Draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024

Neil Hudson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 General Committees

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and to be a member of this Committee opposite the Minister, for whom I have huge respect.

I thank the Minister for bringing to the Committee these important regulations to enhance our strong record on environmental protection. I am happy to put everyone’s mind at rest: we, His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, have no opposition to these regulations, and we appreciate the current Government’s effort to build on the strong Conservative track record of increasing recycling and waste disposal.

The system of packaging producer responsibility has been in place for many years and will continue to play a role in reducing packaging waste. An initial consultation held in 2019 by the last Conservative Government showed strong support for the proposals from respondents. In response to the consultation, we adapted the amendments, leading us to many of the proposals we are discussing.

I am appreciative of the important fact that charities and the voluntary sector will be excluded from these regulations, as that ensures that they are not adversely impacted. I politely encourage the Labour Government to consider applying similar exclusions to their more controversial proposals on the charitable status of independent schools and on national insurance contributions increases, which will have a significant effect on the charitable sector, including hospices and the like. I am extremely pleased that the instrument aligns with the Windsor framework and will be adopted nationwide.

Although Conservative Members offer no objection to the regulations, we will ensure that there is proper scrutiny of any further Government proposals. I would like to point out some wider issues for the Minister to address. First, can she elaborate on what the Government are doing to assist businesses in general to recycle more so that we protect our environment? Secondly, can she explain what the Government plan to do to support businesses to reach the recycling target rate of 75% by 2030? Finally, what consultation or conversations will the Government have with businesses and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that businesses are on board with any future changes that may be coming down the line?

This crucial issue affects us all on this precious planet. I am happy to work with the Minister to ensure we continue to do all that we can to create a cleaner environment and cleaner communities, to increase our recycling efforts and, ultimately, to protect our precious environment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

I thank hon. Members very much indeed for their kind and constructive words. We are seeing today an outbreak of unity on the basis of a project of seven years’ gestation. I remember the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs telling the Environmental Audit Committee, which I then chaired, that they would introduce a DRS scheme back in 2017. Here we are, and it falls to a Labour Government to introduce it. Once we pull one thread out of the packaging bin, we affect the income streams on which councils depend—I have a little joke in the Department that simpler recycling is actually hellishly complex recycling. It is a very complex project. There were issues with it during the covid pandemic and there have been four consultations on these reforms, so it has certainly taken a long time to see the light of day.

I would gently say to the shadow Minister that when we left Government in 2010, the recycling rate was more than 40%. It is now at 44%, and kind of going backwards. The original target in 2002 was for us to be at 50% recycling by 2015. The real lesson for all of us as lawmakers of whatever party is that, if we do not continually update policy, encourage behaviour change and give business certainty, these things do not happen on their own. The shadow Minister asked me about taxes; I welcome his constructive comments on charities, but obviously he knows that taxes are a matter for the Chancellor. I believe that the Finance Bill is still being debated in the main Chamber and I am sure he will have an opportunity, should he want to intervene there.

We talked about support for businesses. My officials have worked incredibly closely with businesses on this scheme. I met with a very large bottled drinks manufacturer yesterday in the Department, and I met with other businesses this morning as part of an all-party parliamentary group. We are not getting any comments from businesses that they have not been heard. There has been a consultation. There have been some philosophical questions about where glass should sit, and glass is now in pEPR. We want anyone involved in the production of packaging, such as the great Quaker Oats brand that the hon. Member for North East Fife has near her. That is an example of absolutely perfect cardboard packaging. It is sort of the perfect recycled package—wholesome on the inside and wholesome on the outside.

Most people know that the hard-to-recycle packaging is the plastic films. That is the really tricky stuff. If we look in our waste bins, by the time we have taken out the cardboard, plastic bottles, milk bottles and cans, what is left is food waste—collected in some areas, but not others, and the main source of methane in our landfill—and then the plastic film. Similarly, coffee cups have a plastic liner a few microns thick and then the thick cardboard around it, but they need the plastic to hold the drink. It is a question of product design and innovation. None of this is new, and a lot of it is happening, with pEPR happening in around 30 other countries in the world. Industry and representative groups have actively engaged with Government on developing these schemes and have offered support by sharing their data on recycling.

I take the point from the hon. Member for North East Fife about the two schemes. In a way, it is a bit like Brexit—we have the old regulations, the new regulations, and there are costs. What was supposed to be a bonfire of legislation actually ends up causing more regulation. We also have a number of industry representative groups taking part in the co-design of the future of scheme administration, including consideration of greater value chain involvement in the scheme. Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom—this is the first time we as a nation are doing this.

[Dr Hudson]

I note that the Minister is saying that businesses are feeding in, but my earlier point was that, with changes coming down the track, dialogue needs to go both ways. What plans do the Government have to talk to businesses and sectors in future? They are taking in information, but it is important that information goes the other way, so that people can plan and put measures in place.

[Mary Creagh]

That is a valid point. We have had to collect the data, but the data is not 100% there yet. Illustrative base fees were shared in August and we did new base fees in September to reflect some of the comments from business. We are looking at 2024, which has not ended yet, so we need to look at the tonnage and packaging for 2024 before we publish the final, definitive fees from April. We have tried to share illustrative fees with people, because we know there are long supply chains and they need six to 12 months to plan properly.

Further iterations will follow up to the summer next year, when we will share those final fees. They will be invoiced in October 2025, which will cover the period from 1 April 2025 to March 2026. At that point there will be absolute clarity and certainty. If there is anything that we feel is not working or that is driving behaviour in the opposite direction from what we want to see, we will not hesitate to change things further. As a new Government—we have been in power for only five months—this has been a big elephant to digest, one bite at a time.

The hon. Member for North East Fife asked me about producer obligations in the two schemes. The regulations carry over the obligation on the Environment Agency to publish a list of large producers from the 2023 data regulations, as amended. That should help producers to reduce the risk of double obligation, because we do not want people to be obligated under two separate schemes. If a producer discovers that it has reported packaging that it was not required to report, the regulations enable it to make a resubmission to correct any errors. We will continue to review the reporting requirements and engage with industry to ensure that the regulations operate effectively.

The payments will also apply to online marketplaces, something that is important for all of us as constituency MPs. We have seen the displacement of traditional high street businesses by online retailers, where it is usually cheaper to buy something. These regulations try to reset the level playing field.

We have legislated for that by creating the online marketplace producer class to address the rising prevalence of products imported into the UK as a result of sales on a third-party website. Where that happens, the operator of an online marketplace established in the UK must now take responsibility for that packaging under pEPR. At the same time, we do not want to unnecessarily burden small producers, so we are retaining the current de minimis thresholds. We will use the data gathered in the first year of the scheme to review the approach to small producers after that first year. We need to see if it is working as intended.

I hope I have covered most of the questions raised by hon. Members. The legislation is necessary to kick-start the circular economy, drive up our recycling rates, drive down our carbon emissions and change our approach to packaging in the UK, to ensure that materials and products are kept in use for longer. I hope that hon. Members understand and accept the need for the instrument, and I am grateful for the Committee’s time.

Question put and agreed to.