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The Lord
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to implement
action announced in the Budget Statement to reduce levels of
waste.
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The Minister of State, Department for International
Development (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s call for evidence to explore
whether the tax system or charges could help reduce
single-use plastic waste will be launched early in the new
year. The implementation of policy thereafter will depend on
the outcome of this call for evidence.
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The Lord
I thank the Minister for his Answer. While I welcome all
plans for reducing the amount of waste that is being created,
will the Minister also commit to implementing the strategy
announced in April by the last Government, which promised a
world-class anti-littering campaign and a litter innovation
fund?
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We launched the litter strategy for England earlier in the
year. That has an ambition to ensure consistency in
anti-littering across government, tough enforcement on those
responsible for littering and an ambitious clean-up of our
streets, highways and byways. The litter innovation fund was
launched in August and it will be open to people to come
forward with innovative ideas as to how we can implement that
strategy. I think we are in a strong place as regards that.
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(Lab)
My Lords, in the Budget report there is reference to £30
million being allocated to the Environment Agency to deal
with illegal waste management arrangements. Why is that money
being allocated only to the Environment Agency and not to
local authorities, when they are dealing with a huge problem
nationally of illegal tipping, which is stripping out from
local authorities funds that are preciously needed in other
areas of environmental health?
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The noble Lord is absolutely right in saying that the
Environment Agency takes the lead on that. The £30 million
was committed to it and in 2015 we announced another £20
million to tackle waste crime, which costs local authorities,
the taxpayer and business around £605 million a year. It is a
very important part of this, the Environment Agency in
England takes the lead on it and it is right that it should
have the resources to tackle waste crime.
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(Con)
Will my noble friend use his best endeavours to persuade the
publishers of magazines to encase their products in paper
rather than plastic, perhaps beginning with the House
magazine?
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These are great and innovative ideas and things that ought to
be looked at. We have some very strict targets for increasing
the recycling of paper products and we are on our way to
meeting them by 2020. It means that everyone has to play
their part, including the House magazine.
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(CB)
My Lords, has the Minister had a chance to study reports from
the Institute of Engineering and the London School of
Tropical Medicine and Hygiene which state that between 6% and
10% of greenhouse gases are produced by food waste, that
around 100 million tonnes of food was dumped in Europe in the
course of the last year alone and that, worldwide, if the
food that is being wasted were available to eat, it would
feed 1 billion people who are estimated to be without food or
hungry today?
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The noble Lord is absolutely right. Of course, as part of our
clean growth strategy, we have an ambition to reduce the
level of food waste by half by 2030. The Courtauld initiative
is also aiming to reduce food waste between 2015 and 2025. It
is also part of the ambition of sustainable development goal
12. So all the strategy, all the rules and all the ambition
are there—we just need to see the action.
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(LD)
My Lords, given the nearly 40% cut in local authority funding
this year, can the Minister say what incentives he intends to
implement to encourage householders to increase recycling to
assist councils to meet their recycling targets and reduce
expensive landfill and fly-tipping?
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In terms of landfill, of course it was the landfill tax
introduced by the Conservative Government in 1996 that has
reduced the amount going into landfill by some 70%. On local
authorities, it is not just about money; it is actually about
ambition and determination. We have neighbouring local
authorities with varying recycling rates. Lewisham has a
recycling rate of 18% but Southwark has a recycling rate of
35%, while Trafford has a recycling rate of 60%. We think
that it is not just about money; it is about learning and the
political leadership that will ensure that we deliver this.
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(Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that normally this House
would take some encouragement from the fact that the Treasury
is taking the lead on an environmental issue? But what is it
proposing to do? It is proposing to carry out an inquiry into
how taxation impacts on plastics. Surely it can be a bit more
proactive than that.
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One of the most recent ideas we had on that was about plastic
carrier bags; we put 5p on them two years ago. As a result,
we have seen usage reduce by 83% in two years, saving 9
billion plastic bags and leading to a 40% reduction in the
number of plastic bags washed up on British beaches. That is
exactly the type of innovative initiative that the Treasury
should be working on, in partnership with other government
departments.
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(Con)
My Lords, following on from that comment, does my noble
friend recognise that in fact large numbers of people in this
country would welcome a complete ban on plastic bags
throughout England? There is also a general sense that there
is excess packaging on fruit and vegetables. Just as my noble
friend suggested that we could start at home, large amounts
of fruit and veg that are delivered to this House go from
grower to wholesaler, are wrapped in plastic and then
delivered for immediate consumption in the restaurants in
this building. It is unnecessary.
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My noble friend is absolutely right. This matter is urgent
because if you put one plastic bottle in the ground today in
a landfill site, it will not be fully degraded until 2457.
The legacy we are leaving to our children is extraordinary.
That is part of the reason we are taking the tough action
that we are—not just for this generation and this time but
for future generations.
