Plastic Pollution

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, the UK throws away more plastic per person than every other country in the world except the US, with 81% of that plastic consisting of food and drink packaging from supermarkets. It is evident that effective measures must be taken to reduce this waste, an opinion shared by 74% of the British public. Will the Minister confirm what steps the Government are taking to prevent further delays to the Government’s proposed deposit return scheme?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

First, I am very pleased that we have announced that we are doing a deposit return scheme. It is something that was discussed for many years by the previous Government, so I am pleased that we have acted quickly to announce that we are bringing that in. However, it needs to be brought in effectively and to work properly; we are doing it in a way that we think will have the greatest results. It is also part of our bigger picture around the circular economy. It is part of our commitment to reducing plastic, which comes right back to the initial question from the noble Baroness about our support for the treaty, because, although we want our own ambitious plans for reducing plastic waste in this country, this is a global problem, and we have to work globally.