Packaging Industry

Rory Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pawsey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the use of recycled materials. We need to be careful about products that come into contact with food. I shall speak later about a recycling project with which I am familiar, but the recycled products are not for food use.

I referred to recent developments in food packaging. The speciality coffee sector is another case; the producers of better-quality coffee are able to distinguish their products by presenting them in board, rather than the less expensive plastic or expanded polystyrene foam. Throughout my time in business, I saw catering disposables and packaging being used as a marketing medium—a device on which to print a name, logo or marketing message to convey the nature of the business. My experience of the catering disposable sector has given me such a knowledge of its products that I often joke with friends that I could speak for more than an hour on the various methods of packing a hamburger, but I shall not inflict that on the House. However, like sandwiches, hamburger packaging represents a good example of development. We moved from the paper bag to wrapping in foil, and then went from expanded polystyrene to the folded and glued board carton with which we are familiar today.

One thing that encouraged me, as a new Member, to apply for this debate was the fact that I have joined the all-party group on the packaging manufacturing industry, and I am pleased to see a number of its members here today. I was encouraged to join the group not only because of my experience in the packaging sector, but because a substantial manufacturer is based in my constituency of Rugby. Ball Packaging manufactures one-piece aluminium drink cans, and I was pleased to visit its highly automated high-tech plant only last summer.

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Following his observations on the company in his constituency, does he recognise that the packaging industry is not just important as an industry, but provides a lot of model companies for Britain? For example, Innovia in Wigton is investing a great deal in the local secondary school, the Nelson Thomlinson school; it provides good apprenticeships, spends more than £8 million a year on research and development, and has achieved 92% exports from the far west of Cumbria. Could we please include in this masterful discussion an account of the good company practices of the packaging industry?

[Mark Pawsey]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I shall speak later about concerns that have been raised about the effect of packaging on the environment. However, that pressure has caused industries in the sector to become good neighbours, and to work with their communities and undertake exactly the kind of work to which my hon. Friend refers.

At a meeting—probably my second—of the all-party group, I was concerned to hear what the manufacturing companies had to say. One comment stuck with me for some time. One or two people said that the pressures on the packaging industry were such that people present believed that the industry might not exist in its current form 15 years from now. Given the number of people employed in it and its importance to our economy, that struck me as a significant statement, and one that deserves further attention.