Plastic Waste

Debate between Christina Rees and Ruth Jones

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for calling this debate and providing the House with the opportunity to address our collective responsibility to preserve our planet and protect our environment.

The scourge of plastic waste is evident in communities across the country, thanks to a lost decade of Tory austerity. It is piling up on high streets, on street corners and in our green open spaces. It is also exported, as we have heard, to some of the world’s poorest countries, where what is supposed to be recyclable material ends up in landfill, polluting our oceans, or even being shipped back to Britain for us to deal with. This is a very real problem, and it requires speedy, comprehensive and properly funded solutions.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington will know, as will the Minister, that many of the agencies that should be tackling waste and pollution are underfunded and understaffed. The Environment Agency has struggled to tackle waste crime and monitor waste exports because of the cuts to its budget and staff numbers. Colleagues across the Chamber have mentioned the issues with local authorities, which are struggling to deal with waste effectively.

The Government’s plan to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042 is years behind schedule and appears to contain only weak proposals. Britain’s plastic waste crisis is being kicked into the long grass. That plan reflects what we all know to be true: the Government lack ambition and drive, and are failing in their responsibility to preserve our planet and protect our environment. Talking of the environment, I am very pleased to see the progress that the Environment Bill is making in the other place. It is important legislation that, at every stage, Labour has attempted to strengthen, improve and empower. Regrettably, the Conservative party and Government voted against and defeated every single amendment of ours, including our plans for tackling plastic waste.

The Environment Bill’s provision for a deposit return scheme is limited to certain materials, rather than creating a framework that could be broadened to include more types of plastic or bioplastics. The Bill’s waste and resource efficiency measures are too focused on the end-of-life solutions to waste and recycling; much more emphasis is needed, in a real cyclical economy, on the production side, and on encouraging the reduction of waste in the first place.

The country is crying out for real leadership from the Government. We require proper action now. That action will take many different forms. One important one is building a narrative out in the community. UK supermarkets produce approximately 800,000 tonnes of plastic waste every year, so how are we empowering customers to do away with plastic waste? We heard from the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) about the use of slings and juggling with babies, but we also need to work on other issues, to get everybody to do the same thing.

Although this is a devolved issue, it is important for all parts of the UK because plastic waste in our waterways and our seas does not stop at national borders. Could the Minister outline what recent discussions she has had with the devolved Administrations on a four-nation response to tackling the plastic waste crisis across the countries?

May I suggest that the Minister arranges a meeting with the Welsh Environment Minister at the earliest opportunity? The Welsh Labour Government have led the way on delivering bold policies to tackle single-use plastics. Wales is now recognised as the second most successful recycling country in the world. The Minister does not need to go to Lithuania or even Scotland—she could come to Wales first. There is much for this Government to learn from the Labour Government in Wales, and there is no time like the present to start doing so.

Back in 2019, the resources and waste strategy set out a plan for resource efficiency and a circular economy, which included the ambition for all plastics to be biodegradable. It is clear that environmental damage caused by single-use bags would be somewhat mitigated if there was a requirement for them to be biodegradable. Will the Minister provide us with a progress check on what the Government are doing to stop plastics, including plastic bags, that are not biodegradable, from entering circulation?

Ahead of the debate, I received a very helpful briefing from Wildlife and Countryside Link—I pay tribute to it for all the work it does to shine a light on the issues. The briefing acknowledged recent Government announcements, but they do not go far enough and do not tackle the problem.

I have questions on a couple of policy areas. The primary aim of the deposit return scheme is to increase the recycling rates for drinks containers, and to reduce littering. That is great, but the Government are considering whether to restrict the scope of the scheme to covers only drinks containers under 750 ml in size. That is an issue. We have heard the stats on how the scheme could be improved if there was an on-the-go option. Extended producer responsibility is another area. The Government are right to recognise that it needs a major overhaul. Will the Minister commit today to delivering EPR for packaging by 2023? I have asked a number of questions, and I look forward to the Minister’s response to each and every one.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I call Minister Rebecca Pow. Would you please leave a couple of minutes at the end, so that Elliot Colburn can wind up?

Community Renewal Fund and Levelling Up Fund in Wales

Debate between Christina Rees and Ruth Jones

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Community Renewal Fund and Levelling Up Fund in Wales.

I am very pleased to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Rees. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) for helping to secure this important debate, and Mr Speaker for the opportunity to lead it. The debate gives the House the opportunity to address the broken promises made by Tory Ministers and the empty words of the Prime Minister, who has done nothing but let Wales down. Most important of all, it gives us all a chance to give voice to the thoughts, concerns, needs and wants of the people of Wales. I know my colleagues on this side of the House agree with me, and I suspect that many on the other side do, too, because funding for our communities is vital and much needed, but it is crucial that the funding is transparent, fair and balanced. Its distribution must not be another example of doing to people; we must focus on doing with people. As things stand, the levelling up fund and the community renewal fund fail on both those counts.

The levelling-up fund and the community renewal fund pit nations such as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland against the many regions up and down England. That simply is not good enough. Is it any surprise that the constituencies represented by Cabinet Ministers have received funds ahead of other parts of the United Kingdom? That is what happens when control is left in the hands of Ministers in Whitehall rather than in the hands of local communities up and down the country.

The so-called levelling-up fund will see decisions made in Whitehall rather than Wales, and will be driven by Departments with no history of delivering projects in and across Wales, no record of working with communities in Wales—north, south or mid—and no understanding of the priorities of those communities now or in future. That is why the First Minister of Wales, my right hon. friend Mark Drakeford MS, was correct to say that the Tory attempt to level up the economy in Wales is, simply put,

“a plan made for Wales – without Wales”.

That simply will not do.

I am a very proud member of the Welsh Affairs Committee, where we heard evidence on this subject just a few weeks ago. We heard from four council leaders across Wales, the Minister for Economy in the Welsh Government, the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, and the director of policy, cities and local growth unit—quite a mouthful. Some key themes emerged from that important evidence session: there is not enough money in the pot to replace what Wales currently receives from the EU; there has been insufficient communication; the bidding criteria are not clear, and the mechanisms to decide on successful bids are submerged in confusion and chaos; the element of competitiveness is unwelcome, and Welsh areas are pitted against not just other Welsh areas but England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Those of us living and working in Wales prefer to work collaboratively to get the best for our communities, rather than compete aggressively to win small amounts of funding. Another key theme we found in our evidence session is that the timeline is too short; the deadline for bid submissions is impossibly short. Next week is the deadline for the very first round of bids; that means that councils have to submit shovel-ready projects rather than the most important and useful projects. That is not the best way of working.

When speaking to our Committee, Vaughan Gething made it abundantly clear that the Welsh Government had effectively been cut out of the bidding process completely, and that relationships with the Westminster Government were in a very cool phase at present. But the final part of our evidence session was perhaps the most concerning, as we heard two Government Ministers give different accounts of the bidding process and how the successful bids would be judged. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales was clear that he expected the Wales Office to be involved in the scrutiny of bids, but the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government was adamant that the Wales Office would not be involved, but that his Department would be setting up additional teams of people in Wales to get involved in the process. I am still not clear why this additional layer of bureaucracy is necessary.

The levelling-up fund money is not new money. If it was not being funnelled through this fund, it would have been allocated to Wales through the Senedd, the democratically elected Parliament of the people of Wales, and it would have been allocated in accordance with the priorities of the Senedd, decided by the people of Wales. However, rather than respecting democracy and looking to work with the Welsh Government, Tories in Westminster have decided to trample over our democracy and have by-passed the Senedd completely. That is probably why, at the most recent opportunity the people of Wales had to express their view, they re-elected their Welsh Labour Government for a record sixth term of uninterrupted government. This is true to form for the Tory Ministers on the other side of the House, because they ride roughshod over democracy by taking decisions on devolved matters in Wales and remove most means of being held accountable by creating a system in which the people of Wales will have no say. It is unacceptable.

It is clear to me, and I know to many on this side of the House, that the way this whole sorry affair has been handled shows that the Tories know they have lost the trust and support of the people of Wales. On taking office, the Prime Minister made himself the Minister for the Union. Far from unity, every decision he has made and every step he has taken has sown discord and disunity across our country. As each day passes, the situation and future of the Union grow ever graver. I say this with no relish, but with increasing fear and concern for our Union.

The strong ties of family, faith, support, solidarity and togetherness that bind this Union are continuing to fray because of the failure of Tory Ministers to recognise that unions are formed of voluntary, consenting parties that need and deserve respect. Importantly, as I have already indicated, this Union is made up of four equal and proud partners. Nobody disagrees with the creation of the means to support and empower our communities, by using these funds, but as is so often the case with this Government, it is how it is done—or not done.

These funds could have been a step towards greater, more equal co-operation between Whitehall and the devolved Governments in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh, but it has not happened. That is why I call on the Minister today to give us a reasoned explanation of what is actually going to happen, because we need to know and we need to know now.

The Secretary of State for Wales is a decent man, but it is a matter of regret that his decency has not stopped him from going along with the Prime Minister’s dismissive approach to the Welsh Government, the Senedd, devolution and the devolution settlement. This sits at the door of the Prime Minister, and it is time that he steps up or stops letting Wales down.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

If Back-Bench speakers could confine themselves to five minutes, we should get everyone in. The Opposition spokesperson can speak for 10 minutes, the Minister can speak for 10, and Ruth Jones will have time at the end.