Fly-tipping: West Midlands Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Deirdre Costigan
Main Page: Deirdre Costigan (Labour - Ealing Southall)Department Debates - View all Deirdre Costigan's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Fly-tipping: West Midlands
Deirdre Costigan Excerpts(6 days, 16 hours ago)
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Wendy Morton
There we go. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has joined the debate, because there is a large number of Labour MPs in Birmingham city.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing the debate. A deposit return scheme under which people take plastic bottles and cans back to the shop to get their money back, using a reverse vending machine, has reduced black-sack litter in many countries across Europe and the world. Will the right hon. Lady explain why her party voted against a deposit return scheme in Parliament on 21 January this year, despite having previously backed one as part of the solution to fly-tipping?
Wendy Morton
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I absolutely support recycling schemes, as do Conservatives more broadly. That specific vote, which I believe was before the hon. Lady came into the House, was not UK-wide, and I think that was the issue. We need to work cross-party to find the best way forward on recycling and bottle deposit and return schemes. Any scheme has to work with individuals, communities and producers.
The ongoing bin strike in Labour-run Birmingham is now having a detrimental effect on every one of us who shares a border with Birmingham. For example, the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), who cannot be with us today, abuts Hall Green in Birmingham. On one side, the bins are piling up, whereas over the border on the other side, in Conservative-run Solihull, the streets are clean. In the past few weeks my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) has highlighted the similar situation on the border of his constituency.