Glass Packaging: Extended Producer Responsibility
Will Forster Excerpts(2 days, 1 hour ago)
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Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing this really important debate so that we can collectively put pressure on the Government.
Times are hard. Things cost more and people are genuinely unhappy. What we do not want is to take away their beer or make it more expensive. The beer or pub sector in my constituency of Woking supports more than 1,800 jobs and contributes £100 million to Woking’s local economy. That is probably not surprising, as we are home to Asahi UK, a huge brand that covers Fuller’s, Peroni and Cornish Orchards, to name a few. Pubs are generally much more than just a business. They are hubs in our high streets and at the centre of our community life—places we go to watch a football match or take our grandparent on a Sunday afternoon to make sure they get out of the house. They are a fun place to drink pints with a few of your friends. Who here has been to the pub after a funeral, sharing stories about loved ones? I know I have, at The Cricketers in Horsell in my constituency. The core of what we are speaking about today is that pubs are really important places for people, and I am worried that the Government’s rules will undermine that.
In grief or in happiness, the British pub is an integral institution and always there for us—or so we hope; but the future of the pub is under threat. The Government’s poorly designed EPR scheme is a production tax in all but name, placing more than £100 million of new annual costs on brewers for glass packaging alone. The Liberal Democrats support the goal of making packaging and manufacturing more sustainable. We have long advocated improved recycling and a well-designed deposit return scheme, but the current approach to EPR risks doing more harm than good. It heaps unpredictable and escalating costs on to producers great and small—whether that is Asahi or the small brewery in my constituency, Thurstons —without offering clarity or stability that businesses need to plan for the future. For local brewers or publicans already battling inflation and higher taxes, these additional costs affect jobs and investment. Disastrously, this cost is also passed on to people going down the pub or buying a bottle of what they fancy from a shop. In Woking, it means a direct hit to ordinary people already struggling with the cost of living crisis.
This issue extends beyond my constituency. What is worse, this scheme is supposed to apply only to household waste, but the way it is currently designed means that pubs are charged double. Despite already paying for commercial waste collection, they now face an additional £60 million burden across the sector, with some larger venues expected to pay up to £2,000 extra each year. Even the Government have acknowledged that that is a flaw, yet this will not be fixed until year three of the scheme. That delay is not acceptable. Why should a struggling local pub in Woking, or any other constituency for that matter, be forced to bear unnecessary costs for the next two years while the Government dither?
It gets worse. The Office for Budget Responsibility has rightly classified EPR as a tax, yet businesses still lack the basic clarity around the final fees, the reporting rules or even whether they will be liable. Such uncertainty is paralysing for businesses already hurt by international or local events. How can small brewers or pubs make investment decisions when they do not know the rules of the game they will be playing or what the liabilities will be?
The impact of EPR extends beyond hospitality. Let us talk about glass, as the hon. Member for Rotherham did. More than 60% of glass packaging in the UK is produced domestically, but the EPR scheme risks pushing manufacturers to abandon glass altogether in favour of cheaper, less sustainable materials, such as our old friend plastic. We have seen similar schemes in the United States drive glass manufacturers out altogether. In the UK, more than 6,000 people work in the glass sector, and penalising them is the wrong thing to do. I therefore ask, urge and implore the Minister to commit to reviewing EPR in order to support the food and drink sector, especially in my Woking constituency. The Liberal Democrats and I support environmental initiatives, but not at the cost of local jobs, economic growth or the viability of businesses that hold our communities together. The Government must rethink this scheme.
Oral Answers to Questions
Will Forster Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
Happy spring equinox and happy World Sparrow Day to you, Mr Speaker, and to everyone in the House.
Fly-tipping blights communities, harms the environment and places huge costs on taxpayers and businesses. Councils dealt with over 1 million incidents in 2023-24, some 6% more than in the previous year. This Government will crack down on fly-tipping by establishing clean-up squads comprised of those very individuals who dump rubbish in our communities. We are also tackling litter by introducing a ban on single-use vapes from 1 June this year and a deposit return scheme for drinks containers.
Mary Creagh
It is interesting what a difference a change in council leadership makes. I commend Councillor Ashworth and Councillor Wazir on their excellent work. This Government will introduce mandatory digital waste tracking from April 2026, and I will update the House on progress in May 2025. If people want their streets to be cleaned up, the answer is clear: vote Labour.
Mr Forster
Fly-tipping is a real concern in my constituency of Woking, but I understand that the previous Government introduced new powers that enabled Woking borough council and other local authorities to strengthen their actions against people who fly-tip. What impact have those measures had?
Mary Creagh
We have not assessed the impact, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman the latest statistics for his own council. There were more than 1,100 fly-tipping incidents, but just three fixed-penalty notices and no prosecutions. Local councillors are clearly making choices. We know that the latest statistics for fly-tipping show a rise of 6%, so it is clear that under the previous Government, this environmental crime was allowed to spiral out of control. I encourage all councils—of whatever colour—to make good use of their enforcement powers.
The Solicitor General
The hon. Member raises an important point. The CPS is working right across the country to ensure that victims feel more able to come forward and that its service to victims improves. She will understand that the court backlog is key; unfortunately, we inherited a record court backlog from the previous Government, and we have to tackle it. The Lord Chancellor is taking a range of measures to get it down, so that victims will have the confidence that when they come forward they will have their day in court and justice will be done.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
In Surrey alone there are 1,500 cases waiting to be heard in our Crown court, including 166 sexual offences against women and girls. Prosecutors have been telling victims that they have between two and five years to wait to get their day in court. That is appalling. Will the Solicitor General talk to the Ministry of Justice to reopen Woking’s court complex, which was closed by the Conservative Government, to provide greater legal capacity in Surrey?
The Solicitor General
The hon. Member is right to suggest that the root causes of the backlog are a direct result of Conservative choices and inaction. The previous Government closed more than 260 court buildings—in one year alone the Tories closed 84 magistrates courts—which clearly led to this considerable court backlog. I am pleased to say that the Lord Chancellor is taking action on that backlog by funding 108,500 sitting days in the Crown courts and increasing magistrates courts’ sentencing powers.