Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I pay tribute to Scotland for the work it is doing, but I politely point out that recycling rates in Scotland are, unfortunately, lower than they are in England or Wales. However, we very much endorse the desire of the Government of Scotland to improve that recycling rate, particularly in relation to food waste.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Where food waste occurs, it is important to treat it as a resource and put it to good use rather than send it to landfill. One of the best uses for it is in anaerobic digesters to produce electricity. As household food waste is collected by local authorities, what discussions has the Minister had with colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to encourage councils to raise the proportion of the food waste that they collect and send to anaerobic digestion?

[Rory Stewart]

There are two elements to that. The first is working with councils in Britain to make sure that they all move towards separate food waste collections. That is absolutely central. The second is making sure that we minimise that food waste, but that when it occurs, it is used either for composting or for the generation of energy. That also involves a long-term plan for infrastructure.

Food Waste

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am very pleased to see the hon. Lady in her place, not least because at the recent general election, the Greens campaigned in Bristol on the slogan: vote Green to “keep Labour honest”—so if she was not here today, who knows what nonsense I might come out with? However, she makes a valid point. I will speak later about how there has been so much focus on household food waste, but actually, this issue goes way back through the supply chain, as far as the dealings between farms and supermarkets.

Bermuda has recently passed legislation along the lines of the 1996 US legislation, the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which protects food donors and recipient organisations from civil and criminal liability when food has been donated in good faith. That was seen as important back then, because many potential donors and potential recipients were deterred by the fact that they might be held accountable if anything went wrong.

The excellent report of the all-party parliamentary inquiry into hunger in the UK, “Feeding Britain”, said that redistributing surplus food better would be the “next big breakthrough” in eliminating hunger in the UK. In particular, it recommended that food retailers and manufacturers should be set a target of doubling the proportion of surplus food that they redistribute to food assistance providers.

Last week saw the launch of the FareShare FoodCloud app, which will enable Tesco store managers to alert charities to the surplus food that they have at the end of each day. If a charity is interested in that food, it can get in touch and collect it free of charge. A surplus food summit organised by FareShare is taking place next week. It will promote the new tool and is aimed at inspiring suppliers to step up their own efforts to redistribute their food.

All that is very welcome, and it is the reason why I wanted to secure today’s debate. However, I want to go back to why reducing food waste is so important. We know that somewhere between 30% and 50% of all food globally is wasted. That surplus has an environmental footprint. It puts pressure on scarce land and resources, contributes to deforestation and needlessly adds to global greenhouse gas emissions. If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the US and China. It is also unsustainable if we are to meet the global challenge of feeding a growing population from an increasingly scarce agricultural resource base. It is, of course, indefensible that good food is thrown away when so many are turning to food banks, because they cannot afford to feed themselves or their families.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for securing the debate; she and I have spoken at seminars on this matter. My take on the issue is slightly different from hers. She is right to focus on ensuring that good food becomes available to those who need it, but should a lot of the focus not be on preventing food from being surplus in the first instance? Will she acknowledge the role of the packaging industry in that sector in making sure that food is kept fresh for longer? Innovations can be brought in, such as the re-closable cheese pack, which means that once opened, cheese continues to be useable for longer than would otherwise be the case.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I remember the conference at which we both spoke. One of my critiques of the Courtauld targets, which I will come on to in a moment, was that food waste and packaging waste were lumped together, in terms of the need to reduce both at the same time. I remember the point being made that although we want to reduce food packaging, and a lot of food items are over-packaged—individually wrapped bananas, for example—packaging can actually play an important role in reducing food waste. To me, that further underlines the need to treat the two issues separately.

On food banks, I wanted to make the point quickly that although I entirely support the work of food banks and think they play a very important role, we do not want to go out of our way to facilitate the creation of more food banks. We cannot allow them to become a feature of our welfare system. When the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, visited the UK a couple of years ago, he warned:

“It is only when government fails that food banks have to step in.”

He said that important as food banks are,

“they are not a substitute for social policies that protect people.”

Therefore, although I am arguing for much greater support from supermarkets, manufacturers and other people who are in a position to donate the surplus food to charities, it does not mean that I accept the fact that we need so many food banks and other food distribution organisations in the UK. I would much rather that the need did not exist and that we could find other uses for the surplus food.

Although headlines last month claimed that the UK tops the chart of EU food waste—in other words, we are the worst at dealing with food waste—a fairer per capita comparison ranks the UK as fairly average, coming about 10th out of 28 countries based on the data that were available in 2012. Since I introduced my Bill back in 2012, we have started to see very welcome steps being taken voluntarily by the industry, with Asda, for example, saying that it would donate all its surplus to FareShare. Tesco has led the way by publishing its own independently audited food waste figures and the other big supermarkets are now following suit. There had been calls for mandatory food waste audits, but I am pleased to see that the supermarkets are taking a lead on that. It is an important first step towards the industry, as a whole, publicly reporting on its food waste and then using those data to take much more ambitious action to reduce food waste.

Much more of our surplus could be redistributed. FareShare, for example, currently provides food for 150,000 people a week, saving just under 2,000 charities £20 million a year. However, that is with only 2% of the food that could be donated to it; the vast majority of food waste is still turned into compost, using anaerobic digestion, or is discarded in landfill. FareShare says that if it were able to get its hands on 100,000 tonnes of surplus food—a quarter of the 400,000 tonnes fit for human consumption that are currently allowed to go to waste—it could save the voluntary sector up to £250 million a year. That would make surplus food the second-largest supporter of charities after the Big Lottery, so there is huge potential.

We have touched slightly on the fact that the Government have focused most of their attention on household food waste. Households continue to throw away the equivalent of six meals a week, although there have been steady reductions, with waste down 21% since 2007. Some of that has been driven by much greater consumer awareness and by the success of the excellent Love Food Hate Waste campaign, which is a treasure trove of ideas and advice on how to reduce household waste.

However, focusing on household food waste, which has also been the food industry’s lobbying position, largely ignores supermarkets’ contribution. Some statistics show that just 3% of food waste in the UK is generated by retailers in back of store, with manufacturers contributing 27%. However, as the food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart has pointed out, there is a big disparity in how food waste is measured by household and by industry. Household food waste includes waste that cannot be used, such as bones and peel, while retailers’ food waste often excludes waste that could be used. In addition, supermarket purchasing policies, such as demanding food free from visual imperfections, as well as forecasting errors and over-ordering, are responsible for lots of the food wasted on farms and by suppliers, although we still do not have an accurate picture of what food is wasted at that point in the supply chain.

[Mark Pawsey]

The hon. Lady was talking about household waste. A proportion of the household food that is thrown away is perfectly okay to eat, although it may have passed its sell-by or use-by date. Given that there is a lot of confusion in the minds of consumers about how long to keep food for consumption, would some clarification of those terms help?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree. I was about to say that retailers make a contribution to food waste in the home. There is confusion over food that is labelled “best before” or “use by”. Many people do not understand those labels, and they think they will go down with food poisoning if they go anywhere near the time limits. Buy one, get one free offers on perishables, and packaging fruit and vegetables in multiple portions, rather than portions for one person, can also add to food waste.

The current lever for encouraging food businesses to reduce their waste—the Courtauld agreement, which is facilitated by WRAP—is voluntary and industry led. The industry set itself a very low voluntary target under phase 3 of Courtauld, which runs from 2013 to 2015. The target was to reduce household food waste by 5% by 2015 and to reduce manufacturing and retail waste by just 3%. The first year’s results show little change against that minuscule target, although signatories have reported a doubling in the food provided for redistribution. Those targets simply are not ambitious enough to drive the reduction that is needed. It should also be possible under Courtauld to see how well individual supermarkets and manufacturers are performing against the targets. At the moment, a composite result is announced, so we do not know who the good guys and the bad guys are. If companies were named and shamed, that would encourage the worst performers to follow the example set by the best performers.

There is also the problem that Government policies and subsidies, such as the landfill tax, incentivise less environmentally damaging forms of disposal over prevention and redistribution. We are therefore seeing the growth of anaerobic digestion, composting and refuse-derived fuel at the expense of prevention and donation.

I was deeply disappointed that Bristol City Council turned down the opportunity to become one of WRAP’s 10 food waste cities—a project that leads on preventing food waste. I am still struggling to find out why it turned that opportunity down, although it did tell me that it wanted to focus on composting. That suggests a worrying direction of travel, particularly given that Bristol is Europe’s green capital this year.

Much more needs to be done to enforce the waste hierarchy further up the pyramid, either through measures such as those in my Bill or through a system of financial incentives or penalties, as recommended by the House of Lords European Union Committee. In France, for example, fiscal instruments make it much more expensive for companies to send food to anaerobic digestion than to donate it to food banks. If the industry cannot drive the change that is needed, there is a need for Government action. The landfill tax, for example, was one of the most successful waste policies ever in terms of driving behaviour change and creating markets in more environmental forms of disposal, such as anaerobic digestion. However, there are no similar mechanisms to enforce the waste hierarchy further up the pyramid.

Should the UK introduce a Bill along the lines of the legislation in France? It has been said that the UK retail sector differs from the French sector in having less back-of-store waste, with such waste accounting for less than 2% of total food waste in the UK, compared with 11% in France. On the other hand, France manages to redistribute 20 times more food than the UK.

Concerns have been expressed that the French proposals could place an operational and logistical strain on charities, and questions have been asked about whether they would have the resources to handle any surplus. That is partly because the proposals in France were originally reported and misrepresented as placing an obligation on supermarkets to give away all their surplus. That gave the impression that they would be turning up at charities’ doors and forcing the staff to take food they did not want, which is not the case. The obligation is for supermarkets to put their best efforts into donating where there is a desire to take donations. The new FareShare FoodCloud app, which was launched last week, aims to have one common platform for charities, so that they do not have to deal with lots of different, and potentially competing, collection models.

Although legislation along the French lines might target only a small proportion of UK food waste, missing the much larger amount of waste in supermarket supply chains, and although such waste might not be the easiest to collect, it is symbolically important to embed redistribution in legislation. That would respond to the strong moral idea that food should not be thrown away when people are willing and able to take it.

My Food Waste Bill had a number of provisions, including a requirement on large food retailers and large food manufacturers to take steps to reduce food waste and to donate surplus food to charities for redistribution. If waste was not suitable for human consumption, it would, where legally permissible—EU rules prevent this in some cases—be made available for livestock feed rather than disposed of. There was also a good Samaritan provision in my Bill to protect food donors and recipient agencies from civil and criminal liability where food was donated in good faith.

At the time, the then Minster seemed interested in my proposals, but I was subsequently told that his Department had received advice that they would be incompatible with European food safety laws. I have since had a legal firm look into the issue, and it rejected that assessment, saying that any UK proposals would be okay as long as they closely resembled laws introduced in Italy more than 10 years ago. There is now less of a clamour for a good Samaritan provision in the UK, and legal concerns do not seem to be cited as often as a reason for not donating. It may be that the example set in other places —Australia and New York have good Samaritan laws—has set people’s minds more at rest. However, such a provision could still play a useful role in, for example, helping charities to access dairy products that, although perhaps one day out of date, would still be very much fit for purpose, or in redistribution from catering surpluses. I have heard from the Sustainable Restaurant Association and others involved in large-scale catering of huge amounts of food going to waste when a big buffet is put on at, say, a wedding, because food safety laws and concerns about health and safety mean that that food cannot be donated.

The Groceries Code Adjudicator has certainly helped to address some of the supermarkets’ unfair business practices, which were creating waste further up the supply chain. Those include the notorious take-back arrangements, which forced suppliers to take back produce supermarkets had failed to sell and meant they received no money. However, even though the Groceries Code Adjudicator is in place, suppliers continue to report the last-minute cancellation of orders by supermarkets, which often use cosmetic standards as an excuse, because order cancellations are no longer allowed. That is often done through a middleman, making it difficult for the adjudicator to take action. Indirect suppliers can bring complaints, but those are insufficient to launch an investigation. I therefore ask the Government to review this evident weakness in the adjudicator’s power so that supermarkets cannot get round the law in this way.

The details of Courtauld phase 4 are currently being worked out to cover the period 2016 to 2025 and I have some suggestions to put to the Minister. Will Courtauld phase 4 include food waste on farms? Will it require big supermarkets to report food waste transparently—a path that, as I have mentioned, some are already starting down—or will it continue with the current system where data are reported to the British Retail Consortium, which reports a composite figure? What will the targets be? Will we be looking at another 3 percentile, or will they be equal to meeting the challenge of one of the proposed sustainable development goals of halving per capita global food waste by 2030?

We must continue to consider regulation if the industry cannot deliver a more ambitious voluntary target. I understand that at the Stockholm food forum earlier this month the food companies that were present said they would welcome legislation to achieve that goal and ensure a fair playing field in doing so. I will be getting together soon with the various people who were involved in discussions about my Food Waste Bill of 2012, and revisiting it for 2015 to think about its possible revival and potential revisions or additions. I hope that if we decide to present another ten-minute rule Bill the Minister will give it serious consideration.

Adoption of Sewers (Home Improvement)

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in the Chair this afternoon and to see the Minister for farming, food and the marine environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), at the Dispatch Box.

Many Members will be aware that new legislation was passed by this House in 2011 meaning that the ownership of private sewers and lateral drains was transferred to the 10 statutory water and sewerage companies. This welcome change, which had been sought over many years, came about in no small part as a result of the tireless work of my constituents, and particularly of Pam Brockway of the Woodlands Residents Association in Rugby. I drove through the estate this morning when I was dropping my daughter off at school, and I was reminded of the problems the estate had faced many years ago when the sewers, which had not been adopted by the water authority, failed. This resulted in great expense for many residents and led to the residents campaigning for many years for a change in the law.

The Water Industry (Schemes for Adoption of Private Sewers) Regulations 2011 were eventually introduced. This was a victory for home owners as they were no longer liable for unexpected and often large bills if anything went wrong with the private sewers on their land. They often did not know that they had responsibility for those sewers. When my constituent, Mrs Brockway, was faced with a £1,000 bill because her sewer collapsed, she decided to take action to bring about the much-needed change in the law.

Members of Parliament often get involved in matters brought to their attention by their constituents, and Mrs Brockway took the matter to the then MP for Rugby. It took 12 years, but the new legislation was eventually passed thanks to her determination, her industry and her refusal to give up, and thanks to the support of other residents, including Roy Barnes of the Woodlands Residents Association, along with the help of my predecessors, the former MP for what was then Rugby and Kenilworth, Andy King, and his successor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright). I pay tribute to all of them for their hard work. It is only right that in my opening remarks I should acknowledge the efforts of my constituents to get the law changed, because every home owner in the country owes them and all the other people who campaigned on this issue an enormous debt of gratitude.

I raise this matter today not with the intention of bringing about any changes to that hard-fought-for and much-welcomed legislation but to draw attention to the issues now being faced by many home owners when they seek to improve or extend their homes. They have to contact the water companies in these circumstances, and conflicting information is often given out. Also, the water companies often levy excessive charges against them when their proposed improvements extend over, or within 3 metres of, a sewer on their land. This is owing to the requirement for the home owner to apply for a building-over agreement.

Rugby is the fastest-growing town in the west midlands. It has double the rate of house building of that in the country as a whole, even before taking into account the sustainable urban extension of 6,200 new homes, whose development is just starting on the Rugby Radio site. I am very supportive of development; indeed, I am probably as pro-development as any MP in the House. I fully recognise the Government’s work to stimulate development through the adoption of the national planning policy framework, which has led to planning permission for 200,000 new homes being granted in the last 12 months. I also recognise the economic growth that arises from the building of new homes and the contribution to the economy that is made when people extend and improve existing homes.

I understand why the Government introduced legislation to simplify the planning system by allowing home owners to improve their properties, often without the need to apply for planning consent, although I do believe that there is a strong role for the planning system in preventing neighbour disputes. We are now in a situation in which the planning changes are making it simpler for home owners to extend their property, but the adoption of private sewers is pulling in the opposite direction. It is estimated that around 80% of home owners seeking to extend their property will need the consent of the relevant water authority, because the planned extension will go over or near what was formerly a private sewer.

There are important consequences of this situation. There have been examples of water companies refusing to give permission for home owners to extend their property owing to an expected repair to a sewer at some unknown point in the future. This has been known to happen after the planning application fees have been paid, which only adds to the great frustration of the home owners. In other instances home owners are being forced to absorb the cost of repairs to adopted sewers in order to gain permission from the water authorities, which can add significantly to the cost of improving their homes —conceivably, more than the cost of the improvements themselves. The additional costs may prevent the home owner from adding value to their property through improvements, as may the costs of the works, where they exceed the value of the improvements. The home owner may, thus, not benefit from any added value.

There are six key points to consider. The first relates to the concerns over the legal requirement to obtain a building-over agreement. Different information is available from different water companies. Some distribute information stating that building-over agreements are a legal requirement for home owners looking to build on or near to a sewer when in fact they are not. The second point relates to the excessive and divergent charges being levied by water companies—there is significant variation in those. The charges often include a map fee, which determines the presence of a sewer, an application fee and, in some instances, the cost of a CCTV examination of the sewer. Map fees can range from as little as £18 to as much as £60, and application fees can reach more than £500, adding to the significant bill for the home owner. I understand that in Wales the cost can prove even more excessive, as home owners are also required to amend the deeds of the property. Of course, the result of these little charges is that home owners may abandon their proposed works.

The third issue relates to variations in the amount of time the approval process can take. Although there is a set period of eight weeks within the planning system for routine planning applications to be decided—there is a requirement on the local authority to adhere to that—there is no such obligation on the water companies. In the absence of an agreed time limit, home owners often have to wait weeks, even months, before they know whether their improvements can commence.

The fourth issue relates to the cost of possible future repairs. I have alluded to instances where water companies are refusing to give their permission. I have been made aware of a number of cases where home owners are being forced to absorb the cost of repairs to adopted sewers in order to gain permission—the additional costs incurred can total several thousand pounds. The fifth issue relates to the fact that approximately 50% of sewers are currently not mapped by water companies. In some instances the home owners are being required to pay for the map, which can cause additional costs. There are no clear guidelines in a situation where no map is available, which can jeopardise any improvement project. The sixth issue relates to the permitted development rights that the Government have brought forward with the objective of cutting red tape. However, the requirement for permission from the water authorities is acting in the opposite direction and adding red tape, and results in additional costs and delay.

What can be done to remedy this situation? Despite the home improvements industry receiving assurances from the water companies that guidance would be issued, there is no industry-wide set of procedures and cost guidelines. I understand that the Government have previously declared their support for such a solution in guidance issued by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when it said it was doing work

“with a view to establishing a streamlined process for approval of building over (or close to) small, shallow sewers, which represent the majority of transferred sewers.”

I, like many home owners, would very much welcome a move by all the water authorities to work together to adopt a set of guidelines to ensure that the system is transparent and that home owners have more protection. That could form a national code of conduct governing the process of securing a building-over agreement, and setting consistent costs for the application, map and CCTV fees. That would go a long way towards rationalising the application process, and would give a degree of practical certainty for home improvement projects.

Nobody is arguing for a return to the pre-2011 situation, where householders were vulnerable to unexpected and often substantial bills to remedy faults in sewers they were not aware of or where potential liabilities would lead to the reduction in the value of properties and difficulties in achieving sales prices. My constituents have played such an important part in effecting change to that situation. This is a serious matter. The ability of a home owner to make improvements or extend is a key part of the aspiration of home ownership—an aspiration that this Government fully support. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments and the position of the Government in respect of reassuring home owners who are being subjected to uncertainty and additional costs when looking to improve their properties.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) for raising this important issue. As he said, before 2011, home owners were responsible for their sewers and pipes. Should anything have happened to those pipes, it was down to the home owners to cover the expense, and attempt to recover costs from those neighbours who shared the same pipes.

In October 2011, the Government implemented the water industry regulations transferring the ownership of, and responsibility for, private sewers and lateral drains to the water and sewerage companies. My hon. Friend rightly pays tribute to the sterling efforts of his constituent, Pam Brockway and others, in bringing this unfair practice of passing the cost on to individual home owners to the attention of Government, which resulted in those legislative changes.

I have also had experience of this matter in my own constituency. I remember meeting in one of my surgeries an elderly lady who was being bullied by a cowboy builder to sign on the dotted line to say that she would pay £10,000 towards the upkeep of a private sewer that was collectively owned. She resisted that, but I have heard of many other such practices, often involving vulnerable people.

In addition to preventing unexpected and substantial sewer repair bills going to individuals, the 2011 transfer has also meant that the sewer network can be systematically upgraded over time. The consequence has been a regularly maintained and more resilient sewer system.

The 2011 transfer has resulted in a greater focus on the 2010 building regulations. The regulations set out how buildings should be built or improved. Although no changes were made to the 2010 building regulations, the transfer regulations enabled building regulations more effectively to achieve their aim of ensuring that new buildings and extensions are constructed in a way that does not adversely affect the sewers. Given the general lack of awareness among home owners before the 2011 transfer, private sewers were at great risk of compromise or damage when construction took place—ultimately at the considerable expense of individual home owners.

The local authority, or approved private sector building control body, has the final say on whether any works comply with building regulations, although they must have regard to any views expressed by the sewerage undertaker, such as when a sewer is within 3 metres of the proposed works. Furthermore, even if the developer disagrees with the building control body, there is the option to apply to the Department for Communities and Local Government for an independent determination.

I wish now to address some of the points made by my hon. Friend. He pointed out that the 2011 transfer could not resolve all the issues. He has highlighted six important issues including: the legal requirement for a build-over agreement; charges levied by water companies for build-over agreements and works to be done; the time taken for the process of agreement; and the paucity of information about where the sewers are located.

First, there is no formal legal requirement to obtain a build-over agreement. However, it is considered good practice to obtain the permission of the water company responsible for a sewer or drain affected by any proposed building project, and that is also encouraged by the approved building regulations guidance. Water and sewerage companies are best placed to advise on suitable actions or possible risks to the sewerage network as a result of building work.

My hon. Friend makes a very good point regarding the variance in the charges levied by water companies for build-over agreements. We all want to see that any such costs are reasonable, proportionate, appropriate and consistent; otherwise we will have saved home owners one expense through the 2011 transfer only to expose them to new costs.

My hon. Friend highlights the importance of guidance. He is right that the solution to these and many of the other issues would be a joint industry-developed code of practice governing the processes of securing a build-over agreement and bringing transparency to the costs involved. A code of practice could also address any issues concerning timing and make it clear where responsibilities lie for repairs to sewers when the construction is being carried out or who retains liability for the quality of the construction and its potential impact on the sewer underneath in the long term.

The Glass and Glazing Federation has already taken the initiative in drawing up a draft. The Government have been talking to the water companies about working with the Glass and Glazing Federation to reach a common approach and I am told that we can expect positive developments soon. I welcome that, but I want to see even greater momentum behind the idea of the code of practice. In advance of the debate, I contacted the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), who is responsible for water, forestry, rural affairs and resource management. The Under-Secretary intends to write to Water UK, the organisation that represents the water companies, to encourage that development. I hope that from this debate we will see momentum behind the idea of a code of practice, because given that there is no formal legal requirement for the build-over agreements, which are only set out in guidance, home owners are in a strong position to get credible guidance that prevents water companies from charging excessively for these agreements.

[Mark Pawsey]

One or two water companies seem to be suggesting that the need for a build-over agreement is a legal requirement. Does the Minister agree that that information is inaccurate and should be withdrawn?

[George Eustice]

They are incorrect in that. There is no legal requirement for a build-over agreement, but it is set out in guidance. The legal requirement is that people should have regard for the views of water companies, so they should consult them. There is no statutory requirement for a build-over agreement, but it is set out in guidance that they should be encouraged. I hope that that clarifies the position.

My hon. Friend raised an additional concern that many sewers are, as yet, unmapped. Section 199 of the Water Industry Act 1991 places a requirement on sewerage undertakers to maintain an up-to-date map of their sewers. However, ownership of some 220,000 km of unmapped sewer and lateral drain pipework transferred overnight in 2011. The impact assessment for the 2011 transfer estimated that mapping all that pipework as part of a distinct project would cost more than £1.3 billion. I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that to avoid unnecessary costs for water bill payers, water companies are updating their maps during the course of their normal activities. If the sewer or lateral drain does not appear on the sewer map, there is no requirement for the building control body to consult the water company.

My hon. Friend refers to the Government’s aim to cut red tape and the positive steps taken to streamline the planning regime and help stimulate the building industry. The building regulations set out requirements for construction and how structures are built. Fair and effective building regulations are vital to ensure that the public and the environment are suitably protected. None the less, I reiterate that there is no formal legal requirement to gain permission from water companies, although it is recognised as good practice in building regulations guidance.

In conclusion, my hon. Friend has raised an important point. I agree that the answer is to have a voluntary code of conduct supported by the industry and I believe that home owners are in a strong position given that there is no formal legal requirement for a build-over agreement. I encourage him to engage with the Under-Secretary and perhaps with Department for Communities and Local Government Ministers to make progress on the idea of a voluntary code.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

What the Prime Minister said was that we should consider the practical measures that we are taking, and I entirely endorse his remarks. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will ask those on his party’s Front Bench whether they will now endorse our very ambitious spending plans for flood defences, which they have so far been very reluctant to do.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

T5. Will the Minister confirm that his Department intends to exempt small and medium-sized businesses from its proposed tax on plastic carrier bags? Given that biodegradable plastic in the waste stream is a contaminant and will reduce the number of plastic bags being recycled, will he withdraw that exemption?

[Dan Rogerson]

I am happy to confirm that there is a proposal for the exemption of small businesses. DEFRA’s call for evidence in relation to a charge on single-use plastic bags closed on 20 December, and the results are now being analysed. The Government recognise that there is a significant debate about acceptable levels of contamination from biodegradable plastics in the recycling stream, and have therefore called on industry to develop new ways of separating plastic bags from the waste stream. Two companies have been awarded contracts for the research, and will complete their feasibility studies by April.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

In the last month I have had no such meetings, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has met the Mayor to discuss this issue.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

10. What assessment his Department has made of the role of packaging in minimising food waste.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

Food packaging plays a vital role in ensuring that consumers do not throw away the food they buy. The Waste and Resources Action Programme’s “Fresher for Longer” work shows how the way we use food packaging and the storage advice it carries can help to keep food fresher for longer, by using techniques such as vacuum packing, shrink wrapping or re-sealable packaging to maximise the safe-storage life of food. This saves consumers money and reduces the impact of food waste on the environment.

[Mark Pawsey]

The Minister has already acknowledged the Love Food Hate Waste campaign. I am sure he will agree, as my predecessor as chairman of the all-party group on packaging, that innovations in packaging such as vacuum and re-sealable packs, which he described, help to keep food fresher for longer. Does he agree that they also play an important role in reducing the value of the food thrown away by the average family, which is currently £270 a year?

[Dan Rogerson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words about my work with the all-party group, but if there are things that I think the industry needs to be challenged on, as Minister, I will be happy to do that. However, I completely agree with him that we can see significant gains in tackling food waste through innovative packaging solutions.

Food Waste

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I secured the debate to highlight the importance of packaging materials in reducing food waste. I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), whom I am pleased to see in her place, introduced the Food Waste Bill last March. She began and has continued a campaign to ensure that food that is safe to use but not saleable by supermarkets and manufacturers is donated to charities. My remarks will consider a slightly different side of the debate on food waste, focusing on how food waste can be reduced, and particularly the role that packaging can play in achieving that objective.

Many of my remarks will be based on the Fresher for Longer campaign, launched a month or two ago by the Packaging Federation, to whose chief executive, Dick Searle, I pay tribute. That body worked in conjunction with the Kent Waste Partnership under its manager, Paul Vanston, and alongside WRAP UK, the British Retail Consortium and the Food and Drink Federation. The campaign was launched on 5 March to show how packaging not only protects food from damage but can keep it fresher for longer in our homes, meaning that less food is wasted. The campaign has caught the public’s attention. On the day when it was launched, it trended at No. 1 on Twitter, beating the pop star Justin Bieber to top spot.

Why are the campaign and this debate so necessary? One key finding of research for the Love Food Hate Waste campaign was that only 13% of the public realise that packaging can play an important role in protecting food in the home. The campaign attempts to deal with some public perceptions.

To start with the extent of the problem, food waste represents a significant cost to all consumers. Throwing away food not used in time costs £6.7 billion a year, which is £270 a year to the average household or £5 a week, a significant sum at a time when many household budgets are stretched. Many families would rather not bear that burden, which is unnecessary in many cases. I hope to show how packaging can help reduce that cost, but to do so, we must change perceptions.

The Fresher for Longer campaign found that 61% of consumers believe that keeping fruit and vegetables in their original packaging makes them sweat and go off more quickly, when actually the opposite is true. In a 2011 article published in Food Science and Technology, Dr Paul Butler points out that only about 19% of food waste is unavoidable, consisting of things such as meat and fish bones, peelings, eggshells and banana skins, meaning that 81% of food waste is avoidable. Why is that proportion so high? Dr Butler concludes in his article that

“the core problem is that consumers have largely lost touch with food; what it is, where it comes from and how it is produced. They perceive that food is cheap and plentiful and can be wasted without any thought as to the consequences”.

There is concern that the average shopper does not know how to treat different foods. Should bananas be put in the fridge? The answer, of course, is no. Should cucumbers be taken out of polythene wrap? No. What should people do with cheese once they have opened it? They should put it back into a resealable pack. The lack of such knowledge is damaging the environment and, crucially, people’s pockets. The quantity thrown away amounts to 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink every year, which the campaign says is enough to fill Wembley stadium nine times over. Of that amount, 4.4 million tonnes would have been safe to eat. In addition, the food wasted produces 17 million tonnes of CO₂, the amount produced by one fifth of all cars in the UK. It is a pretty substantial problem.

One of the most worrying statistics is that many people believe that the disposal of packaging is a problem bigger than or equal to food waste. A quick look at some statistics shows just how wrong that presumption is. The CO₂ emissions from food thrown away are 166 million tonnes, while the CO₂ emissions from the packaging amount to just 10.8 million tonnes. That is one fifteenth of the amount, a massive difference. The consequences of using packaging are not nearly as dangerous to the environment as those of food waste.

In 2008, the Advisory Committee on Packaging found that, of the total energy used in the food chain, approximately 50% is used in food production, 10% in transport to the shops and retailing, 30% is used by shoppers driving to the shops and storing and cooking food, and just 10% in making the packaging. The case gets stronger. The Love Food Hate Waste campaign points out that the impact on the environment of throwing away an apple is six times greater than that of the pack it comes in; for tomatoes, it is 30 times greater; for lettuce, it is 100 times greater.

As well as making delivery of products effective, packaging can help prolong the life of our foods. Increasingly, food is produced at some distance from where it is consumed, so packaging is critical to ensuring that it survives the journey from production to consumption. Without packaging, fruit and vegetables would not be available out of season, and consumers would have to grow their own food or shop for it daily.

The Advisory Committee on Packaging draws attention to the fact that selling grapes in trays or bags has reduced in-store waste of grapes by 20%. In-store wastage of new potatoes decreased from 3% when sold loose to less than 1% after specially designed bags were introduced. An unwrapped cucumber loses moisture and becomes dull and unsaleable within three days. Just 1.5 grams of wrapping will keep it fresh for 14 days, which shows how much difference the smallest amount of packaging can make.

The Co-operative Group provides retail experience of the benefits of packaging cucumbers. It switched from wrapped to naked—their word, not mine—cucumbers in 2007, but says that

“we have now reintroduced plastic wrapping to cut food waste and ensure cucumbers look fresh. We expect that the move will save 56 tonnes of food waste a year”.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As the hon. Gentleman said, I introduced a Food Waste Bill a year ago, but he is discussing a new dimension of the issue. It is interesting to listen to him. He might be aware that phase 2 of the Courtauld commitment, which set targets for reducing food and packaging waste, is coming to an end. The target has been exceeded, although it was low in the first place. It seems to me from what he is saying that there is an argument for separating the targets for food waste and for packaging waste, and that it would be wrong to try to bundle up the two in one target. Does he agree?

[Mark Pawsey]

That is a very sensible comment. I will argue later that packaging waste can be treated as a valuable resource. I have great sympathy with the hon. Lady’s remarks.

The environment and the consumer can benefit from packaging; extending the shelf life of our food is a significant way in which to reduce food waste. Using appropriate packaging can help in three ways: first, as I have already mentioned, through the protection of food in transit. The average household in the UK buys more than 4,000 items of food and other products every year; in the country as a whole, 25 million households buy more than 100 billion items, and more than 75% of those purchases are grocery products, mainly food and drink but also household detergents, paper products, cosmetics, etc. To meet that demand, a typical supermarket today carries considerably more than 50,000 product lines, compared with only 2,000 in the 1960s, so a much broader range of products needs to be distributed, often from much further afield. Those products have to survive the journey from farm or factory to the consumer in an undamaged and unspoilt condition; if food arrives damaged, that only serves to increase the amount of food wasted. Primary packaging protects products, while secondary packaging is the cardboard boxes and trays that are used to group the products together during distribution.

A second role of packaging is to prolong life, and the third is to inform consumers about the contents of the pack, which is fundamental to the Love Food Hate Waste campaign. The campaign website has hints and tips about how consumers can store products effectively. It even includes a section offering poems and rhymes as a different technique to remind consumers how to store food; I shall quote one about bread:

“Don’t get in a spin

it really is no teaser

clip half your bag in a bread bin

and the other half in the freezer.”

That is a good way to get a message across: bread can be preserved by putting half the loaf in the freezer, so that it can be used later.

In response to such ideas and demands, the packaging industry has produced a number of new types of pack. One way in which it has dealt with bread is through smaller packs; fridge packs allow baked beans to last longer once they are opened; and a great deal of packaging is now subdivided, sometimes almost into individual portions, so that the consumer can use some now and some later, which is common for salads and sliced meats. The packaging industry has made significant strides in reducing food waste. It has further innovated by introducing items such as zip locks on cheese packs or breathable fruit and vegetable bags.

The Fresher for Longer campaign, on its website, points out eight ways in which packaging can assist in reducing the amount of food that is thrown away. Some simple ones include: carrots, peppers and apples being best kept in the bag in which they were originally supplied, because such packaging is specifically designed to keep the product fresher for longer; resealable packs for cheese to prevent it drying out; and, during the production process, the air inside salad containers often being modified to enable the salad to remain fresher for longer in fridges by slowing down decomposition, giving customers a longer time in which to eat it.

Consumers can be informed not only through websites but through the packaging itself, which can play a vital role in advising and informing them how to handle their food. The nature of packaging enables producers to communicate with consumers. Some of the ways in which innovative food producers are taking advantage of that facility of packaging include: removing “display until” dates, so that the “best before” and, most importantly, “use by” dates are easier to see; giving flexibility for some products to be used after the date, for example, hard cheeses having a “best before” date rather than a “use by” date; highlighting on the front of the pack where to store food to keep it at its best, as many are doing, with most food packs having detailed storage advice; and moving away from guidance that tells consumers to “freeze on day of purchase” to “freeze before the use by date”, so that if food is purchased, kept in the fridge and not eaten, it can be frozen before the date in order to be used later. All such initiatives help reduce food waste and show that the food production and packaging industries are being proactive.

The packaging industry has also subscribed to the process of packaging optimisation, to make certain that less material is used in packaging. There have been substantial reductions in the amount of material used, for example in the production of a coke can or cardboard box. Packaging, therefore, has significantly less impact on the environment than many would have us believe. At the end of its life, packaging makes up less than 20% of household waste, amounting to less than 3% of materials going to landfill.

I hope that through today’s debate I have been able to provide an additional perspective to that of the hon. Member for Bristol East on the campaign to reduce food waste. I hope that I have been able to show how packaging is a vital component of, and not a hindrance to, the campaign, and how it provides valuable economic, social and environmental assistance to our society. I look forward to Minister’s response.

Plastic Bags

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I shall come back to what the levy would look like in ideal circumstances. I will deal with his point, but I shall come on to it.

To step back for a second, I should say that we are an extraordinarily wasteful country. We generate enough waste every hour to fill the Albert hall right to the tip of its dome. Plastic bags do not constitute the majority of our waste, but of all the waste that we do generate, the plastic bag is surely the most idiotic.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that only 0.2% of average household dustbin waste consists of plastic carrier bags and that therefore the measures that he is proposing would be unlikely to have a significant impact on the amount of waste generated? The figure of 0.2% comes from an assessment by the Treasury in 2002.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am told that the figure is closer to 1.5%, but I shall not quibble with what he says. However, I do not see that as an argument against a measure to reduce the use of plastic bags. Plastic bags have a disproportionate impact. We are told that 16% of all the animals that are found dead on the coast are dead as a result of their interaction with plastic bags. The plastic bag has a hugely disproportionate impact in the wider marine environment and in terms of littering and so on. Yes, I accept that plastic bags are not the whole waste story in this country, but they are certainly a big part of it.

[Mark Pawsey]

Does my hon. Friend agree with David Laist of the Marine Mammal Commission in the United States? He wrote in March 2008:

“Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement. The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag…For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either.”

The environmental impact is, in many instances, overstated.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I shall provide a few examples of why I do not accept that. I remind my hon. Friend that I did say that 16%, not 100%, of the animals found washed up on the coast that have died as a result of waste have died as a result of their interaction with plastic bags. It is still a significant number. I shall come to that issue in a second.

Despite this being described as a minority or a small issue, every year 8 billion bags are used and thrown away in the UK. Throughout the EU, 800,000 tonnes of bags are used. Only 6% of those bags are recycled. They are used for an average of 20 minutes and can take anything up to 1,000 years to decompose. The vast majority will end up in landfill. Hundreds of millions will litter the countryside, and many will end up in the oceans.

It is an appalling thought—I mentioned this to pupils at a school a few weeks ago—that if Columbus had dropped plastic bags over the side of his ship 500 years ago, there is a pretty good chance that they would still be floating around intact today. Thousands of sea turtles, whales and countless other species mistake the bags for food and, once ingested, they block the animal’s insides and cause a horrible death.

I am sure that hon. Members remember that in 2006 a Northern bottlenose whale swam past this very building. Unfortunately, it died. It was in serious trouble, for all kinds of reasons, but when it was cut open in the autopsy, it was discovered that its stomach was packed with plastic debris. Unfortunately, the bags did not have a logo on them, so we cannot blame the individual companies, but plastic was a major contributing factor.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I absolutely agree with her—indeed, she has taken the words out of my mouth. I shall come to the Welsh example very soon.

Just to continue on the basic statistics, a 2006 UN report estimated that on every square mile of ocean, there are 46,000 pieces of plastic debris floating around. They are not all plastic bags, but a great many are. The plastic does not disappear, even when eaten; it does not break down. When a creature has ingested a plastic bag, the creature itself decays faster than the bag. When the body of the creature breaks down after death, the bag is likely to be released back into the environment and can be reingested—recycled—continuously. The plastic bag has been described as a serial killer for that reason.

The Minister will know that many countries and regions around the world have already sought to address this appalling waste. We heard about the example of Wales, but there are many beyond our shores. California, Bangladesh, Rwanda, South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, parts of India, Taiwan and parts of China have all introduced outright bans. Others have introduced levies. In Ireland, which is one of the best examples, a bag tax, introduced in 2002, has led to a reported 90% reduction in the number of plastic bags used.

[Mark Pawsey]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again; he is being extremely generous. He spoke about the reuse of plastic bags and the fact that only a small proportion are recycled. Does he accept, however, that many plastic carrier bags are used by consumers for other purposes? Immediately after the tax was introduced in Ireland, there was a 77% increase in pedal bin liner sales because consumers did not have plastic carrier bags and an 84% increase in disposable nappy bag sales. The bags are being put to other uses. If we reduce the use of plastic carrier bags, we will simply encourage people to buy plastic bags from other sources to do the jobs that carrier bags are currently fulfilling.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I am just looking at the statistic; I anticipated that this might come up. There were indeed reports of a 77% increase in the sale of plastic kitchen bags as a result of the initiative introduced in Ireland. That equates to 70 million bags—a lot of bags—but the net effect is still a 930 million reduction, so the net effect is clearly beneficial in terms of reducing the use of plastic bags.

Yes, there would be some perverse outcomes. It is also the case that in Wales there are certain exemptions in relation to prescription drugs, raw food and so on. There are any number of ways in which the measure could be brought in. I intended to talk about Wales, but the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has already given the key stats. The initiative there is a work in progress—it is relatively new—but it seems to be working. It is wildly popular: 20% more popular now than when the idea was originally floated. There are varying statistics on its success, but no one can argue that it has not been a success. The question is how much of a success it has been.

We are, unfortunately, miles behind in this country. There are pockets of good news locally. In Kew in my own constituency, the majority of local shops have pledged not to use plastic bags and are doing everything that they can either to get them out of the shop altogether or to encourage people not to use them. Even Tesco—after some imaginative campaigning by local school pupils—eventually, reluctantly, was dragged into the campaign. That involved a gang of local schoolchildren storming the local Tesco, unwrapping all the unnecessary packaging and demanding that it never use another plastic bag. We almost ended up in jail—I was the only one of the right age—but it seems to have had an impact and it was a wonderful thing. I encourage hon. Members to go on YouTube and have a look, because it was all filmed. It was a lovely example of what can be achieved.

Nationally, we are still waiting for action. On 29 September last year, in an interview with the Daily Mail, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave the supermarkets an ultimatum. He warned that if stores did not deliver “significant falls” over the next 12 months, they could either be banned outright from giving out single-use bags or be legally required to charge customers for them. The Prime Minister said that it was “unacceptable” that the number of single-use carrier bags had risen in the previous year by 333 million—a 5% increase. In July this year, despite the Prime Minister’s demand for “significant falls”, the official figures showed another increase—a 5.4% rise during 2011 compared with the previous year. We are heading in the wrong direction and have been for some years, and the Prime Minister is clearly now under pressure to act.

[Mark Pawsey]

As I said, my hon. Friend is being extremely generous with his time. I am grateful to him for allowing me to present the alternative case. One issue on which we might agree is the need for voluntary action. Does he accept that from a peak of 13 billion bags a year, the UK’s consumption has halved over time, that that has all happened through voluntary action and that this issue would be better dealt with by continuing that voluntary approach?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I believe that the position is that there has been a 36% reduction since 2006; at least, that is the figure that I was given by the British Retail Consortium. Nevertheless, that trend has not continued. There was a rapid downward trend initially, after the initiative was launched, but over the past three years the trend has been considerably reversed and there is nothing to suggest that it will not continue to be reversed. When we compare that with initiatives in other countries—we have heard about Wales, Ireland and many others—we see that we can do a whole lot better.

What line should the Government take? It boils down to three choices: a ban, a central tax or a Welsh-style charge. A ban is probably too crude; although there are strong arguments in its favour, it is not what we are asking for today. Despite the temptations for the Treasury, I hope that the Government will resist introducing a tax. There is no support or appetite for anything that could become a stealth tax. The alternative is a light-touch levy applied in the shops with the funds raised distributed to local causes, which could be identified, if necessary, by the shops themselves, the community or a combination of both. There are any number of ways to spend the money.

I will end with some questions. Can the Minister tell us the Government’s reaction to the first year of a bag charge in Wales? Have he or his colleagues met the Welsh Environment Minister to discuss how the charge has worked? According to the Welsh Government, the scheme has reduced single-use carrier bags by up to 96% in some retail sectors. A recent survey has shown that 70% of people in Wales are in favour of the new system following its introduction. Crucially, the proceeds go to charity. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Keep Wales Tidy have already received a total of £800,000 since the charge was introduced.

Will the Minister confirm that the introduction of such a charge would require secondary legislation only? What would the process be and how long would it take to get a charge up and running, using powers under the Climate Change Act 2008? The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), stated last year that we could expect the Government to decide in 2012 whether they would introduce a charge in England. What is the Government’s timetable for considering it now? The Government’s waste review states that there are

“a number of small levers which we can pull in order to deliver long-term change.”

Does the Minister agree that a bag charge is one such small lever? Will he commit to bringing forward legislative proposals? In short, does he agree that it is time for the Government to act?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on securing this important debate and on how he introduced it. I found it useful that other hon. Members who wished to take part were able to intervene on him, so that there was a genuine debate rather than simply a dialogue between the two of us.

I have had form on this issue going back a long time—to before I was a Minister, when I worked for environmental non-governmental organisations. I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that I am aware of the problem and eager to do something about it—and that goes for the Government, too.

The Government are committed to promoting a strong and growing economy in which all resources are fully valued and waste is minimised. That is good for business and good for the environment. To achieve it, everyone has a role to play. That is true across the whole waste agenda, but nowhere more so, I suspect, than in relation to single-use carrier bags. We all have the opportunity to change our behaviour to ensure that fewer bags end up in landfill or as litter.

[Mark Pawsey]

Does the Minister acknowledge that plastic carrier bags are part of an important industry? The packaging industry employs 85,000 people in the UK, is responsible for a turnover of £11 billion and represents 3% of the manufacturing industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I am not aware of any, but a lot of work is being done to look at all the evidence because we want to get the policy right and to make a really effective contribution. I will come back to the Government’s position in a moment, but may I just say that that is part of the evidence-gathering process in which we are engaged?

Let me go back to the point about how we behave. On average, shoppers take three to four new bags every time they go out shopping, and most of them have a large store of bags at home, often under the kitchen sink, which they could take with them and reuse. We need not only to reuse bags, but to reduce the number of new bags that we take and to use bags that have a longer life. All those things put together are the actions of a responsible citizen. None the less, I recognise that we are all fallible. I would hate to be accused of being a hypocrite on these matters, because I know that someone will spot me taking a bag in Sainsbury’s in Frome next week and say, “You said that we shouldn’t be doing that.” I will have to say, “Yes, and you are right; I shouldn’t be doing this and I wish that I had remembered to bring a bag from home.”

Let me address the specific points that have been raised. A question that was asked by my hon. Friend and echoed by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) was about the Government’s reaction to the first year of bag charges in Wales. The results so far look positive. I hope that when we have looked at the full year’s results we will see that they are very positive indeed. We are certainly monitoring the results. When we are clear that we have robust data, we can then base any decisions on them.

[Mark Pawsey]

Will the Minister in his evaluation take account of the additional bag purchases that will take place in Wales as a consequence of people not having that stock of unused carrier bags under the sink? In resource terms, the fact that people will be buying other products should be taken into account.

[Mr Heath]

It should be. My hon. Friend is giving an example of exactly why we need to look at the results in the round rather than at a simple indicator. Let us do that and let us be convinced, if convinced we are, that what has happened in Wales is the right way to approach the issue. We will also consider the Scottish consultation on change, which closed on 28 September, and discuss the matter with our colleagues in Scotland. We will balance the benefits of any change with the real, but avoidable, effect on household budgets to ensure that we get the right option.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park asked me whether I had met the Welsh Environment Minister, and the answer is that I have not, but my hon. Friend will accept, I think, that I would not be expected to have such a meeting because that would be the job of my noble Friend, Lord de Mauley. In fact, it was Lord de Mauley’s predecessor in the Department, Lord Taylor, who met John Griffiths in July 2012 to discuss the matter.

My hon. Friend asked me whether I could confirm that the introduction of a charge would only require secondary legislation. If we did take such action, it would be from powers that stem from section 77 of the Climate Change Act 2008, which makes provision for charges for single-use carrier bags. Therefore, in England, we could introduce such a charge through secondary legislation, but it would be subject to a consultation process because that is the mechanism of government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I do not recognise that distorted view of what the Department does. If I were to list just a few of our achievements over the last 12 months, they would point strongly to the breadth of our remit . For instance, I helped to secure agreement on biodiversity in Nagoya, the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Mr Paice), helped to secure the ban on illegal timber logging and ensure that the ban on commercial whaling was retained, and we will shortly produce a natural environment White Paper, the first for 20 years. That should give a strong assurance to all Members and everyone we know who cares deeply about the protection of the environment.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

9. What steps her Department is taking to encourage greater community involvement in the running of local forests and woodland.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

I recently had the privilege of planting a tree with the Friends of Kingfisher Country Park, the Tree Council, Keep Britain Tidy, BTCV and local tree wardens to mark the milestone of 100,000 trees planted as part of our big tree plant. Since the launch in December, we have helped local communities and civil society partners across the country to plant trees where they live and work.

[Mark Pawsey]

I thank the Secretary of State for her reply. In January 2000, ownership of Brandon wood in my constituency passed from the Forestry Commission to the Friends of Brandon Wood and became the first community woodland in England. Since then, volunteers have worked hard to provide a network of footpaths for all-weather and all-ability walking throughout the woods, and local schools have been involved. Will the Minister ensure that the Independent Panel on Forestry fully considers the benefits that can arise from local ownership of woodlands such as that of Brandon wood?

[Mrs Spelman]

I am sure Members know this, but I should perhaps point out that my hon. Friend has a degree in estate management, and his constituency is therefore very blessed given its appetite for engagement in community forestry. Brandon wood is one of the best examples of community forestry, and I suggest that my hon. Friend should pass it directly to the IPF, because that panel is open to all members of the public, and part of its work will involve going around the country. He has an excellent opportunity to commend this example to the panel.