Draft Single Use Carrier Bags Charges (England) (Amendment) Order 2021

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 General Committees

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

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Single Use Carrier Bags Charges (England) (Amendment) Order 2021.

As ever, it is a delight to see you in the Chair, Sir Charles.

The Government are committed to eliminating plastic waste and its terrible effect on the environment. Consumption of single-use plastic items and their inappropriate disposal continue to raise significant environmental issues. Unlike other materials such as paper or wood, plastic can persist in the environment for hundreds of years. If released into the environment, items such as single-use plastic bags can damage habitats and endanger wildlife.

Furthermore, plastic that escapes into the environment will eventually break down into microplastics, which permeate our food chain and end up in our soil and seas. The full impacts of microplastics are still being uncovered. Even when single-use plastics are disposed of properly, they will typically end up in landfill or be incinerated, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Action is needed to curtail the use of single-use plastics and their release into the environment. The proposed measures in the resources and waste chapter of our Environment Bill will help us to transition towards a more circular economy and change the way in which we use and consume resources by keeping them in the system for longer to extract maximum value from them.

There is much we can already do to address the issue of single-use plastics, including our highly successful carrier bag charge. This draft statutory instrument will amend the Single Use Carrier Bags Charges (England) Order 2015 by extending the requirement to charge for single-use carrier bags supplied to customers to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises; removing airport sellers’ exemption from charging; and increasing the minimum mandatory charge for single-use carrier bags from 5p to 10p.

Since the charge was first introduced in 2015, we have prevented billions of plastic bags from being sold and ending up in the ocean and the environment. We have already seen a reduction of 95% in the use of single-use carrier bags in the main supermarkets, and more than £150 million has been donated to good causes. Interestingly, as a result of the carrier bag charge, the average person in England now buys just four bags a year from the main supermarkets, compared with 140 in 2014. I think we can all agree that that is tremendous progress.

The aim of extending the charge to all retailers is to cut bag usage significantly for small shops, too, with customers incentivised to use long-life bags made from more suitable and environmentally friendly materials. As an aside, I encourage those present to get a Somerset willow basket. They do not even need a bag for life; they could have something made from plants grown on the Somerset levels. Growing those plants helps tackle climate change and greenhouse gases, and we get sustainable baskets. I have had one for 35 years.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises circulated about 3.2 billion single-use carrier bags in 2018, accounting for more than 80% of the single-use carrier bags in circulation in England. This intervention is a strong marker of the Government’s intention to clamp down on single-use plastic pollution and to protect our environment for future generations. When taken in conjunction with our wider policy approach to transition to a more circular economy, this will be another landmark moment following the straws, cotton buds and stirrers ban.

I turn to exemptions. To reduce the burden on business, reporting requirements on the number of single-use carrier bags sold annually will not be extended to businesses with fewer than 250 employees. Large businesses do not have to report the number of bags for life that they sell. However, we know there are concerns about the increasing use of such bags, so we will explore extending the reporting requirements to them in order to improve our understanding of the issue—I think the shadow Minister might raise that point. In fairness, a number of other people have done so, and I hope that gives some assurance that we are aware of it.

We are determined to get the legislation right, and it is vital that businesses and the public are informed about what they can and cannot do. Guidance will be published shortly after the debate to explain the legislation in detail to both businesses and the public. Informal guidance has already been shared with businesses to help them to prepare for the upcoming legislative changes. To ensure compliance, we have given trading standards authorities the powers that they require for this type of restriction—for example, to enter and examine premises that they suspect are in breach of the law. Anyone caught not charging for single-use plastic bags in line with the legislation could face civil sanctions, such as stop notices or a variable financial penalty. We hope that these enforcement measures will not be necessary, but the regulations need to have teeth in order to show that the Government take the issue of plastic pollution seriously.

The draft order sends a signal to industry and the general public that we need to think carefully about the bags we use and the materials from which they are made. The order will help people to make more sustainable choices, and it is an important step towards a more circular economy. I commend it to the Committee.

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[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the shadow Minister, as always, for her comments. I join her in offering Her Majesty belated birthday wishes, although I am not sure it will exactly be a happy birthday this year. I send our genuine sympathies to the shadow Whip, the hon. Member for North Tyneside, on the death of her husband. This happened to me two years ago, and I can honestly say that I know how she will be feeling. Will the shadow Minister please pass that on to her from us all?

[Ruth Jones]

Of course.

[Rebecca Pow]

In order for us to leave the environment in a better state than we found it for the next generation, it is essential that we get the right legislation in place to limit the impact on the natural world of our use of resources. Plastics are an incontrovertible cause of harm to our environment, both terrestrial and marine. These measures are an important part of our wider strategy to tackle plastic pollution. In addition, we are getting under way a raft of measures, not least the Treasury’s plastic tax and the ban on stirrers and straws. All the measures in the Environment Bill will help us to tackle plastics in the waste stream and their negative impact on the environment.

Perhaps I should touch first on the all-important Environment Bill. I think the shadow Minister is being slightly disingenuous, because work on it has not stopped. Indeed, this pause—it is only a pause—has enabled work to carry on with all speed on the targets, and on further strengthening the Bill and what it will trigger. That includes water quality targets. I know you are really keen on our water quality, Sir Charles, and those targets will help to drive improvement in chalk streams and all our rivers. We are also working hard on the air targets, and all the other important things that the Bill will trigger.

The Bill will put in place the measure to set up extended producer responsibility. That will put the onus on the manufacturers of plastic packaging to be responsible throughout its entire life cycle, and that includes where it ends up. Manufacturers will not want plastic packaging to end up as waste, so they will think hard and long about things such as its design and labelling. That will have a big impact on any plastic bags that are left in use, as I think the shadow Minister alluded to. We launched the second consultation on the matter on 24 March—the consultation ends on 4 June—so we are moving very quickly towards its introduction. A huge amount of work is going on to ensure that we get that absolutely right.

The shadow Minister touched on something that a lot of people question, namely why these bags are not biodegradable or compostable. I asked the same questions myself when I arrived in the Department, because it seemed straightforward. However, we have to consider what they biodegrade into. What chemicals, which then go into our soil and water, do they break down into? Biodegradable plastics are, by their nature, at odds with the principle of reuse and recycling; they are not reused or recycled, because they break down. Strong concerns have been raised about how biodegradable they are, and what they break down into. They might have a vital role to play in some very niche areas, but we are carrying out an awful lot of research into this, and at the moment there is a lot of concern about them. They will certainly not step in and replace plastic carrier bags.

I think the shadow Minister asked about the consultation on the order that we are considering. It was consulted on between December 2018 and February 2019, and the summary of responses was published on 31 March 2020. We received a lot of responses to the consultation right across the supply chain, from the waste industry, from non-governmental organisations and from members of the public, with pretty overwhelming support for the proposals. That was very positive.

The shadow Minister touched on the question of bags for life. They should be reused. They are not single-use bags; they are bags for life, as their name suggests. They will last longer than single-use plastic bags. If they are reused sufficiently, their overall environmental impact in comparison to single-use plastic bags is likely to be positive. Interestingly—I am not sure that a lot of people are aware of this, but let us make them aware—retailers are required to take back worn-out bags for life and replace them like for like, free of charge. The impact assessment that accompanies the legislation estimates an increase of 40% in the number of bags of life used over 10 years. However, the policy change will lead to an overall reduction of 21% in the number of bags supplied across all bag types—single-use carrier bags. bags for life, paper bags, cotton bags and so on—over that period, which will lead to an overall reduction in plastic usage. Do not forget my idea of wicker baskets, either.

The shadow Minister may be interested to hear that, as I mentioned in my speech, we will review how the whole system works once it is up and running for single-use carrier bags, and then we will consider extending to retailers those reporting requirements on bags for life. That is not included at the moment, but if it looks as though it would be helpful, it will certainly be looked at.

The shadow Minister touched on paper bags, and she expressed the concern that we were charging only for plastic bags when we ought to be charging for paper ones as well. For her information, paper bags need to be reused three to four times to have an impact equivalent to that of plastic. For cotton bags, the figure rises to 130 times. Paper bags may be littered or escape into the environment, but they are much less damaging than plastic, because they break down. Of course, cotton bags are rarely littered. The point is that the environmental impact of all bag types will be reduced by reuse. If we all reuse our bags, we will really reduce their impact.

[Ruth Jones]

The point I was trying to make about paper bags is that it takes four times as much energy to produce them as it does to produce plastic bags. It is not about what happens during their lifetime; it is about their production, which is so energy-inefficient.

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[Rebecca Pow]

I have not got all the data to argue that point, but I think there is a case to be made for paper bags if the material comes from a sustainable source. We are working on our tree strategy now, and we are looking for all sorts of further markets for our own wood and offcuts. I think that could be debatable.

I am going to wind up now, Sir Charles, as I am sure you will be pleased to hear. I thank the shadow Minister for her contributions and for her challenging questions, which I hope I have answered. As I have outlined, these amendments to the regulations will extend the requirement to charge for single-use carrier bags to all retailers, remove the exemption from charging from airport sellers and increase the minimum mandatory charge from 5p to 10p. We are taking these steps to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics and to explore more sustainable alternatives. These draft order will definitely help us to do so, and I commend it to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.