Recycled Plastics

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are looking at all sorts of reforms to our measures. The plastic packaging tax increases with inflation and has gone up to £217 per tonne this year. We are continuing to look at extended producer responsibility reforms and to see whether the work that the noble Baroness has talked about has an application in terms of how we deliver these regulations.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, we need to use less plastic and actually recycle what we do use. There is enough floating around the planet already; there is no good reason to produce more. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government are going to introduce the deposit return scheme in this Parliament, and when they expect the global plastics treaty to be agreed?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On the deposit return scheme, we have a date for implementation of October 2025. Our social research found that 74% of respondents supported it and 83% of our consultation responses supported its implementation. We think that there are 3,000 to 4,000 jobs if we get this right. On the international agreement, as I said, the UK is a founder member of the high ambition coalition, we are driving it forward and we need other countries to do it as well. Some 90% of the pollution in our oceans that comes from rivers comes from just 10 rivers—eight of them in Asia and two in Africa. That is an indication of the global problem that we are facing.