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

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 General Committees

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair again this morning, Sir Gary. What better way to start this late spring Tuesday morning than by talking about the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and our collective responsibility to protect our planet and preserve our environment?

The regulations require producers of packaging to collect and report data on the amount and type of packaging they place on the market. The data is required to calculate the fees the producers will be required to pay to cover the cost of managing the packaging as part of the extended producer responsibility for packaging scheme, which is planned to start in 2024. The EPR for packaging scheme will be created by the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2023, which will include equivalent provisions on the collection and reporting of data and will replace these regulations.

We will not oppose today’s regulations, but before everyone heads to the hills again, it is important to be clear with Ministers about our concerns, which sit around a failure to show the bold and comprehensive leadership required to really tackle the waste crisis facing our country. Each year, consumers across the UK are estimated to get through 14 billion plastic bottles, 9 billion aluminium and steel cans, and 1.5 billion glass bottles. That is a serious amount of waste, and Ministers need to get a grip on how we tackle it. The current inadequacies in waste collection and recycling systems mean that used compostable packaging ends up in landfill or incineration or messes up recycling plants because some of the materials used can be just as resistant to degrading as conventional plastics.

In preparing for this morning’s discussions, I was advised that delivery of this scheme is running far behind even the relatively modest new proposed targets to reduce residual waste per capita by 50% by 2042 and to raise the current municipal recycling target of 65% by 2035 to between 70% and 75% by 2042. Will the Minister therefore outline what discussions she had with the devolved Administrations ahead of the drafting of this statutory instrument? As she will know, Wales has long been a stand-out performer in the UK when it comes to recycling rates. The Welsh Labour Government’s £1 billion investment in household recycling since devolution has helped see their rates catapult from just 4.8% in 1998 to over 65% in 2020. That shows what ambition and will, together with real investment and focus, can deliver when it comes to cleaning our waters, streets and communities.

In setting up this new system to hold producers responsible for the waste they create, the Government must be careful not to repeat mistakes from the previous system. I therefore have three questions for the Minister. First—I have raised this before—will she take all necessary steps to ensure that all packaging is properly accounted for? She has already outlined the intricacies of this new system and the potential for confusion. Secondly, will she be very clear for the benefit of the Committee that the new system will improve the quality of data, compared with the system it is replacing?

Finally, when we discussed this issue previously, I touched on the impact on small businesses and local government. Will the Minister set out in detail what support there will be to ensure that businesses and producers are ready for 2024 and the new system while they grapple with the new legislation coming in next year? Importantly, what discussions has she had with local government representatives on this issue? I am sure she will be delighted, as I am, that Labour is now the largest party in local government, and my Labour colleagues stand ready to help clean up after 13 years of Tory inaction.

Without clarity, understanding or action, this SI and the issues it refers to will be what we have become used to: more of the same dither and delay. I therefore urge the Minister to take all steps necessary to get this issue sorted.

[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.