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Division
No.
13] Question
accordingly agreed to.
Clause
read a Second time, and added to the
Bill.
New Clause
7Report
on contribution of reporting to climate change
objectives ‘(1) The Secretary
of State must— (a)
review the contribution that reporting on greenhouse gas emissions may
make to the achievement of the objectives of Her Majesty’s
Government in the United Kingdom in relation to climate change,
and (b) lay a report before
Parliament setting out the conclusions of that
review. (2) The report must be
laid before Parliament not later than 1st December
2011. (3) In complying with
this section the Secretary of State must consult the other national
authorities.’.—[Mr.
Woolas.] Brought
up, read the First and Second time, and added to the
Bill.
New
Clause
17Charges
for single use carrier
bags ‘(1) Schedule [Charges
for single use carrier bags] makes provision about charges for single
use carrier bags. (2) In that
Schedule— Part 1 confers
power on the relevant national authority to make regulations about
charges for single use carrier
bags; Part 2 makes provision
about civil sanctions; Part 3
makes provision about the procedures applying to regulations under the
Schedule. (3) In that Schedule
“the relevant national authority”
means— (a) the Secretary
of State in relation to
England; (b) the Welsh
Ministers in relation to
Wales; (c) the Department of
the Environment in Northern Ireland in relation to Northern
Ireland. (4) Regulations under
that Schedule are subject to affirmative resolution procedure
if— (a) they are the
first regulations to be made by the relevant national authority in
question under the
Schedule, (b) they contain
provision imposing or providing for the imposition of new civil
sanctions, or (c) they amend or
repeal a provision of an enactment contained in primary
legislation. (5) Otherwise
regulations under that Schedule are subject to negative resolution
procedure.’.—[Joan
Ruddock.] Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Joan
Ruddock: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following:
Government
new schedule 1—Charges for single use carrier
bags. Government
amendments Nos. 86 to
101
Joan
Ruddock: The amendments confer power on the Secretary of
State, Welsh Ministers and Northern Irish Department of the Environment
to make regulations about charges for single-use carrier bags. The
purpose of the amendments is to achieve a significant reduction in the
number of single-use carrier bags distributed in the UK. More than 13
billion single-use carrier bags are distributed in the UK each
year.
Joan
Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North) (Lab): At the outset of my
hon. Friend moving this important new clause, will she clarify whether
she is referring to bags as a whole, or whether she distinguishes
between plastic bags and paper
bags?
Joan
Ruddock: I am delighted to be able to respond to my hon.
Friend. Although I will come on to explain how the bags will be
defined, they are single-use carrier bags, so there is no distinction
regarding the material from which they are made. I am sure that she
will know that the environmental impact of paper bags can be even more
detrimental than that of plastic bags—although people might
think that that is counter-intuitive. I am happy to explain that when
challenged.
Martin
Horwood: I am not necessarily challenging the
Minister’s assumption that environmental damage can be derived
from paper bags. Nevertheless, they are made from an entirely renewable
resource. In terms of their impact on the environment at disposal,
although there is some release of greenhouse gas emissions when they go
to landfill, if they are recycled they are surely a more
environmentally friendly option than plastic bags.
Joan
Ruddock: The hon. Gentleman is not correct, because the
science is extremely complex in relation to that. However, I will say a
number of things. On the production and transportation of paper
bags—we are talking about billions of bags—the greater
the weight, the more CO 2 emissions there are and so on.
There is a difference between paper and plastic bags in relation to the
carbon cycle. In terms of disposal, the vast majority of paper bags go
to landfill, as does the vast majority of household waste. In landfill,
a biodegradable item, such as a paper bag, will produce damaging
methane gases, which is why this is a really complex science. It is
possible to have a lower environmental impact if, for example, a paper
bag is properly composted. It is impossible to say that there will be a
less detrimental effect from paper bags overall because the chances are
high that there will be a greater impact on the
environment.
Martin
Horwood: The Minister is right; if they are badly disposed
of, there is potentially a greater environmental impact. However,
surely we should be aiming to have a strategy of zero
waste—certainly zero to landfill—whereby all paper bags
are recycled. On transportation costs and weight, is she aware that the
overwhelming majority of paper bags in use in the United Kingdom come
from Somerset, and the overwhelming majority of plastic bags come from
overseas? Therefore, I suspect that the carbon footprint may well be
rather different from what she supposes. That may be why Ireland chose
to make different arrangements for paper bags when it legislated on
plastic
bags.
Joan
Ruddock: The hon. Gentleman has illustrated the fact that
there needs to be a whole life cycle analysis to predict what the
carbon footprint is from any item or object. He has a point, but it is
not a general point. It cannot be said that paper bags would be less
environmentally damaging than plastic
bags. Mr.
Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab): I apologise
if I am telling my hon. Friend something that she already knows. Some
of the colleagues of the hon. Member for Cheltenham tried to introduce
a Bill in the
Scottish Parliament to ban the use of plastic bags. However, as my hon.
Friend was saying, it was discovered that a 40-tonne lorry would be
required to transport the equivalent of one pallet of plastic bags.
Therefore, the transportation alone undoubtedly has a major impact on
CO 2
emissions.
Joan
Ruddock: My hon. Friend makes a good
point.
Mr.
Gummer: The Minister mentioned the number of plastic bags
that are used, which is an important figure. Will she tell the
Committee what has been the reduction in the number of plastic bags
since the Government’s welcome initiative to work with the
industry for a voluntary reduction?
Joan
Ruddock: I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman
definitively, because we have not fully assessed the plastic bags
agreement, which is analogous to the Courtauld agreement. However, I
can give a ballpark figure: there has been a 7 to 9 per cent. reduction
in the number of bags in circulation as a result of the voluntary
agreement on single-use
bags.
Mr.
Gummer: Later, could the Minister give the Committee a
breakdown of those figures, so that we can see the way in which a large
number of companies have worked with the Department voluntarily? There
is a deep feeling of frustration in the industry among competing
businesses, which have gone out of their way to find different
mechanisms and been very successful. They have more than met the agreed
targets, and been willing to do more, but the Government have
introduced legislation that has left them with the feeling that this is
not the co-operative plan that they had been led to believe that it
would be. Out of what appears to be little more than tokenism, the
Government are moving to a different scheme, which has undermined
businesses’ belief in their willingness to work with them. It is
important that the Government take what they have done
seriously
Joan
Ruddock: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we have
taken very seriously what has been done, and I shall describe later
what has been happening. However, it would not be possible to say which
companies have done what, because the agreement with the companies was
that we would consider the overall picture of all participating
businesses, and that we would publish all information on the overall
achievement. Right hon. and hon. Members will already have heard from
individual companies, which are more than entitled to, and do, make us
aware of what they have achieved.
The right
hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that there is a huge
spectrum of achievement. For example, I am told that in one company the
use of raw plastic has increased during the period of the agreement,
but that many others have achieved significant reductions in the use of
raw plastic through lightweighting and so on. We are not yet in a
position to give all the information, but as I said, companies have
been contacting Committee members setting out what they have achieved,
and we appreciate what they have
done. I
referred to the 13 billion single-use carrier bags distributed each
year. That has a direct environmental effect—as a particularly
visible form of litter when discarded irresponsibly, through the risk
that they present to marine life, and through the emissions that they
generate from both transport and waste management. Their disposable and
easily substituted nature makes them an iconic symbol of our throwaway
society, but as a result of public pressure, thinking right across the
board has changed since we concluded the voluntary agreement with
retailers. By responding to increasing concerns about the availability
and numbers of throwaway bags, we hope to promote further changes in
environmental behaviour and greater participation in recycling and
thinking about waste among consumers. 6.30
pm Public
attitudes are central to this debate. At the beginning of our
discussions, a number of right hon. and hon. Members referred to an
Ipsos MORI poll that had appeared in The Observer. It was a poll
that was quite depressing to all of us, because it was
headlined:
“Most
Britons doubt cause of climate
change.” I
chose to get hold of the entire poll and look at the questions asked
and the answers given, and frankly that headline was very misleading.
For example, one of the findings was that 77 per cent. of people
expressed their concern about climate change. Furthermore, only 4 per
cent. of people agreed with the
statement: “Individuals
should not be expected to do anything, it is not their
responsibility.” So,
very clearly, that was a misleading headline about a poll that is much
more in line than one would have thought with the tracking that we have
done as a Department over four years, during which time we have seen a
very high level of concern about climate change being maintained and a
willingness to do something about it.
Indeed, on 2
July there was a Guardian/ICM poll that
asked: “Bearing
in mind growing global economic problems on the one hand and growing
environmental problems including global warming on the other, where do
you think the government’s main priorities should now
lie?” Fofty-four
per cent. of people asked said that the priority should
be: “On
tackling economic
problems.” Fifty-two
per cent. of people asked said that the priority should
be: “On
tackling environment
issues.” Given
everything that is being said about the economy at the moment, it is
extraordinary that a poll conducted as recently as 2 July should give
that
result.
Steve
Webb: Liberal Democrat Members have a lot of sympathy with
tackling plastic bags. Surely, however, there is an issue here of
scale, proportionality and priority. The Minister is arguing for a new
schedule that adds 12 pages of legislation to a Climate Change Bill,
when the issue is at least partly about litter. If the Government have
legislative capacity to add 12 pages of legislation, is this issue of
plastic bags really the top priority for tackling climate change? Why
this rather than a whole shopping list of things that, presumably, have
a bigger effect on climate change than plastic bags
do?
Joan
Ruddock: You would not want me, Mr. Atkinson,
to list all the activities that are going on across Government in
every—
Steve
Webb: This is
legislation.
Joan
Ruddock: What I was about to say to the hon. Gentleman is
that legislation is not required for the myriad activities going on
across the Government in every Department, which attempt to mitigate
climate change, to adapt to it and to deal in the round with waste
issues. So this measure is here, as indeed are the waste incentives,
because a requirement exists to have legislation in this regard. We do
not believe that it is very likely, although the opportunity will be
there, that we will get the numbers of plastic bags down in the way
that the public demand unless we make these powers available to
us. I
would just like to say to the hon. Gentleman that this measure should
not be a surprise; this needed to be done somewhere, because 18 months
ago we published our waste strategy, in which we clearly stated that we
wished to make the single-use carrier bag a thing of the
past.
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