Draft Environmental Protection (Wet Wipes Containing Plastic) (England) Regulations 2025

Debate between Angela Eagle and Stella Creasy

Monday 3rd November 2025 General Committees

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We have had a small but perfectly formed debate on a measure that has gathered cross-party agreement, partly because of the power of the argument about the damage that microplastics do. I particularly compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Putney on her long-standing and very powerful advocacy in this area: she should be very proud of the effect that her campaigning has had.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park has sold the beauty of her constituency in a way that I have never quite managed. I look forward to a time when she can talk about the unalloyed pleasures of the nature and beauty of her constituency without having to get us all involved in contemplating 180 tonnes of fatberg caused by 5 million wet wipes, but I also observe that 11 million wet wipes, or possibly more, are used a year. That is two fatbergs a year, created by the kind of waste that we are talking about banning.

I acknowledge that, as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex pointed out, banning wet wipes that contain plastic will not stop the formation of fatbergs in our sewer system, because any wet wipe can contribute to that, as indeed can pouring oil down the sewer system. We therefore have much more work to do, not least on labelling and the “Do not flush” approach to the wet wipes that will remain even after the ban is brought into force. I compliment the hon. Gentleman for pointing out to me some of the issues with the Department, which I joined not so long ago; I will take those back so that future statutory instruments can get through his Committee unscathed. I note the points that he made about those that have not quite reached the standard of technical excellence of this one.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether we would have been able to introduce this statutory instrument if we had been in the EU. My information is that we would. The EU is not actually banning wet wipes at the moment; it is doing plastic versus non-plastic labelling. Perhaps the EU is beginning to go down the path that we have pioneered.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

In a minute.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Of course, and that is why I will give way to my hon. Friend. I think that the EU is perhaps beginning some tentative steps along the same pathway that, thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Putney, we are pioneering.

[Ms Creasy]

I know that the Minister, like me, will want to reassure the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex, who has previously expressed grave concern that somehow working with our European counterparts would not help us to abolish taxes on tampons, for example. Let me reassure him that the single-use plastics directive, which was made in 2019—after we voted to leave the European Union, admittedly, but before we left—would facilitate this work. Indeed, the Netherlands and Spain are already progressing their own bans. The European Union is—as it always was—simply a springboard to making decisions at a local level. We are ahead of the curve here in the United Kingdom, but working with the European Union would not prevent us from doing this work. I am sure that that will entirely reassure the hon. Member.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I am in awe of my hon. Friend’s detailed knowledge of EU directives that were passed after we left. I am sure that she remains in dynamic alignment with what is going on in Europe.

I want to spend a little time answering the questions of the hon. Member for Epping Forest. Enforcement will be proportionate. The 18-month transition period is pretty generous, as far as transition periods go. We are certainly hoping that with the signals that have been given and with the ban coming in, the industry will be able to adjust. We also encourage it to innovate so that we can get plastic out of the remaining wet wipes that, for the time being, the exemptions in the statutory instrument allow. It is a pragmatic statutory instrument, as the hon. Gentleman says.

The hon. Gentleman asked how enforcement would work. It will be on sellers and suppliers, not on individuals. There will certainly be no one knocking on doors and checking people’s pantries to see whether they have an old supply of wet wipes with plastic in. At least, that is not the Government’s intention; if anyone were on the receiving end of that treatment, it would certainly be an overreach not allowed under this statutory instrument. With all those qualifications, I hope that the Committee will agree to the draft regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Environmental Protection (Wet Wipes Containing Plastic) (England) Regulations 2025.

Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings

Debate between Angela Eagle and Stella Creasy

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The right hon. Lady is talking about the prime contractor, which in this case is Clearsprings Ready Homes. As with the other two contractors, the break clauses are with it. We have approval or not of sub-prime contractors. Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd is a sub-prime contractor, and as the Home Office we have withdrawn our approval for it to be in the supply chain.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The shadow Home Secretary has a nerve to come to this House and make that argument when we in the communities saw the damage that the contract he managed did to the public purse. Shall we revisit some of those greatest hits? His contract put councils and Clearsprings against each other, pushing up prices and making it impossible for local communities to help those housed there. He caused absolute chaos.

I have in my hand one of the letters that the hon. Gentleman’s Government were presenting to people who were refugees, giving them less than five days’ notice of where they were being moved, meaning that school places had to be hastily reorganised and children had to be hastily re-clothed because of the decisions he made on public funds. Absolutely no savings were made in the way in which he managed the contracts.

Will my hon. Friend make a commitment and a pledge to all of us who have had to deal with Clearsprings and its chaotic management that when she has the opportunity to renegotiate the contract, or possibly even break it for good, she will put public value for money first and not repeat the chaos of the shadow Home Secretary?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We are doing all that we can with the existing contracts to drive value for money, and we are also looking to pilot some other potential alternatives to supply.

Immigration and Home Affairs

Debate between Angela Eagle and Stella Creasy

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Dame Angela Eagle)]

Hon. Members would not think that the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) was in the Government that presided over a Parliament in which living standards were lower at the end than at the beginning. They would not think that this is a man who presided over a hash of a Government that had eight Home Secretaries, five Prime Ministers and 10 Education Secretaries all within a few years. To listen to him, hon. Members would think that he was still on the Government Benches, lecturing us about the fantastic record that his party has delivered for this country when, actually, he has just lost an election by a landslide.

It is a great pleasure to respond to this debate on the King’s Speech. We have had a fascinating debate, of the type that we can only really have at the beginning of a Parliament, particularly a landslide Parliament where the Government have changed. We have had 20 maiden speeches today, which means that we have had 68 over the past five days of the debate on the King’s Speech. From listening to the contributions from all sides of the House that we have been privileged to hear today, I know that in this Parliament the new Members on the Government Benches will drive the Government forwards, and those on the Opposition Benches will hold them to account. I certainly look forward to being a part of it.

I congratulate all those Members who have made their maiden speeches today, including the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), who was the police and crime commissioner in his area. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) explained how beautiful her constituency is and how she was trying to make it even more sustainable. Her commitment to equity and public health shone through. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson), an old mate of mine, made Gateshead sound as interesting as I knew it was. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) mentioned Janet Anderson, one of his predecessors, who came to the House when I first arrived. His comments on the Boundary Commission were heard with empathy across the entire House.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who came in and did his usual. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), who paid tribute to her predecessor Peter Gibson, who is a particularly good friend and had many friends across the House, who were all sad to lose him. She gave us another gastronomic tour of her constituency. Not being able to eat at all while listening to the debate, and listening to 20 maiden speeches with massive amounts of information about the food offering in those constituencies, has been a bit of a torture for me.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), who also did the food thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) told us she is proud of her parents, and her insights into working class aspirations and success will have struck many a chord on the Government Benches. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), who I learned is one of seven Joshes who have flooded into the House of Commons after the election. He presented us with a particular nightmare of actually defeating the teacher who taught him when he was 15. That would be a nightmare for any of the teachers on the Labour Benches. Just be careful who you teach at school—you never know what might happen in future.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan), who made a fitting tribute to her predecessor, the right hon. Margaret Hodge, who is a particular friend and inspiration for a lot of us. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) made a superb speech. We heard from the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam). My hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) was particularly fast in talking about his transferrable skills as a golf professional, and transferring them over to being an MP. We look forward to claret jugs arriving to ensure he can make friends of us all.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) was particularly thoughtful about Alex Chalk, whom he defeated and who, again, was well liked across the House. We also heard from the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox). My hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) talked about the differences between the Scottish Parliament and this Parliament. I am sure he will continue to see differences as they emerge, but he is right that this place is indeed older and more complex. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) made a very good maiden speech, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Bellshill (Frank McNally). Last but my no means least, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) had to wait over six hours to make her contribution and did not waste a word of it. They all showed that the House continues to go from strength to strength.

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will have heard the concern across the House about the Conservatives’ two-child cap on benefits. Because it exists, in the past year alone 3,000 women have had to fill in a form to admit to the Department for Work and Pensions that they have been raped and had a child that was non-consensual. That is more than the number of rape convictions under the last Government. Can she assure us that that form and that approach has no future under this Labour Government?