Single Use Carrier Bags Charges (England) (Amendment) Order 2021.

Lord Khan of Burnley Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak on this instrument. Like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, I absolutely agree that the Minister has a fantastic and admirable track record on the environment. As previous speakers have said, in future, we should be thinking about an overall plastic ban. However, I appreciate that, on the basis of statistics such as those the Minister outlined, the initial 5p charge for single-use carrier bags has been a huge success since it was implemented.

The statistics say that the potential rise to 10p will bring an expected overall benefit of more than £780 million to the UK economy, up to £730 million for good causes, £60 million of savings in litter clean-up costs and carbon savings of £13 million. I would like to ask the Minister about that £730 million for good causes. I see a range of good causes on the government website, but would it not be a good idea for the money made from plastic bag charges to go towards something specifically to do with the war on plastic? We need to incentivise customers to use long-life bags made from sustainable and environmentally friendly materials. I am not sure whether the Minister has come across Toraphene, an environmentally friendly artificial plastic that costs the same as plastic bags. What about making its use compulsory, as an alternative?

As the Minister will know, I have a habit of listening to schoolchildren. This morning, I spoke to the wonderful children at St Augustine’s, in my home town of Burnley. In this time of coronavirus, they have done some innovative work with their local pharmacy to give the elderly some good ideas when they go to collect their prescriptions, keeping them motivated and inspired. They have drawn lots of pictures to make people happy. Something that struck a chord with me was a young child talking about getting rid of plastic and making sure that our oceans are plastic-free.

This is an important instrument that will act as a further deterrent and raise significant money. We need to work out what the Government should do to enhance the education programme further, as previous speakers have mentioned. Overall, the 25-year government plan fits into that. On the subject of cleaning plastic from our oceans, beaches and other areas where it has become an unfortunate cancer in our society, may I ask the Minister what the scope is for using gasification instead of incineration, which still causes pollution and adds to the problems with our ozone layer?

It is heartening to know that the higher charge will come into place but we have to do much more. I think that this will ultimately end in a ban on plastics but, in the meantime, I recognise that this is a positive step forward to add to the previous decision, which the statistics and the evidence show is working well.