Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to reduce the environmental impact of waste incineration.

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

We want to see less waste being sent to incinerators, which is why we set a statutory target to halve the 2019 level of residual waste by 2042. The Environment Agency inspects and audits energy from waste plants to ensure that they are complying with the requirements of their environmental permits, which include strict emissions limits and associated strict requirements to monitor those limits.

[Elliot Colburn]

Only about 20% of the waste that goes into the Beddington incinerator in my constituency is plastic, but it makes up three quarters of the harmful particulates that come out of the chimney stacks. Technology is available to extract plastic before it is burnt, and is being trialled around the country. Does the Minister agree that all waste incineration plants should be installing this technology as soon as possible?

[Rebecca Pow]

We have legislated to prevent incinerators from accepting separately collected paper, metal, glass and plastic unless they have gone through a recycling facility first. We are trying to reduce all our waste but particularly plastic, and our plastic packaging reforms, which are under way, will mean that, overall, less waste will be incinerated.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As the Minister has said, we need to reduce the amount of waste that is being incinerated. One way of doing that would be to develop a truly circular economy, which could also result in the creation of many more green jobs. This is a DEFRA responsibility, but we do not hear much from DEFRA about its plans. Will the Minister tell us what action she is taking?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Lady is right, and we are committed to measures to introduce a much more circular economy. We must cut the amount of resources that we use, and recycle more, reuse more and refill more. Work is under way, and data is being gathered on our extended producer responsibility scheme, which we will introduce in 2024, and the deposit return scheme will be introduced in 2025. Those, along with consistent collections, will reduce the amount of waste that we, as a society, throw away.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

Waste incinerators are three times more likely to be built in the UK’s most deprived neighbourhoods than in the least deprived, and people in those communities are twice as likely to have a lung condition and seven times more likely to die from one. Is the Minister confident that she has enough monitoring in place to provide accurate, timely and consistent data to ensure that these incinerators do not breach our emissions targets and thus put local people at risk of further harm?

[Rebecca Pow]

It is crucial for waste incineration plants to have the correct permits and to be correctly monitored, which is why the Environment Agency has imposed strict emissions limits and applies the permit scheme to a number of pollutants to ensure that people who live near incinerators are completely safe. All operators of incinerator plants must carry out their own monitoring and report back constantly on the safety of their plants, because human health is, of course, critical.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

8. What progress her Department has made on its target to halt species decline by 2030.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

T6.   Seven parish councils along the River Severn from Aust to Sharpness have joined forces under the chairmanship of local resident Mr Barry Turner to ask the Environment Agency for improvements along the riverbank, in preparation for rising tide heights and more extreme weather events. Will the Minister meet me, Mr Turner and the local councillor, Matthew Riddle, to discuss their concerns and help find a solution?

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

I believe the Environment Agency has already met Mr Turner and his group, and I am happy to meet my hon. Friend too. Obviously, I must stress that managing coastal change in those legacy landfill sites, some of which have historical issues, is very much the responsibility of the local coastal protection authorities. The Government are taking action, looking at what priority action we could take on these historical landfill sites to find a way forward in these many and varied areas.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

T3.   Yesterday, we learned that sugar prices have risen by a massive 47% in the past year, and industry experts predict that they will rise again this autumn, because of the high energy costs of extracting and refining sugar. What steps is the Minister taking to support the food and drink sector throughout this period of extreme inflationary pressure, so that these costs are not, yet again, passed on to consumers?

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[Dan Jarvis2002 (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

T4.   Should not the cost of cleaning up our waterways be met by the profits of water companies, not higher bills paid for by hard-pressed consumers?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Gentleman may not be aware that dividends and profits of water companies cannot come from customers—[Interruption.] If the water companies want to compensate people and they have not done the right thing by the environment, that will not come out of customers’ pockets. This Government have put in a huge plan for £56 billion-worth of investment by the water companies to clean up our waters—this is more than ever before.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Dog-loving constituents of mine have expressed concerns about a potential ban on e-collars. They say that in Wales, where e-collars are banned, attacks on sheep have increased exponentially, with the result being electric fences that are far more harmful to dogs. Will my right hon. Friend consider some form of licensing or regulation of usage, rather than an outright ban?

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[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

On Monday, BBC’s “Panorama” programme examined the continuing misery being inflicted on my constituents by Walleys Quarry Landfill, and, as you will know, Mr Speaker, the Staffordshire waste site in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) is also affecting my constituents. We have a situation where not one, but two rogue operators are making the lives of the people of Newcastle-under-Lyme a misery, and the actions of the Environment Agency are too slow and not robust enough, so what will the Minister do to ensure that we get justice and accountability for what we are going through?

[Rebecca Pow]

I know that my hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner on the issue of Walleys Quarry, and that the Secretary of State has visited the area recently. I know, too, that there was a “Panorama” programme about the site. An enforcement notice was issued by the EA on 5 May requiring the operator to take further action around waste acceptance procedures on the site to reduce the risk of sulphate-bearing material entering the landfill. I have spoken many times to the EA and know that it is working very hard to reduce the dangers, potentially, that locals may feel come from this site.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Will the Minister be prepared to meet me and representatives of the Horticulture Trades Association to discuss what further steps the Government could take to support the horticultural sector in developing responsibly resourced, high-quality alternatives to peat that can be produced at volume?

Draft Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 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 Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure, as ever, to see you in the Chair, Sir Gary. The regulations were laid in draft before the House on 20 April. They amend the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023. Since those regulations came into force, further engagement with stakeholders has brought to our attention two key issues that the regulations before us today seek to resolve. We have also taken the opportunity to pursue additional amendments that improve the clarity of provisions.

The regulations introduce two key changes, but I assure the Committee from the outset that the changes being introduced are not a change of policy. Instead, they seek to rectify ambiguities and correct omissions. The data reporting requirements require producers of packaging to collect and report data on the amount and type of packaging that they place on the market, and that will be used to calculate the fees that producers will pay to cover the costs of managing the packaging as part of the extended producer responsibility scheme from 2024.

The regulations add to the obligations of importers. Erroneously omitted from the original statutory instruments, importers will need to report packaging that they import and then subsequently dispose of without supplying onwards. It was always our intention to include such packaging, and it is packaging that importers already collect and report under the original and ongoing packaging producer responsibility scheme. The amendment is crucial to ensuring a properly functioning extended producer responsibility scheme, and we estimate that the amount of packaging it relates to is approximately 1 million tonnes, or about 8% of the packaging placed on the market every year in the United Kingdom. If that packaging went unreported, it would seriously hamper the proper functioning of the packaging recovery note system and would also lead to a distortion of the producer fees that will be payable under the EPR.

The SI makes changes that reduce uncertainty around the definition of brand owner. The amendments address two main scenarios. The first is where there is more than one brand printed on the packaging. For example, a limited edition chocolate Easter egg—I know Easter is over—might have a separate brand’s toy inside. The amendments make it clear that it is the brand who first sells the packaged product who is responsible. In that instance, it would be the brand owner of the Easter egg, not the brand owner of the toy.

The second scenario is when multiple items from different brands are grouped together in a single sales unit. An example would be the Sunday Times wine box. The amendments make it clear that the brand who brings the other products together into one product should be responsible for any packaging it adds. So The Sunday Times would be obligated for the cardboard box, and the wine producers would be obligated for the wine bottles inside the box. I am not sure how many Members shop at Harrods, but a second example would be a Harrods hamper. Harrods would be responsible for the basket and straw, while the producers of the champagne and caviar that you had purchased, Sir Gary, would be responsible for the glass bottle and the container.

The regulations also make a number of other changes, which I will discuss briefly. The amendments will provide further clarification on the data reporting requirements for reusable and refillable packaging, and will simplify the reporting process. At the moment, producers would need to report whether their reusable product was refilled at home or in store; a range of models are used for this sort of scheme, as hon. Members may or may not know from partaking in some of them.

Let me give the Committee an example for clarification. When my Ecover washing up bottle is empty, I take it to a store in my nearby town of Wellington, where I refill it from the store’s big canister. The amendments remove the need to describe the type of reusable system being used—that is, that I went to a store to do it—and that will reduce burdens on producers. However, the key data will continue to be reported to inform policy development ahead of introducing new measures to increase the uptake of reuse and refill systems in 2025, which is obviously to be encouraged and will very much be encouraged at a later date.

The key data is the amount of reusable packaging a producer has supplied and whether it is termed “primary packaging”. Primary packaging is the packaging that surrounds a product and forms a sales unit to the customer—for example, a reusable Ecover bottle. Secondary and tertiary packaging is packaging that businesses interact with and that is typically removed before the product is sold to a consumer—for example, cardboard boxes used for display purposes or pallets used in distribution. The changes will also allow producers that have instituted reuse systems of their own to offset the packaging at the end of life, giving them a discount on their EPR disposal fees when they have collected and sent the packaging for recycling once it has become waste. The amendments also include minor corrections to the drafting and fix some incorrect cross-references.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

May I take the Minister back to her Sunday Times wine club example—other wine clubs presumably are available—when she said that the cardboard would be the responsibility of the Sunday Times wine club and the glass bottle would be that of the wine producer? Would I be right that if the wine were imported, as I think is the case for nearly every Sunday Times wine club bottle that my wife has ever had, the Sunday Times wine club would be responsible for the glass as well and not only the box?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will need to think about that for a minute. My hon. Friend is talking about imported products. The glass bottle will come under a different system of recycling anyway; it could go into our other kerbside schemes that are currently being developed—potentially deposit return. [Interruption.] I waited for a bit of inspiration, and apparently the answer is yes, if the wine club imported it.

I am sure there will be some other examples, because in getting the data gathering system up and running, lots of tiny nuances have arisen. That is why producers have come to us to point out the anomalies, which we have to fix; and that is what we are doing today. These amending regulations will apply to England only, but similar regulations are being progressed and amended where needed in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. My officials have worked closely with the relevant departments in the devolved Administrations in the development of this legislation.

In conclusion, the measures in the draft regulations are crucial for enabling the effective implementation of the extended producer responsibility for packaging and realising its associated environmental benefits. I commend them to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the shadow Labour Minister for supporting this SI. I think she can see that it is just about a couple of much-needed tweaks to the system.

The hon. Lady referred to getting accurate data, and I think the regulations demonstrate that we are completely on that. The system will not work properly if there are anomalies that distort it. Some of the measures I have mentioned relate to about 1 million tonnes of plastic—8% of the total—and without this SI that could potentially distort the system. It is on the data being gathered that the fees will be calculated to pay the local authorities to do consistent collections, so it is important to get the data right. She raised an important point, but that is why we have introduced this SI and why we continue to work with business and industry. We have been doing that very closely since this started. They have fed back as we have been going along, and we have listened to that. We have listened to them from the very beginning because we wanted to ensure that, although the costs are being put on to businesses to deal with the packaging that they put into the market and the taxpayer no longer has to deal with it, we still do not want that to be over-burdensome. As a result, we have worked to reduce the costs that they face.

The hon. Lady asked about what we were doing with buinesses. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has set up a business-readiness forum and also a local authority forum. She asked about local authorities in particular. That is obviously the other end that is really important to keep businesses, producers and local authorities up to date about the changes. They have been meeting regularly since January, which is when we recommended companies to start gathering the data voluntarily. The official legal date for the data gathering was in March. Those conversations are ongoing—

[Ruth Jones]

I just want to highlight the fact that the packaging industry is still anxious about the data it is collecting. Is it the data that, as the Minister has outlined, the fees will be paid on? It accepts and has no problem with the principle of EPR, but is still anxious about the confusion about data collection. Small businesses in particular are really anxious about this.

[Rebecca Pow]

Of course, the data is being collected only by companies with a certain turnover and a certain tonnage, so many small businesses are not involved in this. We have listened to them, and the placing of that threshold came out of the consultation. If she would like that in writing, we can clarify the tonnage and where the data is cut off. It is those with a turnover of £2 million and handling 50 tonnes of packaging a year. We thought carefully about where to place that threshold.

On top of the forums, we have delivered a series of information webinars. More will take place, with more engagement through a fortnightly newsletter to business and industry and lots of one-to-one engagement. We are still encouraging that because, if there are still areas to iron out, we need to know about it. There were also a series of eight-week visioning events to consider the long-term future of all those collection and packaging reforms. They involved producers, trade associations, local authorities, waste management companies and environmental non-governmental organisations. I hope that answers the question satisfactorily.

I thank the Committee for its input. I can see other Members thinking about examples of what will be captured through this SI, and I would like to stress that the SI will make crucial changes to the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023. It will ensure the proper functioning of the packaging recycling note evidence scheme and that fair producer fees are set, which reflect the true amount of packaging that arises as waste in the UK.

The amendment will also firm up the definition of “brand owner”, ensuring that producers have confidence in where their obligations lie. Finally, further amendments made through these regulations will provide clarification on producer reporting as well as correct minor inaccuracies in the drafting. Once again, I thank all of those on the Committee from both the Government and Opposition for supporting this SI.

Question put and agreed to.

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.

Draft REACH (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 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 REACH (Amendment) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure, as ever, to have you in the Chair, Sir Graham. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 20 April and amend UK REACH, the UK regulation on the regulation, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals, which is one of the main pieces of legislation that manages chemicals in Great Britain.

In line with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, UK REACH retains both the fundamental approach and key principles of the EU REACH regulation, with its aims of ensuring a high level of protection of human health and the environment. The statutory instrument introduces two changes. I can assure the Committee from the outset that those changes do not affect the key principles and that UK REACH will continue to provide the highest levels for protection of human health and the environment.

First, the SI amends the deadlines in article 127P(4B) of UK REACH for the submission of information to the Health and Safety Executive, extending them by three years. That applies to grandfathered registrations and chemicals being imported from the EU under the transitional arrangements. Industry will have to submit technical information—that is, the full data package—on the hazards and risks of substances by 27 October 2026, 27 October 2028 and 27 October 2030, depending on the tonnage and toxicity of the chemical. Those dates are changed from 27 October 2023, 27 October 2025 and 27 October 2027 respectively. The most toxic and hazardous chemicals will be in the first tranche that will be required to be registered.

The changes are needed as part of my Department’s work to address the significant potential cost of obtaining or accessing the full hazard information required to meet UK REACH registration requirements. Those costs are estimated to be between £1.3 billion and £3.5 billion, which represents a major concern for the industry as it will be a significant financial undertaking for businesses in Great Britain transitioning to UK REACH. We recognise business concerns, which is why we are working really closely with business and engaging with all stakeholders to develop an alternative transitional registration model for UK REACH.

We are working with the industry and non-governmental organisation stakeholders to find a solution that will reduce the costs associated with obtaining hazard information while still ensuring that they are responsible for the safe use of chemicals throughout the supply chain. The model we are developing aims to reduce the need for businesses to access or obtain expensive EU REACH data packages and will place more emphasis on improving our understanding of the uses and exposures of chemicals in the Great Britain context—that is, on making it much more specific to our market and our needs. Extending the deadlines will provide certainty to industry so that it can avoid making unnecessary investments in obtaining data while the Government continue to develop and implement an alternative approach.

The second change is that the SI will move the timelines for the HSE to complete its compliance checks to ensure that the information submitted by industry is of sufficient quality. The changes will now align with the extended deadlines for submitting data to the HSE. That is necessary because the deadlines for compliance checking, as set down in article 41(5) of UK REACH, would otherwise fall before the amended dates for submitting the relevant information. Basically, it just links everything together.

The HSE will now have to complete its compliance checks by 27 October 2027, 27 October 2030 and 27 October 2035, corresponding to the three extended submission deadlines. This is the first time we have prepared an SI using the powers to amend REACH that are set out in schedule 21 to the Environment Act 2021. Some colleagues present served on the Bill Committee for that Act and will I am sure remember that.

We have followed all the safeguards that we attached to the powers. In doing so, we sought and obtained consent from the devolved Administrations of Wales and Scotland; consulted widely with our stakeholders and interested parties on our plans to extend the submission deadlines; and published a consistency statement, as required by the 2021 Act. Our aim was to provide the Committee with the necessary assurance that extending the submission deadlines is consistent with article 1 of UK REACH. We will continue to ensure a high level of protection of human health and the environment.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Am I right in thinking that the redesign of the registration process that my hon. Friend is currently considering, which the three-year extension will allow her to bring into play, will not diminish the levels of care for the environment or, indeed, for human health, but rather enhance them, and that the whole purpose of the redesign is to do that?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is very astute. In no way will we reduce any of the protections—we have to make a statement to say that we will not do that—and this change does give us an opportunity to work with the industry to look at the kind of data it provides and its knowledge of the chemicals, as well as to focus on how we use those chemicals and the actual exposure for our own population, because it is different in different countries. It should provide us with a really focused understanding and knowledge of the chemicals that we place on the market—of course, each company is responsible for the chemicals it places on the market.

As I said, we laid the statement, as required by the Act, to provide the Committee with the necessary assurance that extending the submission deadlines is consistent with article 1 of UK REACH. We will continue to ensure a high level of protection of human health and the environment.

As we outlined in the consistency statement that accompanied the public consultation, our assessment demonstrates that overall the UK REACH regime will still be able to ensure a high level of protection of human health and the environment because of the information on and knowledge of chemicals registered under EU REACH that is available to HSE and Great Britain registrants; because importers from the EU will continue to receive EU REACH-compliant safety data sheets from their EU suppliers, which will enable them to identify and apply appropriate risk-management measures; and because of the HSE’s ability to seek risk management data from other sources—there are sources other than the EU system—if necessary, as it did when acting as a competent authority under EU REACH. That seeking could include things such as calls for evidence and using data from EU REACH and other relevant sources that can provide Great Britain with specific hazard and exposure information.

Alongside the public consultation, we also published a full impact assessment on extending the deadlines, which I am pleased to say was awarded a green fit-for-purpose rating by the Regulatory Policy Committee. The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has formally considered this SI without comment. The territorial extent of this instrument is the United Kingdom, and the devolved Administrations were engaged in its development and are content. I am confident that the provisions in the regulations mean that we will continue to ensure the highest levels of protection for human health and the environment.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend will know, I have the headquarters of Johnson Matthey, a major environmental business, in my constituency. Is it not right that the instrument will give duty holders the right amount of time to prepare and submit full dossiers for all the substances that need to be registered, and will therefore have a positive effect in terms of better regulation?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that. It is a really significant industry in his constituency, and he is right to speak up for it. I am sure that he has engaged with industry, as we have, because we have to make this work. It is a huge industry for Great Britain—a £30.4 billion industry. The industry has worked with us, and was very positive in the consultation about wanting the extension of the deadlines. We are already working with various key companies to work up some dossiers with individual companies to see how it could work. We will learn a lot from that, and we obviously need this time to work our way through that and see all the different impacts and costs, what sort of information they need to provide, and how they are managing to do that. My right hon. and learned Friend is right, and I thank him for that question.

I am confident that the provisions in the draft regulations mean that we will continue to ensure the highest levels of protection of human health and the environment based on robust evidence and strong scientific analysis. At the same time, we are taking steps to provide industry with the legal certainty that it needs to operate and to preserve the supply chains for the chemicals that we depend on. I will leave it there for now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. First, I welcome the shadow Minister’s support for this SI, although she has given me a raft of questions. If I do not answer them all, we will respond in writing, if that is suitable. However, I will cover as many as I can.

I want to reiterate why we are doing this. It is necessary for extending the deadlines for UK REACH submissions while we make the much-needed changes to the existing transitional requirements for submitting the HSE information. Without the changes, businesses would be forced to expend resources obtaining information and compiling documents, meaning that they could actually waste money. At the end of the day, they will not need to have all this information when we come up with the full model, working with them. It is, therefore, essential that we extend the deadlines before October 2023, which is when the first deadline would have fallen. All of that has been done in discussion with industry, and the consultation took place. Although the shadow Minister has some concerns, many of which came through CHEM Trust, we have discussed a lot of the issues with industry and that is why we have come up with these dates, which, as we have already heard, are satisfactory for our industry.

I reiterate that our endeavour is to keep all protections in place for the environment and human health, as per article 1 of UK REACH, as noted in our consistency statement, and to come up with a much more bespoke approach to the way in which we handle chemicals. The hon. Member for Newport West might be interested to know that the new model takes a two-pronged approach, working with companies and testing how it will work, hence the dossiers looking at cost, meeting the regulations and managing the risks. We are also looking at how we can improve the information to really deal with the issue of exposure to chemicals. That is where we could have a more bespoke system, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is working on that alternative model with industry, NGOs, the European Environment Agency and HSE. I reiterate that that is the purpose and it is well under way.

There was some criticism that things may not be working fast enough, or not at all. However, we have already received notification for around 20,000 chemical substances. The UK did, of course, ask for data sharing as part of the EU-UK arrangements, but the EU refused to engage. It could change its position and open up discussions again, but that is the position now.

[Ruth Jones]

To be fair to the EU, I understand that it took its ball and went home with it, but we were not going to pay and we were not going to play by its rules, so that is probably why it did that. On divergence, I am concerned that it is progressing but we do not seem to have a plan in place. Could the Minister address that?

[Rebecca Pow]

I honestly do not believe that there is cause for concern. There might be divergence in terms of flexibility or decisions that might be made at slightly different times. She mentioned various substances. That is more a matter of timing and of when the announcements are made, but there will not be any divergence in the fundamental principles and guarantees that safety and protection of the environment and human health is paramount. That still stands and it will not change.

NGO stakeholders have also raised this issue and said that they want divergence to be kept to a minimum. The EU is also seeking to improve the quality of its information on use and exposure, so our work on the alternative model could serve to reduce the scope of the new divergence. Having our own independent regulatory framework for chemicals allows us to identify the most pressing priorities that best reflect our circumstances in GB. The decisions we take are based on the best available evidence, including looking at approaches taken by chemical regimes across the world, including the EU. The Health and Safety Executive already looks at other sources and will continue to do so, as I think I said in my opening speech.

The shadow Minister asked about the capacity of HSE. Its capacity is increasing all the time. The NAO’s report from May 2022 shows that it increased staffing in its chemicals regulation division by 46% between September 2020 and March 2022. It continues to build on that capacity. In the long term, by 2025 the number of HSE staff working on UK REACH delivery is expected to grow to 50, and the number is around 60 or 70 if we consider the wider support functions. Members might be interested if I break that down. There are currently about 15 toxicologists, with six established and nine promoted or early career scientists. In addition, HSE can call on REACH independent scientific experts—the pool members—and the expert scientists on a whole range of different committees, as well as the eco-toxicologists who work for the Environment Agency, to support its work. I hope that makes very clear that the capacity of HSE has been ramped up, and that it is working alongside the new requirements to get the system absolutely right.

To go back to chemicals and restrictions, a suggestion was made that potentially it is not safe here and we are not banning chemicals that have been banned elsewhere. That is categorically not the case. Work is well under way to address risky chemicals. Upcoming decisions include restrictions on lead in ammunition and on toxic substances in tattoo inks and permanent make-up. I do not know if you have a tattoo, Sir Graham.

[The Vice-Chamberlain of His Majesty’s Household (Jo Churchill)]

We will never know!

[Rebecca Pow]

In April, HSE and the EA published a regulatory management options analysis on PFAS, or “forever chemicals”, and they will be considering the recommendations for restrictions on other regulatory measures. And we are banning PFAS in firefighting foams. I think the hon. Member for Newport West mentioned that, but that is one thing that we have announced. Under the UK REACH work programme, we will be working our way through a whole range of restrictions, obviously with all of the right evidence to inform decisions made.

[Ruth Jones]

I asked how many hazardous chemicals have been added to the register since 2020. I have since been told that the answer is zero. People in the industry will be concerned to know that no additional chemicals have been added since 2020.

[Rebecca Pow]

I am afraid that this is so complicated that, to correct the answer on what the hon. Lady is specifically referring to, I will write to her. Without a shadow of a doubt, we are banning PFAS in fire- fighting foams, and HSE is now scrutinising authorisation applications for a chemical called nonylphenol, which cannot now be used unless a company can justify its use and HSE agrees. That is the way we work through all chemicals. There is a really strict protocol on working our way through these proposed bans and looking at all the evidence.

I reassure the hon. Lady that we will be developing a chemical strategy, pulling all of these things together and setting out a really clear vision for chemical management in the UK, as well as a set of principles to guide policy development and the regulatory decision making that comes with it, providing certainty to key stakeholders, the industry and our direction of travel. The intention is for the strategy to be UK-wide and cross-Government. She will hear more about that in due course.

I will wind up now. I hope I have answered the plethora of questions and given assurances as to why we need this really important SI. We have made these changes to UK REACH without any impact on the high levels of human health and environmental protections, as demonstrated by the consistency statement and the impact assessments that accompanied the public consultation that came with the statutory instrument. On that note, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft REACH (Amendment) Regulations 2023.

Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Mr Sharma; I know this subject is of great interest to you, as is litter, which the House just had an Adjournment debate on. It all comes into the sphere we are dealing with. I thank the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) for bringing this debate on extended producer responsibility to Westminster Hall. I am pleased to have the opportunity to outline our schemes in more detail. She asked a great raft of questions, so if I do not cover all the answers, we will write to her on some of the outstanding issues, although I know some of issues have been dealt with in answers to parliamentary questions.

The hon. Lady and I share some agreement about the need for the schemes we are introducing and the fact that they are complex. The schemes will definitely take us in the right direction on reducing our waste. We agree on the shared goal, which is to implement a successful UK-wide scheme that serves to improve recycling and the availability of recycled materials for reuse, to drive down pollution, and to ensure that the cost of packaging waste no longer relies so heavily on the public purse. After four years of extensive engagement across the packaging sectors, the policy framework to introduce an extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging across the United Kingdom was outlined in the Government response published in March 2022. Work is continuing to make progress in preparation for its implementation.

Although affected businesses have consistently expressed their support for high-level extended producer responsibility objectives and outcomes, some concerns have been raised about costs, implementation and timelines. I am well aware of that, as other colleagues in this Chamber have raised some of these matters with me. I reassure the hon. Member for Llanelli and others that my Department remains committed to continued intense engagement with affected businesses to ensure that we deliver our UK extended producer responsibility scheme in a way that delivers on the shared goals to transform a linear economic model of “take, make, use, throw away” to a circular economy. Our aim is for legislation to be in place in time to start the EPR in 2024-25, as the hon. Lady mentioned.

Before I go further, I will outline how we got to this point and the rationale for the delivery of the EPR programme. In December 2018, the Government published the resources and waste strategy, which set out how we will preserve our stock of material resources by minimising waste, promoting resource efficiency and moving towards the circular economy. Three significant commitments in the strategy form the collection and packaging reforms programme. Those are the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging—the EPR—which we are discussing; the deposit return scheme for drinks containers, known as the DRS; and the consistency in recycling collection scheme, known simply as consistency. That is the consistency of collection at the doorstep by local authorities.

The idea is that they dovetail together. They will help us to deliver our goals on protecting the climate, driving green growth and driving down unnecessary waste—all goals set out by this Government and the devolved Administrations in their policy documents. As a result of our reforms, particularly in relation to the EPR, we expect the figure for recycling rigid plastics—excluding drinks bottles in the DRS—to reach 48% by 2025, broadly comparable with what Wiltshire Farm Foods are doing at the moment. By 2030, we expect that to rise significantly to about 62%. That is the direction in which we aim to drive all packaging producers.

The overall objective of the EPR scheme is to encourage businesses to consider how much packaging they use, and to design and use packaging that is much easier to recycle, and to encourage the use of reusables, refillables and so forth. We have committed to setting ambitious new packaging waste recycling targets for producers. The EPR measures will be key to achieving the targets. We propose minimum recycling target rates from 2024-30 for each of the six packaging materials: plastic, wood, aluminium, steel, paper and card, and glass. We will introduce targets for fibre-based composite packaging in 2026.

EPR will allow businesses to make their own arrangements to collect and recycle their packaging, where local authorities are not required to collect those packaging items for recycling. EPR will incentivise producers to recycle packaging that is reused multiple times, such as milk bottles, and to offset the packaging that they recycle against their obligated disposal costs. However, EPR will not allow for offsetting of packaging where it is collected by more than 75% of local authorities, except where it is part of a reuse system. That is primarily because we will take steps, through our consistency measures, to place requirements on local authorities to collect, for recycling, at least the common set of materials that I outlined.

If we incentivise producers to collect their own packaging, which we are also requiring local authorities to collect, that will reduce the efficiency of kerbside collections overall and therefore increase costs for producers. It will undermine that system, which will be a cornerstone of the whole triage.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

What plans does the Minister have to sort out where the recyclable rubbish ends up? One of the big concerns is that not every local authority takes it to a place where it is 100% reused.

[Rebecca Pow]

That is a really important part of the circle and of our engagement. It is a question of ensuring that we have industry capable of taking all that material. We are working together in a pipeline, because clearly the system will not work unless that is all joined up.

To go back to my previous point, if producers all start to do their own thing and the kerbside collection is undermined, that will increase costs for the producers that are going through that system, because it will mean that the costs are spread over a lower tonnage of packaging waste collected. If we look across industry as a whole, we see that that would not be in the interests of the development of our circular economy ethos. We will publish the Government response to the consistency in collections consultation shortly. That will give more clarity to the whole issue very soon.

Through payment of disposal costs, businesses will pay for the collection and management of their packaging from households. We want to increase kerbside recycling through consistency and the EPR measures, and to do so in a way that optimises efficient and high-performing services. When the payments are calculated, that will be based on the efficient services of local authorities. We do not want that to be based on a less efficient authority, so we will follow the best models and expect local authorities to do that. We have complete agreement on that with business. I think that that particular point was raised.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. What did my hon. Friend the Minister make of the suggestion from the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) that there should be more private sector involvement in the operation of our EPR system?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has made valuable contributions to this discussion and debate. I cannot stress enough that we are working closely with industry and want to continue to do so. I have had a lot of conversations about this particular issue, and it is really important that we involve business as much as we can. I cannot say more now, but that has definitely been noted, because after all, businesses are the ones with the experience and the knowledge. We need them to get on board with us.

We want to incentivise reusable and refillable packaging. The hon. Member for Llanelli outlined in some detail the example of Wiltshire Farm Foods, which made really significant strides before all these schemes came on board, thinking outside the box and doing its own recycling, and so forth. There must be even more potential, one would have thought, for it to look at reusing its packaging and encouraging reuse takeaway-style. I would be happy to meet that company. It would be interesting to explore further what we might learn from it or how it could take on the model that I am suggesting to make it work. A next phase of policy development that we are looking at is to encourage the use of reusable packaging, because that is a really important part of this.

We appreciate that these reforms affect business operations. We have been listening to the feedback and have already amended the proposals, following the consultation. We will continue to work closely on the design of the scheme and the delivery. We have run some eight-week workshops, like speed dating, and lots of useful material has come out of that. We will be doing much more.

EPR is a longer-term endeavour in the continuous improvement and reform of our collection and packaging services and we are looking at other schemes around the world. I went with a whole team from DEFRA and others to Belgium to look at their system, as they are world leaders in this and have been running their scheme for a very long time. Ours is different because we are introducing it later, when lots of businesses have had their own thoughts and ideas. We cannot just completely copy what they are doing in Belgium, because we are a slightly different example, but we certainly learned some very good lessons from going there. We will continue to engage with business and industry.

[Robin Millar]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will very quickly before I wind up.

[Robin Millar]

The Minister has twice mentioned that she has been over to the continent to see exemplars and learn from those who are further down this path than us, which I think is a terrific step. Has she given consideration to her point about the reuse of recycled materials? I hear concerns that the availability of that material is becoming a key issue. Larger players are consuming or using up large amounts, making it less available for smaller manufacturers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which we are discussing with industry. It is critical that we have enough material to put back into the system and that our measures on exporting and so forth all play into that space, in terms of how much goes abroad, whether that is being constructively used, and cracking down on illegally exporting waste and keeping it in this country. All those points are part of the whole circular economy issue.

We will continue to focus on delivering our EPR scheme, and the overall ethos is to protect the environment, improve management of packaging waste and transition us towards implementing the scheme.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 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 Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair this evening, Mr Vickers. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 23 March. The purpose of the statutory instrument is to make nine minor amendments to the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 as applied to groundwater activities.

Groundwater is a critical national resource. It provides a clean and reliable source of drinking water, plays a vital role across many industry sectors and supports our ecosystems. The Government are committed to ensuring that the quality of our groundwater resources is protected. In the face of growing pressures from climate change and population growth, it is important to optimise the regulatory tools available for managing and protecting groundwater.

The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 are an effective tool for managing groundwater activities. However, several limitations with the way the regulations implement groundwater protections have been identified, and that has led to inconsistencies in approach in the wider environmental permitting regulations regime. Those limitations can be resolved by the nine amendments, which will support many industries by reducing regulatory burden and costs; facilitating green energy production from, for example, geothermal and ground source heat pumps; and promoting growth, and so they will accelerate permit delivery.

I stress in particular that the statutory instrument aims to provide the Environment Agency with what is really an improved hierarchy of regulatory controls for groundwater activities. It in no way reduces protection of groundwater. These amendments create the right regulatory conditions to promote and allow innovation in the wider circular economy, allowing the appropriate and safe re-use of materials where it is environmentally acceptable.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

The Minister will know that in former mining areas, we still have lots of former mine workings where mine water interacts with groundwater. Could she reassure us that there is no loosening of the controls here, and that stuff cannot be done to move that water around and risk having dirty water put where we do not want it? There is nothing here that changes that protection at all, is there?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that really important point. I stress that we are not changing the permits that are already in place and that, critically, must be in place; in fact, we are opening up the opportunity to have a better look at how the whole system works. Indeed, some things will now need to be permitted that were previously not looked at as closely as the mines, for example, so I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance.

Currently, groundwater activities can be permitted only through the use of bespoke environmental permits, which are the highest level of permits—they would relate to coal mines and so forth. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley raised a good point, and that will not change. However, in many cases it can result in unnecessary costs and, in some cases, unnecessary regulatory burden to business. The statutory instrument will give the regulators the ability to grant other types of permits, such as standard rules permits and mobile plant permits. These non-bespoke permits are significantly less costly and will reduce the administrative burden on businesses while, importantly, maintaining environmental standards. The statutory instrument will also introduce exemptions from the requirement to have an environmental permit for new cemeteries that pose a low risk of pollution to the groundwater environment. 

The public consultation that we conducted on all the measures that I am describing received 264 responses, and almost all the proposals received majority support. The only exception was the proposal on cemeteries, which received some significant opposition. I have engaged with our all-party parliamentary group for funerals and bereavement, and I met them to listen to all their views. The APPG, too, consulted widely in the industry, so following the feedback and further discussion with key stakeholders, adjustments have been made to the cemetery-specific amendments to enable greater clarity and ease of implementation.

Clarity has been added to the draft statutory instrument so that existing cemeteries will be exempt automatically from permitting, unless the regulators are made aware of proven groundwater pollution. The adjustments have been tested in targeted engagement with stakeholders. Controls will be applied to prevent groundwater pollution by currently uncontrolled pollutants such as heat and micro-organisms.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

If I understand paragraph 7.15 of the explanatory notes correctly—that is the one about exemptions for cemeteries from the requirement for an environmental permit—the draft regulations will mean that existing cemeteries do not need an environmental permit, and new cemeteries will be exempt if their risk of pollution is calculated as being low, but there will be some further explanation of that definition of low risk. Is that correct?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so clear, because that is exactly what is stated. If a cemetery is in an area where there might be some implications for the groundwater, the Environment Agency will become involved and permits might be needed. I will get some clearer detail in a minute, but with particular procedures in some burials—potentially involving certain chemicals—one might want permits to be involved. I can get more clarity on that for my closing speech, if that is all right with him.

Heat is now being added as a pollutant. The majority of closed-loop ground heat pump activities will be exempt from the requirement to have an environmental permit. That is to deal with the growth in the ground source heat pump industry. The fact is that they are closed-loop systems—the water is not going into the ground, because it is in a closed loop—so they are considered to be suitable for exemption from requirements unless they are near a protected site or ancient woodland, in which case they would need a permit, just to be super-sure that there is no potential impact from any heat on the flora.

The draft statutory instrument will also help to fix a loophole in the general binding rules for small sewage discharges, which are being exploited, resulting in harm to nearby environmental habitats and local water quality. Thus, the new rules will reduce the risk of groundwater pollution. An example of that is caravan sites, where landowners might be escaping the need for any kind of regulation because each caravan gets rid of its own sewage, instead of it all coming into one area. The measure is considered necessary and was raised in the consultation.

The existing wording of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 is unclear about the defence that applies to the breach of permit conditions. The draft statutory instrument will help to bring clarity around the liability of sewerage undertakers for breaches of permit conditions that are due to specific circumstances beyond their control. One example of such a breach is an unlawful discharge of waste water into the sewer that breaches the chemical limits of the water company’s permit. The statutory instrument clarifies all that. It does not reduce any protections; in a way, it strengthens them.

The current list of exemptions from the prohibition on direct discharges to groundwater needs to be updated to bring regulations in line with current operational practices and facilitate energy recovery and the latest green technology. The instrument updates that list. There will be a requirement for operators of onshore oil and gas facilities to apply to surrender their groundwater activity permits. They will need to satisfy the regulators that any pollution issues are remediated and that there are no ongoing risks to the groundwater environment at the point of decommissioning or that may arise in future. This measure will ensure that the environment is better protected.

The draft regulations will bring about benefits for groundwater quality, reduce unnecessary costs to businesses and help to ensure that Government resources are being used most effectively to protect and preserve groundwater quality for future generations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you, Mr Vickers; that gives me no time to get my answers together. I thought that perhaps our former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth, would contribute.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Can I give the Minister some more time?

[Rebecca Pow]

No—I am fine, honestly.

[John McDonnell]

I have a question anyway.

[Rebecca Pow]

Shall I begin, and then I will be delighted to answer the right hon. Member’s question? I am very grateful to the shadow Minister for her comments, and for being helpful and constructive in allowing me to say a bit more about one or two of the items that I mentioned.

The measure will optimise the regulatory tools available to us for managing and protecting groundwater quality. It will not reduce protections; indeed, it will strengthen them, giving the EA a greater range of tools. That is something that business and industry have come to us about in many different areas. The new tools will be more proportionate to the risk. If matters are deemed to be very low risk, the EA will be more generic in its approach. Other more complex areas will continue to be bespoke, as at present with the mines and so forth. Some responses will therefore be less costly, and potentially more speedily delivered. For example, if the EA has to react to a discharge, it might speed up its response. There are an awful lot of positives in improving the hierarchy of regulatory controls for groundwater. Including extra pollutants such as heat will be of great benefit.

On the mobile plant question, again, this is something that business and industry asked for particularly in the consultation. It is a well-recognised term used for waste activities. It is long established, and a lot of discussion went on with industry about it.

Reference was also made to cemeteries. Exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester described, a new cemetery will not need to get a permit unless there are deemed to be specific reasons for one, in which case the Environment Agency will work with the cemetery operator to ensure that the right conditions are met. A permit might be needed if the cemetery were near a vulnerable aquifer, or if there were a significant number of burials. Say there was a terrible incident, or something like that—no, I will not say that. Also, if a cemetery were in close proximity to vulnerable water users, public water suppliers, private water suppliers or chalk streams, a permit would be considered. I hope that that gives a bit more clarity.

[Ruth Jones]

I am grateful to the Minister for describing and outlining examples, but the question was more about the monitoring process. How is this going to be monitored and what will the enforcement process be?

[Rebecca Pow]

We have a well-established process for the regional monitoring of groundwater. Any long-term trends in quality and in what is found in the groundwater are monitored, and we have research programmes looking into the impact at regulated facilities. I hope that helps to clarify that that is an important part of checking that what is in place is doing the right thing. Just out of interest, areas that might not need a permit are clay areas or areas where there are very small numbers of burials. I hope that that has dealt with the death section of this SI.

The shadow Minister asked about the onshore oil and gas industry’s surrendering of permits. An oil and gas operator can send a notification to the Environment Agency stating that it no longer requires a permit for its discharge. An application to surrender the environmental permit will require evidence to demonstrate that there has been no impact on the environment from that discharge at the onshore oil and gas site. This amendment will ensure that there are no ongoing risks to the groundwater environment at the point of decommissioning, or any future likelihood of pollution occurring. I hope that that answers the question.

[John McDonnell]

Before I vote on these things, I do occasionally try to understand them. Paragraph 7.22 of the explanatory notes clarifies the defence of sewerage undertakers who are in breach of permit conditions. That relates to regulation 7(c), which inserts new sub-paragraph (5A) into schedule 22 to the 2016 regulations. New sub-paragraph (5A) states that a sewerage undertaker is not guilty of an offence, first, if it did not do it —understood—and, secondly, if it

“could not reasonably have been expected to prevent the discharge into the sewer or works.”

Understood. But sub-paragraph (5A)(b) states that the undertaker is not in breach if it

“was not bound to receive the discharge into the sewer or works or was bound to receive it there subject to conditions which were not observed”.

That seems to be a huge blanket exemption from the sewerage undertaker’s responsibility for ensuring that discharge is leaked properly and complies with any conditions attached. If the Minister wants to clarify the answer to that question in writing, I am happy for her to do so.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that, and he is absolutely right that it is important to understand what we are talking about. This is very detailed. I do have some notes here, but if it suits him, I will put the answer to his question in writing, and I will share it with the shadow Minister as well, because I think it is important to clarify that. We have done so, because we have updated that particular section of the explanatory notes, but I will get back to him on that.

I think that brings me to the end of my points. I thank the shadow Minister for supporting this SI, albeit with some testy questions, and I commend it to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

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

The debate provides a welcome and much-needed opportunity to set the record straight on sewage and what the Government are doing. Not only are we taking this issue extremely seriously, but we are and have been acting. We have a realistic, costed plan to clean up our network of rivers and coasts, and it is already in operation—and what a tide of positivity we have heard from the Conservative Benches today.

There is general consensus among all our colleagues that this Government have a pragmatic, practical, costed, reliable and comprehensive plan. Those words have been used by all colleagues, and we are all pulling together to understand this issue. Those colleagues included my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald), my hon. Friends the Members for Keighley (Robbie Moore), for St Ives (Derek Thomas), for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), for Gedling (Tom Randall), for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) and for Ashfield (Lee Anderson)—plain speaking, as ever—as well as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) with her wonderful adaptive surfing centre, my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) and for North West Norfolk (James Wild) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), who systematically unpicked the Labour party’s plan by himself.

Following today’s debate, I cannot help but feel that for the Opposition this is nothing but a political game to fire up those outside this place with a view to making some sort of gain. Labour’s plan is completely superfluous. Where have Labour Members been? We are doing all these things they are asking for, and more. It was this Government who uncovered the scandal of storm sewage overflows being used far too frequently, because it was this party that increased the monitoring of storm sewage overflows. We have ramped it up from a paltry 7% under Labour to 91% now, and it will be 100% by the end of the year. It was also the Labour Government who were taken to court for pollution, so where the idea of all those clean rivers comes from, I do not know.

What did we discover from all our monitoring? We discovered that water companies were indeed using storm sewage overflows far too frequently, and that is completely unacceptable. So what did we do? We acted. We brought in the Environment Act 2021 to require a new storm overflow discharge reduction plan, fully costed and with a clear impact assessment, delivering up to £56 billion of capital investment to revolutionise our Victorian infrastructure. We are consulting on lifting the cap on fines entirely so that the Environment Agency can issue potentially unlimited penalties on water companies, in addition to Ofwat’s existing powers to fine companies up to 10% of annual turnover.

Ofwat has strengthened its powers on executive pay awards so that if water companies want to pay bonuses even if environmental performance is found wanting, their shareholders must pay for that, not their customers. Through the new water restoration fund, money collected through fines will be spent on improving water quality. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) needs to get with the programme: we have already done what he asked. Our Treasury friends who sit here agreed to it. We are also bringing in new monitoring requirements under the Environment Act for near real-time reporting on storm overflows. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth asked if we could do more. Yes; we are going to increase water quality monitoring upstream and downstream.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am not going to give way, because there simply is not time.

I note that the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) likes our monitoring ideas in the Environment Act so much that he has put our monitoring framework from the Act into clause 1 of his Bill. Marvellous! We also recently published our integrated plan for water. This includes an announcement that we are accelerating £1.6 billion of investment in reducing storm overflow discharges, upgrading wastewater treatment works and bringing in measures to improve drought resilience. The whole issue is extremely complicated, and that is why I made this a priority when I came into the Department. Our plan for water sets out how we will deliver the improvements we need across all matters connected to water, including all forms of pollution.

I ask people to remember that no Conservative Member has ever voted to allow raw sewage into our rivers. We voted for measures to clean up our rivers, and the Opposition voted against them. We have produced much cleaner water since Victorian times. We have almost the highest-quality drinking water in the world, and 93% of our bathing waters are excellent.

How could we take Labour’s suggestions on sewage seriously? Labour’s plans would potentially require enough pipes to be dug up from our roads to go around the globe two and a half times. Can anyone imagine the disruption that would cause, not to mention that it is totally impractical? We have heard no clear indication of how Labour’s plan would be paid for. Would it be added to customers’ bills? The shadow Minister could not answer that question on Sky this morning, and I did not hear the answer this afternoon. As for the Lib Dems, it is really not worth commenting on what they say.

The scale of this Government’s ambition cannot be highlighted enough, and I urge all colleagues to support the Government’s amendment.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We will vote first on the Government’s amendment, because the amendment simply deletes wording. Should the amendment be made, I anticipate that there will be a second vote on the main Question. That is unlike the second debate today, for which the amendment also adds substance and therefore the Question on the Opposition wording will be put first. Did you all get that? Turn your papers over and begin.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Litter Action Groups

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) on securing this debate about litter, an issue that is so important to so many of us. It is great to have the opportunity to talk about it and what we are doing about it, and to highlight and commend the many volunteers and groups doing so much commendable work to tackle this criminal activity, and this blight on our communities.

It was really interesting to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s local group, the Litter Action Group for Ealing Residents, otherwise known as LAGER Can—a nice, easy name to remember. It should not be confused with the all-party beer group, or anything to do with it. That sounds like a really good model, and Cathy, whom he mentioned, should be commended; I share in his comments. We also heard of excellent work done by others, including the Harrow Litter Pickers—I thank the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) for mentioning them; these people all need a really big shout out—and all the volunteers and groups in Strangford.

I would like to give a shout out to a chap called Tim Walker in my constituency, whom I have been out with a number of times. He started a big litter collection off his own bat; it was, I think, just before covid. He got together a community group through Facebook, which joined him every week. More and more people started to turn out. He was so determined to tackle litter and other environmental concerns that he has set up a shop in Taunton called My Carbon Coach, and he is influencing people on even wider environmental issues. All these people need a big “thank you”.

It is usually just a careless minority who cause the issue. Councils have responsibility for keeping our public places clear, but we simply cannot underestimate the role and work of volunteers, who are very much driven by a sense of civic duty, and by pride in their community, which they want to be the best place possible in which to live. In 2019, the Government provided £9.75 million for a high street community clean-up fund, to empower local authorities across England to support communities in undertaking community-led high-street clean-ups. I have checked, and as far as I know, I do not believe that Ealing Council got any of that money, but it sounds as though it was doing a good job anyway. Councils were able to use that one-off funding to support volunteers. I think that the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall, asked for more support for volunteers; certainly, a lot of our recent funds have gone towards them. For example, funds have gone towards supplying people with litter-picking kit, and on training for residents in how to remove graffiti, which is another blight.

More recently, the Environment Agency removed barriers for litter action groups by publishing a regulatory position statement that enables volunteers to litter-pick without a waste carrier licence. That allows local tips to accept litter from pickers. There was an extraordinary incident that gave rise to a bit of concern about that, but that has all been ironed out. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is pleased about that; I think that he referred to it. I call on all councils to provide as much support as they can to volunteer litter-pickers. Residents going to a waste site in all good faith to deposit the bags of litter that they have worked so hard to collect should not be turned away. 

While we are talking about all those who have done such good work, I want to mention the Prime Minister’s Points of Light awards. Through those, we have recognised the outstanding work of individual volunteers who have tackled litter in their community. Recipients of the award include Lizzie Carr MBE. She launched the successful “plastic patrol” campaign, which inspired thousands of people to take to their local waterways to prevent plastic pollution. Another recipient was Dom Ferris, who founded Trash Free Trails, which brings together runners, riders and rovers in Britain’s national parks and wild places to tackle plastic pollution.

Let me deal with the issue of councils. We are going about tackling litter on many fronts. We have developed and shared best practice on the provision of litter bins, and have supported that with £1 million of grant funding for 40 councils to purchase new bins. The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall, suggested that good models should be copied and followed, and actually a lot has been learned from the practices of councils such as Ealing. It is interesting; even I have learned that there are good and bad places to put a bin. I suppose that makes sense; we want it to be where people have just finished their drink, or want to stub out their cigarette butt or whatever. It has to be convenient.

We have also committed £1.2 million to helping another 30 councils purchase equipment to tackle fly-tipping. That includes a range of projects that try to identify the offenders. That is harder than might be imagined, but there are some very creative ideas out there. As I said, councils need to play their role; that is why we have committed to putting enforcement guidance on a statutory footing. That guidance will give those to which it applies a clear and explicit duty, which they must have regard to when exercising their enforcement functions. Councils have a range of enforcement functions, but it is important that we ensure that they use them.

One of my bugbears is fast food outlets. I am sure that it is the same in other Members’ constituencies: often, an amount of litter accumulates around those sites. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has recently updated planning guidance to clarify the powers available to councils to ensure that new hot food takeaways do not increase the impact of litter in their communities. Councils can also issue what are called community protection notices, which can be used to require the owners of premises such as fast food outlets to take certain actions to tackle the litter that is created by their activities. Those are all positive measures to tackle one of the types of location where we often find litter.

[Gareth Thomas]

I am grateful to the Minister for much of what she has said. I am sure that she will acknowledge what Harrow Litter Pickers has found, which is that on occasion, there are basically organised fly-tippers going around and causing problems for local councils, and litter pickers have to help the councils respond to those problems. To what extent is the Department willing to support intelligence-gathering efforts about those rogue fly-tippers, to help make councils’ enforcement a little more effective?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is very much linked to the wider littering issue, and I will come on to it in a minute, because fly-tipping is an important part of this debate. Before I do so, I want to mention the Government’s new antisocial behaviour plan, which takes even tougher action against those who seek to degrade our public places. For example, it raises the upper limit on fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping to £1,000. That was a manifesto commitment, so I am really pleased that we brought that forward. The penalty for littering and graffiti has also been raised to £500. Those penalties can be issued wherever there is evidence linking someone to one of those crimes.

Alongside those increases, there are also new measures to help councils issue more penalties. Under the action plan, there will be a league table for local authorities on fly-tipping rates. In other words, we will ask: how much are they actually enforcing this? How often are they using the powers? I genuinely think that would be helpful; we would see which are the active councils, such as Ealing Council and potentially Harrow Council. It is almost naming and shaming. This problem really annoys people, and if they saw that their council was using these powers, that would be popular.

The Government have pledged a further £93 million of additional investment in what is called community payback, so that criminals sentenced to probation and supervised community sentences at court across England and Wales can complete up to 8 million hours of unpaid community payback per year in hi-vis jackets, under supervision. They will have to clean up graffiti, pick litter, clear wasteland, and redecorate public places and buildings. That will include offenders’ involvement in Keep Britain Tidy projects.

The Great British spring clean was mentioned. That saw 1,500 offenders spend almost 10,000 hours on 300 community clean-up projects. This year, we will build on that success, and will run a second clean-up week in the autumn. Under the action plan, a new approach called immediate justice will be introduced to make perpetrators repair the damage that they have done. They will be forced to pick up litter, wash police cars or clean up graffiti within 48 hours of being caught. That will start in 10 places across England and Wales next year. Local people will have their say on that scheme. The Probation Service is relaunching the community payback nominations website early next year. By law, it will be required to consult key community leaders and local authorities on how and where payback schemes should be used to improve the area, in terms of litter and other things that I have mentioned.

We have taken some major legislative reforms in trying to tackle fly-tipping, one of which is that last year we consulted on preventing charges for the disposal of DIY waste at household waste recycling centres. We will publish the results of that soon. That is potentially a lot of the stuff that gets fly-tipped, because people are trying to avoid paying to take it to the right place. We are also taking forward our commitment to develop proposals for the reform of the waste carrier, broker and dealer regime. That should make it easier for regulators to enforce against non-compliant operators, while making it much harder for those who are not registered properly to find work in the sector. We have consulted on that, and we will publish the response shortly. We are introducing mandatory waste tracking. All those things will make a difference to tackling the pernicious issue of fly-tipping.

We also have a range of other measures around reducing waste overall that will help to reduce litter, such as our extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging and the deposit return scheme for drinks containers. That is particularly aimed at in-scope containers, an awful lot of which are on-the-go products that are bought in a local shop, consumed in the street and then chucked away. The deposit return scheme is really designed to help tackle that.

Similarly, we have really cracked down on the issue of chewing gum on pavements. That is another absolute bugbear of mine. We have established a chewing gum taskforce, which has provided £1.25 million of funding to help more than 40 councils clean chewing gum off the pavements. It has had superb results: it has achieved reductions in gum littering of up to 80% in the first two months.

Behaviour change is really important in all this, as is education, which was mentioned comprehensively by the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall. I fully support him and all those schools that are doing such great work to teach their kids that it is not right to throw down litter.

I will end there. I thank the hon. Gentleman so much for bringing this debate to us. Huge congratulations and thanks to all those volunteers and community groups, including in Ealing, Southall, who have done such great work on cleaning up litter.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 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 Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023.

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I know that my two cats at home are delighted that I am here today.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Are they microchipped?

[Rebecca Pow]

They are—Rafa and Mr Tipps. The purpose of the instrument is to introduce compulsory cat microchipping in England, delivering on one of the Government’s key manifesto pledges. The measure was supported by 99% of respondents to our public consultation, which received over 33,000 responses—a measure of just how important people think this is.

Microchipping improves animal welfare by increasing the traceability of pets, making it easier for lost, stray or stolen pets to be reunited with their keepers and returned home safely. Microchipping is a safe procedure involving the insertion of a chip, generally around the size of a grain of rice, under the skin of a pet. Once the microchip has been inserted, contact details are registered with a compliant database. The microchip contains a lot of numbers, with I think up to 15 numbers unique to the particular cat.

The draft regulations also include provisions to ensure that microchips are inserted by competent people. Since the Government introduced compulsory dog microchipping in England in 2016, around 90% of dogs are now microchipped. Evidence suggests that stray dogs that are microchipped and have up-to-date microchip records are more than twice as likely to be reunited with their keeper than stray dogs without a microchip. There are more than 9 million owned cats in England, but as many as 2.3 million are currently not microchipped, so the measures are intended to address that.

From 10 June 2024, any owned cat over the age of 20 weeks must be microchipped and the keeper’s contact details registered on a compliant database. That 20-week date was included because it coincides with when a cat should be neutered. There is an exception where a vet certifies that the procedure should not be carried out for animal health reasons; however, hon. Members can be reassured that that exception is rarely used.

The requirements apply only to owned cats, and not to free-living cats that live with little or no human interaction or dependency, such as on a farm. We had absolutely loads of those when I was very young, growing up—they do not have any now, I have to say. Feral or community cats are not within scope.

As with the existing requirements for dogs, keepers found not to have microchipped their cat may be served with a notice by the enforcement body, which will usually be the local authority. If they do not comply, they may face a fine of up to £500 and the enforcement body can arrange for the cat to be microchipped at the keeper’s expense. The offending person has up to 21 days to get their cat microchipped and to register it with a compliant database.

The instrument also repeals and replaces the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015, bringing all the measures into a single instrument covering dogs and cats. There are no substantive changes to the existing provisions covering the requirement for keepers to have their dog microchipped, although we have made technical drafting changes where we considered that the existing text would benefit from further clarity. Animal welfare is a devolved issue, and the regulations therefore apply to England only.

Colleagues may be aware that the Government consulted last year on wider pet microchipping reform designed to improve the operation of the existing regime, including plans to make it easier for approved users to access microchip records, to improve the accuracy of the records and to standardise database operator processes. There is a range of databases, and that would all be standardised. We will issue our responses to the consultation shortly, but I absolutely assure colleagues that we plan to introduce amending regulations in due course to implement those improvements. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the shadow Minister for his support. Indeed, there is wide cross-party support in the House on this issue. As we cannot disagree on this, we can be very constructive, and I believe that the regulations will greatly benefit the welfare of cats. I very much support that.

I reiterate the shadow Minister’s thanks to the various organisations who have been so involved, including Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and Cats Protection, which made helpful comments, including on support where necessary for vulnerable people who may struggle with the cost of getting their cat microchipped. There is an estimated cost of £25, and it has a support system that can be operated if necessary. We would definitely all welcome that.

The shadow Minister raised a range of issues, including: when is a cat feral, when is it owned and when is it a community cat? I cannot give him a definitive answer to that, but to be honest, one knows if one owns a cat, and it is those cats that the legislation is for and that we want to get microchipped. At the moment, just over 2 million owned cats are not microchipped; we will be tackling that category of cats. This matter was consulted on widely, and there was a general consensus that pet cats that lived with people should come under the legislation, and feral cats and what we call community cats should not.

There are 22 different databases, as the shadow Minister will be aware. That is why the second consultation, which took place last year, asked wide questions about how they could be better operated, and about how vets could be helped to look up whether a cat that they are scanning is registered on a database and to determine whether it is a stray or has come in as a result of pet theft or some other devious means. That was a key part of last year’s consultation, which we will report back on later. Another statutory instrument will be formulated to bring in all those details, and there was very wide support for that. I cannot give hon. Members the exact details because we will release information on what the consensus was and our response to the consultation, but there will be some kind of system with one conduit to go into the databases. That will be incredibly helpful, particularly for the vets who are on the frontline, so to speak.

I think the shadow Minister asked a question about the difference between cats and dogs.

[Alex Sobel]

In relation to databases.

[Rebecca Pow]

Lots of lessons have been learned from dogs because they have been microchipped since 2016. The system is working extremely effectively—hence we are bringing it in for cats. We have to withdraw the 2015 regulations and put cats and dogs together, so that they all come under one hat. If the shadow Minister wants any further detail about the difference between cats and dogs, I will happily send it to him, but hopefully he will be happy with my answer.

On the rather sorry issue of deceased cats, I am one of those people who came home to find their cat left in the driveway. Mine was put in a carrier bag, but it was run over by somebody. Sadly, this does happen. It is very painful. My cat Hinkley, named after the nuclear power station, weirdly—I spent a lot of time news reporting down there, and it was on my doorstep—was a lovely cat. It is so painful for an owner to lose a pet and not know what has happened to it. Compulsory cat microchipping will make it easier for deceased cats to be reunited with their owner. Even if a cat has been knocked down in a road accident, it is still better for its owner to know what has happened to it and where it is. National Highways and the majority of local authorities already have procedures in place to scan dead cats and dogs found by the roadside.

I thank everyone who has been here to take part. I hope that we have lots of cat lovers among us, and once again, I thank everyone for the cross-party support. I genuinely think that the instrument will make a real difference to cat welfare in this country. This is a manifesto pledge, so it is brilliant to be moving it forward. On those grounds, I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

4. When she plans to announce details of funding for frequently flooded areas.

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

In July 2022, the Government announced their £100 million frequently flooded fund to support communities that have experienced repeated flooding but have been unable to secure all of the funding necessary to progress their schemes. My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that his scheme has been approved, and full details will be with him and all those involved in his scheme in Shipley next week.

[Philip Davies]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for that. She will know that I lobbied hard for the establishment of this frequently flooded fund for my constituents who regularly get flooded but never met the previous criteria. Clearly, I await next week’s announcement with great anticipation, but if not every part of my constituency has been successful in that bid, can the Minister confirm that this is not a one-off fund but an annual fund, and that any area that misses out this time might have an opportunity to be successful in future rounds?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes, my hon. Friend was a doughty campaigner in raising this issue of frequently flooded communities. As I went around the country when communities unfortunately experienced flooding, it was clear that a number of those communities fell out of being able to access the funding, so I assure him that £20 million is going out in this first tranche. Letters will be sent out shortly, with further details next week. This money—this particular £100 million—has been ringfenced, and I give all credit to my hon. Friend for the part he played in highlighting this issue.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that one way of preventing flooding downstream in urban areas is to try to deal with natural watercourses: rewinding, planting more trees and so on. There are other nature-based solutions that would be appropriate in Somerset, which she is very familiar with. Could she tell us what the Department is doing to try to introduce some of those solutions?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for that question, which touches on so many parts of DEFRA’s portfolio: tackling flooding, water quality, biodiversity—we can get all of that by re-meandering rivers. The Environment Agency has already spent £15 million on natural flood management schemes. There is a lot of work going on, and indeed, natural flood management schemes can be part of applications for the frequently flooded fund.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)]

5. What steps she is taking to support rural communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)]

7. What steps she is taking to improve air quality.

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

Air pollution has fallen significantly since 2010, and our recently published environmental improvement plan sets out the actions that we will continue to take to continue to improve air quality. They include additional measures to tackle domestic burning and agricultural emissions, continued delivery of the £883 million NOx programme and supporting local authorities to improve air quality more quickly with clear guidance and tools.

[Jane Hunt]

The Minister will know that I am really referring to incinerators in my particular instance. The Government have taken steps to improve air quality through the Environment Act 2021. One of the targets is to have an annual mean concentration for PM_2.5 levels of 10 micrograms per cubic metre or below by 2040. When determining these targets, the Government considered the World Health Organisation’s own target, which was 10 micrograms per cubic metre. However, it has recently lowered that to 5 micrograms per cubic metre. Will the Government consider lowering their target, so that it is in line with the WHO?

[Rebecca Pow]

The simple answer is no. Clearly we look at all the World Health Organisation guidelines, but they are only there to inform the setting of standards; they are not ready-made targets. Being realistic, even without man-made emissions and all the measures we have set forward in our groundbreaking targets, PM_2.5 concentrations would still exceed the WHO guidelines—even the lower one—because we get these emissions from natural sources and also from other countries. The WHO guidelines would therefore be unachievable. I was heartened by my recent visit to Sweden to launch the Forum for International Co-operation on Air Quality, which shows we have to work together on this internationally.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, has just issued a report, with 15 recommendations, that gives a route map on how to achieve these targets earlier, including on indoor air pollution and wood burners. Will the Minister respond to that now, write in greater detail to me as the chair of the all-party group on air pollution, and come to a meeting to explain what progress the Government can make on these 15 objectives, so that we can make faster progress and save more lives sooner?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Member for that. I have met him many times on these issues, and I commend him for this work, but I have also met Professor Chris Whitty on this very subject. The hon. Member just needs to look at the forthcoming update of our clean air strategy. We are already working on many of the things that Chris Whitty has raised, and we have to get the Department of Health and Social Care to play its part as well.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

8. What steps she is taking to support rural farmers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

9. What progress her Department has made on reducing sewage discharges.

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

We have asked water companies to deliver their largest ever infrastructure investment, £56 billion over 25 years. Nearly 800 improvements are under way already, and that is dealing with storm sewage overflows. The Secretary of State and I have asked sewage companies to come up with an action plan for every single storm overflow in England, and water companies will face higher penalties, to be enforced and paid more quickly than ever before. Under Labour the monitoring record of storm sewage overflows was woeful, but by the end of this year it will be 100%.

[Liz Twist]

Labour does have a plan—a much more ambitious plan—to tackle combined sewer overflows, and this would include cutting discharges by 90%, mandatory sewage outlet monitoring, and automatic fines for discharges. Will the Secretary of State enact that plan with immediate effect?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am glad the hon. Lady has asked me that, because her plan would add £1,000 on to every customer’s bill and we would have to add pipes that would go two and a half times around the world to cope with what Labour is proposing. We are already doing everything that has been called for, and more: we are increasing fines; we are increasing monitoring; we are taking tougher sanctions on businesses; and we have a costed plan and are mindful of the impact on customers.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

Investment has already seen an over-50% reduction in storm overflows in North Devon, resulting in bathing water quality being rated good or excellent along the coast. However, this is only tested between May and September. Will my hon. Friend consider extending the testing season for the increasing number of all year round bathers and surfers, or at least look for waters to be tested after a storm overflow has discharged?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is a great voice for her constituency in this area and I am very pleased to hear about those figures for the improving water. We are using powers in the Environment Act 2021, and under them we require companies to make discharge data available to the public in near real time if there has been a discharge that could have affected water quality, and to monitor water quality upstream and downstream of their assets. This monitoring will be all year round and will come into force at the end of this year, and all water companies will also have to install new flow monitors on more than 2,000 wastewater treatment works.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Tory sewage scandal is a national disgrace. The waters that run through our communities, the seas that millions look out to, and the quality of life and livelihoods have been turned into an open sewer. The Tory plan means discharges will continue to 2050, 27 years away, and even then there is no delivery plan, and we do not know which communities will benefit first and which could be waiting for decades, whereas our plan will see systematic dumping ended by 2030. Over the weekend The Times reported new data showing 800 discharges every day. Is the Secretary of State familiar with those figures, and if so, given that the Environment Agency has said it will publish by midday tomorrow, will she make a statement to the House before it rises for Easter today?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will honestly say that a lot of the—[Interruption.] Well, I am not sure they are facts. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let’s carry on with the answer to the question.

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. A lot of what we are hearing is disingenuous and misleading the public. The plan, as I have just—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We must think about what we say, and I am sure the Minister would love to withdraw what she has just said.

[Rebecca Pow]

I will definitely withdraw that, Mr Speaker, but we do have to be careful about what we say to the public, and I have pointed out that the so-called plan the Labour party has put forward is thoroughly unworkable in the cost it would put on the public, the time it would take and the amount of pipes that would be required. It would involve digging up the entire nation, whereas we have a completely costed plan: it is very clear, and we have set targets on when these storm overflow monitors have to be in place—by the end of this year—and all the work on the storm overflow plans must be delivered to the Secretary of State and me forthwith. So we are definitely on top of this like never before.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.