United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (Exclusions from Market Access Principles: Single-Use Plastics) Regulations 2022

Lord Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I welcome, for the most part, the instrument which is before us this afternoon. I have a number of questions to put to my noble friend.

First, there seems to be an obvious exclusion from the list that has been given: wet wipes. I am sure my noble friend will agree that wet wipes, although they are sold in a pack, are causing huge damage, and it is something that we have looked at in other statutory instruments. I am looking at a report called Bricks and Mortar 3 about how to prevent flooding, and one of the issues that causes flooding, as we remember from debate on what became the Environment Act, is wet wipes mixing with fats, oils and grease in the water courses, causing flooding and a blockage in the system. I know we discussed cotton buds as well—I do not know whether they are here—but I would ask why cotton buds and wet wipes are not included since they do enormous damage.

I commend Scotland, which I see has already banned the sale of single-use plastic plates, and I wonder whether we are going to follow suit. My noble friend has said on a number of occasions that we are going to ban single-use plastics, and I was rather expecting a whole raft of statutory instruments in this regard. I know the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, has held the Government’s feet to the fire over this, and has never missed an opportunity to do so, but we have not seen any of those statutory instruments.

A report published today shows that 96.5 billion items of plastic are thrown away by UK households every year, and only 12% of that plastic is recycled. As to why there is such a low percentage, could my noble friend tell us what is happening while these items remain in circulation, in whichever part of the internal market of the United Kingdom we are talking about? When are we going to have clear advice to each household, irrespective of where in the country you live, as to how to dispose of single-use plastic? For example, if you had a single-use plastic plate at a picnic and it has tomato sauce or oil all over it, if you put that in a recycling bin, is it not the case that you are contaminating the whole content of the bin? So where are we today on ensuring that the best advice is being given across the piece, so that there is uniform advice, even if it is just in England—although I would prefer it to be across the whole of the internal market of the United Kingdom—to prevent cross-contamination leading to less plastic going to recycling than would otherwise be the case?

I understand that no exemption has been extended to the ban on the supply of single-use plastic items in the UK. If I am correct in my assumption that we are allowed to use these on board aircraft, that seems bizarre. Could my noble friend explain why that has been extended?

In so far as this seems to relate to non-discrimination and having the same rules of circulation apply, I welcome what is in the statutory instrument. I just regret that it does not go nearly as far as I would have hoped, and when might we get the other statutory instruments which we were promised under the Environment Act? I would welcome answers to my questions from my noble friend.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his efficient explanation. I too read the report to which the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, referred. I saw it in the Times and the Daily Mail.

In the helpful Explanatory Memorandum, reference is made in paragraph 13.1 to regulating small business. Has the Federation of Small Businesses been consulted? At this point it seems to be central, although I should say that I hold no personal brief for the FSB in any way.

Paragraphs 12.1 and 12.2 refer to impact. It is early days, but have Scotland and Wales yet set out their impact assessments? It is also clear that in all of this Scotland has been ahead of the game since June. Is there any intelligence yet as to how things are moving in Scotland? How was Scotland consulted? Was it simply by Zoom or was it between officials? Was it done personally by Ministers or was it done by phone? “Consultation” can mean many things.

Similarly, at paragraph 7.1, how was Wales consulted? To whom did the Minister talk? Did he talk to the Cabinet Minister for agriculture in the Senedd? If I may set him and his excellent officials in the department a challenge, can he tell me the name of the Welsh Minister for agriculture sitting in the Cabinet?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise wearily to my feet on this issue of single-use plastics. I agree almost completely with my noble opponent, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. She is absolutely right that this does not go far enough—of course it does not, we have been talking about this for decades. This statutory instrument is on the right path but is still nowhere near enough.

Where I disagree with the noble Baroness is on the fact that it is not only households but councils that need to know. As we have said lots of times before, we need one system across the whole of Britain. I was watching an episode of “The Outlaws”, a comedy drama with Stephen Merchant, and in it a very large, angry drug dealer told off his lieutenant for putting a tomatoey pizza box in the recycling. I thought that that was probably much more effective than government education. Even so, the Government have a role in educating. Still people still do not see—perhaps the Government themselves do not see—that most of the 8 billion tonnes of plastic produced since the 1950s is still in existence: in our drinking water, our soils, our animals, our fish and our air, and even, apparently, in our beer and, I suspect, our wine.

Every time we get a promise from government, it is inching towards what we need, which is a total ban on plastic. It seems that every time we get a small bit of progress, the Government pat themselves on the back and then take ages to get to the next bit of progress. For example, we used to have bottle deposit schemes. It is not as though we do not have the knowledge of how to implement these things. We can do it. We did it with an awful lot less technology 70 years ago, so why not do it now?

Of course, with a ban on all single-use plastic, we would get to the point where unnecessary items were not made at all. If you think that 40% of the plastic produced goes into single-use packaging, that is fairly shocking, even before you consider that the world total is more than 300 million tonnes each year.

It is exhausting to keep coming back to this issue. I am sure the Minister does his best, but I cannot say the same for the Government. I understand that they are struggling a bit at the moment to be coherent but, even so, I plead with them to do better—I am sure they could. We need to educate everybody in plastics pollution, including all the contenders for the leadership of the Tory Party, none of whom has mentioned the climate crisis or the environment. I suspect, therefore, that none of them will be interested in plastic pollution. So, I welcome this in a very limited and specific way.