Clothing Sales: Sustainability

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, we are now well into Second Hand September. Speaking as somebody who made a vow 12 years ago to never buy anything new for the rest of my life, might I encourage my noble friend to join this campaign? eBay, charity shops, Swishing and Vinted are all alternatives to us buying new clothes and creating more of a problem.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is a living example that buying from thrift shops is what we should all be doing. This month in particular, we should be encouraging people to do that. Slow fashion is the way forward. We need to continue to make sure that we are requiring manufacturers and retailers to make and sell goods that last longer, are properly supplied and do not go landfill when they come to the end of their natural life. Recycling is an emerging technology, but the most important thing is that we all stop buying so many new things.

Household Waste Recycling

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There is nothing I like more than visiting beautiful parts of the world to see their waste management processes. On my way, I might look in at West Berkshire, where the local authority inherited a lamentable 19% recycling rate and has now got it to more than 50%; I cannot remember who it inherited it from. We want to see every council doing that. The measures we have in the Environment Act can provide a means for getting consistency over the country—consistency that has hitherto been absent.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, it is estimated that 7 million tonnes of food is discarded from the home every year, nearly half of which is edible, at a cost of about £700 per average family per year. The top reasons given are not writing a shopping list, not planning meals and forgetting what is in the fridge. What levers do the Government have to nudge and encourage households to do better?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right that households, particularly hard-pressed households, can save a lot of money by managing their food waste better. It is question of encouragement, education from an early stage and support, but it is not for me or the Government to dictate how people operate in their home. This is an enormous burden on society. We have to dispose of this, and I am delighted that food waste recycling will be consistent over the country, but we want to have to recycle much less.

National Food Strategy Report

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, the Government encourage all schools to promote healthy eating and provide healthy, tasty and nutritious food and drink. Compliance with the Requirements for School Food Regulations 2014 is mandatory for all maintained schools, and efforts are always made to make sure that children from low-income families have access to good, nutritious school meals.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, more than half the calories the average person in the UK eats come from ultra-processed foods. Recent research has linked these foods to early death, poor health, weight gain and obesity. The national food strategy makes a clear connection between bad diet and poor health. One of its four strategic objectives is to escape the junk-food cycle in order to protect the NHS. While the move towards eating less meat is welcome for the health of both the individual and the planet, could my noble friend confirm that a vegan or vegetarian diet made up of mainly ultra-processed foods is just as bad for the individual’s health as for everyone else?

Food Prices: Agricultural Policy

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, has withdrawn so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of concern about the impact of potential trade deals on food prices and quality. Is my noble friend aware of a recent Sustain LSE report which showed that obesity rose in both Mexico and Canada following their trade deals with the United States? Does he agree that, if the Government were tempted to solve the problem of rising food prices by importing cheap, poor-quality food, it would nudge lower-income families into buying it, thereby exacerbating the obesity problem?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the Government are very clear that our trade deals will not compromise our food standards. All food, regardless of agreement, will have to meet our import requirements. Clearly, obesity must be addressed. The Government’s strategy of July last year took forward actions of the childhood obesity plan, setting out measures and ambitious targets to halve by 2030 the number of children living with obesity and to get the country fitter and healthier.

Brexit: Healthy and Nutritious Food

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am a former Deputy Chief Whip and I do not feel that there are conspiracies in the work of the usual channels. I really welcome the questions we have had on food prices to give the Government an opportunity to set out what they seek to do. I will perhaps make inquiries, but I very much look forward to whenever that debate is put on the Order Paper and to the small contribution I might make.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, may I draw the Minister’s attention to the amount of fresh food waste emanating from farms? A recent survey by the charity Feedback estimates that around 37,000 tonnes of fresh produce, or 16% of crops, is wasted every year—enough to provide 250,000 people with the recommended five portions of fruit and veg every day for a year. Much of this is to do with supermarket supply chains. Would my noble friend confirm that the Government are doing what they can to support the farming community on this loss?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

It is not only an issue for farmers but an environmental one as well, and that is why the resources and waste strategy published this week promotes awareness of the importance of bearing down on food waste both by supermarkets and by ourselves as householders. I am afraid that 70% of our food waste comes from all of us, as householders. So yes, we must do more with the supermarkets through WRAP and other means, but we must all do better ourselves. It should not be the case that we waste food, and what comes from the farm to the fork we should not waste at all.

Brexit: Food Security

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am always interested in any material the noble Baroness wishes to supply me with, but all of the standards—whether on chlorinated chicken or hormone-induced beef—are already in the EU withdrawal Bill. All these things are on our statute books, so the idea that we are going to start trade arrangements which compromise the very high standards we have in this country will not take place.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the board of WRAP, which has helped considerably to reduce the amount of good food thrown away in this country. I remind the noble Lord we are signatories to the SDGs, and SDG 12 commits us to halving our food waste by 2030. May I ask my noble friend the Minister how he thinks we might be able to do that?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

There are a number of ways in which we must address food waste. Each household is wasting a huge amount of food, on average something like £700 a year. The Government have set up a pilot scheme which they are supporting with £15 million of additional funding. This is because already 43,000 tonnes of surplus food is redistributed from retailers and food manufactures every year. We think a further 100,000 tonnes of food, equating to 250 million meals a year, is edible and should be redistributed. Wasting food is an unconscionable thing, and we want this pilot scheme to work in order to reduce it.

Plastic Waste

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am a fanatically zealous composter, as my wife knows very well. Whether waste is biodegradable or whether we are considering the better use of plastics, by which I mean quality plastic that is consistent and is readily recyclable across the country, we want to learn from the best examples. Many local authorities are doing extremely well in this area and we want to replicate their work across the country.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a board member of WRAP. I welcome the fact that today is the day when the ban on the use of microbeads will be introduced. I also welcome the fact that some 9 billion fewer plastic bags are in circulation than when the levy was introduced. However, will my noble friend look carefully at the recyclability of takeaway coffee cups, which currently cannot be recycled properly? What are the Government going to do about this?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I endorse what my noble friend says about plastic bags. There has been a reduction of 83% of the plastic bags in circulation, and now we have the microbeads ban. We are working with the Treasury on a call for evidence this year seeking views on how the tax system or charges could reduce the amount of single-use plastic waste whether in the form of coffee cups, straws and so on. We need to adopt a different attitude to all of these issues, and I am very pleased that we are working on them.

Local Authorities: Recycling

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I will take that point back because that is—I think I will use the word disappointing. That is not what is intended by the whole thrust of getting to a circular economy of reusing and recovering much more. That defeats the object, and there is value in a lot of the materials that we are recycling.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House the variety of recycling rates in different local authorities?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, this is intriguing, because in South Oxfordshire, for example, it is 66.6% and in the London Borough of Newham, it is 14.7%. One issue that my colleague Thérèse Coffey is dealing with is that many councils in urban areas of all political persuasions are finding recycling much more of a challenge, so we need to work on that.

Recycling: Plastic Bottles

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I have never taken the noble Lord to be anything other than courteous, and I do not take what he said in any untoward sense. On what he said about the plastic bag charge, there are 6 billion fewer plastic bags in circulation and the 5p charge has raised £29 million for good causes. These are good examples. I am sure that when the litter strategy is launched, as I hope it will be soon, the noble Lord will agree that we are trying to be—and will be—ambitious.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the WRAP board. My noble friend will be aware of WRAP’s consistency framework, which should help drive up recycling rates of not just plastic but other commonly collected waste streams. Although the framework was launched only in September, can my noble friend update the House on how it is going with local authorities?

Food Waste

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the results are not published yet but I will look at that third phase. The Courtauld Commitment 2025 is already even more robust, so I am looking for progress and I shall be working with colleagues to ensure that that is the case.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a board member of WRAP. How might the Government’s forthcoming 25-year environment plan and 25-year food and farming plan help to promote further action to reduce food waste?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, my noble friend is right that the 25-year environment plan provides an opportunity. The first phase of that will be public consultation, and I am very much looking forward to observations and so forth. Dealing with the food waste issue must be part of our long-term vision of a better environment.