Marine Litter

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, which United Nations agencies are the Government working with on this question? Is there a plan for working with these agencies to have some targets for the future about cleaning up the oceans? I declare an interest as president of ACOPS, which deals with these matters.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, because this is a serious problem we are working at national level, Ospar level, EU level and international level through the G7 and, as I say, with overseas territories. There is a lot going on.