Plastic Bags

Debate between Mark Pawsey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

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?