Plastic Bags

David Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on securing this important debate and on how he introduced it. I found it useful that other hon. Members who wished to take part were able to intervene on him, so that there was a genuine debate rather than simply a dialogue between the two of us.

I have had form on this issue going back a long time—to before I was a Minister, when I worked for environmental non-governmental organisations. I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that I am aware of the problem and eager to do something about it—and that goes for the Government, too.

The Government are committed to promoting a strong and growing economy in which all resources are fully valued and waste is minimised. That is good for business and good for the environment. To achieve it, everyone has a role to play. That is true across the whole waste agenda, but nowhere more so, I suspect, than in relation to single-use carrier bags. We all have the opportunity to change our behaviour to ensure that fewer bags end up in landfill or as litter.

[Mark Pawsey]

Does the Minister acknowledge that plastic carrier bags are part of an important industry? The packaging industry employs 85,000 people in the UK, is responsible for a turnover of £11 billion and represents 3% of the manufacturing industry.

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[Mr Heath]

Of course I appreciate that, which is why I made the point in my opening remarks about the balance between the economy and the environment. We can secure a successful synthesis of the two.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I want to add to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey). Of the bags used in this country, 90% are manufactured in Asia, not the UK.

[Mr Heath]

This is a very instructive debate. Members have come armed with a huge number of statistics that they are happy to trade across the Floor, which is all to the benefit of the debate.

We all have the opportunity to change our behaviour to ensure that fewer bags end up in landfill or as litter. Notwithstanding the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), reducing the number of bags that we use would be a step towards more responsible living that also encourages people to think about the resources that we use. Aside from the potential ecological problems such bags cause when disposed of irresponsibly, it is incredibly wasteful to produce billions of them each year to be discarded after a single use. We continue to encourage the reuse of bags wherever possible.

All bags have an environmental impact, irrespective of their composition. Reusing them as many times as possible and disposing of them appropriately when they cannot be used any more minimises that impact.

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady wants to intervene. I shall let her do so before I continue.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene. I was being a little impatient, because he said that he encourages people to reduce waste and not use plastic bags. Could he concretely say how that encouragement finds its way down to ordinary people? It is true that they have the opportunity to reduce waste, but they are not doing it enough.

[Mr Heath]

They are not, and I will return to that in a moment.

There are those who are clear about their obligations and will use reusable bags whenever they have the opportunity. There are some who it will always be difficult to reach, because they simply do not want to hear the message. Then there are what I call the “guilty middle”; they will use reusable bags, and want to do so, whenever they can, but they sometimes turn up—as, I confess, I occasionally do—at a supermarket and find that they have forgotten the bag that they intended to take and have to take a plastic bag. The sort of measure that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park proposes might affect that large, guilty group in the middle, who want to do the right thing and feel guilty when they do not.

We have had lots of figures already, so I will add a few more. In 2011, around 8 billion thin-gauge plastic carrier bags—single-use carrier bags—were issued in the UK. If you include reusable bags, such as bags-for-life, the total figure is about 8.4 billion bags issued in the UK. Obviously, that is a very large number.

We have made some progress in recent years. The first voluntary agreement with retailers between 2006 and 2008, which has been mentioned, reduced the overall environmental impact of carrier bags by about 40%. Signatories to the agreement encouraged the reuse of carrier bags, increased their recycled content and reduced their weight, among other measures. A second agreement with supermarkets between 2006 and 2009 focused on reducing the number of bags distributed, and achieved a total reduction of 48% against the 2006 baseline. That is progress. We should not forget that.

Supermarkets and shoppers pulled together to reduce the number of carrier bags they were using. Despite some evidence of a reversal in the trend, the latest figures, for 2011, show an overall decline in bag usage of 32% compared with 2006. I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby said about the contribution that carrier bags make to landfill. He is right that they are not a large part of the total waste stream, but it is not possible to argue that plastic bags, particularly when they litter our towns and countryside, are not an unwanted eyesore. They represent 72,000 tonnes of waste entering the waste stream.

Aside from the impact that carrier bags have on wildlife, marine environments and our countryside and coast, no one travelling around our countryside wishes to see carrier bags in the trees or floating down the lanes. It is all avoidable if we, the public and retailers do the right thing by reducing the use of single-use bags. We all have a part to play.

Some retailers are taking positive action, with initiatives such as voluntary charging, rewarding shoppers for reusing bags by awarding loyalty points, offering front-of-store recycling and increasing the amount of recycled content in the bags. Although recycling is further down the waste hierarchy, after prevention and reuse, it is still important to improve recycling rates for carrier bags, because it also helps to reduce the overall environmental impact and makes use of a valuable resource. I am pleased to see that the number of shops offering front-of-store recycling facilities for bags has increased, but I would like more to do so. I hope that more retailers, particularly the big ones, will be prepared to take up that challenge.

[Zac Goldsmith]

A number of stores, including WH Smith, Marks and Spencer, Ikea and Lidl, have already introduced charges for carrier bags. Is there evidence from their initiatives to suggest that there are any perverse or unwanted outcomes from such a charge?

[Mr Heath]

I am not aware of any, but a lot of work is being done to look at all the evidence because we want to get the policy right and to make a really effective contribution. I will come back to the Government’s position in a moment, but may I just say that that is part of the evidence-gathering process in which we are engaged?

Let me go back to the point about how we behave. On average, shoppers take three to four new bags every time they go out shopping, and most of them have a large store of bags at home, often under the kitchen sink, which they could take with them and reuse. We need not only to reuse bags, but to reduce the number of new bags that we take and to use bags that have a longer life. All those things put together are the actions of a responsible citizen. None the less, I recognise that we are all fallible. I would hate to be accused of being a hypocrite on these matters, because I know that someone will spot me taking a bag in Sainsbury’s in Frome next week and say, “You said that we shouldn’t be doing that.” I will have to say, “Yes, and you are right; I shouldn’t be doing this and I wish that I had remembered to bring a bag from home.”

Let me address the specific points that have been raised. A question that was asked by my hon. Friend and echoed by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) was about the Government’s reaction to the first year of bag charges in Wales. The results so far look positive. I hope that when we have looked at the full year’s results we will see that they are very positive indeed. We are certainly monitoring the results. When we are clear that we have robust data, we can then base any decisions on them.

[Mark Pawsey]

Will the Minister in his evaluation take account of the additional bag purchases that will take place in Wales as a consequence of people not having that stock of unused carrier bags under the sink? In resource terms, the fact that people will be buying other products should be taken into account.

[Mr Heath]

It should be. My hon. Friend is giving an example of exactly why we need to look at the results in the round rather than at a simple indicator. Let us do that and let us be convinced, if convinced we are, that what has happened in Wales is the right way to approach the issue. We will also consider the Scottish consultation on change, which closed on 28 September, and discuss the matter with our colleagues in Scotland. We will balance the benefits of any change with the real, but avoidable, effect on household budgets to ensure that we get the right option.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park asked me whether I had met the Welsh Environment Minister, and the answer is that I have not, but my hon. Friend will accept, I think, that I would not be expected to have such a meeting because that would be the job of my noble Friend, Lord de Mauley. In fact, it was Lord de Mauley’s predecessor in the Department, Lord Taylor, who met John Griffiths in July 2012 to discuss the matter.

My hon. Friend asked me whether I could confirm that the introduction of a charge would only require secondary legislation. If we did take such action, it would be from powers that stem from section 77 of the Climate Change Act 2008, which makes provision for charges for single-use carrier bags. Therefore, in England, we could introduce such a charge through secondary legislation, but it would be subject to a consultation process because that is the mechanism of government.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister say when we can look forward to a decision coming from Government? He has explained that it is right to evaluate the experience in Wales. Could we therefore expect some kind of Government decision early next year?

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[Mr Heath]

I will not give a firm answer to that, because we want to look at the data, but I hope that we will be able to make an early evaluation of the data. Once we are clear that we have a full-year set of data and we are convinced that the effect is beneficial, we can make a firm decision, and I do expect that to be sooner rather than later. Obviously, that falls short of the sort of commitment on timing that the hon. Lady wants.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park asked about the small levers that can be used. He is right. This provision is one lever among many that we can take. If we find that it is efficacious to go forward on the basis of a proposal—it will be based on the evidence that the hon. Lady has asked for and that we are committed to securing—similar to what exists in Wales, we will use it as a lever to long-term change. There are other things that can be done as well. We would never want to rely on one mechanism and eliminate all others.

[Zac Goldsmith]

If, after studying the Welsh experiment, the effect is deemed to have produced a net good, both in terms of a reduction and the other considerations that have been mentioned today, is that the bar that we need to cross for our Government to pursue the same course of action? In other words, how much does this Government’s decision depend on the results in Wales?

[Mr Heath]

It is one area of data on which we can base intelligent decisions. We do not only want to see whether there is a direct correlation between the activity there and the number of single-use bags that have been used. For example, has the initiative simply prevented people from using single-use bags and led them to buy a bag for life every time they go to a supermarket? If that was the consequence, that would be a worse outcome, despite the fact that the statistics on single-use bags would be beneficial. I am suggesting not that that will be the outcome, but that it is a slightly more complex picture, and we are genuine in wanting to examine the outcomes before we come to a policy decision. Such a decision will have an impact on the consumer, on retailers and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby has said, on manufacturers, so we must get it right. We want to achieve a beneficial outcome for the use of scarce resources and for the environment. That is our intention as a Department and that is the basis on which we will finally reach a conclusion.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park for securing this debate and every Member for their contributions. I hope that I have responded to the points that have been made in a reasonable way. I will pass on my hon. Friend’s comments to my colleague, Lord de Mauley, for his consideration. I am sure that my hon. Friend’s early-day motion will continue to attract signatures. We will take into account all the factors involved before reaching a final decision, which I hope we will be in a position to make once we have all the information at our disposal.