Plastic Pollution

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The UK works very much with other authorities, the devolved Administrations and other countries on how we can do exactly that. As I said, it is all very well to recycle, but we need to reduce the amount of plastic in the first place because, even when things are recycled, that plastic is still in the system. So, we will continue with our efforts to do just that.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, the failure of the negotiations was a great disappointment. Is it now the view of the Government that that is the end of the main story, that opposition is so entrenched that there is no serious prospect of progress on the main issue and that, therefore, we will have to have minor, lesser or subsidiary agreements between different parties?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As I said, we are still working towards getting the treaty that we want. We think it will have the biggest impact, which is why we want to try to achieve that. The UK has played a leading role throughout the negotiations. We are a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution, and we want to continue with that high ambition. We have worked with other countries. We are supporting developing countries and are trying to bring other countries on board to gain the really big prize that we need.