Marine Litter

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I would not want to pre-empt anything and I am afraid that I do not know of the final discussions, if any, on this matter within the national litter strategy. However, I will specifically mention that the noble Baroness has raised this at Question Time today.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, steaming across the Southern Ocean some 50 years ago as a young officer, it was pristine but in the mid-1990s, while I was there with a battle group, the amount of plastic there was already disgusting. Going around Cape Horn a year ago, I was appalled to find that there was plastic even there. As a nation, we are responsible for more areas of ocean than almost any other country in the world, because of our dependencies. I understand that we have done quite a lot to look after them. What is being done to make sure that that pollution is not there? I add as a proviso that to enforce things, you need ships—and we do not have any ships. I have a view on that.

[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.