Environmental Improvement Plan and Office for Environmental Protection Progress Reports
Mary Creagh Excerpts(1 week, 4 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
Over the last year we have taken significant action on nature recovery. In December 2025 we launched our revised environmental improvement plan to restore nature, move to a more circular economy and protect our environmental security. We know the scale of the challenge, and we are matching our ambition with action.
Today I am laying our annual progress report in delivering the EIP over the reporting period April 2025 to March 2026, as required by section 9 of the Environment Act 2021. This includes progress towards achieving Environment Act targets, and the latest evidence of changes in the natural environment.
We have progressed a broad and ambitious programme of reform, investment and delivery over the reporting period. This includes:
publication of the land use framework to transform decision making so that we use land more effectively
securing over £7 billion for nature recovery through the farming budget, the largest investment into nature in history.
setting a new vision for water and plan to reform our water sector and the wider water system through the water White Paper
quadrupling water company investment under “Price Review 2024”, to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas announcing a ban on wet wipes containing plastics
publication of the UK’s first ever perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances plan
committing £1.1 billion to improve local recycling services across England, enhancing waste management and community outcomes
publication of the good food cycle strategy and delivery of priority outcomes for healthier, more affordable, sustainable and resilient 21st-century UK food system
publication of the carbon budget growth delivery plan and methane action plan
announcing that at least £10.5 billion will be invested by March 2036 to construct new flood and coastal erosion schemes and repair existing defences
announcing investment of over £1 billion in the next stage of development of a new national biosecurity centre at Weybridge
announcing two new national forests, in addition to the Western forest
opening the King Charles III England coast path, the world’s longest managed coastal path, and delivering the first of nine new coastal paths, the Mersey valley way.
The revised EIP sets us on a clearer path to deliver Environment Act targets by setting ambitious yet achievable interim targets and publishing detailed delivery plans to drive progress. This will require sustained delivery at pace and scale over several years. The Government remain committed to delivering our environmental targets. We are making good progress in meeting the targets in some areas, while we face challenges in others. For several target areas, it is still too early to draw reliable trends on progress from the data, but we will continue to develop and improve environmental monitoring.
I am also laying the Government’s response to the Office for Environmental Protection annual assessment of progress for 2024 to 2025, well ahead of the statutory deadline in January 2027, to streamline the EIP reporting cycle and support the important role that the OEP plays in monitoring and reporting progress towards the EIP’s environmental targets. I have also laid a revised statement that explains the Government’s approach to monitoring, evaluating and reporting on the condition of the natural environment, in line with the requirements of section 16 of the Environment Act.
Together, these reports better enable external scrutiny and transparency of our progress and ensure that delivery planning is informed by monitoring and evaluation learning. The EIP is a long-term, whole-of-Government plan delivered in partnership across society. We are taking positive steps and strengthening our evidence base to support long-term environmental improvement. I am grateful to Parliament and stakeholders, including the Office for Environmental Protection, whose scrutiny helps to shape our approach.
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Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Mary Creagh Excerpts(1 week, 4 days ago)
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Sarah Champion
I really welcome the statement and all the commitment that the Government are giving to nature. I know that the 30 by 30 plan is focused just on land, with the justification being that 40% of our waters are marine protected areas, but the Joint Nature Conservation Committee has said that less than 1% of our MPAs are assessed as being truly protected. Will the Minister please tell us when she will focus the next plan on marine protection, which one hopes would include a ban on bottom trawling?
Mary Creagh
The Water Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), is only too happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss bottom trawling. I believe that about 32% of our waters are currently protected.
[Official Report, 13 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 656.]
Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh):
Mary Creagh
The Water Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), is only too happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss bottom trawling. I believe that about 40% of our waters are currently protected.
Illegal Tree Felling: Restocking Notice Appeals Backlog
Mary Creagh Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
I wish to update the House on the action I have taken with the support of the Forestry Commission and DEFRA officials to cut the backlog of restocking notice appeals and to build a faster appeals process that protects nature and growth.
This Government are committed to expanding, protecting and improving England’s trees, woodlands and forests. We are investing more than £1 billion in trees over this Parliament to support nature recovery, climate resilience, local communities and economic growth. This includes creating three new national forests. To support this effort, it is vital that our existing trees are looked after.
In instances of unauthorised tree felling, the Forestry Commission issues restocking notices, which require trees to be replaced. This gives local communities confidence that illegal felling will not go unchecked.
In 2024, when I took on responsibility for restocking notice appeals, I inherited a backlog dating back as far as 2018. When appeals are delayed, this affects nature restoration, can lead to costly appeals and impacts growth where development is inhibited.
I have taken steps eliminate the backlog while improving the appeals process so it never happens again. I am taking action across three fronts: cutting the backlog, reducing the number of new appeals, and streamlining the process to avoid the risk of a backlog.
Cutting the backlog
We are doubling the number of appeal hearings held each month by booking hearings in blocks by geographical location and introducing hybrid—in-person and remote-attendance—hearings. The first month of block-booked hearings has been a success. I am almost doubling the pool of independent panellists hearing appeals to support this increased capacity.
Reducing the number of appeals
I am working across Government to increase public awareness of tree felling legislation. Local authorities and local partners play a key role in giving early advice to developers and landowners, making clear that trees should not be felled without a felling licence, if required. I have used established planning and local government channels to reinforce this message. This will help prevent unlawful felling, reduce avoidable appeals and support responsible development.
The Forestry Commission is now undertaking stronger engagement with landowners before a restocking notice is served. This helps deliver a more proportionate approach and ensures that much earlier resolution is achieved where possible—before a restocking notice is issued.
Streamlining the process
I am streamlining the process by increasing automation of administrative processes, making better use of digital resources and speeding up decision making. I will issue new public guidance this summer to explain how individuals or organisations can appeal a restocking notice and what they can expect at the appeal hearing. This will provide much needed clarity for potential appellants.
Together, these changes are moving us from a slow, reactive approach prone to legal challenge to a more proactive and efficient one, with greater certainty for appellants. This will mean more is done to resolve cases before proceeding to restocking notices, and that where restocking notices are issued and appealed, appeals are resolved quickly.
The appeals process is now in a much better state. These changes have resolved long-running cases and gripped an overburdened process, with the time taken falling from six years to under two years. These improvements are delivering for both nature and growth.
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Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Mary Creagh Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Mary Creagh
The early signs are encouraging, because 8 million vapes were sold in 2023-24, but the figures for ’24-25 show that it has already gone down to 6 million, which is accounted for by the regulations coming into effect in June ’25—so that is only a half-year reduction. I am therefore optimistic that sales will come down even lower from that 8 million.
[Official Report, Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee, 8 July 2026; c. 14.]
Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh):
Mary Creagh
The early signs are encouraging, because 8 million vapes a week were sold in 2023-24, but the figures for ’24-25 show that it has already gone down to 6 million, which is accounted for by the regulations coming into effect in June ’25—so that is only a half-year reduction. I am therefore optimistic that sales will come down even lower from that 8 million a week.
State of Climate and Nature
Mary Creagh Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
With permission, I would like to make a statement about the nature and climate crisis. Nature is the monopoly provider of everything we need to live. We are living through the Anthropocene, an age where human activity is now the dominant influence on our planet’s climate and ecosystems. We are seeing its consequences: pollution, climate change and mass extinction. Last year, the Energy Secretary gave the first ever statement to this House on the crisis. One year on, I am here to set out the Government’s commitment to tackle those challenges.
Climate change drives nature loss, and nature loss drives climate change. We must tackle both. Droughts and floods are disrupting harvests, straining supply chains, and pushing up costs. Our nature security assessment published in January shows that if the current rate of biodiversity loss continues, every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse, from the coral reefs that protect our coastlines to the peatlands that store carbon and prevent floods.
The UK’s climate is getting hotter and wetter, with more extreme events—2025 was the UK’s hottest year since records began. In the heatwaves in May and June this year, the Met Office reported that as many as 2,700 people may have died, railway tracks buckled, over 1,000 schools closed, and the London ambulance service had its busiest day on record. Since 1901, the UK’s sea level has risen by about 20 cm, but that rate is accelerating, because two thirds of this rise has happened in just the last 30 years. That is why this Labour Government are stepping up, leading globally on nature recovery, climate mitigation and adaptation. In the UK, we are working in partnership with local communities, businesses, conservationists and farmers. Before the Paris agreement, the world was on track for around 4° of warming; now, national commitments put us on course for around 2.5° degrees. There is so much more to do, but this represents real progress.
In December, we launched our environmental improvement plan, which, for the first time, set out delivery plans to underpin our targets to restore nature, boost our recycling rates and protect our environmental security. Since then, we have published the land use framework, the water White Paper and the farming road map. We have invested a record £2.65 billion in flood resilience, invested in new food waste collection services and invested £1 billion in our national biosecurity infrastructure in Weybridge. Over the next three years, we will invest more than £7 billion in nature—the largest investment in nature ever. That includes £5.9 billion for environmental farming schemes, £816 million for tree planting and £85 million for peatland restoration.
Last October, we published the carbon budget and growth delivery plan to set out how the UK will continue to reduce emissions in order to lower bills for consumers and secure good jobs for British people. Last month, the majority of Members in this place voted to cut emissions by almost 87% from 1990 levels for the carbon budget 7 period, which runs from 2038 to 2042. Under this Government, more than £100 billion of private investment in the net zero economy has been announced.
We have done much on mitigation. However, following advice from the Climate Change Committee, we are setting stronger objectives for climate adaptation. We are building our resilience for a minimum of 2° of warming by 2050 and supporting combined authorities to increase their resilience to climate change, too.
In 2024, we saw a single year exceed 1.5° of warming, which is why we are committed to working with our domestic and international partners to keep the Paris agreement goal of limiting temperatures to a rise of 1.5°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5° in around 2030, but 1.5° is and will remain the right limit. Every fraction of a degree of warming reduces the severity of impacts on people and nature worldwide. Every species saved reduces the risk of losses to the ecosystems we rely on—pollination, disease prevention, and food and climate regulation.
The key to delivering our nature and climate goals is how we use our land and seas. Our land use framework shows that we have enough land to achieve our priorities across economic growth, housing, food production, climate and nature recovery. However, we must make better decisions about how we use our land. We are moving from paper-based systems to making land digital and opening up the Land Registry free for all. Today, we have published an interactive story map of our spatial evidence to support decision makers to use their land more effectively.
The UK has also committed to protect and conserve 30% of our land and seas for nature by 2030. Today, we are publishing the 30 by 30 delivery plan for land in England and guidance to land managers on how to implement it. In May, we announced the £30 million wildlife-rich habitat fund, and today we are providing an additional £37 million a year for the next three years for national parks and national landscapes.
This is a whole-of-Government effort. This weekend, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office ratified the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement to create marine protected areas on the high seas, covering nearly two thirds of the world’s oceans. Funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency is investing £81 million in its forecasting tipping points programme. The Ministry of Defence is developing climate security analysis and critical emerging technologies to support energy resilience for the UK and our armed forces. The Department for Education is investing £710 million out to 2030 to improve the condition of school and college buildings, reducing their emissions and bills, and increasing their resilience to climate change so that they last for decades to come.
I am delighted that in my constituency of Coventry East, Richard Lee primary school and Potters Green primary school are installing new solar panels. At Courthouse Green school, I opened a sensory garden built by the pupils’ eco team to bring nature closer to children.
This week, I am visiting the Great North Bog to see successful peatland restoration in action, and later in the week I will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first four national parks—a legacy of the great 1945 Labour Government. Tomorrow, we launch a competition for young people to join our new youth climate and nature panel. These young people will offer their expert insight to Government as we deliver for climate and nature action through outreach.
From introducing wild beavers to planting three new national forests and creating nine new river walks, this Labour Government are bringing nature closer to people. We will all benefit from a more resilient, more prosperous and greener country. As my right hon. Friend the Energy Secretary said in his statement last year,
“We have been at our best in the House when we have worked across parties on these issues.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2025; Vol. 771, c. 31.]
By preparing our country and our citizens for the climate and nature crises, we are showing leadership internationally. This Government are acting now to protect the world in which we live, which we pass on to future generations. I commend this statement to the House.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement.
I am sure that no one in this House disputes the importance of protecting our climate or restoring nature; the real question is whether this Government are capable of delivering both. The Minister speaks about climate and nature as priorities, yet the Government have repeatedly chosen to target the very individuals tasked with delivering: our farmers, who are the frontline custodians of our natural world.
Let us have a look at the choices this Government have already made in the past two years, which are in direct contradiction to the ambitions the Minister has set out. First, part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 was rightly heavily criticised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which warned that the legislation would
“rip the heart out of environmental protections and risks sending nature further into freefall.”
The Wildlife Trust directly challenged this Government’s growth-at-all-costs rhetoric, stating:
“Before the General Election Labour promised to restore nature”,
yet the Government are instead driving environmental regression. Both organisations took the extraordinary step of demanding that part 3 be completely removed, as did the Opposition.
Secondly, last September the Minister pushed through a blanket ban on the controlled burning of heather on deep peat. In doing so, the Government completely ignored the warnings of the National Fire Chiefs Council, the National Farmers’ Union and many environmental scientists who understood, quite rightly, that by blocking land managers from conducting traditional, heavily regulated rotational burnings, this Government are letting massive fuel loads build up across our moorland, effectively creating a tinderbox and vastly increasing the risk of devastating wildfires that destroy the very peatlands and biodiversity that this Government claim they want to protect.
Thirdly, the Government have completely undermined the sustainable farming incentive. With only £240 million allocated to this year’s applications, the Government have, in effect, made the whole scheme competitive entry. To make matters worse, by capping agreements at £100,000, they are actively pushing the most ambitious, large-scale nature restoration projects in the country out of the window. We cannot achieve a massive 30 by 30 target by cutting funding, reducing green options and telling farmers that large-scale conservation efforts are no longer welcome.
Fourthly, as a result of this Government’s choice to remove the onshore wind farm moratorium, we are now in the ridiculous scenario of applications coming forward to build large-scale wind farms on protected peatland, such as the proposal for the Calderdale wind farm in West Yorkshire, despite warnings from academics and groups like the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust that, if approved, these projects will release massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. The list goes on.
Today’s statement offers no new protections, relying instead on a fragmented, reactive approach that tries to hit targets, rather than redefining how we count and reference land and actually doing anything positive about it. The choices that this Government have made in the past two years do not represent a road map to nature recovery. Before coming forward with today’s statement, what consideration did the Government make of the impacts of their choices over the past two years on the targets set out in this plan? Does the Minister agree that those policies are in direct contradiction with the delivery ambitions that this Government have brought to the House today?
Mary Creagh
I am disappointed by the nature and tone of the hon. Gentleman’s response to our attempts to right some of the wrongs left behind by the previous Government.
The hon. Gentleman asked in particular about the Planning and Infrastructure Act. What we have done through that Act is introduce strategic policy statements to prioritise outcomes over process, so that Natural England and the Environment Agency can speed up decision making while maintaining high environmental standards. We have given them £100 million over three years to fund specialist staff and modern digital systems to cut costly delays for planners.
It was clear when we came into government that the status quo for development and nature was simply not working. Fragmented site-by-site environmental requirements and increasing costs were adding to the delays to the much-needed housing and infrastructure that this country needs. It was not working for nature either, and the condition of many of our most important habitats and species was continuing to decline. The nature restoration fund will support development and ensure that the money spent by developers on environmental mitigation delivers more. It is a simple levy payment that Natural England will use to deliver impactful conservation measures at scale instead of having a piecemeal approach.
Let me talk a little about peat. Some 80% of England’s peatlands are degraded. We are investing £85 million in their restoration by 2030. Since we have come into government, approximately 10,000 hectares of peatlands have been brought into restoration through our nature for climate peatland grant scheme. Last week we announced £44 million for lowland peat—which I do not think the hon. Gentleman’s Government invested in—and we expect another 4,000 hectares to be restored this year. We have the target, which his Government set, to restore an additional 40,000 hectares by 2030.
Rotational burning is a contributory factor to 80% of peatlands being degraded. It makes it difficult to restore peat to its natural hydrology and impossible to return it to its natural state. It is also really bad for air quality locally. It damages peatlands, shifts species composition, disrupts the hydrology of peat and, crucially, releases stored carbon, increasing vulnerability to wildfire. Wetter, healthy and functioning peatlands are much more resilient to the impacts of wildfire.
We have published our farming road map, and through the new environmental land management schemes, we are supporting smaller farmers—those organic farmers that were excluded from the larger schemes that the hon. Gentleman talked about. We are spatially targeting, so that we get bigger, better and more joined-up protected areas for nature and wildlife.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I welcome the Government’s statement. My hon. Friend the Minister is right to say that climate change drives nature loss and nature loss drives climate change—we must tackle them hand in hand. I met this week with Moors for the Future, who spoke about peatland and the importance of working with land managers. I have to say, they were very much more of the view of my hon. Friend than of the shadow Minister, who we just heard from.
The Minister is right to talk about the importance of adaptation, which we need massively to improve, so will she tell us when the next iteration of the national adaptation plan will come out? The one under the previous Government was widely criticised, and we need to know more. A plan that looks only at adaptation will fail, as that must be secondary to mitigation.
Finally, what more can we do in our approach? It is right to say that farmers are fundamental to success in improving our nature outcomes, and it is regrettable that this Government got off on such a bad foot with them. What can she tell us about how we can rebuild that relationship? Ultimately, we must work hand in hand with farmers and sustainable farming if we are going to achieve what we need for nature?
Mary Creagh
Through some of our landscape recovery projects we are seeing farm clusters get behind the new idea of leveraging in private finance to work alongside public investment, but it is also about understanding their role in a multifunctional and multi-use landscape. In the uplands in the Lake district, for example, it is about working to restore peat so that it can hold much more water in the land to prevent run-off, which can overwhelm the towns and villages below the peatlands and the bogs. We understand the role that nature can play in protecting run-off from farms—particularly agricultural run-off—so it may be a case of, for example, planting trees along river banks and ensuring that there is no run-off into the rivers, reducing their phosphate.
My hon. Friend asked me about the national adaptation plan. We are committed to an ambitious fourth national adaptation programme in 2028. I have requested advice from the Climate Change Committee on appropriate planning assumptions to inform our approach, but we are investing in those flood defences through £104 billion in private investment for new water infrastructure and, crucially, the launch of the local authority climate service to support local authorities to respond to flooding and, now, heatwaves.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I thank the Minister for early sight of the statement.
On my way into Kendal this morning, before I came down to Parliament, I observed the jarring reality of fields yellowing in the dry heat and the River Kent so low that I could see the bedrock. Alongside it, defensive walls were being built on the banks of the river in the aftermath of devastating floods—a reminder that climate change has brought extreme weather. It has brought different threats at different times, but they have been equally challenging and dangerous. I am afraid that those who continue to deny climate change look more foolish by the day. We see the danger of climate change especially in the terrifying wildfires in the Peak district—a reminder that we do not protect nature if we completely remove livestock and the human beings that manage nature.
The Government aim to reclaim 30% of our land and seas for nature. I welcome that, and much of the action plan, but 70% of England’s landmass is agricultural land. Does the Minister agree that we must start by ensuring that all farmers have access to environmental schemes—not just those who apply for them the quickest? Will she give more detail on the welcome proposal that the Liberal Democrats have long fought for to now permit those who farm common land to access payments to help restore nature in our most precious landscapes like the Lake district, the Peaks and Dartmoor?
Farmers estimate that hot weather this year will cost them 20% of their harvest. What is the Minister’s plan to remove barriers so that farmers can build on-farm reservoirs and take other measures that will protect our natural environment and food security?
Finally, if the Government want to meet their targets—we really want them to—are they not being unwise in their rush to deregulate on planning? Should we not be increasing the ability of local communities to resist the destruction of nature and to have greater power to direct developers to protect and enhance nature rather than being at the whim of those whose only motive is profit?
Mary Creagh
The hon. Member asked about a range of policies. I will talk about natural flood management. We will invest £300 million in natural flood management over the next 10 years—the highest ever figure for floods programming, and that is the minimum level. We will be supporting projects that reduce flood risk and deliver wider benefits to communities and nature.
On the concrete flood barriers and dried rivers that the hon. Gentleman spoke about, we must do more to enable farmers to hold water in their land. When they are building their reservoirs, we do not want concrete bowls or buckets; what we need are natural scrapes and areas where they can hold on to water. They can help with that natural aspiration by planting trees and experimenting with agroforestry, as we are doing with the western forest around Bristol and Gloucester. We are acutely aware of the challenges that farmers face from extreme weather events. In some areas in the east of England, the wheat harvest is already being brought in.
We are committed to maintaining food production and supporting thriving farm businesses. But, as I said earlier, land managers and farmers have an increasingly important role in reducing the risk of flooding and coastal erosion as we adapt to climate changes, and eligibility criteria for natural flood management funding has widened to include them for the first time. We want them to do more on soils, so that they can hold the water as well, buffer strips, to slow the flow, and run-off attenuation features to store and release water.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for including land use and food systems within this outline. It is so important that that is included as part of the triple challenge of climate, nature and food.
We know that we can meet our climate and nature goals only if we catalyse and incentivise private sector investment. I point to the example of Bristol, where through our strategic energy partnership city leap we have mobilised finance for city decarbonisation, and where the West of England combined authority has just launched a £5 million nature fund to help kick-start nature markets. What more are we doing at a national level to support nature and carbon markets and to incentivise that private sector investment?
Mary Creagh
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. It was clear at London climate action week that the energy and climate transition is already well under way. With the British Standards Institution, we have worked to set nature standards so that when nature projects and large financial funds want to invest in nature, they have the confidence to do so and are not accused of greenwashing as they have been in the past. We also want to learn from some of the issues about investing in carbon markets so that companies feel comfortable insetting carbon and nature losses in their own supply chains, where the first rule is to do no harm. A huge amount of money is going into nature projects and I am excited to see how that will develop in the future.
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
I express my gratitude to the Minister and to the Government for delivering this second nature and climate statement, as they promised to do during the conversations around the time of my Climate and Nature Bill last year. It may not be exactly what I had envisaged, but I welcome it none the less. Perhaps we can discuss it further in our meeting on Wednesday.
Despite all the money being put into various climate and nature measures, there seems to be agreement among the environmental non-governmental organisations that the 30 by 30 plan will not deliver on 30 by 30. For example, in the last three years, Natural England has not designated any new sites of special scientific interest, and over the last 20 years the area covered by those sites has increased by only 2.8%. What further funding will be given to Natural England so that it can expand on its important mission?
Mary Creagh
I was discussing that very issue with Natural England this morning. Land covering about 32% of England is already likely to, or has the potential to, contribute to the 30 by 30 target, including through our landscape recovery projects, and local nature reserves and national nature reserves. We are creating 3,000 hectares a year of national nature reserves, which makes a very significant contribution to that. We have also set out the route to 30 by 30, talking about bronze, silver and gold land. I understand why the ENGOs want everything to be gold, but we must live in the real world and show what the pipeline towards gold looks like.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
Our best hope in the fight to restore our environment is this country’s nature-loving public, but many across the House will be aware of the recent example of the Environment Agency threatening to take people to court for trying to clean up their dying river. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that the Environment Agency is empowering the public rather than threatening to prosecute them for protecting nature?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is right: we have an army of citizen scientists and naturalists, and we are certainly looking forward to celebrating some of them tomorrow at RHS Garden Wisley for Bees’ Needs Week. We also have the pollinator count next week. However, anyone who wants to clean up their river needs a permit from the Environment Agency beforehand. as we have habitats and flood defences there. My hon. Friend is right that we should empower citizens to take action but they need to do so without there being unintended consequences.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
I welcome the statement from the Nature Minister, and thank her for recognising the crucial link between nature restoration and tackling climate breakdown. Does she recognise that whatever action is taken—we need to see far more action taken both on nature restoration and on decarbonisation—if large-scale new oilfields are granted at Rosebank or Jackdaw, for example, there could be emissions equivalent to 28 low-income countries from just one oilfield, which would undo all the good work that she and all of us in the House want to see?
Mary Creagh
The hon. Member knows that I am unable to comment on individual licences and that the Energy Secretary will make his decision in due course. What I would say it is that it is essential that we have a climate transition that is fair to those workers in the North sea. North sea oil and gas have been in decline for about the last 20 years, so he is right to say that, and we have to get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster to secure energy security and prices for the future.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I really welcome the statement and all the commitment that the Government are giving to nature. I know that the 30 by 30 plan is focused just on land, with the justification being that 40% of our waters are marine protected areas, but the Joint Nature Conservation Committee has said that less than 1% of our MPAs are assessed as being truly protected. Will the Minister please tell us when she will focus the next plan on marine protection, which one hopes would include a ban on bottom trawling?
Mary Creagh
The Water Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), is only too happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss bottom trawling. I believe that about 32% of our waters are currently protected. My understanding is that this depends on the site that is protected and the particular feature, animal or creature that is found there—it is about getting the appropriate protection for the appropriate thing. I will get the Water Minister to talk to her in detail about this matter.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am sure the Minister will agree that to meet our climate and nature obligations, we must not take decisions that commit us to creating waste and causing harm for 40 years. The Government’s own policy, published in late 2024, said that new incinerators could be approved only where there is a local waste disposal need. However, one in my constituency at Canford Magna has said that 12% of the waste processed will come from the wider Dorset area and only 60% from the whole Wessex region. Will she pause any new approvals until their impact beyond 2050 has been fully assessed, and done so in the light of the seventh carbon budget?
Mary Creagh
By publishing that incineration capacity strategy, we set out clearly the standards that we are looking for on new incineration permits. We have a problem—an epidemic—with abandoned landfills left behind by the previous Government and illegal landfills that are springing up because of organised crime groups across the country. It is infinitely better to use energy from waste plants than to bury waste in a hole next to where people work, live and go to school. There is an issue with the sustainability of incineration, but it is part of our clean power as we go forward.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Yesterday, fire spread rapidly along the railway line in Walthamstow, with dry vegetation from the heatwave acting as kindling. Hundreds of residents had to be evacuated as an emergency and several lost their homes, which burned down. I pay tribute to the St Mary’s Welcome Centre, the Waltham Forest Islamic Association, the fire brigade, the police and the council staff who joined hundreds of residents in helping those affected by setting up emergency centres with food, water, fans and phone chargers, all at short notice. The honest truth is that this is not the first time Walthamstow has risen to the challenge to support our community when such a crisis has happened. What is the Minister doing to build climate resilience into local government planning? I fear that, whether from flooding or heatwaves, my community will face more of these incidents in future without that.
Mary Creagh
I remember when I was Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee doing an inquiry into heatwaves that started during the “beast from the east”, so nobody gave us any evidence, and ended on the first 36° June day in London, which I think was back in 2017 or 2018. The point my hon. Friend makes is a valid one. I am incredibly sorry to hear about the impact that that fire has had on her constituents, and I am sure it has had huge impacts on the local fire and rescue services as well. What we need to do in local government is to plan for these mutual assistance moments, because there was also a fire in Stratford—last week, I think—and people had to be evacuated from the train track. Network Rail is taking action on the clearance of trees to ensure that the line is clear, and it has created new areas of grassland. We need to look at whether the shrubs we have are appropriate for the intense heatwaves we are having, and if not, ask what needs to change.
Lara Bird (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
The Energy Secretary says that he supports green jobs, yet there is growing concern that only two of the six National Energy System Operator pipelines will support the Scottish wind pathways, with the rest of the investment being redistributed to areas across the rest of the UK, despite the fact that Scotland is a renewables superpower. Can the Minister confirm whether one of the Energy Secretary’s last moves in the job, potentially, will be to rob Scotland of £100 billion of renewables investment while jeopardising thousands of Scottish jobs? Or will he commit to investing in the grid connectivity that Scotland needs to support our crucial Scottish renewables industry?
Mary Creagh
The North Sea Transition Authority is equipped to support a fair, managed and prosperous transition, including through a new statutory objective to consider workers, communities and supply chains in its decisions, and we are extending employment rights and protections for offshore workers in renewables, bringing them into line with those working in oil and gas. We have a pragmatic plan for the North sea to secure and renew the basin’s place as Britain’s powerhouse, protecting jobs in our oil and gas heartlands, and to build the next generation of good jobs in clean energy industries. Beyond that, I am afraid I cannot say much more.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
As you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, Harlow is full of some incredibly beautiful areas of natural beauty, from Hatfield forest and Harlow town park to Parndon Wood nature reserve. I am determined that these beautiful areas will be protected not just for this generation but for generations to come, which is why I am concerned when I hear voices in this Chamber that deny the climate emergency. It is not just an emergency for the future; it is an emergency now. Will the Minister confirm that she will ensure that we do everything we can as a Labour Government to protect nature and the environment and to tackle climate change?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is right to say that we have seen a big flip-flop from the Conservatives. I am old enough to remember when, back in 2019, they put net zero into law under Theresa May and she described it as a Conservative mission. Now their leader says that the very same target is “impossible”, so which Conservative party are the voters supposed to believe: the one that legislated for net zero or the one that now instructs its MPs to vote against it?
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
Some schools in my constituency were forced to close during the recent red alert heatwave, causing disruption and loss of learning, so could the Minister explain what discussions she has had with the Department for Education about preparing our schools for more frequent and more extreme weather events, and about improving outdoor learning spaces, as advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), to ensure that the citizens of the future feel more connected to nature?
Mary Creagh
I mentioned in my statement the solar panels for schools, which have had the benefit of cutting bills and providing a resilient electricity supply for those schools. The DFE is investing £710 million to improve the condition of school and college buildings and, crucially, they are part of our Government estate nature plan, so they are part of that cross-Government work. Schools cover a land mass the size of Birmingham, and they need to play their part in educating pupils about the climate and nature crisis and in helping to tackle it.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement and thank her for her work in this important area. Will she say a little more about rewilding in lowland Britain, tree planting and changes to agricultural practices, all of which reduce emissions of carbon and, indeed, capture carbon? Could she perhaps mention the work in towns as well? There is some fantastic work along the Thames in my area that she might want to see.
Mary Creagh
I always like to go and see trees being planted, and my hon. Friend is right to talk about the importance of trees, both for shading our streets and as part of the three new national forests, two of which we have already announced. That is why we have more than doubled the grant for trees outside woodland through the Tree Council. It has gone up from £1 million in the last financial year to £2.5 million this year. Crucially, however, we need the right trees in the right place for the right reason, and the trees that will survive to 2100 are not the same trees that our mums and dads were planting in our back gardens.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I declare an interest as the chair of the local nature recovery all-party parliamentary group. As Britain endures another summer of extreme heat, droughts and devastating wildfires, this nature and climate statement is crucial, and I only wish that those on the Conservative Benches felt the same about it. I welcome the focus in the 30 by 30 delivery plan on the network of local nature recovery strategies, because they tackle climate change, improve resilience and hit our nature targets, but we need more than a plan, a map and warm words. We need a commitment to make it work in practice, including through weight in planning and public funding to leverage private finance—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The hon. Lady really does need to get to a question. There is a really important piece of legislation still to come and this statement will finish at 6.40 pm, so many Members are going to be disappointed unless questions are very brief.
Mary Creagh
The depleted numbers on the Conservative Benches are beginning to make me wonder whether they need some funding to avoid extinction—[Laughter.] I’m here all week!
Local nature recovery strategies have been a brilliant vehicle to get these better, bigger, more joined-up landscapes, and I have been in discussion with officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about how we can align and spatially target funding towards those areas in particular. I have been talking about exactly that with the West Midlands combined authority.
Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)
This weekend, I joined constituents in Hulme for a screening of the “People’s Emergency Briefing” on the threats to British life from ongoing damage to nature and our climate. My constituents want to ensure that everyone across the country is properly informed about the causes and impact of climate change, so will the Minister commit to holding a prime-time televised emergency briefing on the climate and nature crisis?
Mary Creagh
I look after many things, but sadly I do not yet control the broadcast schedules of any national broadcasters. The point of the National Emergency Briefing is to get people together, a bit like the great organisation that rejoices in the name of People Planet Pint. I have been people, planet and football for most of the last three weeks, but bringing people together to discuss these issues in local areas is a really positive way for people to grab this crisis by the neck and set out what they are going to do locally.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
Despite the whole-of-Government effort to tackle the climate and nature crisis, I fear that there is still a misalignment of policies across Departments, as we have seen with the dilution of environmental protections in the revisions to the national planning policy framework. Can the Minister therefore ensure that there is more collaborative working across Government so that future decisions on planning and infrastructure leave nature in a better state, rather than contributing to its decline?
Mary Creagh
We have the biodiversity net gain framework, which is all about making sure that there is a biodiversity uplift of 10% in every planning policy. It was a brand-new policy left to us by the previous Government, but it was not working perfectly—nothing is born perfect—so we have made some changes to make it more proportionate and ensure that it works better in practice.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the 30 by 30 nature and climate plan, which responds to the crisis that we face and builds resilience and restoration. Following my youth environment conference in York, “Our Planet, Our Future”, it is clear that young people want to get involved, so in addition to setting up the youth climate and nature panel, will the Minister ensure greater accountability to young people across the country, through local panels that will hold local authorities to account for their actions?
Mary Creagh
Again, my hon. Friend tempts me beyond my brief. Given that most local authorities have declared a climate and nature crisis, it strikes me that her suggestion is an excellent topic for the Youth Parliament—or local youth panels could be organised through schools.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
The Minister was right when she said that climate change drives nature loss, and nature loss drives climate change. We are seeing the effects of that on people’s health, the economy and global security, so I welcome the work that the Government are doing to address that. There has been a national security assessment on global biodiversity loss. May I encourage the Minister to put as many as possible of its findings into the public domain, so that people understand the threats to our security? May I also invite her to give us some information about the relationship between the report’s findings and the new climate security taskforce?
Mary Creagh
The climate security taskforce is part of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s remit, so I can ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero to talk to my hon. Friend about that. The report that he mentions says that analysis shows there is “high confidence” that
“ecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse.”
It goes on:
“Global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity…Without major intervention…this is highly likely to continue to 2050 and beyond.”
So what is already in the public domain makes for sobering reading, and I commend the full document, which is in the public domain, to all hon. Members.
Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)
This morning, I visited the Churchill school in Hawkinge and had a good interaction with the young children. Most of their questions were about protecting nature, and they repeatedly asked how we can support them to plant more trees. Children care about our environment, so how can we encourage members of the public, and especially Members of the Opposition, to talk about nature and net zero in the same way as those children?
Mary Creagh
Given the intense heatwaves that we have experienced this year and in previous years, it is vital that children in Ashford have the protection of shade from trees. Academy trusts should be making funds available for adaptation, to mitigate impacts in their schools, and to keep their schools open. We do not want children at home, not learning, and schools overheating to absolutely impossible temperatures. I commend those students, and I encourage them in their efforts.
Several hon. Members rose—
Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government have produced a global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security report, and I support the call by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) for the analysis to be released in full. The information already in the public domain warns about the exact cumulative heatwaves we are now experiencing. What work is being done to protect nature globally, particularly in relation to the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework? What adaptations are being made here at home, to protect people from this extreme heat?
Mary Creagh
We are having a triple-COP year. We will be setting out our approach and our achievements as we move towards the biodiversity COP in Armenia and the climate COP in Turkey. There is also an important desertification COP taking place in Mongolia, which is on the frontline of the climate crisis as the permafrost there collapses. We are looking to ensure that every £1 we invest in climate also delivers for nature, because the era of £1 for one thing and £1 for another thing and Governments being asked to do this on their own is emphatically over.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
This weekend, many people have heard from their water suppliers, who are urging them to conserve water due to high demand, but there have been no new reservoirs built for over 30 years and there is little uptake of grey water systems. Does the Minister agree that we need to urgently address water storage issues and make use of grey water systems and rain water collection in homes?
Mary Creagh
We are building nine new reservoirs, but further to what my hon. Friend says, I have had messages from Severn Trent Water, who advise me to put a bucket in the bath, get a hosepipe, and do a bit of siphoning of the bathwater to water the garden. There are already three areas with hosepipe bans, and I fear that there may be more bans on the way.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I commend the organisers of the national emergency briefing, which I attended last year, as well as the local organisers of the people’s emergency briefing in Shipley. The climate and nature crisis is an emergency. We see the consequences; in particular, wildfires are becoming more common on the upland moors in my constituency, such as Baildon moor, Harden moor and Rombalds moor. What further action is the Minister taking to protect upland peatland moors in areas like mine?
Mary Creagh
I will be travelling to Fylingdales this week to make an announcement about what we are doing to help those brave farmers who are on the frontline of that wildfire.
Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)
Over the past few weeks, the Black Country turned red hot in this intense heatwave, which is most impacting vulnerable people, particularly elderly people. Because of the urban heat island effect, urban areas like mine, West Bromwich, are often much hotter than rural areas, so will the Minister set out what the Government are doing to protect urban areas, and to green them, to protect us from extreme heat in future, in addition to the excellent work we have done already?
Mary Creagh
As I mentioned before, we are more than doubling the funding for tree planting through the trees outside woodland fund. Climate change is sexist: it seems to be that women are particularly affected, and because of our body composition, we are less able to reduce our core heat, so we need to look at specific policies to protect particular members of the community, including the under-fives, the over-65s and those with heart and lung problems. We look to our health service to do that, but it cannot do that if the hospitals are heating up beyond 28°C.
Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)
Earlier this month, in my constituency of Beckenham and Penge, the River Pool was lined with thousands of dead fish, including critically endangered European eels, following a pollution incident. Thankfully, the water quality has now returned to normal, and the Environment Agency has agreed to restock the river with fish species. Will the Minister join me in asking the Environment Agency and Thames Water to urgently conclude their investigation into what caused the incident and share the findings? Will she support my efforts to ensure that whoever is responsible is held accountable and faces the full force of the law?
Mary Creagh
I pay tribute to everyone who is helping with the restocking. My hon. Friend is lucky to have a river so close to London that has such a sensitive and rare species as the European eel in it. It is important that perpetrators of environmental crimes are brought to justice swiftly, but it is also important that any case that we bring is watertight and achieves the right outcomes.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
A couple of years ago, I went to Spain at the end of a severe heatwave, and what I saw devastated me. There were fields and fields of blackened crops. Now farmers in my constituency are increasingly experiencing drought, flooding, extreme heat, and a change in the seasons due to climate change. Does the Minister agree with me that acting on climate change is vital for securing Britain’s food supply, and farming’s future as an essential industry for our country?
Mary Creagh
We know that we need to experiment with agroforestry, and that we need to do farming differently in this country, but sometimes it is about going back to the old ways of farming, with mixed arable crops and cattle and sheep, to get back that grassland; and about re-wiggling the waters. I was talking today about the blocking up of a little river in East Anglia for blackcurrant bushes—we all grew up on Ribena. That is resilient farming—growing our own fruit, and not relying on Spain for our fruit and veg, because if Spain’s water supply dries up, we will have to do more at home.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
The latest heatwaves have been really unsettling; kids have been unable to learn in schools, and care homes have been unable to keep residents cool. One of the GP practices in my constituency had to shut its waiting area because the temperatures were dangerously high. We have heard the Minister talk about adaption and resilience measures. We are in this climate emergency, so can she say more about how those measures will help my constituents in Aylesbury?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend lives in a particularly beautiful part of the world that has a lot to commend it. We need to take a whole-city approach to the issue. We need to look at our roads. We need to reduce the urban heat island effect, with more tree planting and soft planting, and moving away from the grey concrete. We need more planting that will hold water out of our drains and keep it on our streets. We need to reduce the concreting over of front gardens, which has done so much to contribute towards flooding problems.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
I represent a constituency at the frontline of the climate and nature emergency. Flood risks are part of our daily life. Moors for the Future has demonstrated that restoring peatland can slow waterflow on hills; water passing over restored peat goes 670 times slower than it does over degraded peat. Moors for the Future is working on projects with the Highways Agency to stop roads flooding. That is a win-win initiative that helps nature and infrastructure. Will the Government continue to support healthy peatland across the country?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the subject of peatlands and their role in hydrological protection. He raises the same point as the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) did about Calderdale, but from a completely different direction. We know that peatlands have this important role to play. They are this country’s Amazon rainforest, and we are doing everything we can to protect them for the future.
Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
The Minister’s statement will be welcomed by year 2 at St Michael’s community academy in Crewe, who I visited recently. I heard letters read aloud by the children, demonstrating their concern about the need to protect our environment and natural habitats. Will the Minister join me in congratulating those year 2 classes, and set out why the Government’s 30 by 30 delivery plan is so important for reversing decades of nature decline?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend’s year 2s at St Michael’s show that you are never too young to start caring about the environment, but it is important that we nurture and protect that climate awareness and eco awareness. Often as kids go into secondary school, they can lose that. I am excited that we will have a new GCSE in natural history, so that children can learn about what they love—again, that is something being done under this Government, not the last.
Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
Coton in the Elms in my constituency hit the national news for having recorded the UK’s highest temperature on Friday of 35.2°C—a reminder of the realities of climate change and the need to transition to renewable energy. Most of my constituents support that transition, but they are concerned that South Derbyshire is being asked to shoulder more than its fair share, particularly through the Castle Way energy proposal, and the concentration of battery storage linked to Willington and Drakelow grid connections. Will the Minister reassure my constituents that the burden of hosting solar and battery storage infrastructure, and of nature protection, will be shared fairly across the country?
Mary Creagh
I commend my hon. Friend on getting through that quickly. She tempts me to go beyond my brief, and on to the subject of battery and solar energy. Solar installations can result in biodiversity net gains of up to 300%; there can be farmland, sheep-grazing grassland and solar alongside each other, and that can provide extra income for the farmer. On battery energy storage, I feel like that is a question for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
Climate change is upon us, and it is costing lives. We must change society to try to stop the situation from getting even worse. Even with the smallest amount of analysis, we know that extreme weather hits the poorest in Britain the hardest. What steps are the Government taking to close inequality gaps, as an essential way of improving our resilience to climate change?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend asks a great question. I said earlier that climate change is sexist; it also hits the poorest harder—a point he makes well. As we look towards the future, as well as thinking about offering warm spaces through our local government colleagues and councils, we also need to start looking at offering cool and air-conditioned places, such as this Chamber, where we can all go for a bit of relief from the heat.
State of Climate and Nature
Mary Creagh Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
I will be making an oral statement on this subject later today.
[HCWS225]
Oral Answers to Questions
Mary Creagh Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Lauren Edwards (Rochester and Strood) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
Since publishing the waste crime action plan in March, we have started clearing illegal waste at Kidlington, and we are investigating clearing up sites in Wigan, Sheffield and Hyndburn. We have arrested 18 waste criminals, launched the digital waste tracking scheme, so that we can see where the waste goes in near real time, and this week we approved legislation for tougher powers to tackle rogue criminals. We have 300,000 people registered to transport waste in this country, but not all of them are legit.
Lauren Edwards
I really welcome the three-pronged strategy in the Government’s waste crime action plan—focused on prevention, enforcement and remediation—and I welcome the small number of recent and really significant illegal waste sites, which the Minister mentioned, that will be assessed for clearance. Will the Minister, however, outline how older but equally significant sites such as Brambletree wharf, which has blighted my local community for nearly a decade, can be tackled under the plan?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is right that, under the previous Government, there was a large amount of illegally dumped waste—about 30,000 tonnes between 2018 and 2022. Enforcement action is being taken by Medway council through a planning enforcement notice, using planning powers to remove the existing illegal businesses, and the EA will be serving an enforcement notice on the landowner to remove the waste. The difference between this Government and the last is that we are taking action. If people spot waste crime taking place, they should call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
Fly-tippers tend to vanish just as the mess gets traced back to them—much like Nigel Farage earlier this week. Closer to home, I led a community walkabout with the Friends of Outer Devonshire, alongside residents such as Emma Boyes and Kay Skinner, to look at fly-tipping hotspots in Eastbourne. Will the Minister commend them for their work, and outline what steps the Government will take to support them and their community to tackle fly-tipping once and for all?
Mary Creagh
The hon. Member is absolutely right that fly-tippers are despoiling our countryside, and I pay tribute to his local group for taking such great action to keep the beaches and countryside clean. We have introduced a penalty of up to nine points on fly-tippers’ driving licences. Often these people are just doing a job for mates at the weekend, and if they could lose their driving licence, it will certainly make them think twice about doing such jobs. However, fly-tippers are often part of a much wider serious and organised crime group. We should not think of them as little criminals, because they can often be part of quite a big criminal gang.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
My constituents who live close to the Flusco landfill site in Newbiggin are one of many communities right across the country bearing the brunt of this nationwide scandal. The owners of the site—a legitimate one on paper—have been judged to have flagrantly broken environmental regulations. Like many other sites, this one has been ineffectively regulated and poorly policed. Residents cannot leave out their washing or let their kids play outside. In this heat especially, the stench can be unbearable, and the leachate and gases utterly intolerable. Meanwhile, the country is being ripped off as the Government’s landfill taxes are being flouted to the tune of at least £1 billion every year. Will the Government act urgently and powerfully to help my constituents and all those living near landfill sites, which in recent years have become toxic in every sense?
Mary Creagh
I was pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) to talk about the activities at these waste sites. Unpicking the work happening there is a long and complex legal process involving multi-agency and cross-agency working. We now have a properly funded waste crime enforcement unit. The funding for that unit was a mere £10 million in 2023-24, but it has had an extra £5 million this year to take it up to £15 million, and then we are doubling it to £30 million. That is the way we take these people down.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
Our waste collection systems are completely different from those in Germany and France, where they have a wide network of bring banks for glass. We have the privilege of having glass collected in our household waste collection schemes. I am conscious of the dual burden that is falling on pubs, and I have tasked my officials with working at pace on the issue to find a solution for the pubs that we are all enjoying in this hot weather, with the great football. I wish England the best for their match at the weekend.
Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)
Mary Creagh
As we push the waste criminals out of the sector, there will be more business for legitimate operators. That also means that the carrier registration number has to be carried on the Facebook ads, leaflets and vans of waste transporters, so that householders have confidence that the people we are giving our waste to will dispose of it correctly. We are not going to have a system where dead dogs and cows can be registered. We are going to introduce criminal record and identity checks and ensure that everyone knows what they are doing when they are transporting hazardous waste.
James Asser (West Ham and Beckton) (Lab)
We are going through another heatwave, but we know that well tree-lined streets can reduce temperatures by 5°C to 8°C. The data shows that we are significantly behind Europe, with 18% coverage compared with 30%, and that, where there is coverage, it is mainly in more affluent areas rather than poorer, more deprived areas. I ask the Minister to look at a national strategy, working with the relevant environmental bodies and local councils, to ramp up and increase proofing our streets against extreme heat.
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is right about our tree cover, which is why I am delighted to tell him that tree planting is at its highest rate for 20 years. As we endure our second heatwave this summer, we know that we need to do more. That is why we are doubling the funding for tree planting through our trees outside woodland fund, which is £2.5 million this year, up from £1 million last year.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s mentioning an update to the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966; after 60 years, it is much needed to make the Act fit for purpose to regulate new business structures and paraprofessionals such as physios, and to protect the title of veterinary nurse. Could we have an assurance that, with the change of Administration, the update will remain a priority and will not be kicked into the long grass? It is much needed right now.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
At the Environmental Audit Committee yesterday, the Minister for Nature did not have a clear answer for why the national security assessment on ecosystem collapse has not been released in its full form to MPs. I got the impression that it was not her decision to withhold the full unredacted report from MPs. Whose decision was it?
Mary Creagh
We have been around the houses on this. The document that has been released talks about coral collapse by 2030 and mangrove collapse by 2050. I would say that there is enough to worry about in the document that has been released without worrying about what versions 1, 2 and 3 said.
Draft Batteries (Placing on the Market) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026
Mary Creagh Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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The Chair
Before we start, just a quick domestic. If we open the windows, the heat will probably get worse, and the doors have to be closed, so please feel free to divest yourselves of clothing within reason.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Batteries (Placing on the Market) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I have immediately availed myself of your generous offer to take some clothes off; it is always a good way to start the afternoon. If anyone has had the scampi and chips in the Members’ Tea Room, that will keep us powering through.
These draft regulations were laid before the House on 4 June. In 2023, the European Union replaced its 2006 batteries directive with a new batteries regulation, which introduced updated “placing on the market” requirements for batteries, including design, information and labelling specifications. The EU regulation achieves several objectives. By introducing new requirements relating to carbon footprint, performance, durability and recycled content, and by updating the requirements for the removability and replaceability of batteries from containing devices, it addresses the environmental and safety performance of batteries.
The EU regulation introduces specific safety requirements for stationary battery energy storage systems and updates information requirements, including on batteries’ state of health and expected lifetime. The EU regulation introduces a digital battery passport and supply chain due diligence policies for larger businesses that are placing batteries on the market. Previous requirements relating to the restriction of certain substances in batteries are also carried forward. The EU regulation introduces conformity assessments with the CE mark to demonstrate compliance with the requirements that I have just listed.
Those changes reflect the rapid growth in sectors such as electric vehicles—including cars, vans and e-bikes—portable electronics and energy storage, alongside the increasing volume and complexity of batteries now in circulation. Those requirements apply directly in Northern Ireland, as they do in EU member states. They phase in over time, meaning that some requirements are already in force, and others are due to come into force on future dates specified by the EU regulation.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
I am listening very carefully, and this is about assuring the battery manufacturing process. Is it just these draft regulations or is research being done into thermal runaway and how toxic fallout from the vapourisation of heavy metals can fall on to farmland? A big concern in my constituency is that thermal runaway in battery storage at solar sites could poison land through the vapourisation of heavy metals. Is there any research into that safety concern?
Mary Creagh
I am not aware of any research, but there is work going on through our circular economy strategy, which we have co-designed with industry. As part of that, we have looked at transport and waste electricals, and I am certain that there are transport experts in those working groups. We have to get to a circular economy, not just for batteries but for tyres, which also have a habit of miraculously catching fire after being collected. We need to consider that as part of our circular economy work, but I am happy to take a note and write further to the right hon. Gentleman on that. It is mostly a matter for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, but as I said, the complexity and location of batteries are changing, and we do not want to end up with contaminants and pollutants.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
I thank the Minister for that answer. That is something I have been pushing on. It is an important aspect of battery storage in a rural constituency, so I very much accept her offer to write to me with any information she may have.
Mary Creagh
I will undertake to do that. If I cannot do it myself, I will pass it on to my DESNZ colleagues.
Mary Creagh
I will make a little progress, if I may. The changes will apply directly in Northern Ireland and will phase in over time. They apply in Northern Ireland under the Windsor framework. As an EU regulation, the obligations within it apply directly, without the need for transposition. The draft instrument, in a reserved policy area, is the domestic legislation required to enable effective enforcement of these obligations in Northern Ireland.
Implementing the measures helps Northern Ireland to maintain its dual market access. It does so by establishing a proportionate enforcement, offences and penalties regime in Northern Ireland for the EU regulation. Offences are put in one of three penalty groups: summary-only offences, such as those subject to a fine, which can be unlimited; either-way offences; or imprisonment for up to 12 months and/or an unlimited fine for the most serious indictable-only offences. Offences include failure to keep appropriate due-diligence documentation; failure of a supplier of battery cells and modules to provide documentation to manufacturers; and failure by an importer to comply with certain battery safety-related obligations. Those fall into penalty groups 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
The Office for Product Safety and Standards enforces the existing “placing on the market” requirement across the UK and will act as the market surveillance and enforcement authority for “placing on the market” matters set out in this draft instrument in Northern Ireland. The SI also includes supplementary measures arising from the EU regulation, relating to conformity assessment. That includes a requirement for the NI indication to accompany the CE mark in certain circumstances, making the Secretary of State the designated authority for notified bodies and putting in place an appeals process for decisions made by notified bodies.
The draft SI also consequentially amends the Batteries and Accumulators (Placing on the Market) Regulations 2008 by revoking them in respect of Northern Ireland, so that they now apply only in Great Britain. To be clear, the instrument does not introduce new policy objectives or regulatory standards beyond those arising from the EU batteries regulation. The batteries regulation required the penalty regime to be in place by 18 August 2025. Further parts of the EU regulation remain to be implemented in Northern Ireland, after that 18 August 2025 date. They include changes to waste and to extended producer responsibility requirements. Those matters are not covered here.
I will now respond to the submission noted by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee regarding the impact on the UK internal market and the costs arising from the draft instrument. The UK has had an integrated UK-wide approach to batteries and waste batteries for many years. Let me be clear that we will take any steps necessary to continue to meet the Government’s commitment to protect the UK’s internal market. That is why we will consult in the autumn on an aligned regime in Great Britain that is consistent with the EU’s 2023 batteries regulation. The consultation will be UK-wide and conducted with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland and with the other devolved Governments as a four-nation approach. Such an approach will avoid duplicative administrative burdens and provide a unified framework across the UK and EU for batteries. Crucially, it will also deliver against our environmental objectives.
Battery manufacturing is a highly sophisticated global sector, and major manufacturers are already adjusting to the new standards. A unified approach is what businesses are asking for, so the autumn consultation will seek views not only on the application of the “placing on the market” regulations in Great Britain, but on the outstanding waste and producer responsibility provisions. We believe that pursuing this approach provides the best outcome for the UK.
I welcome the collaborative approach taken in the development of this draft SI, which has drawn constructively on expertise in industry and the relevant Departments. The provisions set out on enforcement in this SI meaningfully strengthen the application of the EU batteries regulation in Northern Ireland, where it has been law since its publication in 2023. By improving compliance in key areas such as battery safety, hazardous substances and environmental performance, I expect positive environmental and human outcomes through the reduced risk of unsafe or environmentally harmful batteries being placed on the market.
I am also reassured by the de minimis assessment undertaken in respect of this draft instrument. Given that the associated costs are minimal, and that the draft instrument introduces no contentious or disproportionate impacts, the approach is both reasonable and appropriate. I am satisfied that the instrument falls within the scope of the parent Act and represents an appropriate use of those powers. For that reason, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Mary Creagh
What a peach of a debate! On the one hand, the Conservative party gave us gentle encouragement and asked questions about how the policy has been enforced in the interim. Once again, I was questioned about the previous Government’s inaction and inability to take any steps to bring in this law before they left office. On the other hand, two parliamentarians from the Democratic Unionist party reopened the debates on Brexit—
Sammy Wilson
Will the Minister give way? She has just insulted my colleague.
Mary Creagh
No, I will not give way; I am replying to the debate.
They reopened the debates on Brexit, which detained this House from 2016 until I left in 2019 and much beyond. When the former leader of the Conservatives said that we should “Get Brexit done” in 2019, little did he know that Brexit would never be done. This issue is the perfect example of why Brexit will never be done and of the difficulties it brought to this Parliament and Northern Ireland, with its unique protected status under the Windsor framework. It demonstrates the difficulties and the bureaucracy faced by every single business and householder trying to do the right thing and stay safe.
We have had a long and abstract debate about laws and who votes for them. This Committee is our chance to scrutinise the law—I feel scrutinised—and our chance to vote. We will vote later.
Mary Creagh
Let me tell the hon. and learned Gentleman a little about what Northern Ireland thinks. I am going to make my point, and then I hope we can get into a much longer debate.
Translink in Northern Ireland bans e-batteries, e-bikes and e-scooters from its networks because of the risk of fire. Antrim and Newtownabbey borough council has a “Buy Safe, Be Safe” campaign because of the risks of electric batteries. Waste management organisations all the way across Northern Ireland, including Newtownards, have all made complaints about the proliferating risk of batteries, battery waste and illegal batteries.
I want to talk about a couple of my constituents, Karlo Bogdan and Natasha Johnson-Mall. Karlo was 24 and Natasha was 27 when they died in a fire caused by an unsafe e-battery in my Coventry East constituency. That is not an uncommon occurrence because lithium battery fires spread incredibly quickly, and those two hard-working young people, lost their lives unnecessarily in part because these regulations and protections—which we are bringing in, yes, first in Northern Ireland, but later in our own country—were not in place to protect them from the dodgy salespeople and resellers on Amazon and all the dumping that has happened as a result of the great Brexit deal. I am very happy to give way if the hon. and learned Gentleman wants to come back on any of that.
Jim Allister
May I first correct the Minister? I am not a DUP Member, and I am surprised she does not know that. Secondly, she is also wrong to say that we are debating the merits of this law, as we are not. This already is the law in Northern Ireland, courtesy not of this House but of the EU through sections 7 and 8 of the 2020 Act. It already is the law, so all we are discussing now is how far we are going to penalise people if they breach this foreign law. We are not discussing its merits. If the Government wanted to tackle unsafe batteries, they should have done so across the whole United Kingdom, and they have not—they are hiding behind Northern Ireland.
Mary Creagh
Let me begin by apologising to the hon. and learned Gentleman. I understand that he is a member of Traditional Unionist Voice. I did know that, but I forgot it in the heat. We are in the process of doing exactly what he is exhorting us to do, which is to make sure that we have a complete internal market across the United Kingdom while also protecting Northern Ireland’s unique protected status under the Windsor framework.
I draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that it is a model. Brexit has not delivered the freedoms it was supposed to deliver. In the end, the e-bikes, e-cars and e-batteries we buy are not made in Great Britain; most are made by Bosch in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. As the hon. and learned Gentleman says, the regulation applies in Northern Ireland, and there is what I would consider a halo effect because most people placing batteries on the market are abiding by it. What we are doing today is beginning a clampdown on rogue merchants who may be competing unfairly and whose products may not meet that new European standard.
I wanted to put my constituents’ deaths on the record, because while we talk about the abstract principles and ideals of subsidiarity and sovereignty, sovereignty was not able to save their lives. My mission is to save lives, not least the lives of waste transfer station staff—the most invisible and neglected sector in our country—who are dealing with batteries on a weekly basis, especially in temperatures such as those we are enduring at the moment.
On interim enforcement, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest asked—it is not on me to defend him from attacks by other Members, but I have some sympathy, because it is a totally reasonable question to ask. The Office for Product Safety and Standards tried to enforce the pre-2023 EU battery regulation on a UK-wide basis, including in Northern Ireland, but of course it does not apply here. The OPSS is not set up as the enforcement authority until this mechanism goes through, so it cannot enforce it. That is the simple answer, and it is why we are here today.
On why we did not introduce the regulations sooner, we brought forward the legislation to support “placing on the market” requirements as soon as was reasonably practicable, taking into account the need for stakeholder engagement. We have consulted stakeholders and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke mentioned, we wrote to all the trade associations and got one reply back.
Most businesses are already doing this because they are placing products on the European Union market, and this is just stuff we are doing. The right hon. Member for East Antrim says the cost is £30,000, but that is the total cost across all those businesses, not for one. It is the cost of a couple of hours of someone’s time to familiarise themselves with the new regulations. It is not the cost for each business, so my understanding is that it does not affect small and medium-sized enterprises in that way—I gently correct him on that.
We engaged with stakeholders, we appointed a market surveillance authority and we did quite a lot of complex policy work on what this means for our existing regulation. We will do a wider review of the existing battery producer responsibility regulations. We hope to bring that in on a GB and UK-wide basis.
On the figure of £35,017, that is across all affected businesses. Another question was, how does this affect the UK internal market? In a limited way—the majority of batteries are manufactured to meet Northern Ireland and EU standards already, whether they are physically placed on the market in Europe, Northern Ireland or GB. That is the halo effect I was talking about—they have raised their standards, and we are passive beneficiaries. Batteries meeting Northern Ireland requirements can be placed on the GB market, so there is no border down the Irish sea, which was of great concern to everyone here. This autumn, we will consult on an aligned regime across the whole UK that is consistent and will provide a unified regulatory framework across the UK and the EU.
The draft regulations do not introduce new policy, nor does it impose any significant new regulatory burdens on businesses. Without them, we would have rules but no means to uphold them, which is the point made by the hon. Member for Epping Forest. That is not an acceptable position to be in, so the instrument provides clarity, certainty and, crucially, enforceability. It equips the enforcement authorities with the powers they need to make sure that batteries placed on the NI market meet required standards.
On the divergence questions, the reality is that most of these batteries are standardised right across the EU. As I said, this is not the end; we are consulting on an aligned regime, but this is the essential first step to ensure that existing “placing on the market” requirements are properly enforced and support compliance with our Windsor framework obligations while broader work continues.
This is a very low-cost and proportionate measure. It did not require an impact assessment, because it was way under the de minimis requirement of a £10 million extra burden on businesses. It does not change the underlying requirements that businesses must meet and it imposes nominal familiarisation costs, so compliant businesses will not see any change in their day-to-day operations.
To come back to the issue of battery safety, we already have some of the strongest consumer product safety protections in the world, requiring that only safe products, including batteries, are placed on the market. These draft regulations help to ensure that unsafe batteries are identified and removed from the market by more effectively enabling enforcement of safety, labelling and performance requirements. Through our Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025, we retain the ability to go further, if needed, to strengthen protections for consumers throughout the UK.
As I said, we are not complacent, and those two young people who lost their lives in Coventry are very much front and centre of my mind. We recognise the real risks to life and limb posed by faulty or non-compliant products. That is why we are taking action across the board with regulators and industry to understand and address the causes of battery-related fires. It does not matter how small the battery is, whether it is a tiny battery in a hearing aid or a vape battery, it must go back to a battery WEEE—waste electrical and electronic equipment—provider. Every store that sells a vape, including the regular high street supermarkets, has a vape take-back scheme.
Batteries, when compressed and baled, become incredibly heated and really dangerous. We could end up taking out our municipal recycling facilities in extremely dangerous and complex fires if we do not dispose of batteries properly, so we have already acted to reduce one major source of battery-related fire risk by banning the use of single-use vapes in 2025, and by supporting their collection and recycling through a dedicated WEEE category. Before we introduced that category, vapes were classed as toys. That is what was done—they were classed as toys under the regulations, which is absolutely incredible.
The early signs are encouraging, because 8 million vapes were sold in 2023-24, but the figures for ’24-25 show that it has already gone down to 6 million, which is accounted for by the regulations coming into effect in June ’25—so that is only a half-year reduction. I am therefore optimistic that sales will come down even lower from that 8 million.
We are working with industry and standards bodies to improve the safety of e-bike and personal electric vehicles through the development of a new publicly available specification. DEFRA has strengthened its capability by bringing in specialist expertise from industry to help ensure that the work to tackle these risks is informed by real-world experience and, crucially, technical knowledge. The draft instrument supports environmental protection, ensuring standards on hazardous substances are upheld—to go back to the question of the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold about batteries, hazardous substances and forever chemicals.
These measures have been developed across Governments and with industry, and concerns have simply not been raised by stakeholders. I hear the comments and concerns of the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim and the right hon. Member for East Antrim, but this is a practical, proportionate and necessary instrument. It will ensure that the law operates as intended and that our obligations are met as Members who were sent to this place to protect the life and limb of the people we represent, while facilitating consumer, business and environmental protection and our obligations under the Windsor framework.
I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Batteries (Placing on the Market) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026.
Environmental Protection
Mary Creagh Excerpts(3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
I beg to move,
That the draft Environmental Permitting (Waste Controlling or Transporting) and Relevant Functions of Primary Authorities (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 20 May, be approved.
It is a pleasure to be here on this hot and sultry evening. Despite our late nights or early mornings—whatever we decided to do in order to get over the football—I hope I can entertain the House with this vital piece of new legislation. I would like to acknowledge the important work of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its review of this statutory instrument. Its scrutiny is a vital part of our legislative process, ensuring that the policy intentions behind our secondary legislation are clear and well founded.
As Members across the House will know from their inboxes and will have seen for themselves, waste crime blights our constituencies. Criminals who dump waste illegally in our streets, our fields and our woodlands show contempt for our communities and for us, creating eyesores that damage our environment. Under the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989, a light-touch registration system was set up for those who transport and deal in waste. It has remained pretty much untouched since then. As a result, it has been exploited by waste criminals, leaving the public with a huge clean-up bill. Enforcement, sadly, is only reactive. The system is not fit for purpose, with anyone or anything—a dead dog called Oscar, a fish, or even a cow called Beau Vine—being able to register on the system. That stops today.
This Labour Government are scrapping the broken waste system that the Conservatives left behind. Today we are introducing stricter checks and requirements, closing the loopholes long exploited by illegal operators, and the objective of this Government’s waste crime action plan, published in March, is to stop waste crime at its source and to bring pride back to our communities. We are cracking down on the waste criminals, dragging the regime into the modern age and improving waste traceability.
These regulations bring those in England who control and transport waste within the scope of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016. They repeal the current carriers, brokers and dealers registration, which is now over: finished, kaput, no more. These regulations introduce tougher checks for waste controllers and transporters. Permitting will now be required for those who control and transport waste, bringing the system in line with site-based waste activities. Those who apply for permits will undergo strict background checks, including tax checks, identity checks and criminal records checks. They will need to demonstrate that they are technically competent to do the job.
The Environment Agency will be responsible for managing applications for, and ensuring compliance with, this new permitting system. The fees introduced for permits will also mean that the Environment Agency will be effectively resourced for its compliance work.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
My constituents in Rushcliffe have experienced the consequences of waste crime very recently. In April, there was a fire at the Hathernware industrial estate, eight years after a previous fire. This particular fire raged for seven days and caused significant health impacts for the local community. Will my hon. Friend go further and think about how the different agencies with responsibility for waste should be working more effectively together? Although the Environment Agency was involved with this incident, it also thought responsibility lay with the county council and other agencies. I think they all need to come together so that there is proper accountability.
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We inherited a bit of a “pass the parcel” system: “Who is the landowner? Who is the local authority? What is the size of the dump? Is it permitted or not?” That means that waste criminals can fall between the cracks and that there is effectively impunity. We have introduced a digital waste system, but under the current system, enforcement can only be reactive, not proactive. For that reason, we are introducing identity checks, to find out the answers to questions like, “Does this person actually exist, or is it a dog or a cow?”, “Do they have a criminal record?” and “Are they fit and competent to manage the waste?” All those things matter. As my hon. Friend described, we are talking about dangerous materials. We do not want to see them piled high and not moved on, and then, sadly, a fire coming along—whether deliberate or accidental. In all these environmental crimes, including dumping and burning, the profits are privatised, but the costs, and the social and environmental consequences, are socialised.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
In my previous role as Lancashire’s police and crime commissioner, the connection between such sites and organised crime gangs was often well documented. As the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) outlined, a multi-agency response is often needed, but it is important that we do not forget the role of the police, who often have to escort other agencies to the sites in order to protect them from the people operating them.
Mary Creagh
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The idea that we can send Environment Agency officials to deal—in some cases—with serious organised crime groups is simply for the birds. People say, “There aren’t prosecutions” or “The penalties are too light”, but the waste is often one part of a multifaceted criminal enterprise—it is just another wing of a business empire. We need to get better at looking upstream, looking at tax checks and looking at the web of companies behind the business, and basically doing the Al Capone method—getting them on tax evasion—and prosecuting them under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
There is a wider point here: we cannot expect council officials who have been denuded and stripped of funds over the last 14 years to suddenly become waste crime enforcers. There may be only one or two trading standards and compliance officers in post in a local council, but this sort of sophisticated crime requires a lot of multi-agency work. Someone from the National Police Chiefs’ Council is now tasked with doing that work; we are doing a review, particularly of local authority competence in this area.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Minister has touched on organised crime. As I am sure she is aware, modern slavery can be a real issue within the waste crime sector; we have had some powerful debates on that issue in the Chamber. The waste crime action plan sets out that people will be held to account and given community service, but we need to reach further up the chain, because often the people who are caught in the act are the ones being exploited or forced to carry out such activities. I am reassured by what she says, but does she agree that we need to go further up the chain?
Mary Creagh
We need to take action at every level. For example, the person who does a weekend job for their friend, transporting half a skip of old kitchen waste that suddenly ends up on a lay-by, in a farmer’s field or blocking a lane, will now face up to nine penalty points on their licence; that should make them think twice before doing that job for their friend. They may only be on the periphery of the criminality, but in order to stop it, we have to look right the way along the chain. Anecdotally, I often hear that when these small-time crooks are apprehended, they are only too pleased to pay the fixed penalty notices to the council and to be let away with it, because they can be the front end of a much, much larger serious and organised crime group.
So what does this all mean? The Environment Agency is finally going to be effectively resourced to undertake the compliance work. The move to permitting means that the agency can suspend and ultimate revoke permits where conditions are breached. It can also prosecute, and those found guilty will face fines or up to five years’ imprisonment. The regulations will mean that the public should have more trust in the people they hand their waste to. We will require waste controllers and transporters to include their permit number on advertising, whether that is a Facebook ad or a branded van.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
I very much support the proposals that the Minister is outlining. One of the groups most impacted by waste crime is farmers. There is a farm in my constituency where more than 200 bales of DIY waste were dumped on the land, at an estimated cost of £250,000 to remove. I welcome the discussion on fines, but does she agree that we need to look at whether those fines can go towards the cost of the clear-up to a greater extent, to match the scale of the crimes committed?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend is right. We are acutely conscious of the issue that farmers face. There is innovative work being done with drones, and I met one farmer who told me that his neighbour turned up with a tractor to block the lane as the criminals were trying to make their exit; they caught them in a trap and then called the police. That was a happy outcome in Hertfordshire, but we cannot have eyes on the ground in every field and back lane, so we are working with insurers to see what we can do to ensure that this type of crime is properly covered under farmers’ business insurance.
The regulations will mean that the public should have more trust in the people to whom they hand their waste. The public will be able to look up operators and ensure they have a valid permit. This reform is one of a number outlined in the waste crime action plan. It is nothing new: it was first announced eight years ago by the Conservative party, in the 2018 resource and waste strategy. It was consulted on back in 2022 and the Government gave their response in 2023, but it is this Government that have delivered it.
We have introduced digital waste tracking, replacing outdated paper-based methods for monitoring waste movements. We will be tightening the waste permit exemption system by getting rid of exemptions abused by those dealing with end-of-life vehicles, tyres and scrap metal. We will be enabling the Environment Agency to tighten up on exemptions abused in other parts of the waste sector, including the use of waste in construction, preparatory treatments, the treatment of waste wood, manual treatment, burning of vegetation at the place of production, storage in containers and storage in a secure place. Taken together, these measures strengthen the regulatory framework and the Environment Agency’s ability to prevent, detect and tackle waste criminals.
Mr Snowden
The Minister is being very generous in taking interventions. In my previous role, and from meeting people working in the industry in my Fylde constituency, I discovered that the Environment Agency often regularly visits those businesses that are already abiding by the law and keeping good records, because those records are easy to inspect and the companies are easy to deal with, and it often issues fines for small misdemeanours. Meanwhile the criminal operators, who are flagrantly breaking the law, often evade any inspection because they are difficult to deal with and aggressive. The regulatory framework is important, but the culture of going after those who are flagrantly breaking the law, rather than just checking people’s paperwork, is really important as well.
Mary Creagh
Under the current system, checking the paperwork is all that the Environment Agency can do; that is the problem. Under the managing public money rules, the Environment Agency is not funded by legitimate operators to go and seek out criminals. We consulted on that during discussions about digital waste tracking. There is an issue with saying to legitimate operators, “We will add a tenner on to your licence so that we can go after the criminals”, because that is not allowed under Treasury rules. There is a chicken-and-egg situation, and I have heard the same anecdotes as the hon. Member. The bottom line is that if someone is controlling or transporting waste, they should be registered, the registration should be clear for all to see, and we should be able to check that they are a true person on the system and that there is nothing in their background that would make us hesitate about whether to issue a licence.
To come back to the issue of a multi-agency response, we have an action plan and we are working with the Environment Agency, the national lead for waste crime, alongside His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which is going after the tax, the Home Office, which is covering the issue of vulnerable workers and exploitation, local police forces and local authorities. We are undertaking co-ordinated cross-Government action. We will monitor the effectiveness and improve metrics so that we get a much better multi-agency waste crime response.
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Minister was just talking about metrics. Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), will she say a little more about organised crime? In assessing the effectiveness of these changes, what key metrics would she apply to prosecutions relating to organised crime?
Mary Creagh
The right hon. Gentleman tempts me, but it is a bit too early to say. These prosecutions often take a long time to piece together. We have all seen the pattern where a company goes bust, owing HMRC a vast amount of money—sometimes in the tens of millions of pounds. I do not want to get into saying, “One, three, five or seven,” and setting out those targets; I do not think we are at a stage to talk about that.
However, I can reassure the House that my risk appetite for not granting permits to people who may be questionable is very high, and I am very happy to be taken to court by people who think they may have unjustly been denied a waste permit. So far, there have been no cases against us or the Environment Agency for refusing a licence.
We are tightening up all the way along the system, but I do not want to get into metrics. We know the sites where we have problems and we see new ones appearing, and the thing is to stop the proliferation of those sites, many of which are simply illegal and are not permitted in any way, shape or form. That is where our difficulty comes in.
James Naish
I want to go back to the case that I mentioned earlier. For the Minister’s reference, there will be a two-and-a-half-month delay between the Environment Agency wanting to take action and managing to get the court order that will prevent the individual from getting access to the site, where there has been a second illegal fire within eight years. May I put on the Minister’s radar the importance of sorting out the courts so that immediate action can be taken when problems are identified?
Mary Creagh
I am responsible for many things, from forests and international biodiversity to peat and trees; I am afraid the courts are slightly outwith my jurisdiction, but I will pass that point on. We are working with our colleagues on issues around sentencing.
On the metrics, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) knows, as a former Environment Secretary, that we have a risk-based, intelligence-led approach that directs the greatest effort towards the highest harm illegal operators. By strengthening the regulatory framework and their abilities, alongside these reforms, we are providing those in the joint unit for waste crime, who are responsible for tackling it, with the tools that they need to stamp it out.
I was very disappointed to read The Times’s leader today on fly-tipping; I thought it was a little unfair. This Government have doubled the Environmental Agency’s waste crime enforcement budget by committing an additional £45 million over the next three financial years. I believe the budget in 2024-25 was £10 million. We have added £5 million on this year, and then we will add an extra £15 million. Essentially doubling that budget means more boots on the ground and more drones in the air to expand enforcement activities and track down waste criminals. Since March, I believe we have had 18 waste crime prosecutions.
I acknowledge the strength of support in the legitimate waste industry for this reform, and its patience over the years as that reform has been developed under the watch of the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire and others. These regulations are a significant change. They level the playing field for all operators and will protect communities and the environment from waste criminals. As I said, this is a really important part of our plan to stop waste crime.
These regulations also bring the Environment Act 2021 within the scope of the primary authority scheme by adding it to schedule 3 to the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008. For those unfamiliar with it, the primary authority scheme allows businesses with operations in more than one area to work with a single local authority that provides consistent, tailored advice on meeting their legal obligations, which can cover areas such as environmental health, trading standards and fire safety.
Extending the scheme to include the Environment Act is important, because it will enable primary authorities to support retailers in understanding and meeting their responsibilities under the forthcoming deposit return scheme, which launches next year. That will help to ensure a more consistent and effective approach across the country. I recommend this statutory instrument to the House.
Mary Creagh
I will be brief and try not to detain the House for too long, but what a rich and insightful debate we have had. Let me begin by addressing the question of costs, which was raised by the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth), who speaks for the Conservative party. Legitimate waste businesses are highly supportive of these regulations, as they raise standards and level the playing field across the industry. There is a tiered approach to the new permitting regime, which will ensure that those carrying large amounts of the most at-risk types of waste will be distinctly identified and charged accordingly.
If we do the maths—I stopped doing maths when I finished O-levels, which was quite a long time ago—we are providing £186 million over the 11-year appraisal period, which will be offset against businesses incurring costs from increased tax. In other words, they will be brought into compliance and begin paying tax—£183 million. So yes, they will have to pay more. The ones that do not pay anything at the moment are going to be paying their tax. One of the reasons they have moved into this space is that they can take mixed household waste and charge people £125 for landfill, then move it on to somewhere else and say, “It’s only soil.” They are making £120 profit on every tonne that they take. Let us do the maths: if we have 300,000 tonnes here and 100,000 tonnes there, pretty soon we are talking about tens of millions of pounds from one illegitimate landfill site. I am not crying any tears about that and I think that, outside this place, our constituents will be cheering and clapping.
As I have said, legitimate companies know that they are being undercut by the rogues and the criminals—and why should they not have to learn how to do this? We have heard about vapes, industrial waste and all sorts of stuff turning up in landfill sites, and at the moment we are saying that it is absolutely fine—that anyone with a pair of gloves and a van can just come along and take the waste. No, that was the old way. We want to protect the environment and protect people as well, and we are also interested in protecting businesses. The impact assessment for the regulations says that businesses will
“benefit from reduced waste crime”,
to the tune of £159 million, so I hope that most businesses will be better off. There are exemptions for charities, but we do not exempt small businesses and microbusinesses from complying based on their size; we have heard about all the small businesses and microbusinesses in this space, and exempting them would undermine the policy and our risk-based approach. Some of these businesses pose a significant waste crime risk, so we will be rolling this out.
The hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury asked about monitoring and review. We have an independent resources and waste policy programme evaluation, which will assess the impact of the major reforms that we are bringing in. That will report in March 2029, but as with anything, if stuff is not working, we will listen and take action.
I turn to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett). I know his neck of the woods very well, having served as one of the four MPs for Wakefield until 2019, and he is right to say that our constituents have the right to the peaceful enjoyment of their home. I was really saddened by the story of his constituent who was unable to celebrate his birthday with his family in his own home because he was ashamed of where he lived. I was also saddened to hear of constituents waking up with migraines and tasting the smell, and of kids feeling sick at school. It is absolutely disgusting.
Mineral processing at the site has significantly exceeded its permitted waste volumes, which has resulted in approximately 320,000 tonnes of misdescribed inert waste containing biodegradable fines—the little bits that are chipped down. The site permit has been revoked but the waste remains, and we have heard the persistent and worsening concerns about the odour. We have had warmer weather recently, and there were 18 reports over 24 hours on 24 and 25 June. There is increasingly dissatisfaction with the persistent impact, so the EA is monitoring the site, and it has installed an additional air quality and odour monitoring facility to provide further data.
The EA is carrying out proactive odour monitoring in the area, requiring the operator to submit an odour management plan to address odour pollution. It is studying air quality impacts by using mobile monitoring facilities installed in the area and handheld gas analysers, and it is continuing to inspect the site and record permit breaches when it finds them. The EA is also monitoring the water quality in Frickley beck, because we do not want persistent and potentially organic pollutants to end up in our water supply, only for taxpayers and bill payers to be responsible for the clean-up further down the river. We are acting on intelligence received about vehicle movements at the site and are working closely with partners, including colleagues at the UK Health Security Agency and Wakefield council. The site permit has been revoked, and the site is no longer operational.
Members have asked questions about how we prosecute people for the misdescription of waste. The first thing we have to do is bring them into this regime, so that we are not reacting when there has been an accidental overloading and breach of permit conditions—I do not want to say it is a crime, because I would not want to prejudge anything.
I have had a long and very interesting conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) about the issue of the landfill gases at the Seletia sites at Hespin Wood and Flusco. As I say, these are horrible gases, and it too, with the same model, has breached the permitted waste, with massive over-dumping at those sites. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) told the story of his constituent, who was aghast at being dragged into this, and potentially criminalised by an innocent act of trying to do the right thing and get her waste dealt with properly.
I thank everyone for their valuable contributions to the debate. I have issued statutory guidance to councils on how to use their powers to seize and crush vehicles, because we are aware that, although they have the powers, they may not feel confident about using them. We are also working with CrimeStoppers to get the public to be part of the army of people tackling waste crime. If people do see something suspicious, I would ask them please to report it on 0800 555 111—I say that from memory, but I think it is the correct number.
These regulations are vital if we are to tackle waste crime. This change is long overdue for those moving and controlling waste. I thank all my departmental officials in the Box—James Cruddas, David Read and Freya Ballard—and Leena from my private office. The regulations are widely supported by our stakeholders and highly anticipated by our constituents. I thank all those working at the Environment Agency and in police forces across the country on tackling waste criminals and this new form of organised crime.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Environmental Permitting (Waste Controlling or Transporting) and Relevant Functions of Primary Authorities (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 20 May, be approved.
Packaging Manufacturers: Extended Producer Responsibility
Mary Creagh Excerpts(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
It is a pleasure to speak on this issue today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this debate, and I thank all hon. Members who have spoken. We have heard from powerful advocates for the glass industry, the fibre-based composites industry, the ceramics industry, the wine industry in Cornwall and, of course, the beer and pub industry, which we are all hoping to go and enjoy shortly.
Let me begin by also declaring my interest as a member of the GMB trade union. I recognise the challenging context in which the glass industry operates; that is a result of a range of global pressures, including the international increases in energy costs, volatile commodity prices, growing international competition, and substantial investment in decarbonising energy-intensive manufacturing processes. I also recognise and acknowledge the industry’s concerns about packaging extended producer responsibility, or PEPR, which is an internationally recognised model used in more than 30 countries to transform recycling services. The model shifts the cost of managing packaging waste from taxpayers—that is us—to the producers who put it on the market. It is the “polluter pays” principle in action. Its introduction in this country is the biggest change to recycling policy in 25 years.
The policy was formulated under the previous Conservative Government. The right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) is no longer in his place, but it was his Government who first began developing it back in 2018-19. There was a debate on it on the Floor of the House, in which he did not register his objections, and he did not vote against it. Perhaps he was absent, or chatting to his new friends in a different party.
Since PEPR has been brought in, the money raised from packaging producers and retailers has gone directly to councils to fund the introduction of simpler recycling—the new recycling collections that we have. That does not include the food waste collections, although they are part of simpler recycling. Last year, PEPR raised over £1.4 billion for local authorities to deliver better recycling services for people in every nation of the UK. Our goal is to get from 45% recycled—that is where we have stagnated over the last decade—to 65% recycled by 2035. That is an important goal. The food waste collections—they are not paid for through PEPR—are part of the simpler recycling reforms and a really important part of taking the methane out of our bins.
Let me come to glass fees. Last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham rightly said, year 1 PEPR fees took account only of the weight and volume of materials. That reflected the cost to local authorities of collecting and disposing of the materials. Following her excellent Westminster Hall debate last year, we have worked at pace, and I am pleased to tell hon. Members that from this year—year 2—we are bringing in lower fees for more recyclable packaging.
Our latest data shows that more than 93% of glass will receive a “green” discount for being recyclable. This means that producers of harder-to-recycle “red” materials, such as crisp packets, will pay a premium. The system is designed to reward the right choices. The incentive to make the right choices will increase, because in years 3 and 4, producers of “red” materials—the more complex forms of packaging—will pay even higher fee rates than those do who use more recyclable, “green” materials, like glass. The forecasts that I have seen expect the glass sector to pay a decreasing share of PEPR costs in years 2 and 3. In year 4, that will fall even further, as the penalty for “red” packaging will reach double the basic “green” rate.
Sarah Champion
Can the Minister tell us whether that will be the 75% discount that the glass industry is asking for? Does she know what the falling rates will be, please?
Mary Creagh
Again, we have a complex system. I would very much like to give my hon. Friend the amounts per tonne, but that is not possible, much though I would like to give her comfort, until all packaging producers have reported their data in the autumn. We will then issue the invoices. I can say that the proportion that the glass sector will pay will fall year on year. We have been listening very carefully to the glass industry on that issue. PackUK, the scheme administrator, and officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs meet the glass sector and British Glass regularly, and PackUK ran a workshop just this week, which included British Glass, on how we can drive the use of more recyclable materials.
Everything that PackUK does is subject to four-nation agreement. We had a meeting this morning with the devolved Governments, at which we talked through some of the issues. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland face very different challenges, and the challenges of collecting in inner-city London are not comparable to those of collecting waste in the Outer Hebrides. The model is therefore complex from the recycling and collections point of view as well.
Returning to glass, PackUK and DEFRA officials will visit Ardagh Glass later this month. The visit was due to take place in June, but it was rescheduled at Ardagh’s request. PackUK also visited Encirc in Northern Ireland last month. I have spoken to the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) about the issue around the reduction in energy fees, but those do not apply in Northern Ireland. That is another—well, we could talk about Brexit, but perhaps we will not intrude on that private pain.
May I also say that since we debated glass fees last year, DEFRA officials have visited five of the six major glass manufacturers in the UK to hear from them directly, and that includes Beatson Clark? We are acting on their concerns. Also, we have investment in the glass industry in this country; we have a new electric glass factory at Verallia in Leeds.
Mary Creagh
I want to make a little bit of progress, if I may, because it is four minutes to kick-off.
Mary Creagh
I want to make some progress, and my hon. Friend may find that I answer her questions.
PackUK has today published improved guidance on how recyclability will be assessed and rewarded. The glass section was developed in close collaboration with the glass industry and we have already received positive feedback. I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said about wool. When I see wool used as a coolant, it tends to come in plastic packaging, for hygiene reasons. That packaging can certainly be open up, and the wool can then be composted, but there is usually a film around it, and under the recyclability assessment methodology, that would incur higher fees. All this is meant to incentivise design for recyclability. I was due to meet a wool insulation provider this week. Sadly, I was not able to, but she was on her way down, and I believe that she met officials. I will check that later. I am keen to do work on this issue, because it is particularly important for the British wool industry, with wool at such rock-bottom prices.
We are planning to launch a call for evidence this year to gather industry views, which will inform how we continue to reward the right choices. On the post-implementation review, it will be conducted and published in the normal way, three years after the regulations came in. That is slated for December 2028.
Sarah Champion
It is reassuring that we are going to have the consultation. Would it not have been much better to have had it before the scheme was implemented? The Minister mentioned a meeting with my constituency business, Beatson Clark. That meeting only happened because I urged the previous Secretary of State and the Minister to make it happen, and I assume that the other examples of meetings that have taken place, or not, have been at the insistence of MPs. Why was that work not done before the scheme was rolled out?
Mary Creagh
I cannot speak for what happened under the previous Administration, but I can tell my hon. Friend that the scheme was announced in 2018, and a consultation happened in 2019. There was another consultation, but I cannot find the exact part of my pack on that. There was a full impact assessment of PEPR published in October 2020, setting out the expected overall costs to businesses. At that stage, it was not possible to assess the impact on specific sectors or regions, as fees and modulation had not been finalised. This has been a huge infrastructure project change, and a huge system change. The Environment Agency, acting as the regulator, holds the database of everyone who is a packaging producer. Elsewhere in the waste and packaging sector, we see large issues around avoidance, free riding and other issues, so we had to go through a massive piece of work with our regulator to ensure that everyone who is putting packaging on is meeting their obligations.
There were public consultations in 2019 and 202,1 and a consultation on draft regulations in 2023. There was a consultation with British Glass on the decision to use volume in the apportionment of kerbside recycling collection costs in July 2024, prior to the release of the initial set of illustrative base fees. I think that there was perhaps a misunderstanding, given that this had all been thought about and discussed for five or six years, that it was never going to happen. To be fair to the smaller companies, perhaps they were unaware of their obligations, or perhaps they were not obligated at that time, but have since grown and been brought over the de minimis threshold.
Let me talk a little bit more about what the Government are doing more widely to support glass businesses with their electricity costs.
Gareth Snell
I genuinely thank the Minister for being generous with her time. On the idea of a post-implementation review, is there a way of looking at the time that businesses have to spend interacting with the scheme? The Titanic brewery in Stoke-on-Trent—very good beer, by the way—has told me that it took three weeks of one employee’s time to complete the assessment for the first year’s fees. I am sure that that is not by design, but in the review, will the Department look at how to make interaction with the scheme easier for small businesses that do not have much capacity?
Mary Creagh
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and this is something that I have been insistent with officials on. This is a complex scheme, and the more complexity we add into it, the more time it will take. There is a trade-off here, and a set of difficulties, because we can do carve-outs for x and y sector, but that creates more complexity in the recycling assessment methodology calculations for other parts of the packaging industry. We have to beware of making perfection the enemy of the good. I can also let my hon. Friend know that the chief executive officer of PackUK, Jeremy Blake, met the WoolCool CEO yesterday. I thought that had happened, but I am glad to have got the note telling me it is true.
Beyond this, we are supporting the glass businesses with their electricity costs through the British industry supercharger. Glass businesses now receive 90% compensation for electricity network charges. This brings their total reduction in electricity bills to an average of between £65 and £87 per megawatt-hour. We are also supporting the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors with lower tax rates for their properties. On the issue around cheaper imports coming from overseas, the Trade Remedies Authority’s independent anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations into cheaper glass imports from China and Turkey are ongoing. That is dealt with by another Government Department.
We are working closely with industry to address the challenge of dual use—packaging disposed of in either business or household waste streams. We know how important this issue is to stakeholders across different sectors, including pubs, hospitality and medical packaging businesses, and construction. Indeed, I met a representative of the paint industry at a B&Q in my Coventry East constituency. Paint will always come in a tin or plastic container with a coating inside it, so it will never attract “green” fees, but we want to get that paint recycled, reused or repurposed. B&Q is doing some excellent work with the charity Neighbourly to ensure that paint has a second life. People do not know what to do with unused paint. Builders finish using a pot, then down into the drain the rest goes, adding to the diffuse water pollution that we are experiencing across our sewer network.
This is a tricky issue, but we need a system that can be effectively monitored and enforced. It is no good just saying, “Oh, everyone decides that all their stuff goes to the pubs” and then suddenly we are left with a massive shortfall in the fees, so it has to be verifiable. We are testing solutions, including for hospitality, and building on international best practice, looking in particular at the Austrian model. I held a roundtable with industry last year to look at solutions for the dual-use challenge. It is difficult, but I hope for a solution on this issue soon that does not add undue complexity to the scheme or make it impossible for the regulator to verify.
Gareth Snell
I am sorry to detain the House. I am not sure if a try has been scored yet, but I am sure somebody will find out—
Gareth Snell
The Minister mentioned the super-charger scheme and the impact for glass manufacturers. I know the super-charger scheme is not her Department, but it is only for frontier industries. Can she say whether or not glass bottle manufacturers that go into the hospitality sector benefit from that? My understanding was that they do not because they are not considered one of the glass fibres or the industrial glass needed for the frontier industries.
Mary Creagh
I am looking to my officials in the Box, and I think it is probably safest if I write to my hon. Friend on that issue.
Let me tell the House about the year 1 shortfall in fees. There was a shortfall in the fees this year as we allowed packaging producers to submit their tonnages and then their tonnages reduced because, obviously, they looked at their figures and reduced them. We listened to industry on that. Despite the regulations saying that actually industry should make up any shortfall, my Department took pressure off businesses by funding on an exceptional basis to hold fees down. We are taking steps this year to ensure that we do not have a repeat of that.
On early successes, we are hearing about PEPR bringing about change. Councils all over the UK are using this funding from the packaging industry to improve services to local people. In Tameside, the metropolitan council is investing £1.6 million in new vehicles and improved technology to deliver a more reliable service for taxpayers. Councils are investing to improve glass collection directly, which should benefit the industry in terms of the supply of high-quality cullet. For example, Aberdeenshire council is investing £5 million over 2 years to purchase a new three-compartment glass collection vehicle—I hope that is “vehicles”, but it says “vehicle” here—upgrading glass recycling points to reduce contamination, and improving the quality of glass recyclate, which we know really matters to the glass industry.
Mr Forster
I thank the Minister for being generous with her time. I am sure she can probably understand why I, Asahi, which is based in Woking, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and others are not satisfied with her answers today. I have heard nothing of the double taxation, which is what EPR is. Will she agree to meet me, the hon. Member, other MPs and, more importantly, the businesses impacted to fully understand the impact and to work out a way forward?
Mr Forster
I might have been distracted in the last eight minutes—I do not know why. I remember hearing that the Minister said she has held a roundtable. I do remember that it was last year, and I am keen for her to meet the stakeholders again before this wider consultation and what happens next—hence my request.
Mary Creagh
Obviously, I do not sit there and do the maths with people. These suggestions and potential solutions have to be modelled and worked through. We are working at pace to assess whether any targeted short-term measures could be introduced through the forthcoming PEPR amending statutory instrument to partially address the dual-use packaging issue. So we are working on a short-term solution, but we are also working on a longer-term solution, which is the Austrian model that I mentioned. Again, the hon. Gentleman may have been distracted by the whistle when I mentioned that.
Councils across the country are rebranding and upgrading their glass recycling points to make it easier for households to use glass recycling facilities and to reduce the contamination that we know is so important to avoid in glassmaking. We have made a £5.3 million investment in that over a couple of years, and those changes are happening on the ground.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, reuse is not a short-term fix. It was once the norm when a lot of us—perhaps not all hon. Members present in the Chamber—were growing up, and it can be again. In some ways the future looks like the past—let us hope that is not the case for the England game. PEPR creates a powerful financial incentive for glass producers to move to reuse. Running reuse schemes means producers avoid most PEPR fee obligations, and glass, as we have heard, is a durable, tried and tested technology.
While it requires up-front investment and system change, it shifts costs away from single-use production and disposal, it improves supply chain resilience and reduces costs over time. Reuse is already operating at scale internationally, particularly for glass. Reusing a glass bottle just five times can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by more than a third. The more times they are reused, the greater the benefits will be.
As we have heard today, the issue is not just about the environment; it is also about jobs, communities and the long-term health of British industry. The industry estimates that these reforms will create 25,000 jobs and underpin £10 billion of investment in new sorting and processing facilities. The reforms will drive that improvement in our recycling rate and, crucially, they will reduce our carbon emissions.
In conclusion, glass matters, industry matters and glassworkers matter. This Government back businesses and workers, and we back the transition to a circular economy that makes the country stronger, cleaner and more resilient. Change is coming to EPR and I reassure all hon. Members that we want to have a predictable, well set out framework within which business can confidently operate and householders can confidently know that what they put in their recycling streams is going to have a second, and hopefully third and fourth, life.
Question put and agreed to.