Government Support for a Circular Economy

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I first offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) on securing this important debate. She made so many important points during her opening speech, which we obviously all listened to with great interest and agreement.

It feels as though we have been talking about circular economics for a long time, but we seem to be going backwards in some areas when it comes to action. It is estimated that there are enough unused cables in UK households to go around the world five times, alongside a hoard of 20 unused electronic items in every household across the UK, yet electronic manufacturers and online retailers do little or nothing to stem the flow of more and more. It does not seem to occur to them at the design stage to even think about making a product durable, reusable, able to be repurposed or built from readily replaceable and upgradable components.

Far too often, products are made with components that will fail and either cannot be repaired or can be fixed only by the original manufacturer. Our economy is stuck in a linear mindset, in which the full costs of environmental impacts are just not factored in. That means high-quality, long-lasting products are undercut by cheap, poor-quality goods that are designed for a single use or a short lifetime.

As ever, there are loads of great initiatives across the UK. In the summer, I had the privilege of spending a day at the Greater Manchester Renewal Hub in Trafford. It is a vast warehouse complex run by SUEZ. It has reuse and repair workshops and is operated by a whole team of community organisations. There are areas for furniture restoring and upcycling, bike repairs, and electrical equipment testing and repairing. Excellent-quality items are resold through the local shops and online. In my constituency of Newport West, our local shop, Remake, hires out products, repairs items and runs classes, including sewing classes, to enable local people to actually repair their own products and give them skills for the future, which is brilliant.

It is clear that need a proper circular economy action plan, but unfortunately we have a hopelessly piecemeal and hotchpotch system, which is emblematic of the Government’s current sticking plaster approach. Even worse, it seems that we now have the Prime Minister trying to turn recycling into a political football. The hon. Members for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned the recycling figures. Certainly, in England they are very low. [Interruption.] I apologise; I meant Angus, not Strangford —I got my countries muddled up. The hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) made the point about Scotland striving for higher recycling figures. In Wales, the recycling figures are always over 60%, and we are striving for 70%. We are the third best recycling country in the world at the moment and are striving to be second.

Some 80% of the environmental impact of a product is in the design phase, so to prevent waste we have to look at things such as built-in obsolescence and electronic products that are either designed not to be repairable or can be repaired only by the manufacturer. The Government’s adviser, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, recommended that Government should support businesses to focus on remanufacturing and repair, which will generate new jobs and tackle structural unemployment. We are also missing a huge opportunity to generate growth and jobs in the economy. Widespread adoption of circular economy business models has the potential to boost the UK economy by around £75 billion in gross value added, according to WRAP. It also believes that moving to a more circular economy, including through recycling, could create around half a million jobs across all skill levels and regions of the UK.

We need a strategy for a circular economy with proper and effective buy-in from the devolved Administrations. That will drive up vital business investment in circular design and reusability. Getting in place the right Government support for a circular economy is a real priority for the next Labour Government.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) on securing this debate, which gives me, as the Minister, the opportunity to talk about so much that is going on in this sphere. I also want to extend a welcome to a gentleman from my hon. Friend’s constituency, Mr Sterno, who is here. I believe he is something of a hero locally and has introduced a plastic-free world, basically, in Eastbourne. I congratulate him on that. He also initiated the Spring Water Festival and refillable water stations. He is a model of the kind of constituent we would all welcome. I thank him for all his work and hon. Members and hon. Friends who have taken part.

Natural capital is one of our most valuable assets. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we live on and the stock of material resources that we use in our daily lives are at the heart of our economy, our society and our way of life. We must not take those for granted. In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) highlighted that very clearly in his speech. I want to set out the things we are doing in Government. Contrary to what was said by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), and, much as I respect her, we are taking this very seriously and we have a joined-up strategy. She suggested that it was all piecemeal, but I think it will be clear by the end of my speech that that is not the case.

In our 2018 resources and waste strategy for England, we set out how we will preserve that stock of material resources by minimising waste, promoting resource efficiency and moving towards the circular economy. The strategy also made clear our intent to minimise the damage caused to our natural environment by waste and to promote clean growth as we move towards reducing the amount of waste we produce and better handling the waste we generate. The strategy combined immediate actions with firm commitments for the coming years and gave a clear, long-term policy direction in line with our 25-year environment plan, which was refreshed in January this year as our environmental improvement plan. This is our blueprint for eliminating avoidable plastic waste over the lifetime of the plan, for doubling resource productivity and for eliminating avoidable waste of all kinds by 2050—so perhaps I should present a copy of it to the shadow Minister.

I would like to assure my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne that my Department remains absolutely committed to these ambitious goals—as I know she is; that was very clear from her speech—and that we have set that out in those publications. Indeed, over the past few years, we have made considerable progress towards realising the aims set out in our plan.

With plastics, we began in 2018 by introducing one of the world’s toughest bans on plastic microbeads in rinse-off personal care products. I was just a Back Bencher then—although I should not say “just”—and it is one of the things that I am most proud of being part of, having come to this place. We raised the issue, we gathered the evidence and the data, and the ban was introduced—it happened. That was a huge step forwards.

We followed that in 2020 by restricting the supply of single-use plastic straws and cotton buds, and by banning single-use drink stirrers. From 1 October this year, we have restricted the supply of single-use plastic plates, bowls and trays, and banned single-use plastic cutlery, balloon sticks, and expanded and foam extruded polystyrene food and drink containers—the sort of bubbly or crackly ones. Furthermore, we also increased the carrier bag charge to 10p and extended it to all businesses back in May 2021. That has reduced carrier bag sales across the main retailers by an incredible 98%.

In addition to our domestic progress on plastic, the UK has shown real international leadership in tackling plastic pollution, which was mentioned earlier by a few hon. Friends. We are continuing to deliver international UK aid programmes through our blue planet fund. I was fortunate enough to go to Colombia in the summer and I launched a £10 million programme working with Colombia. Some of Colombia’s beautiful islands, beautiful as they are, are being completely weighed down by the weight of plastic and the lack of recycling. Terrible damage can also be seen in the ocean there. Our money is helping with education and work programmes to tackle all those things. I was genuinely so proud to see what we are doing and the lead we are taking on this.

Significantly, we are also co-sponsoring the proposal to prepare the landmark and legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution, which is absolutely critical. The UK is also a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution, which is a group of 50 countries calling for strong global obligations and targets, including the goal of ending plastic pollution by 2040. We hope that the eventual instrument—this is happening really quickly—will include obligations relating to the whole lifecycle of plastic, from production to consumption, right through to the environmentally sound management of waste, to create a legal framework for reducing the total quantity of plastic on the planet that goes out on to the market, and to set a really clear road map for that.

However, I always say, even when I go out on the international stage, that we have to take the lead at home. We have to demonstrate. We cannot tell other people what to do; we have to be doing it here, and I think everybody in the Chamber clearly feels the same.

Beyond plastic pollution, we are overhauling our whole approach to recycling and packaging waste. The collections and packaging reforms programme comprises a number of schemes. We have the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging, known as the EPR, which, as has been pointed out, is very much based on the “polluter pays” principle. We also have the deposit return scheme for drinks containers, known as the DRS, and simpler recycling, formerly known as the consistency in recycling collection scheme—we have simplified the whole thing, including the name. Together, the reforms will make up three of the most significant commitments in our resources and waste strategy, and they will play a really key part in delivering our goals for the environment. These reforms will also drive clean growth and reduce the amount of waste that we generate.

[Ruth Jones]

Although the EPR and the DRS are laudable schemes, does the Minister agree that they seem to have hit the buffers? They have been delayed, and although we have had consultations, we are a long way down the line, yet nothing has happened so far. Does she agree that consistent recycling has also been a long time coming and that it should not be a political football?

[Rebecca Pow]

The hon. Lady will not be surprised that I completely disagree with her. All these schemes are aligning. Maybe she has not been listening to the recent announcements about all the things coming down the track, and maybe she does not have a complete understanding of how all these schemes will dovetail together. It is so important that we listen to business and to industry, so that we make these schemes work for everyone.