Marine Litter

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I must observe that the noble Lord is most tenacious in his support of the senior service. The United Kingdom works closely with the Governments of the British Overseas Territories to ensure effective marine management, and the record on marine conservation zones is very strong indeed. Beach-littering monitoring and data-collection programmes are being carried out around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. This was expanded last year to cover the British Antarctic Territory but clearly, there are other overseas territories. The MOD’s vessels have a long history of prohibiting the disposal of plastic waste into the seas.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, further to the noble Baroness’s Question in respect of microbeads in cosmetics, why does my noble friend have to wait for the European Commission?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, we are not. I do not think that my noble friend quite understood what I was saying. We are working with industry on a voluntary basis to phase out microbeads, and that is working. All I said was that because pollution is a transboundary matter, it is not just for the UK but for the whole world to deal with it. We will deal with it with whichever organisations and whichever communities we can.