Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress his Department has made on bringing forward legislative proposals to ban microplastics; and if he will launch a review into the environmental impact of floral foam.

In general, we prefer to help people and companies make the right choice, rather than banning items outright. There may, however, be times when a ban is appropriate as part of a wider strategic approach. To tackle microplastics we have already introduced one of the world's toughest bans on microbeads in rinse-off personal care products. This will help to stop billions of these tiny plastic pieces from entering the ocean and being eaten by marine wildlife. The Government does not currently have plans to launch a review into the environmental impact of floral foam. However, we will continue to review the latest evidence on problematic products and/ or materials to take a systematic approach to reducing the use of unnecessary single-use plastic products.

The Government has set out the first restrictions to be initiated under its new chemical regulation system, UK REACH, to tackle risks posed by chemicals. The launch of the UK REACH programme includes plans to initiate the restriction process on lead ammunition and certain harmful substances in tattoo inks and permanent make-up. We are keeping other issues that we did not initiate in the restriction process for this year under review. This includes scoping what further action could be taken to address intentionally added microplastics based on the best available evidence.

To tackle plastic pellet loss we support Operation Clean Sweep, an initiative led by industry through the British Plastics Federation, to address incidents of plastic pellet loss. This initiative addresses this problem at all stages of the supply chain. At the British-Irish Council Marine Litter Symposium in 2019, Ministers recognised the need to address plastic pellets and considerable progress has been made in developing solutions to reduce plastic pellet loss. The administrations have supported the development of a Publicly Available Specification developed by the British Standards Institution, which sets out how any business handling or managing pellets can reduce pellet loss. This is the first of its kind and will be published in July this year. All administrations will promote it through their networks.