Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

The front end of a deposit return scheme is pretty common across different systems; the challenge is how the scheme is operated and financed. We need a scheme that will be effective in tackling on-the-go consumption in particular. No other country faces that specific challenge, and that is why it is taking us some time to complete the consultation, which will be published later this year. If legislation is required, we will of course introduce it, but at this stage we need to work out the details of the scheme.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

12. The Government deserve credit for their world-leading efforts to ban microbeads and to phase out the single use of plastic bags. I massively applaud their newer commitment to ban plastic straws, plastic stirrers and plastic coffee mugs and to introduce a new deposit return scheme for bottles. Nevertheless, may I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who has done more than all his predecessors combined on this issue, to go further still? Can we look at the types of plastics we are using; attempt to phase out, as quickly as possible, those plastics that cannot be recycled; and commit to narrowing the range of plastics that we use, to make the job easier for those in the recycling industry?

[Dr Coffey]

At the launch of the 25-year environment plan, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister identified that issue of the wide range of polymers used. I assure my hon. Friend that the Government are working, through officials, with the Waste and Resources Action Programme and the UK plastics pact to undertake the research and innovation required for manufacturers to work together to reduce the number of polymers, so that there are fewer of them and they can be recycled more readily.