Environment Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will be brief. I put my name down to speak on this group expressly to support Amendment 103—because, given our earlier debates on the office for environmental protection and its independence, I want to test the extreme limits of Defra’s control, if there are any. I would have thought that it is a given that Amendment 103 should be accepted. If it is not, that tells us something about Defra’s controlling nature regarding the work of the office for environmental protection. That is the only point that I want to make.

A subsidiary point is that I also support Amendment 114, and, later today, I will also speak to Amendment 114A, which is effectively a fallback position for the amendment in this group.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, Amendment 114 operates in close relationship to Amendment 78, which we debated on Monday, to which I had attached my name. Both amendments address the relationship between the Armed Forces and the Treasury in the Bill and certain exemptions provided to them.

Amendment 78 and our debate on it talked about exemptions for action; Amendment 114 talks about removing exemptions for disclosure of or access to information. The arguments for the Government to hold their current position and not include this amendment are even weaker when we talk about information—because we are not talking about actual action.

However, it is worth going back to what the Minister said in the debate on Monday, which can help to inform this amendment. He said that including Amendment 78

“could restrict our response to urgent threats. Policy decisions concerning defence are often made rapidly, or even in real time”—[Official Report, 28/6/21; col. 579.]

due to “urgent … operational imperatives”. In that debate, we talked about a couple of interesting case studies: a new housing estate and, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned, a pile being driven into a creek because it might assist in the mooring of submarines. Neither of these in any way fits the definition of urgent defence imperative.

However, I acknowledge that there are occasions on which there may be a need to, perhaps, put in some very urgent flood defences or build a pandemic hospital—the kinds of security threats that we are now facing on a regular basis—so it may be necessary to act urgently. However, I come back to that debate on Amendment 78, in which the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, cited some detailed legal material, saying that the precautionary principle, which those who are seeking to amend the Bill desire, “already includes proportionality”. Of course, if something is needed for an urgent matter of national defence, clearly it would be proportionate to act as necessary. It would not be unreasonable to then provide information about what damage had been done in terms of defence. I cannot think what one might conceivably claim regarding why information should not be provided about the damage that the Treasury might have had to do to the environment for whatever reason, if one can possibly imagine such a thing.

We are talking a lot today about openness and informing the public about what is being done to the environment. In that context, Amendment 114—I still stand by Amendment 78 in some combination when we get to Report—is essential.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Duke of Montrose (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Curry, with his deep scientific knowledge of agriculture and soils. I declare my interests: my family runs a livestock farm and owns a series of SSSIs in two areas of nature reserves.

In this clause, we get to define the extent and, where necessary, the boundaries of what we want the Bill to influence. On soils, I support my noble friend Lord Caithness’s Amendment 110, which is necessary because the government strategy for carbon sequestration is considerably dependent on the soil and peat. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will respond positively to either of these amendments.

I will produce a quote from a rather different angle: 300 years ago, in Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift expressed the old saying that

“whoever could make ... two blades of grass … grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”

That was in his day. This has inspired our farmers for 300 years. To me, it is an environmental principle, but in the Bill the Government have given us as their environmental principles a set of prohibitions, protections and penalties.

The judgment, from the measures contained in the Bill, is that that earlier principle has now gone too far. The protections listed will be necessary, but we need to be sure that our purpose is not simply to put all the processes of the countryside into decline. It would be nice if someone could come up with a phrase that would draw all our aspirations together and point the way forward. The outcome will hang on the wording in these clauses and what we interpret as the meaning of “natural environment”.

I support Amendment 113, in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh and the others who have signed it. This draws our attention to the whole marine biosphere, an area that is under great threat at the moment. It is essential that this is not overlooked. The various marine organisations are still drawing up their inventories of what is in the natural environment at present, and a great deal of expense and research will have to be dedicated to that area. I too served on the EU Environment Sub-Committee that my noble friend Lady McIntosh mentioned, and I contributed to the work that was put in. There are huge areas where we have hardly any information.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh spoke of the importance of the marine area to the UK. In December, Scotland published its latest marine assessment report, which has to be updated every three years and which, in turn, covers an area six times greater than the Scottish landmass—so biodiversity is a very important field for that Administration.

At the same time, the Bill will incorporate the policies of species abundance and the encouragement of biodiversity. We have spent so much time discussing targets. Given the role that mankind has taken upon itself over the centuries, targets are necessary. The Secretary of State can introduce almost unlimited targets under the Bill, but Clause 3 has a number of subsections that must be observed if the Secretary of State wishes to reduce them.

However, there is no requirement for the Secretary of State to pay any attention to taking actions if a crisis develops when one element becomes prolific or threatening and the need to cull numbers requires some urgency. The nearest experience that I have had did not have the urgency in question: it was decided that the deer population in the huge Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, which is next door to me, was well above what was good for forestry purposes and that it should be reduced to four deer per square kilometre. They then set about culling 4,000 deer out of this area, which is not something that I would readily support, but it was a necessary management action and is an indication of what might be required if proliferation becomes extreme. In the spirit of the Bill, it will always be preferable to employ nature-based solutions, but, if diseases or threats to biodiversity occur, we must be prepared to act in whatever way will be effective.

My noble friend Lord Caithness’s second amendment raises the important question of defining biodiversity. “Biodiversity” in the Bill seems limited to the abundance of species, particularly in Amendment 22, moved by my noble friend the Minister on day 2 of our deliberations. Amendment 113B would mean that attention could be given to how far biodiversity should be supported.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to offer the Green group’s support for all the amendments in this group, which have given us the opportunity of an important debate about what we are trying to save, what we are trying to protect and what we are trying to improve.

Amendment 110, in the names of the noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Shrewsbury, and my noble friend Lady Jones and myself, proposes that soil be regarded as a habitat. I will address it with Amendment 112 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, that it perhaps does not matter so much where “soil” appears; it needs to appear somewhere. I would suggest that a very simple solution which the department could implement easily would be to go through the Bill and look everywhere where “water” and “air” appear and add “soil”. I doubt that there would be many problems when one looked at the result. We are of course revisiting our debate on day 1 of this Committee—which now feels like quite a long time ago—about Clause 1 and an amendment in my name which would have added soil as an important target. It needs to be in all these places.

I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, will forgive me if I pre-empt a little what she is perhaps going to say, but it is so important that it needs to be highlighted. I saw that she was speaking to the Secretary of State at Groundswell. During that discussion, it was said that soil health was perhaps the most important thing and would be the focus of the sustainable farming initiative. Perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us more about that; it would be very interesting. The Government themselves identify soil as a huge priority. As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and many others have said, we are talking about how the Agriculture Act and the Environment Bill fit together. The Agriculture Act provides directions on the methods of action; this Bill judges how successful it has been.

I have circulated to a number of noble Lords—I realise that I neglected to circulate it to the Minister, for which I apologise and I will fix it shortly—a briefing paper that I received from a number of farmers, academics and farm advisers on the difficulty of being paid for results in managing soil health. It makes an argument for payment for practice instead, with the three key things identified as minimising soil disturbance, maximising soil cover and maximising diversity of cover. All are clearly good things to work towards, but we need to measure how the results come out, and that has to be in the Bill.

Following the coverage from Groundswell, there was a lot of discussion and excitement about work done on worms. There is perhaps an argument for the number of worms per square metre being a very good measure. I am not putting that forward entirely as a serious proposal although it is certainly something to look at, but I would point the Minister to the publication last week of a volume entitled Advances in Measuring Soil Health, edited by Professor Wilfred Otten from Cranfield University. It is a real sign of how much this field is moving forward. That brings me back to our discussion on Clause 1, when the Minister, in arguing why soil should not be included in the clause, said that

“the Government are working collaboratively with technical experts to identify appropriate soil health metrics … it is a complicated business”—[Official Report, 21/6/21; cols. 94-95.]

and that they were looking to develop a healthy soils indicator as part of the 25-year environment plan. This is a matter of extreme urgency and focus, as identified by the Secretary of State; it cannot wait for something off into the far distance. A great deal of new work is available now; a great deal of ideas are available now. The first metric that we end up with may not be perfect, but we need a metric, and if that needs to be improved in future, so be it. It could be dealt with by regulation, as the Government so like to tell us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, briefly, I offer my support to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and thank her for tabling it and for sharing the very useful Bar Council briefing. I shall just draw a couple of points from that and make an additional point of my own.

One point to draw from that briefing is that there is a broad definition of environmental information within the Aarhus convention. The briefing rather weighs on some of our earlier debates, noting that it includes a non-exhaustive list of elements of the environment: air, water and soil. It also includes cultural sites and built structures, which very much weighed on a debate on day three perhaps—it all blurs—but one that we had earlier on the inclusion of culture within the frame of the Bill, for which noble Lords on all sides of the Committee strongly argued.

I also wanted to draw attention to the other point of the Aarhus convention, which says that

“public authorities may not withhold information, except for”—

and then follows what one would think of as a fairly standard list of exemptions. There is a very important restriction on those exemptions, which is that

“commercial confidentiality may not be invoked to withhold information that is relevant to the protection of the environment”.

Given the level of privatisation of so many aspects of our management of our environment—water companies come to mind most clearly, but there are many others—that may be a very important protection to ensure that this is fully included and complied with. It is worth noting that we are talking about an international convention to which we signed up, but we have recently had a lot of encounters in which the Government do not seem to regard themselves as being bound by international law and matters to which they have signed up.

My final point is the real, life-and-death seriousness of this. I shall refer to a case to which many people, including my noble friend, have referred to previously, which is the tragic death of nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah. I want to quote just one sentence from the coroner’s conclusion, which said:

“There was a lack of information given to Ella’s mother that possibly contributed to her death.”


Very often, when people are thinking about information about the environment being available, they are thinking in broad public health terms—they are thinking of campaigners, whom the Green Party is often supporting, fighting big issues. We are also talking about matters of life and death, and people being able to protect themselves and their children if information is available to them.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for allowing us to have this brief debate. She has rightly raised the fact that the OEP should have some continuing role in monitoring and factoring in our obligations under international environmental law. These obligations, including Aarhus, still exist despite us leaving the EU—and these are not technical questions, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, as just illustrated so vividly. If the Government are not minded to accept this amendment, it would be helpful if they could spell out how the role of the OEP and its enforcement functions with regard to our international obligations will appear in the Bill. I therefore look forward to the Minister’s response.

However, since I have the floor, I briefly echo the concerns of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, about all the business on the Bill ending up at Report. I just say very kindly to the Minister that, in the past, it has been a much more iterative process. It is really not very helpful that the Minister seems to be giving us a blanket no to all the amendments we are debating. Normally, there is a little more give and take. Everyone has their own way of doing things, and he must develop his own style, but I fear that he is storing up more problems than is necessary at Report if he does not take the Chamber with him. This might just be a matter of tone, but I give him just a little helpful advice about how we might proceed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I want to speak to my own Amendment 128, which goes back even further into the depths of this Bill to Schedule 6. It is a probing amendment in many ways, and very mild, just to tease out where the Government stand on this. Although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said so well, this seems to be a very technical area, these issues are absolutely essential in making the future circular economy, and everything we want in terms of resource efficiency, actually to work and become public friendly—and the way that it faces the public becoming friendly as well.

It comes down to labels. We have had some mention of labels already, particularly from my noble friends Lady Scott and Lord Bradshaw. What I am trying to get at here is that there are provisions, rightly, for the Secretary of State to be able to make regulations about such things as labels on products, but what it does not do is suggest that there should be some consistency about that labelling so that we all find that interface useful, friendly and usable.

I am thinking of two other areas in particular. When I put the laundry into the washing machine at home, there is the occasional garment that I do not have a clue how it should be washed. So what do I do? I look at the label on the garment that has all those little symbols that tell me how I should wash this—at what temperature and all that sort of information. It might tell me not to wash it at all, but to dry-clean it instead. Over the years, I have got to know those symbols. Everybody else has: they are actually fairly international rather than national; I am not even asking for them to be international. Through that, we get to know what we should do.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who mentioned electrical appliances. Whether it be a dishwasher or a dryer, they also have labels that give an energy efficiency rating. That has been so successful that we have had to reinvent or restate what the most efficient levels are, because people have got to know them and simply go for green rather than red.

This amendment is merely offering a suggestion to the Government. It would give the Secretary of State the power to ensure that labelling on goods in the system that will become part of the circular economy is consistent, so that everybody gets to understand the symbols and they are therefore effective. We should not have a wide range of different labels from different manufacturers, or different systems, which would confuse consumers. In labelling, we need consistency, good design and systems that have been tried and tested, and last. As, I think, my noble friend Lady Scott said, this will make sure that people who want to do right can achieve that.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I rise chiefly to speak to Amendment 292, which appears in my name and has the backing of the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I thank them all for their support and note that a number of other noble Lords would have signed this amendment had there been space.

I was simply going to speak to my amendment, but I must briefly and strongly commend Amendment 119, which was so ably moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, highlighted in a previous group that I had focused on the word “urgent” a lot. With this amendment the noble Baroness has really driven home the need for urgent action. We have a plastic and waste-choked planet and nation that cannot take any more: it cannot take the volumes we are imposing on it every day.

Amendment 292 is about nappies. That might sound like a minor issue but I hope that by the time I have finished, noble Lords will understand that it is not. Before I begin, I declare my position as vice-president of the Local Government Association, since that will become relevant. For full transparency, I declare that I have worked on this amendment with, and many noble Lords will have received briefings from, the Nappy Alliance, which represents makers of reusable nappies. Supporting a green industry and working with it is not something I am going to make any apologies for, but I think it is important we acknowledge such ties and where the resources come from.

On average, each single-use or disposable nappy generates 550 kilos of carbon dioxide throughout its whole lifecycle, from production to disposal. From birth to stopping using nappies, an average child will use the equivalent of 15,000 plastic bags and half a tree in fluff. This is why the Local Government Association is relevant: at a local level, single-use nappies account for some 4% of residual waste in England. That is 3 billion nappies each year, and it costs local authorities £600 million a year to dispose of them. When such nappies are sent to landfill it takes 300 years—roughly 12 generations—for them to break down. Incinerating them gives rise to significant carbon emissions and local air pollution levels, an issue we keep coming back to. This is where my amendment links to that tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw: single-use nappies often end up contaminating waste for recycling because of misleading labels and consumer confusion. Many people do not realise they contain plastic, and think they are a kind of paper.

By way of contrast, reusable nappies use 98% fewer raw materials and generate 99% less waste. They save the equivalent of 17 plastic bags per day. Here, I think I need to dispel some misunderstandings. As we have seen in many other areas of health and environment where there are powerful industry interests, there has been a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about environmental impacts and comparative environmental impacts. In March 2021, in a report I would be happy to share with any noble Lord who is interested, the United Nations Environment Programme published a comparison between single-use nappies and reusables. It concluded that reusable nappies had a lower environmental impact across all trial scenarios when compared to single-use nappies.

Michael Gove seems to be coming up a lot this evening. Back in 2018, he did actually suggest that disposable nappies might be banned. In a very rare occurrence, I am not going to go as far as Michael Gove did in 2018. When people are travelling or when there is a new babysitter, for example, there may be an argument for the occasional use of single-use nappies, but it should not be the norm.

This brings me to some other aspects of the amendment that really start to address how we change the situation. There are some really good local authority small-scale practical schemes that are helping people change to using reusable nappies and get away from single-use nappies. Often, they are based on nappy libraries—frequently run by volunteers, most usually women—which have a range of nappies that families can try out. People can see which ones are suitable before they spend money. Many local authorities—by no means all and by no means extensively—offer schemes that can help families to purchase reusable nappies. The problem is, of course, that when you have a new and growing baby, you need a set of nappies, which is a big initial outlay beyond the reach of many people. Subsection (8) of my amendment would allow the Secretary of State to make regulations for a levy to be paid by nappy manufacturers to fund a scheme to help people use reusable nappies. We are talking about ensuring that people can afford to buy them and that they have access to understanding and knowledge—nappy libraries also share information about how to use nappies and what the best ones are.

There is a comparison here. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, talked about energy labels on packaging, and that is partly what this amendment calls for. But in fact, it is a bit like cigarette packets, for which we have labelling and pricing that acknowledges the cost of the product that applies to all of us.

So, I strongly commend this amendment to the Minister. I point out that I have probably been approached by more noble Lords on this amendment than on any other I have tabled—and I have tabled some with very wide-reaching effects. This issue is of great interest to people for many reasons. One, of course, is something I am sure we will be referring to a lot in the next few hours: litter. There is a big problem with litter from single-use nappies. It is a deeply unpleasant thing. I am sure most noble Lords have been volunteer litter pickers in some form or another, and it is not a pleasant thing to encounter when doing that.

What we are talking about here is changing things to make life better. It is about the kind of systems thinking that I very often refer to. This is the Environment Bill, and when we talk about the environment people ask if we can we afford the cost of this or that measure. If we can help most families to use single-use nappies, that would save them, on average, £11 a week. That is a lot of money to many families—money that could be spent on healthier food or on taking off some of the stress and pressure. This amendment has environmental and social benefits: it is a win-win. If the Minister is being pressured to offer some yeses, here is an easy win.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I have spoken on fly-tipping many times before in your Lordships’ House, so I will not repeat that. Given what other noble Lords have said, there is little left to say. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for introducing these amendments. She has my total support.

My noble friend Lord Ridley is absolutely right: the problem has got worse in the last 15 months. It was bad when I talked about it on the Agriculture Bill, but it is considerably worse now. I can only add to what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, just said, and that, if a farmer finds somebody dumping stuff in their field, they are often threatened. I know of a farmer who accosted somebody who was dumping rubbish in their field. The person turned on him and said, “Don’t do anything. We know your children. We know your children’s names and where they go to school”. These amendments are very necessary.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I join every speaker in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for tabling these amendments and offer my support. Rather than repeating what has been said, I will make a few extra points.

The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred to fridges. There is a term I am not sure I have heard mentioned in this debate and an issue that needs to come up the agenda, which is planned obsolescence. We have seen many products last less and less time. I had a fridge that died after seven years, and I went on social media to have a big grumble about it. Lots of people told me I was lucky it had lasted that long. We are seeing lots of fridges being dumped, but for how long were they made to last? If we go back to the manufacturer or maker of the product, we are heading in the right direction.

How much farmers are suffering from this problem has been stressed already. According to a 2020 NFU survey, nearly 50% of farmer respondents had suffered from fly-tipping. So it is a huge issue for farmers, but also for many other people responsible for land. Since the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, is not speaking on this group, I will refer to the Woodland Trust which, in the seven years to June 2020, had spent more than £1 million cleaning up fly-tipping. We are looking at organisations like that.

We also have not mentioned manufacturers and commercial companies—not just fake disposal companies but companies not disposing of industrial waste appropriately. I refer to a case that just came up in the last few days. For the third time, in a similar location, Colchester council found a leaking drum containing what was clearly a noxious substance. It cost £2,000 each time to dispose of that drum properly—I should declare my vice-presidency of the LGA here—costs that the council has to bear. We have a widespread problem. We tend to say that it is individual householders but, as this debate has brought out, it is important to say that this problem is much broader.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as a rural resident and minor landowner, I very much welcome the opportunity to debate this issue. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for raising it. Fly-tipping is by any standards a national scourge, and in places it occurs on what might be called an industrial scale. It really is a problem that we have to address.

My noble kinsman, the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, made all the points I would have made, except that I will reiterate something I mentioned at Second Reading. This business of landowner responsibility comes about by virtue of the environment Act of I think 1990. It was not just a question of polluter pays; if the polluter could not be found then the owner of the land was responsible. This always seemed manifestly unjust. It really does need to be dealt with.

I very much appreciate the notion that there should be some sort of co-responsibility, perhaps by putting sums into a fund that would enable this to be funded and operated by an NGO or by local government—I am not sure which; I do not wish to impose burdens on anybody. That seems to be one of the principles.

Some fly-tipping does not involve grab lorries that disgorge 20-tonne loads at a time, which is clearly an industrial-type process. People must have HGV licences and there are operators in places where these vehicles are legally stationed and parked up. There is quite a lot at stake for them if they are caught out. CCTV footage having to be disclosed should be unnecessary for this sort of thing. After all, one is dealing with the apprehension of a criminal act. It should be exposed as that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, referred to obsolescence. I quite agree with that point. Having nursed a domestic appliance to its 27th year before it finally had to be taken away when its replacement arrived, I know exactly what she means. One of the ways that we need to deal with waste in particular, and plastic especially, is to lengthen the life of the product or make it multiuse or dual purpose. I am not saying that is the case for a washing machine or a household white good, but it can be for many other things.

I admit that I am a beneficiary of some of this perhaps less criminal but less well-informed fly-tipping. One of my gateways greatly benefited from a pile of clean rubble dumped in my woodland. I scooped it up and stuck it where it was actually useful. On another occasion not so very many months ago, I gained a clean and unruptured bag of cement, which, in this time of cement shortages and shortages of many other building materials, I was quite glad of.

However, this rather suggests that there is a huge amount of ignorance. If we had better sorting and recycling of some of this material, we would all be better off, but many household and other recycling facilities do not allow commercial vehicles in. As I said, if you are a householder you might have to book a slot to deposit your waste. This seems a significant indicator of a lack of capacity, but there is also a lack of imagination in how we deal with these things.

Ultimately, it has to become socially unacceptable to do this, so that the only socially acceptable thing is to ring up or look through Yellow Pages, for example, to get somebody to remove your household waste. There has be a certification process, rather like Checkatrade, that tells you that these people are certified, have the proper credentials and will dispose of your stuff safely and not just dump it somewhere between here and the municipal disposal facility, because they can save themselves £100 or £200 in so doing. We need to be a bit more alert when setting about dealing with this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I will be brief. I just want to point out that we have apparently thrown away—I have checked this in lots of sources—3 million face masks every minute across the world. It means, in a way, that we cannot trust ourselves in what we think about plastic. We have to get firm and do something very serious about this, which is why I have put my name to Amendment 139.

I also support Amendment 141A about getting rid of sachets. If we do not legislate, we do not innovate. Unilever, for instance, has come up with a new seaweed-based thing to make sachets out of, which genuinely completely composts or fades away in water without any damage. Right now, the supermarkets have a free rein. Iceland has done its best but voluntary contributions never work. I have spoken about this before, but the relationship of single-use plastic to food waste is massive, because vegetables are wrapped up and you get too many—for example, you get five courgettes in a packet when you wanted one. This is a great way to get you to spend more money and creates waste all the way down the line.

I shall not go on with the statistics; everyone has come up with so many of them. All I want to say is that I once sat next to Liam Donaldson and he said that he did not sleep the night before he announced the smoking ban in Great Britain. He thought he would be the most unpopular man in Britain, but by lunchtime the next day he was the most popular man in Britain because it was what everyone wanted. The truth is, people hate plastic. Everybody moans about it; it does not matter whether you are talking to a reader of the Sun or the Daily Mail. This is a universal dislike and we want the Government to do something serious.

It needs a combination of taxes and a complete ban on single-use plastic. Around the world, 69 countries have done just that: they have banned it. If you ban it, you get innovation. Just before the pandemic, I was in India. The amount of plastic plus waste in India, which is introducing a ban from next year, is quite astonishing. One of the disastrous reasons is that there are no vultures left; they have all died because they have eaten plastic as well as the various antibiotics that were fed into cattle. One of the bizarre consequences is that at the Tower of Silence in Mumbai, a Parsi temple, there are no longer any vultures to eat the dead, so they have to be fried by solar panels. This is a really weird consequence and we are doing this with masks at the moment. Three million a minute are going into our system.

This is why you cannot trust voluntary regulations of any nature and why the Government have to seize this year of COP and the biodiversity conference and do something. We know what plastic does to our nature. We will all be proud—noble Lords will be proud and will all wake up as the most popular men in Britain.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. Since she started on international issues, in speaking to Amendment 140 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, also signed by my noble friend, I will point out that in April Washington state became the seventh US state to ban takeaway polystyrene containers. Australia is planning to be rid of them by mid-2022 and Costa Rica has a ban coming in this year, so I will have to come back to that much loved government phrase “world-leading” as there is some catching up to do here on polystyrene takeaway containers in particular. I will also point out that the National Research Council in the US has found these containers can

“reasonably be anticipated to be a human carcinogen”.

This is a real no-brainer.

In 2016 a group of chefs, including some of the usual celebrity names you might expect, were calling on the London mayor to ban polystyrene as the scourge of Soho. This problem is urban, rural, marine and general—it is truly a problem everywhere. All of plastic is a problem but polystyrene is a particularly pernicious problem and this would be an easy win, as we now all keep offering the Minister.

Finally, to pick up the point of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, he perhaps underestimates the degree to which plastic really is a much-hated material. None the less, I entirely agree with him that when it comes to the waste pyramid, “reduce” is by far the best option. I hope that when we get to Report, he might think about backing my amendment, which I will be revisiting in some form. Rather than talking about resource efficiency, we should be talking about a reduction of resources.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has withdrawn, so the next speaker will be the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, wishes to speak after the Minister, so I call her now.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I have a very simple question. The Minister referred to the Government already having power to ban materials such as certain sorts of polystyrene containers. Do they have any plans to take such action?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Do we have plans? We are committed to extending our bans on unnecessary single-use packaging and have a 25-year environment plan to phase out all unnecessary use of plastic, not just single-use plastic, so in that sense, yes, we do have a plan. The noble Baroness is right that there will need to be continuous pressure. I think that pressure will continue to grow from consumers, voters and from parliamentarians of all parties to accelerate those bans and expand their remit. From my point of view, I have ambition and hope that we will expand that approach as far and wide as we possibly can and as quickly as we can.