Plastic Pollution in the Ocean

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 18th May 2023 Westminster Hall

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

Thank you, Sir Christopher. You might be pleased to hear that I may not go on for half an hour, but that will give a little time for my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) to respond. I thank her for bringing this matter before the House. She is a great champion for her constituency, particularly on subjects connected with water and the coast. I do not think that anyone could ask for more on that front. She has to be praised for all the work that she has done, and particularly for bringing this subject for us to debate today.

While Members across the House have our differences, there is an awful lot of common ground. Plastic in the ocean is unacceptable, and we have to do something urgently to tackle it. To the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), we have probably all been in and out of schools. It is honestly the No. 1 subject that children want to talk about. I went into Oake, Bradford and Nynehead Primary School the other day, and it was top of the agenda. I share with the children all the things the Government are doing on the environment, on plastics and on waste and recycling. I usually leave them knowing that we are genuinely tackling a lot of these issues, which are so important not just to children but to us all.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon sent a letter to the Secretary of State, and I will respond. I was waiting until today, just in case any matters arose from the debate, but she will get her response very shortly. I thank her for all the work she does in North Devon. I will expand a bit on what we are doing both domestically and internationally, because they work together, as has been highlighted today.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will make a little progress, just to set the scene.

As Members have said, the annual plastic flow into oceans will triple between 2016 and 2040, which is a pretty shocking thing to think about. Plastic has already had a devastating effect on the environment and it is due to get worse, which is why we have to take urgent action both domestically and internationally. Although it would be wonderful to take out all the plastic in the oceans—we have heard some really good stories about how that has been done in many places, and credit to all the organisations doing that work, many of which are voluntary—the absolute key is to tackle the problem at source and to reduce the amount of plastic going on to the market, so I will talk about that in some detail. It is what the Government’s focus is all about.

Our environmental improvement plan 2023 states that we have targets for reducing all forms of marine plastic pollution where possible, and our 2018 resources and waste strategy sets out how we will do that. In our environment improvement plan, we have set a target of achieving zero avoidable plastic waste by the end of 2042. How will we do all that? There is a step-by-step process, and it will be done through a whole range of measures that focus on maximising resource efficiency; reusing, recycling and reducing the overall amount of plastic on the market; and keeping what plastic we do use—because there are no doubt some really important uses of plastic—in the circular economy for much longer. As we have heard from various colleagues, the key element of our packaging and waste regime and reforms is the extended producer responsibility scheme, which puts the onus on the manufacturer that places the packaging on the market and makes them responsible for its lifecycle and where it ends up. We also have the deposit return scheme, which has been mentioned by a number of colleagues. It is due to start in October 2025, but intensive work is being done on both schemes right now.

I welcome the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon about Scotland. We obviously welcome the involvement of the devolved Administrations, because it would all be much simpler if we had the same scheme. We are working very closely together. Scotland’s scheme has been held up, but we are working to progress ours as quickly as possible. The third element is our consistent collection, so that we collect the same products from our local authorities. That will help us to get good-quality recyclates, and it will help the whole system to work effectively. We are pressing on with that and will shortly announce the results of our consultation. I will also slip in at this point that we will also announce our consultation on the ban of wet wipes shortly. I recognise that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Putney, has done a lot of work on this issue, as have many people in this room and other colleagues across the House.

The Liberal Democrat Member, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord), mentioned his party’s policies for recycling. He seemed to be slightly behind the curve; we are already introducing all of the schemes to tackle plastic packaging and plastic waste. We are well on the case, and realise how important those schemes are.

We have done a lot already. We have significantly reduced major supermarket retailers’ use of single-use carrier bags, as was outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon, by over 97%. That was enabled, or triggered, by the 5p charge. We have since introduced the 10p charge and extended it to all retailers. That is really making the extra difference we need on carrier bags.

[Richard Foord]

The Minister says that the Government have already taken account of the proposals I talked about on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. Does that include the points I made about cigarette butts? Will she tell us what the Government are doing to crack down on cigarette butts in the ocean?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes. I have spent a lot of time working on cigarette butts as well. They are a nasty, poisonous, polluting litter item. In fact, in terms of numbers of items littered, they are the largest. A lot of work has been done on that front. We work very closely with WRAP—the Waste and Resources Action Programme—on options for tackling the littering of cigarette butts, which include making the industry more responsible for the cost of dealing with them. We are considering next steps now. The hon. Member may not be aware that, with the stick hanging over the industry, it has come up with £30 million to voluntarily deal with cigarette butt littering. We will watch closely to see how that proceeds.

In October 2020, we introduced measures to restrict the supply of plastic straws, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) mentioned, as well as plastic drink stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton buds, which we did ahead of the EU. We are building on that progress with our recently announced bans on single-use plastic plates, bowls, trays, containers, cutlery and balloon sticks from this October. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent reminded us, quite starkly, why we need to do this—those things stay in the environment for so long; she gave the figure of 400 years. We are doing absolutely the right thing in bringing in those bans. As time progresses, we will review those bans to see whether they are effective and to make sure that we have the right processes in place—I think the shadow Minister asked about that.

The form of marine litter with the greatest known impact on marine life is abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear, known as ghost gear. That has been estimated to cause a decline of between 5% and 30% in some fish stocks. The Administrations of the UK are committed to working together, and with industry, through the British Irish Council, to develop solutions for the collection and recycling of end-of-life fishing gear—the gear left lying about on the quayside—of which there is a large quantity. To fulfil that commitment, the UK is reviewing domestic measures for end-of-life fishing and aquaculture gear with the intention of moving the sector towards a circular economy model, finding ways to recycle that material. It is quite complicated, because the gear contains a lot of different materials. We will ensure that any new requirements do not create a competitive disadvantage for our fishing industry.

Regional sea conventions can also play a key role in co-ordinating action, sharing knowledge and monitoring the state of the ocean, and as a contracting party to OSPAR—the regional seas convention for the protection of the north-east Atlantic—the UK participates in monitoring programmes to assess regional trends in marine litter and develops and takes action in co-operation with our nearest neighbours. In 2021, OSPAR contracting parties agreed the north-east Atlantic environment strategy. The strategy has a number of objectives on tackling marine litter in the north-east Atlantic, including a strategic objective to prevent inputs of, and significantly reduce, marine litter, including microplastics in the marine environment. Under the strategic objective, contracting parties also agreed to publish an updated regional action plan on marine litter, which was published in 2022.

The strong programme of domestic and regional action means that the UK is well placed to be a leading voice in tackling plastic pollution on the wider international stage. The UK was proud to co-sponsor the proposal to prepare a new international, legally binding plastic pollution treaty, which was agreed in the United Nations Environment Assembly in February 2022.

[Margaret Ferrier]

With Malaysia’s high contribution to plastic pollution, and its status as a comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-pacific partnership country, does the Minister believe that our recent accession to the bloc could be a good opportunity to drive environmental change with trading partners?

[Rebecca Pow]

One of our key focuses is on environmental protection. We are doing a great deal of work, as I am outlining, on the international stage to work with our partners, and influence them on things that we are doing at home—demonstrating that a lot of those things can be done nationally. The aim is to reduce, reuse, recycle, and limit the amount of plastic going on to the market in the first place.

The process for negotiating the new agreement that the UK co-sponsored is under way. The first intergovernmental negotiating committee was in November last year. The UK took an ambitious stance on that, supporting a treaty that will restrain the production and consumption of plastic, address plastic design and encourage more recycling and reuse. Those are the things we think are critical.

The UK is also a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution, which is a group of 50 countries that are calling for a target under the treaty to stop plastic from flowing into the environment by 2040. That very much reflects our approach at home. We reiterated that commitment at the recent G7 meeting in Japan, where all G7 nations committed to ending plastic pollution, with the ambition to reduce additional plastic pollution to zero by 2040. We are going to continue to push for ambition at future negotiation sessions, including the forthcoming one in Paris, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon. My officials and I will go to that, and we are hoping for real, useful progress there. Every colleague in the Chamber has mentioned the importance of international treaties and work.

We already support a range of initiatives to remove or remediate plastic in the marine environment. We support the Fishing for Litter initiative and many other local schemes. Fishing for Litter is a voluntary, unpaid litter bycatch removal scheme for commercial fishermen, run by KIMO, a network of local authorities, which provides fishing boats with bags to dispose of marine-sourced litter collected during normal fishing operations. Fishing for Litter South West England is currently funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair’s fisheries and seafood scheme. In 2018, we also changed marine licensing measures to make it easier for divers to recover marine litter, including fishing gear. That is something they highlighted to us, and we had to make a tweak to enable them to be able to do that and safely dispose of it when they brought the litter back on to land.

Under the OSPAR Commission’s regional action plan for marine litter, the UK works with other contracting parties to implement actions. The plan includes an action to prevent, locate and handle abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear.

I also agree with the importance of monitoring plastic pollution. The UK co-funds the Marine Conservation Society’s recording of litter from sections of our coast. That helps us to monitor plastic pollution levels and trends. That data is used in combination with other monitoring data to measure the impact of our policies and inform our decisions about how to tackle marine litter. Its information was really useful in informing our work and regulation on the ban of cotton buds. We looked at the things that rocked up most frequently on beaches, which included balloon sticks and so forth.

I note the valuable work done by the Ocean Cleanup, which is an interesting initiative. I cannot say that we have a pot of money to put into that, but we are certainly grateful for the work it does and we are obviously looking very closely at what will proceed from that.

We are working closely with other countries around the world to understand how to tackle legacy plastic pollution through the treaty. As mentioned, we are working hard to prevent plastic from entering the environment in the first place by making producers responsible for their plastic.

We are also supporting a lot of other international action. In 2021, the then Prime Minister announced the new £500 million blue planet fund, which lots of colleagues are familiar with. The fund aims to protect and enhance the marine environment and reduce poverty. It includes a focus on tackling marine pollution and supporting coastal communities. That point was raised; we have to bring the communities along with us in all that.

Through the UK’s blue planet fund, we are working with the Global Plastic Action Partnership to take collaborative action on tackling pollution in developing countries, including Indonesia, Ghana and Vietnam. Through that partnership, the UK is supporting the creation of national roadmaps to address plastic pollution, which outline the action, finance and innovation needed to achieve national commitments. In Indonesia, for example, the partnership is working towards a target of reducing mismanaged waste by 70% by 2025.

The blue planet fund’s ocean country partnership programme is also supporting countries to tackle, reduce and mitigate marine pollution through the development of science-led policy and the strengthening of marine expertise. Everything must be science based. That is what they are working on.

The UK also appreciates the critical role that young people play in paving the way for change. Since 2019, we have supported the United Nations Environment Programme’s Tide Turners plastic challenge badge. That has developed a community of over 500,000 young people doing work on plastic pollution.

The UK also contributes to PROBLUE, the World Bank’s multi-donor trust, which supports the sustainable and integrated development of marine and coastal resources. A key component of that is prevention and management of marine pollution. PROBLUE projects aim to address the threats posed by such pollution, including litter, plastics and land-based sources that are contributing to what goes into our seas. Additionally, the UK co-chairs the Commonwealth clean ocean alliance alongside Vanuatu. I think the shadow Minister mentioned that. We work very closely with them on the Commonwealth blue charter’s action groups. We have delivered the Commonwealth litter programme, which is delivering scientific technical assistance across all Commonwealth countries. It is proceeding very constructively.

I have just a couple of questions left to answer. I think I have answered the question about the evaluation of the effectiveness of our bans because we have to qualitatively and quantitively analyse the difference that our policies are making. We are committed to doing that, and we are evaluating the impact of the plastic straw ban. The timing of that evaluation is dependent on our progress in introducing our other packaging reforms, but it is currently scheduled for 2026-27.

The hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) is a great advocate of the work on plastics and microplastics. He always talks about nurdles, and he did not fail to do so today. They are pre-production plastic pellets—the raw materials used in the production of plastic items—and they can be lost all over the place. It is shocking how much we find them on our beaches and in the sea. In 2019, the British-Irish Council recognised the need to address that source of microplastics, and it committed to learn from a trial supply chain approach that is taking place in Scotland. We are watching that carefully. The Administration supported the development of a publicly available specification developed by the British Standards Institution, which set out how businesses handling or managing the pellets can reduce pellet loss. It is the first initiative of its kind, and it was published in July 2021.

Hon. Members raised overseas exports of plastic waste. We plan to consult later this year on options to ban the export of plastic waste to countries that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The Government have committed to that, and it is being rolled out.

I hope I have demonstrated the enormous amount of work that is being done on this front, but that is not to say that there is not an enormous amount to do. There is: this is a huge problem. We are taking action domestically through the new initiatives that we are rolling out. They are a game-changer for lots of people and local authorities, so we will have to bring people with us. I think we will do so, because there is such a positive attitude towards reducing our plastic waste.

I once again thank everyone who took part in the debate. It is good to get this issue on the agenda. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon for securing it.