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

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Shailesh Vara

Thursday 2nd February 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) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 9 January. They form part of a tranche of secondary legislation essential to the implementation of extended producer responsibility for packaging, so there is more to come, folks, but this is the start.

Extended producer responsibility will move the full cost of dealing with packaging waste away from households, local taxpayers and councils, and on to the producer. Producers will pay fees to cover the cost of collecting and treating household packaging waste handled by the local authorities. For the first time, the producers will be responsible for the cost of managing their packaging once it reaches its end of life. That will encourage businesses to think more carefully about how much packaging they use and its design, and their use of easily recyclable, reusable or refillable packaging.

EPR will help to reduce the overall amount of packaging that we put into the market—the amount we currently produce each year is considered unsustainable—and, in turn, to reduce the damaging impact of materials such as plastics on our global environment. These measures will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2.2 million tonnes by 2033—equivalent to 5.1 million barrels of oil—by reducing the creation of new packaging using virgin materials and incentivising producers to manage resources more efficiently. That will contribute to climate change mitigation in line with our commitment to decarbonise all sectors of the economy and achieve net zero by 2050.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Minister talks about incentivising producers. Large producers can probably manage, because of their financial resources, but what sort of incentives will smaller producers have? They might have additional costs, so to what extent are the Government helping them, either by way of transition or with other assistance?

[Rebecca Pow]

The large producers will bear the brunt of the new measures—the brand owners, the people who put the brand on the market, will be responsible. The regulations we are discussing today are just about recording data. There will be two categories: large producers, and smaller ones producing more than a certain tonnage. I will clarify all the details later in my speech. We have consulted twice, and the industry understands and is overwhelmingly in favour of the system. The concerns my right hon. Friend expresses have been addressed in the creation of this draft statutory instrument.

While we are talking about the cost, it is important to note that the measure will shift the cost away from local authorities, which at the moment do the collecting of packaging, funded by taxpayers, and on to producers who put the stuff on the market. It will provide an estimated £1.2 billion of funding to local authorities across the UK each year for managing packaging waste. This is a big part of driving us toward the circular economy we have all been talking about for so long. Councils will get the extra funding to deal with rubbish and recycling, easing pressure on council budgets.

We set out our intention to introduce extended producer responsibility in our 25-year environment plan and in our 2019 manifesto. Working with the devolved Administrations, we have agreed to introduce EPR for packaging at the UK level. The regulations will require packaging producers to collect and report data on the amounts and types of packaging that they supply from March this year. If they already hold the data, which most large producers do, they will have to supply it from January this year, so giving us more information.

On material type, producers will have to collect data on plastic, steel, aluminium, paper and card, wood, glass, fibre and fibre-based composites—basically, fibre-based cups. That is a new thing. They will collect data on the weight and the number of drinks containers, and state whether they come from England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. They will also give some data on the amount of packaging that ends up being binned—trying to reduce littering is an important part of what we are doing. The data is needed to calculate producers’ recycling obligations and the EPR fees that producers will pay to cover the cost of managing household packaging waste from 2024. We have to start getting the data this year to work out those fees, so the system can be up and running next year.

Packaging producers already report data on packaging under the current producer responsibility regulations. The new regulations will refocus the obligations on the producers that have the most influence over what packaging is being used, and require producers to report more information about the type of packaging they produce than they do now. Larger producers will also be required to increase the frequency of their reporting from once a year, which they do now under the packaging note system, to twice a year.

We expect these data reporting regulations to be in force for only one year. After that, they will be revoked and replaced by the new producer responsibility obligations (packaging and packaging waste) regulations, which will be laid later this year. That will be the big statutory instrument, which will contain all the other information that we need, and make similar provisions relating to data collection and reporting.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Shailesh Vara

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

12. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the recent reorganisation of HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

The infrastructure supporting the administration of the courts and tribunals is in desperate need of reform to deliver faster and fairer justice for all citizens. The way the service operates is inefficient, disjointed and based on technology that is simply out of date. The reform programme, which is strongly supported by the senior judiciary, is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a modern, user-focused and efficient courts and tribunals service.

[Rebecca Pow]

Although I am aware of the proposed integration of Taunton tribunal service with the nearby magistrates court just down the road that will enable greater efficiency to the service, could the Minister kindly broaden the picture by confirming how many courts and tribunals were empty for more than half of their hearing time, which highlights other areas where efficiencies might be made?

[Mr Vara]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to note the integration of the two sites in her constituency, which are within half a mile of each other. In 2013-14, 170 courts and tribunals—more than a third of the total number—were empty for more than half their available hearing time. The current court estate is clearly inefficient and underused. Our reform programme is an opportunity to create a modern, more user-focused and efficient service that better serves the taxpayer.