Plastic Pollution

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, I can actually answer that question. The plastic packaging tax will provide a clear economic incentive for businesses to use recycled material in the production of packaging. Subject to consultation, any business that produces or imports plastic packaging that does not contain at least 30% recycled content will have to pay a tax from 2022. The UK Plastics Pact has pledged to meet the same target of 30% recycled plastics in its packaging by 2025. This is a voluntary arrangement, and of course the Government support it, but we want to ensure that all businesses achieve this ambitious target and that they do so as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness understand why we are so frustrated about this issue? We have debated it here time and again, yet we seem to be stuck in an endless cycle of consultations. There is broad cross-party support right across the country on this, and it would be very popular with the public, so why do the Government not just get on with, for example, introducing a bottle deposit scheme, which all the evidence shows would cut the number of plastic bottles littering our countryside and waterways? As I say, this would be extremely popular. Why the delay?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I agree that many of the things the Government are proposing are extremely popular—these things are popular, and the Government are doing them—but I have to be honest with the noble Baroness: this is a very complicated, complex area and we must not introduce one of these things on its own without looking at the whole environment for recycling plastic. That is why the resources and waste strategy sets out the three different areas—from production to consumption and end of life. We are consulting on the deposit return scheme; we have to make sure that the local authorities are on board and can do it too, and we need to understand exactly what sort of DRS we will have.