is welcome to our wonderful civic amenity site, which we operate in partnership with ECT at Summers Lane in N12, and which replaced Tilling Way well over 12 months ago now. It's even better than Sutton and we would welcome anybody from north London or anybody else to bring their rubbish, because we need recycling credits in Barnet. I...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Mr Duffy, I'm not going to question your professionalism. I presume you are perfectly professional in the job you do and you do it honestly. But you say you give robust advice to the Mayor. Now you saw this paper that we got yesterday from the Mayor's staff, the London Waste Action stakeholder, and it was as I said yesterday a very mature and a very balanced paper. Would you agree with that? Secondly, you have said that you have a presumption against incineration and the Mayor has a presumption against incineration and no doubt, as you said that you...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Will you continue a dialogue with the boroughs, not only with ALG? Because they're going to be in difficulty, you have to appreciate that. The long-term contracts are cheaper and yet you are suggesting that they should have short-term contracts. And of course it's very difficult to get the infrastructure, to get someone to put up all that capital on a three or five year lifespan.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Can I ask you, Mr Duffy, to keep more of an open mind on how we deal with residual waste because I think it's wrong to close off any avenue at this time. Now that's not saying that I'm for incineration, but just keep an open mind as to how it can be disposed of.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Can I ask how long this is going to take, because you know that the local authorities are now hard up against the line that they have to fulfil contracts and they have to sign contracts now. So how long is this going to take? And if I can quote you the first paragraph of this report we saw yesterday, which I thought was an excellent report and I think better than the ones we've been doing, 'There should be no presumption against incineration or against any recovery techniques and there should be a willingness to explore all options in...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Thank you. We were told yesterday that Smugglers Way cost £150 million in today's costing. Can you imagine the cost that's going to be needed and is the Mayor going to explore where these funds are going to come from?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

This is not Roger's supplementary, this is mine. Do you not think that instead of the Deputy Mayor and the environment spokesman raising these issues with the Mayor, both of them could have raised these issues at the Environment Committee when we were doing our work on all this last year? They both sit on the Environment Committee and so perhaps if we'd ironed it out there, there wouldn't have been the hold-up in the Mayor's office.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Mr Duffy, you said in answer to Lynne Featherstone that you wouldn't want to lay down targets which are not achievable, you've said that, so therefore you've now said that you have a presumption against incineration. What I'm saying is, I'm not saying that I'm for incineration, but if you've said you're not going to lay down targets that are not achievable, you have to keep an open mind as to how you deal with residual waste and you have to value the health hazard of incineration against the health hazard of landfill. And also whether in fact this new...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

There are figures that waste would grow something like 7% and I think they're quite robust figures. The scrutiny said 3% but we don't believe it will be 3%. The fact is there are other figures saying it could be up to 7%.