Government Support for a Circular Economy

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Ansell]

I thank my hon. Friend for saying “pants to the tax”, and I am happy to confirm that I am 100% behind the campaign. It is a strange and extraordinary anomaly that period pants are classified as a garment, rather than as a period product. I cannot imagine anyone wearing period pants on other days of the month, just for fashion or pleasure, so I 100% subscribe to the campaign. We would be levelling up not only by changing the VAT regime for period pants, but by distinguishing between disposable and reusable. Surely we want to promote reusable in this context. It would be an important incentive because it would give choice, and my understanding is that the leading companies have pledged that the tax difference would be passed on to customers. This is another important way in which we can use the frameworks and levers around VAT and tax, as my hon. Friend said, to help people make the best and wisest decisions. I thank her for mentioning that important campaign.

Some products are more easily reused and repaired than others. A more circular approach in general would be a welcome step up in ambition, but I understand that the Minister is actively engaged through reforms to the waste electrical and electronic equipment regulations. It would be good to hear how those reforms are progressing.

Each year, only 1% of clothes are recycled into new clothes. It has been estimated that one truckload of clothing is landfilled or burned every second globally. On our high streets, charity shops do a fantastic job of providing access to textile reuse, both for clothing and for sometimes overlooked purposes such as furniture upholstery. Access to charity stores has helped to normalise reuse.

The work of charity shops will only go so far, however, and does not tackle the root cause. Back in 2018, the Government committed to consult on a textile extended producer responsibility scheme, but that has been superseded by other pressing priorities for the Department. However, there was a commitment to help establish the best waste hierarchy in order to better manage textile waste. With the Government target to halve residual waste, we have an incentive to tackle textile waste, but without a clear route to correct disposal, clothes will continue to be sent to landfill and incineration. In the light of that, I wonder what more the Minister might have planned to tackle textile waste.

This might be a Miranda Hart moment: my notes say “lubes”. For the benefit of Hansard, however, I might resort to “lubricants”. I wish to make some comments about cross-departmental collaboration. Energy is a resource that we must husband effectively and efficiently. With the UK target to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, we have been made to reassess our relationship with energy and the composition of specific resources that that might require.

Intuitively, we know that a more circular economy is one that uses renewable energy sources. In the south, looking across the downland from Eastbourne, we can see the most glorious vista across the waves to Rampion offshore wind farm, which powers half the homes in Sussex, and there is an ambition for an extension that would take in the whole county. As we continue to adopt renewables at scale, we must make sure that the resources that go into harvesting the energy are sustainable. The topic of blade recyclability is gaining traction, but the sustainability mindset should cover all aspects of the process, right down to whether the lubricants used in the generation of energy are sustainable. If our wind farms made the transition to bio-based lubricants, typically from vegetable oils, that would be very effective. Of course, the UK has abundant bio-based resources, such as rapeseed oil, for producing bio-lubricants.

There are further advantages to the adoption of a bio-based fuel. Bio-based fuels not only extend the life of the machinery, as evidenced by the Eden Project, but have a wider economic and environmental benefit: if they are accidentally discharged into the environment, they are benign compared with petroleum-based lubricants. Although waste and resources as a whole sit with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, wind turbines are a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero matter. It is vital that cross-cutting, cross-Department issues do not fall through the cracks, so I would love to know what work could be undertaken between DEFRA and DESNZ around such issues and challenges. I will take that up with colleagues in DESNZ.

I know that by covering only packaging, electronics, textiles and renewables, I have missed out many other sectors that would benefit from a circular economy, but I hope that I have gone some way towards illustrating the opportunities, and the case for Government support. Business giants such as Currys, Apple, M&S and IKEA have been experimenting with reuse and take-back schemes. Indeed, the likes of eBay stake their entire business model on reuse. I am sporting my latest purchase: my vintage M&S jacket recently procured through eBay. They are joined by a suite of start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises across the country that have put the circular economy at their heart. However, across the board, businesses are concerned that without stronger incentives, we will perhaps not see the leap from small-scale initiatives and trials to mass roll-out.

A circular economy is more efficient. It can save us money and make us money. In short, this is not a hair-shirted environmental mission. There are economic opportunities to be pursued, but after decades of disposability, there is work to be done to ensure that action is aligned with the Government’s commitment to creating a more circular economy.

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, may I remind the Front-Bench speakers that in these hour-long debates, the speaking times are five minutes for Opposition Front Benchers and 10 minutes for the Government? I call Andrew Selous.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Can I just check, Mr Hosie, that you did not want to call anyone from the other side of the Chamber first?

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

I apologise. I will happily call Mr Jim Shannon; I did not have his name down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this important debate, so ably introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell). Someone said to me recently that when we say, “Throw it away,” we need to realise that there is no such place as “away”, because everything ends up somewhere. Matter becomes different types of matter. We need to think about our language sometimes, and to have a whole different mindset in this important area.

Today we are talking about reducing waste, reducing cost, conserving nature and making sure that the polluter pays. I think those are principles to which we would all sign up. They are inherently conservative as well, and they are really important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne said, we have to move away from the linear economy of take, make and dispose, and towards the circular economy of reuse, repair, recycle and remanufacture. I pay tribute to businesses large and small that have been on this journey for a while. I think I first heard the expression “the circular economy” from Unilever. Many businesses get it, and they want a helping and supportive environment from the Government, which I know the Minister will try to provide for them.

We have already had many examples in this debate of items going unnecessarily to landfill, including toys. I was particularly pleased to present a Points of Light award to Charlotte Liebling from Leighton Buzzard in my constituency. She runs the wonderful charity Loved Before, which takes children’s teddies that have been greatly loved and often hugged night after night. When children do not want them anymore, the teddies go to Loved Before. They are sanitised, repaired, repackaged and loved again and again by other children. Charlotte has prevented thousands and thousands of teddies from going to landfill all over the country, and it was a pleasure to present her with her Points of Light award from our former Prime Minister a couple of years ago.

We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis, for reasons with which we are all familiar, and it is important to point out to our constituents that reusing resources and reducing waste can save the average household around £300 a year. That is not an insignificant sum of money for many families, so there is definitely an economic aspect to this, which will help people’s purses and wallets. I am pleased to see that many of our leading companies, such as IKEA, Currys, Primark and Apple, run take-back schemes. It is scandalous that many of us get pressured into replacing our mobile phones after only two years. The mobile phone companies do not upgrade the software, so we are almost forced to replace our phones, but it is good that companies such as Apple now have a proper take-back scheme, so that other people can use those phones, and they do not get wasted.

I was very pleased to see the Government’s announcement on Saturday morning. We have to recognise that recycling rates have plateaued at around 44% in England. They rose for a number of years, but we are not making the progress that we want. The Government have committed to starting a deposit return scheme in the next year or so; to introducing requirements on local authorities to recycle standardised items; and to making recycling labels mandatory. We need a very clear, easy-to-understand guarantee that if a product has the mandatory recycling label on it, people can put it in a recycling bin wherever they are in the country and know that it will get recycled, and they do not have to wonder whether the local authority will recycle it.

Weekly food waste collections are really important. A couple of years ago, I learned that if food waste was a country in its own right, it would have the third highest greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. That is hugely significant. These are very dangerous gases, such as methane, which is particularly bad for the environment, so this is so important. I gently say to some of my constituents, even up and down my road, that I do not always see the food waste bin outside. I make sure that mine goes out every week, because it is part of our civic responsibility to get with the programme if we care about the environment and our planet. That is a bit of gentle encouragement to some of my constituents.

Extended responsibility schemes for packaging are absolutely right, and the Government are right to be committed to the “polluter pays” principle. It should not be the taxpayer who always has to pick up the tab. Those responsible need to raise their game as well.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to the near elimination of biodegradable municipal waste to landfill from 2028. That is excellent. I am also pleased to see the commitment to raising the rate of recycling for municipal waste from 44% to 65% by 2035. I would love that to happen sooner, but let us at least try to meet that target, and get there earlier if we can.

I am also particularly pleased about mandatory digital waste tracking. There are too many fly-tipping cowboy criminals, as I mentioned in my maiden speech over 22 years ago, and we need to crack down on them. Congratulations to Peter Byrne at Central Bedfordshire Council, who has secured a number of convictions on that front recently, which is excellent.

There are a couple of areas where we could do more. There is too much farm food waste; that is food that could be eaten. It is not always easy to deal with; I had a particularly prolific apple tree this year, and I tried to give the apples away, but although I did as much as I could, I am afraid that some were wasted. I peeled, cored, sliced and froze as many as I could. Farmers need help in that area. Textiles have been mentioned, and it is shocking that only 1% are recycled. I would like to do another shout out to my dry cleaner, Met of Four Seasons Dry Cleaners in Dunstable, who has repatched my gardening trousers about 12 times. I keep on wearing them, and that is very good. Also, on electronic items, we have to get away from fast tech. It is also great that the UK was in the lead on the UN global plastics treaty.

Let me finish by saying that it is absolutely shocking that a plastic bottle takes five seconds to make, takes five seconds to drink, and then lasts for 500 years in our environment. We have to do better on that front.

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

Who on earth would have thought that we would be talking about the hon. Gentleman’s gardening trousers? I call Dave Doogan.