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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of plastics industry lobbyists on the UK Government’s position at at the United Nations plastics treaty negotiations (INC-5.2).

The UK has been a strong advocate for an ambitious and effective global plastics treaty and is a founder member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. During the resumed 5^th session of the negotiations (INC5.2), we continued to work closely with ambitious countries to push for a treaty covering the full lifecycle of plastics. The UK has consistently argued that an effective treaty must be based on the best available science.

The Government is committed to an open and transparent process and has engaged widely with industry and other stakeholders to gather a broad range of views to inform the UK’s negotiating position. This includes engagement through the UK National Treaty Dialogues on Plastic Pollution which facilitated discussions with industries at all stages of the plastics value chain as well as NGOs and academia. The reports from these sessions can be found here. The UK’s negotiating position seeks to balance the interests of all stakeholders and is not determined by any single group.