World Oceans Day 2021

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I must apologise to you and to the Minister that I will miss the end of the debate because I have a Committee clash.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for securing a debate on our oceans. We are an island nation; the seas surrounding us have shaped our history and helped to make us who we are, so it is appropriate that we gather here today on World Oceans Day. Our mariners sailed the wide oceans for centuries, bringing back wealth and knowledge and building an empire that once covered a quarter of the surface of the planet. The islands and territories that remain of that once powerful empire mean we have a responsibility for a massive ocean estate, much of it far from our own shores.

Of all nations, we island dwellers have a responsibility to safeguard the marine environment. Our hearts should bleed at the thought of dolphins drowning after becoming entangled in discarded packaging, turtles choking on plastic bags that they mistake for jellyfish, or birds trying to feed plastic to their hungry chicks. The facts are disputed, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that around 12 million tonnes of plastic enters our oceans each year. We have a moral duty in this House to take action.

This Conservative Government are doing more than any Government ever before to address the pollution tragedy. We were one of the first countries in the world to introduce a wide-ranging ban on microbeads in personal care products. Our bag charges have caused the use of plastic bags to plummet. Our deposit return scheme should mean that millions of bottles are returned for recycling, not casually cast away. Our plan for extended producer responsibility will mean that companies that benefit from plastic packaging should pay the cost of its disposal. If correctly constructed, that should provide a strong incentive to cut down on unnecessary use of plastic, ensure more packaging is reusable or recyclable and create a new income stream to help clean up our streets and oceans. Our manifesto commitment to bring an end to waste exports outside the OECD will mean taking greater responsibility for our own waste, dealing with it back here at home.

There is so much more to do, so I appeal to the Minister to try to make progress as soon as possible on the deposit return and the EPR schemes. It is three years since they were first announced, and we need to get them into operation. We have led the debate at a global level on marine conservation, as other hon. Members pointed out, through initiatives such as the Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance. Now, we have an unprecedented opportunity to use our presidencies of the G7 and COP26 to push for urgent global action to protect the rich biodiversity of our seas. The COP21 conference in China on biodiversity must also have a strong emphasis on ocean recovery. Future generations will judge us on whether we succeed or fail in meeting the great environmental challenge that we are considering. We must strive to pass the test.