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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his Department's strategy is on reducing the amount of plastic going to landfill.

The tonnage of waste collected by local authorities and sent to landfill has fallen by 81% since in the introduction of the landfill tax in 1996/97. This is a devolved matter but the Government will publish a new Resources and Waste Strategy for England this year, which will explain how we will double resource productivity and achieve zero avoidable plastic waste.

Since we introduced the carrier bag charge in 2015, the seven key retailers have reported that they have distributed approximately 15.6 billion fewer carrier bags. I have also written to English councils with recycling rates below 30% to encourage them to collect more materials including plastics for recycling.