Environmental Protection

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 25 November 2024, be approved.

It is a red-letter day, is it not, Madam Deputy Speaker? Back in 2017, the Environmental Audit Committee, which I chaired, reported on the UK’s appalling record on recycling plastic bottles, and recommended the introduction by Government of a deposit return scheme. I have the report and the then Government’s response with me. Previous Governments promised that such a scheme would be put in place, yet here we are. The Conservatives recycled Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs up to seven times, but they did little to reduce the millions of empty plastic containers littering our high streets, washing up on our beaches and polluting our rivers.

We have known for decades that the “take, make, throw” model causes harm. It leads to littering, landfill and incineration. Keep Britain Tidy estimates that two waste streams, plastic bottles and drinks cans, make up 55% of all litter across the UK. When it comes to addressing waste, this Government will not waste time. We are turning back the plastic tide and moving to a circular economy that keeps valuable resources in use for longer.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Minister will know that incinerators are now the dirtiest way in which we generate electricity—dirtier than coal. Further to her Department’s advice note dated 30 December, what will she do to place a moratorium on the construction of new waste burners, thus bringing us in line with more enlightened Administrations—in this respect at least—in Wales and Scotland?

[Mary Creagh]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that we made an announcement on that issue. We will bring forward further guidance and work with local authorities as they examine what is before them, so there will be more to say on this at a later date.

Returning to the issue of getting money back on bottles and cans, deposit return schemes and other such schemes are a well-established method of keeping resources in use for longer. Many of us generation X MPs will remember using these schemes in our school days. Over 50 countries run money-back bottle schemes, creating an incentive to return drinks containers for reuse or recycling. Germany had a 98% return rate—the highest in Europe—in its deposit return scheme last year. I met the Irish Minister Ossian Smyth just last week; Ireland’s deposit return scheme was introduced only in February 2024, and it is already achieving a 90% return rate. The UK is way behind, with collection rates ranging from 71% to 76% for plastic bottles and metal cans. We can, must and will do better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffith]

I hate to intrude on socialist grief, so let me move on.

Business leaders make decisions only when they have considered the context of all external factors, so it is important—I hope the Government agree—that we consider the statutory instrument in the context of the current headwinds faced by British business.

Right now, businesses across the land are working through the tough choices they will have to make to keep their businesses viable in the face of this Government’s job-killing, investment-crushing, growth-destroying Budget, because of choices this Government have made. It was this Government who chose to place enormous burdens on business with their new tax on jobs. It was this Government who chose to halve business rates relief for retail and hospitality. It is this Government who are choosing to push through their Employment Rights Bill, which will increase unemployment, as we saw today, and prevent young people from ever getting their first chance of a job. Business confidence has been knocked down and jobs are at risk, and it is no surprise when we consider that not a single person sat around the Cabinet table has real experience of running a business.

No sectors have been hit harder than retail and hospitality. The British Retail Consortium has said how Labour’s Budget will increase inflation, slow pay growth, cause shop closures—the very shops that will have to participate in this scheme—and reduce jobs. The CBI has said that retail businesses have gone into “crisis containment”. The Institute of Directors found that economic confidence has fallen for a fourth month running—does anyone know what those four months have in common? The number of businesses closing has increased by 64% since the Budget. That is the shocking reality and the context in which the Government seek to bring forward today’s statutory instrument, putting more burdens and more cost on business.

[Dr Murrison]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Government were really serious about reduce, reuse, recycle, they would put a moratorium on the construction of new waste incinerators, as we put in our manifesto in July? If we now had a Conservative Government, there would be no more waste incinerators, including in Westbury, in my constituency, which would be matching what the Welsh and Scots have already done.

[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point—I hope the Government are listening. That measure would not cost the economy anything, unlike this measure, which, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, will cost the economy. In fact, it will represent a £288 million net cost imposed on business every year, which is a £2.7 billion indirect cost over the 10-year appraisal period. It will be another unsustainable cost heaped on business, and an unwelcome addition to the growing headwinds on enterprise that this Government have created.