Business of the House

Chris Davies Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work in this area. She is supporting the Government in looking into such serious violence and will be aware that the Government’s new serious violence strategy is due to be published in the spring. It will look at ways to steer young people away from a life of crime, while putting in place measures to prevent and reduce the effect on victims of serious crime. She asked for an Opposition day and I can assure her, as I assured the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), that Opposition days will be forthcoming in the usual way and in accordance with the Standing Orders of this House.

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

I am sure the whole House will be delighted to hear that Wales’s first zero-waste shop, “Natural Weigh”, opened its doors at the Corn Exchange on the high street of Crickhowell in my constituency earlier this month. May we have a debate on what more the Government can do to ensure more shops follow its example, and therefore help reduce the unnecessary amount of plastic packaging that is doing so much harm to our environment?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I congratulate my hon. Friend’s constituents on this great endeavour and wish them every success with it. The passion with which hon. Members across the House put forward ideas for reducing plastic waste shows that we as consumers as well as our constituents will be very keen to support such measures by retailers. He will be aware that the small retailers associations are now committed themselves to joining in the 5p charge for plastic bags, which will help, and I encourage all hon. Members to support their retailers who are doing so much to ensure we vote with our feet on this subject.