Mary Creagh MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Dec 2024 · Draft Ivory Act 2018 (Meaning of @0082Ivory@0083 and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. We have committed to ensuring that future trade agreements promote the highest animal welfare standards. That was not always the case under previous trade agreements. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman’s question about museums. I mentioned in my opening speech the prescribed institutions that provide advice to the Secretary of State via the Animal and Plant Health Agency on whether an exemption certification should be granted for items that are pre-1918 and of outstandingly high artistic, cultural or historical value. There are five exemptions to the ban that apply to all species, which is why I started talking about musical instruments. The exemptions are: musical instruments made before 1975 with less than 20% ivory by volume; items made before 3 March 1947 with less than 10% ivory by volume; portrait miniatures made before 1918 with a total surface area of no more than 320 sq cm; items that a qualifying museum intends to buy or hire; and items made before 1918 that are of outstandingly high artistic, cultural or historical value. We must remember that there was a time when ivory was, for example, regularly laid on piano keyboards, used for the inlay on violins and used in gaming dice and things like that. The historical things, such as the famous walrus chess people in the British Museum, are treasures. If we are doing exchanges with other cultural institutions, we must allow those pieces to travel, but under very strict, permitted and certified exemptions. The items can be bought, sold or hired out only if they meet one of the five exemptions to the ivory ban and must be registered or certified under the relevant exemption using the digital ivory service.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Draft Ivory Act 2018 (Meaning of @0082Ivory@0083 and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  That is a fascinating question. What if we go to see the birds exhibition at the Natural History Museum, see a case full of hummingbirds and wonder how many of them are still alive in the wild? I do not know the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I will undertake to reply and write to him. With that, I hope that I have addressed the issues raised. May the warthog sleep safely tonight. I hope that the House will approve this instrument. I thank Committee members for their support and their diligence in returning, and I commend the draft regulations. Question put and agreed to.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  I am very happy to look at that, but I gently tell the hon. Gentleman that after more than a decade of austerity, providing more services with less money is a challenge, and many local councils have not been able to square that circle. Rather than indulging in thinking about what could be done in a perfect world, we have to look at the world we are in and ask, “What can we do?” It is clear that this three-legged stool of reforms will put some much-needed fresh cash into the system, so that the various municipal collections can be ready for the go-live dates, and there may be opportunities in that. We have had several debates about fly-tipping, and there were more than 1 million fly-tipping incidents in 2022-23, which is 10% more than we had three years ago. As the hon. Member for Stockton West said, Stockton-on-Tees alone has had 1,700 fly-tipping incidents. We cannot allow these incidents to continue, and I pay tribute to the many local litter groups he has met. I will have the enjoyment of meeting the Aylesbury Wombles in Parliament this Wednesday, and there are little groups everywhere. We want fly-tippers and vandals to clean up the mess they have created, and we must take back our country from these criminals who blight our communities and undermine legitimate businesses. I look forward to providing details on that.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  I am very keen to set the record straight, Madam Deputy Speaker. The House will have heard what the right hon. Gentleman had to say. It is important that we do not incinerate recyclable materials. The environmental permitting regulations prevent the incineration of separately collected paper, metal, glass or plastic waste unless it has gone through some form of treatment process first, and, following that treatment, incineration is the best environmental outcome. As I say, we will publish our capacity assessment before the end of this year, and we do not support incineration over-capacity. If we look at the waste hierarchy, waste incineration does not compete with or conflict with recycling. I think the right hon. Gentleman may have been talking to Madam Deputy Speaker when I was describing my visit to Rugby, where it is possible to see some uses for energy from waste that help with the hardest to abate industrial sectors. The process for cement, for example, requires a furnace that is heated to 1,400°C. In my view, the end result in that case means that it is a good use of incineration. That is what comes out of the municipal recycling facilities—out of our black bins—and it is the very tail end of the waste process I have described. We have consulted on expanding the UK emissions trading scheme to include waste incineration and energy from waste, in order to divert plastics away from incineration. We are taking on board responses, and we will detail final policy on that in due course. We are including energy from waste under decarbonisation readiness requirements. We believe that any energy-producing waste facility seeking an environmental permit needs to look at how it will decarbonise. Moving to a circular economy is no small task, but we will do so by working collaboratively, and across this House, building on the policy left by the previous Government.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  I think the kindest thing that we can say is that the experience of Walleys Quarry is a learning experience for us all. I have a former landfill site in my constituency that has been properly remediated and covered over, with housing built alongside it. It started out as a clay quarry for brickmaking. Then it became a landfill site for the council, and now it is housing, but the site has been properly remediated. I think the problems have come through a lack of guidance and regulation about where housing can and should be built, an understandable keenness to build the homes that people desperately need, and a failure to understand that things should not be placed 30 metres away from a landfill site. It is simply not acceptable. Certainly, that is a learning point that we are bringing into the planning and infrastructure Bill. Moving to a circular economy is no small task, but we are committed to playing our part, building the UK Government’s reputation at home and abroad, and driving green jobs, green growth and the green shoots of recovery in every nation and region of our country. Question put and agreed to.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  What we saw there was a local community campaigning to stop the stink, and I am pleased that the regulator has taken swift action. On the point raised by the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire about energy from waste, his Government failed to reach their recycling targets. We do not support over-capacity of energy from waste, and incineration should be an option only for waste that cannot be prevented, reused or recycled, such as medical waste or nappies. In the waste hierarchy, recovering energy from waste is still preferable to disposing of waste in landfill. It maximises the value of the resources being disposed of, and avoids the greater environmental impact of landfill, which continues for generations, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee). We cannot solve today’s problems by storing them up for future generations, so we will shortly publish our analysis of the need for further energy from waste development in England, following delivery of our reforms. However, I make it clear that it is for the relevant planning authority to determine the need for proposed developments. Our capacity assessment will help inform decision making on planning.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  I will come on to those points later in my speech, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will intervene if he does not get the satisfaction and clarity that he seeks. Good things come to those who wait. Let me begin with the strategy. We want to have an economy-wide transformation of our relationship with our resources, which is all about supporting the Government’s missions to kick-start economic growth, make Britain a clean energy superpower, and accelerate the path to net zero through our efforts to tackle waste crime and take back our streets. To answer the question posed by the hon. Member for Stockton West, preventing food waste is key to my Department, and we are reviewing a range of issues associated with food waste in the supply chain. We hope to make further announcements soon. Let me address the collection and packaging reforms, which the hon. Member outlined. They are an important starting point in transitioning to a circular economy, and we are proud of the steps that we have taken so far. Over the next three years, simpler recycling, extended producer responsibility and the deposit return scheme will deliver transformational change, creating thousands of new jobs and stimulating billions of pounds’ worth of investment. Those three areas make up the three-legged stool of this Government’s plan to kick-start the circular economy, so I will briefly take each one in turn. The first area is simpler recycling. We recently affirmed our commitment to delivering simpler recycling in England, which will be introduced for businesses from 31 March 2025 and for households from 31 March 2026. This Government inherited legislation introduced by the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) that could have required households to have up to seven bins. As the hon. Member for Stockton West rightly said, some councils have up to 10 bins, but that is because they thought they were doing the right thing, given the signals that were being sent out under the previous Government. That places an unnecessary burden on people and businesses, and unnecessary clutter in everyone’s front and back gardens. We are simplifying the rules to make recycling easier for people, while stimulating growth, maximising the benefits and ending the postcode lottery for recycling. Across England, people will be able to recycle the same materials at home, work or school. The legislation for simpler recycling has already come into force. To confirm the final details of the policy, we laid regulations before Parliament on 3 December. The policy will support our ambition to recycle 65% of municipal waste by 2035. It is important to remember that figure, because when the last Labour Government brought in the landfill tax reforms in 2002, the original target was to have a recycling rate of 50% by 2015—a target that, sadly, was lost under the previous Government. Ten years on from that date, the target has still not been met. The policy will also deliver an estimated £11.8 billion-worth of carbon savings between 2024 and 2035. As we have heard, local circumstances differ across the country, so we are making sure that councils and other waste collectors have the flexibility to make the best local choices. We know that local authorities may want to review their waste collection services to ensure that they provide best value for money. As is currently the case, local councils will continue to decide the frequency of waste collections in a way that suits the needs of their local community. The Government’s priority is to ensure that households’ needs are met, so we have recently published guidance to support councils in this area. The second area is extended producer responsibility for packaging. To help fund simpler recycling, we are introducing in parallel extended producer responsibility for packaging, or pEPR, which will require obligated producers to pay the full end of life costs associated with the packaging that they place on the market. That will bring more than £1 billion of investment into local government waste collections, and incentivise producers to reduce unnecessary packaging and make what they use even more sustainable. Those regulations have now been debated in both Houses. They received unanimous cross-party support and will come into force on 1 January 2025. The third and final leg is the deposit return scheme—DRS—for drinks containers. We have seen this work in over 50 countries around the world. The DRS will make a real difference to people’s lives by tackling litter and cleaning up our streets. Recycling rates will increase and the drinks industry will benefit from the high quality recycled materials that the DRS will provide. We are committed to delivering a deposit return scheme in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland in October 2027 and we will continue to work closely with industry partners, the Scottish Government and the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland to launch the scheme.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship this evening, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) for raising this issue—he has certainly had a busy day, having moved from the Front Bench to the Back Benches—and I thank everyone else who has taken part in the debate. The Secretary of State has made it clear that resources and waste are a priority issue for DEFRA, and I am pleased to share our plans in this regard. The Government are committed to the transition to a circular economy—a future in which we keep our resources in use for longer, reduce our carbon emissions and invest in critical infrastructure and green jobs in every nation and region, and in which our economy prospers and nature thrives. We want to abandon our linear and unsustainable “take, make, throw” model, which means that we extract resources from the Earth, make things and then throw them away, because there is no such place as “away”. If the whole world consumed resources as we do in the UK, we would need 2.5 times the Earth’s raw materials to sustain our current systems. Meanwhile, nearly 100 million tonnes of residual waste is disposed of annually, and waste crime alone costs our economy £1 billion every year. That cannot continue. We must and will move toward a system that values longevity, repair and reuse over disposal. In our manifesto, we pledged to reduce waste by moving to a circular economy. That is why we have committed ourselves to developing a circular economy strategy for England, which we will create in partnership with experts from industry, academia, civil society, local government and beyond.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  Indeed, and how many times my hon. Friend has mentioned Walleys Quarry.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  I share the hon. Gentleman’s impatience. I am old enough to remember, as Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee in 2017, hearing several predecessors of the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire promising that we would have a DRS scheme. The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) is also right to say that there is no point in recycling if there is no end market. I welcomed the plastic packaging tax that was introduced under the prime ministership of Theresa May, which mandates a 30% recycled content. The question, where fossil fuels are very cheap, is how we drive business’s behaviour change, and that is under active consideration to ensure that there is an end market for the recyclates that are placed on the market. On the hon. Gentleman’s question about the timescale, we laid the regulations for England and Northern Ireland before Parliament on 25 November and we plan for the regulations to come into force in late January, parliamentary time permitting. The Scottish Government will then make the necessary amendments to legislation in Scotland. After that, the three Governments will appoint the Deposit Management Organisation in April 2025, for which applications opened on Monday 2 December, so this is all hot off the press, and this is a timely debate. The aim is for the DRS to come into force on 1 October 2027. However, there is much more to do. On Friday, I was delighted to visit Suez’s Malpass Farm facility in Rugby. Working in partnership with Cemex, Suez has provided 1 million tonnes of climafuel from non-recyclable waste, diverting it from landfill and reducing coal consumption in the neighbouring Cemex plant by 75,000 tonnes, thus enabling big industrial decarbonisation. Earlier today, I made a quick trip up to Newark to visit the Curry’s site, which is home to one of its unique repair centres. I saw how Curry’s, a great and proud British company, is using its resources and its market position to repair and refurbish broken phones, laptops and tablets, and I recommend its refurbishment website to anyone looking for a last-minute gift from Santa. Such industrial partnerships, working together to maximise the value of resources, demonstrate the role that the resources and waste sector can play in supporting net zero and supporting economic growth. A high-performing resources and waste sector is key to driving a circular economy. However, waste crime threatens this by taking resources away from that circular economy and from the good businesses that want to do the right thing and make those green investments. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) is interested in this, and I am glad to see him in his traditional place. Waste crime costs the country £1 billion a year, and we know that 18% of waste may be handled illegally at some point in the waste supply chain. That is around 34 million tonnes of waste every year. We are committed to tackling this scourge.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Waste and Recycling · Hansard source

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  I am a bit mystified by the right hon. Gentleman’s question, because he put a stop to planning decisions on energy from waste. Did he not conduct an impact assessment beforehand?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Future of Farming · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which sets out why the Government are better targeting tax reliefs: to make them fairer and to protect the smallest family farms. We believe that that is a fair and balanced approach that safeguards small family farms, while also fixing the public services that farming families rely on. Those families will be able to pass the family farm down to their children just as previous generations have always done. I will quickly make a couple of other points. The hon. Member for Upper Bann mentioned Bovaer, the feed additive. We know that agriculture is one of our largest emitting sectors, and we consider that methane-suppressing feed products are an essential tool in the decarbonisation of the agricultural sector. Bovaer was approved by the Food Standards Agency in April 2024 for use in the UK as a feed additive. The authorisation process assessed evidence about animal health, consumer health and environmental safety, and the evidence that was provided to demonstrate the methane reduction efficacy of the product. Bovaer is fully metabolised by the cow and is not present in milk or meat, so there is no consumer exposure to it. I hope that reassures her about Bovaer. I will also discuss the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller). Its introduction, including on imports of specific fertiliser products, was announced by the previous Government in December 2023, but it will not come into force until 2027. It is intended to address carbon leakage, which is the movement of production and emissions from one country to another due to different levels of decarbonisation effort. About 70% of UK agrifood imports come from the EU, and fertiliser used by EU farmers will have already faced a carbon price. Many non-EU imports cannot be produced in the UK, so the Treasury expects that the impact on UK farmers will be modest and that there will be no material impact on food prices. On capital grants, we have seen an unprecedented demand, and we will continue to process the applications that have already been received and accept new applications for woodland tree health grants. Capital grant plans and management plans are important to help Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier arrangements, protection and—

• 4 Dec 2024 · Future of Farming · Hansard source

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  With any fiscal change, we look at the previous year’s figures to see what the impact will be. I am not going to get into the analysis around the figures—I want to make some progress. Those figures have been verified by our independent fiscal authority, the OBR. We know that the current-use rules have been used by wealthy landowners to avoid inheritance tax, and currently the largest estates pay a lower inheritance tax than smaller estates. That is not fair or sustainable.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Future of Farming · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your very crisp chairmanship, Sir Roger. I pay tribute to all hon. and right hon. Members for whittling down what must have been very long speeches into very short, but none the less well-received and well-delivered, speeches. I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), not just for securing this debate but for her work representing her party here in Westminster as a spokesperson on environment, food and rural affairs. She well knows that agriculture is a devolved issue, but we are committed to working closely with devolved Governments as we work to support British farmers and boost the nation’s food security. My colleague Baroness Hayman is in Northern Ireland tomorrow, meeting with large food producers, the Ulster Farmers’ Union and Northern Ireland’s Agriculture Minister. As the granddaughter of a Fermanagh beef farmer, I too have farming in my blood. The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), has many talents, but he has not yet acquired the skills of cloning himself, so I am here as a pale substitute for him today. I thank all Members for the comments they have raised. We will never forget that farmers are the beating heart of our great country, and farming and food security is the foundation of a healthy and resilient economy, local community and environment. It is the hard work of our country’s farmers that puts food on the table and stewards our beautiful countryside, which is why, despite the difficult fiscal situation, we are maintaining the total level of Government support to farmers across the UK. For the devolved Governments we are removing the ringfence to respect the devolution settlement, and we are providing the same level of funding in 2025-26 as they are receiving in 2024-25. In England, we have committed £5 billion to the farming budget over two years, including more money than ever for sustainable food production. That enables us to keep momentum on the path to a resilient and more sustainable farming sector. Environmental land management schemes will remain at the centre of our offer to farmers and nature in England, receiving £1.8 billion in the financial year 2025-26. What is more, we have announced that we will rapidly release £60 million through the farming recovery fund, which will support farmers, including those on family farms, affected by the unprecedented extreme wet weather last winter. Roughly 13,000 farm businesses, including family farms, will receive an exceptional one-off payment to help with severe flooding. The Government are also investing £208 million to protect the nation from disease outbreaks that threaten the farming industry, our food security and, crucially, human health. All of that is part of the Government’s new deal for farmers. On a UK-wide level, we are working to cut red tape at our borders and get British food exports moving again—protecting farmers from being undercut by shoddy trade deals done by the previous Government. We will lower energy bills for farmers by switching on GB Energy, and introduce grid reform to allow them to plug their renewable energy into the national grid. We will use Government purchasing power to back British produce so that half of our food in hospitals, Army bases and prisons is locally produced and all certified to high environmental standards. We will introduce a land use framework that balances long-term food security with nature recovery. Critically, we will introduce the first ever cross-Government rural crime strategy to crackdown on antisocial behaviour, fly tipping and GPS theft—a subject on which I have spent many happy hours in the Chamber. I will address the agricultural property relief changes head-on. There has been a huge range of figures and analysis quoted on all sides. The Treasury’s figures show that 500 estates a year will be affected. That is based on the hard data of actual claims, a figure that is endorsed by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. It includes the impact of APR, business property relief, nil-rated inheritance allowances, and other capital allowance. The Government have engaged and will continue to engage with the NFU, the CLA, the Tenant Farmers Association, MPs and other stakeholders on the issue. The reforms will not be introduced until April 2026, so there is still time for farmers to plan for the changes and get professional advice on succession planning.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) and thank him for bringing forward this important Bill. This Government take the issue of pet smuggling seriously. Earlier this year, we made a manifesto commitment to end puppy smuggling, and that is exactly what we will do. I am delighted to announce that the Government will be fully supporting the passage of the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill through Parliament. We stand ready to work with the hon. Gentleman to clamp down on deceitful pet sellers who prioritise profit over welfare. This Bill will crack down on pet smuggling by closing loopholes in the current pet travel rules. At present, illegal importers of dogs, cats and ferrets often exploit loopholes to bring in animals under the guise of genuine owners travelling with their pets. The Bill will close those loopholes by reducing the number of dogs, cats and ferrets that are permitted to be brought into Great Britain by a person under the pet travel rules. The limit will be reduced from five pets per person to five pets per vehicle, and three pets per foot or air passenger. The Bill will also provide us with powers to crack down on low-welfare imports of pets. We will first use those powers to restrict the movement of heavily pregnant and mutilated dogs and cats into Great Britain. At the same time, we will raise the minimum age at which puppies and kittens can be brought into Great Britain, which will be set at six months. We will also ensure that the non-commercial movement of a pet into Great Britain must be linked to the movement of its owner. To move under the pet travel rules going forward, the pet and owner will have to travel within five days of each other. In the interests of time, I again thank the hon. Member for Winchester for taking forward this important Bill and look forward to working together to progress it through the House.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. The regulations, which were laid in draft before the House on 24 October 2024, introduce extended producer responsibility for packaging, referred to as pEPR, in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. PEPR is one of the three core pillars of the Government’s ambitious packaging reforms, alongside the forthcoming deposit returns scheme and the simpler recycling programme in England. It will overhaul the packaging waste system, introducing the biggest change to policy in a generation—since the last Labour Government introduced the landfill tax. Collectively, the packaging reforms are estimated to deliver carbon savings of more than 46 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent by 2035, which is valued at more than £10 billion in carbon benefit. The new system established under the regulations will modernise the producer responsibility system for packaging in the United Kingdom by shifting the costs of managing discarded household packaging from taxpayers to businesses that supply packaging, thereby applying the “polluter pays” principle. The regulations implement the international best practice exemplified by the mature systems of our European neighbours, including Belgium and Germany, where comprehensive pEPR schemes have been in place for some time. This is a foundational pillar of our transition to a circular economy, moving away from the linear take, make and throw model, which we know harms our environment and society, to an economic model that keeps valuable material resources in use for longer. The revenue raised by the new system will generate more than £1 billion a year to support local authority collection, recycling and waste disposal services, which will benefit every household in the UK and stimulate much-needed investment in our recycling infrastructure. It will make a substantial contribution to the benefits of the packaging reforms which together—those three pillars of the DRS, simpler recycling and today’s regulations—are estimated to support 21,000 jobs across nations and regions, and to help to stimulate more than £10 billion of investment in recycling capability over the next decade. Revenue from pEPR will create a much-needed injection of resources to local authorities to improve the household kerbside collection system across the UK. In England, the revenue will fund the simpler recycling reforms that will enable consistent collection of all dry packaging materials, ending the postcode lottery for recycling. Taken together, the reforms will support this mission-driven Government’s ambition to kickstart economic growth and create the foundations that are required to transition towards a circular economy for packaging in the UK, ensuring that resources are used for longer. It is a critical first step towards meeting our manifesto commitment to transition to a resource-resilient, productive circular economy that delivers long-term sustainable growth. Let me draw hon. Members’ attention to the new obligations in the statutory instrument. First, the regulations introduce an obligation on businesses that supply household packaging, referred to as “producers”, to pay the costs incurred by local authorities in managing that packaging once it has been discarded. Producers will also be obligated to meet the cost of providing public information about the correct disposal of packaging. Producers will start incurring fees from April 2025, and invoices will be issued from October 2025 for the 2025-26 scheme year. Additionally, from the second year of the scheme, producer fees will be adjusted to incentivise producers to make more sustainable decisions at the product design stage, including decisions that make it easier for products to be reused or recycled at their end of life. That will mean that a producer that uses packaging that is not environmentally sustainable, such as packaging that is not widely recycled, will incur higher fees. Conversely, those using packaging that is sustainable and readily recyclable will incur lower fees. It is right that businesses bear the costs of managing the packaging they place on the market, but we must also protect small businesses, which are the lifeblood of our high streets and the backbone of our economy. That is why only businesses that have a turnover of more than £2 million and that supply over 50 tonnes of packaging a year will have to pay disposal fees under the new system. To administer the system, the regulations require the appointment of a scheme administrator jointly by the four nations. This body will be responsible for the implementation of pEPR, including the setting of producer fees, and the apportionment and payment of those fees to local authorities to fund their waste management services. The scheme administrator will initially be hosted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Let me turn to the detail of the obligations retained from the current producer responsibility system. The instrument revokes and replaces the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023, along with the equivalent regulations in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The requirement for packaging producers to collect and report data on the amount and type of packaging they supply is carried over from the 2023 regulations, as amended. The data is used to calculate producers’ recycling and fee obligations. The instrument also revokes and replaces the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007 and the equivalent regulations in Northern Ireland. As was the case under those regulations, the draft instrument places obligations on producers to ensure that a proportion of the packaging they supply is recycled and requires them to provide evidence of that to the regulator. Those requirements apply to all packaging, not just packaging likely to be disposed of in local authority household collections. To meet that obligation, producers must demonstrate compliance by obtaining packaging recovery notes and packaging export recovery notes from recycling facilities, or from those that export packaging waste for recycling. Finally, the instrument provides the four national regulators with enforcement powers and a duty to monitor compliance. It contains strong enforcement measures, including criminal offences and powers for regulators to impose civil sanctions in cases of non-compliance. As is currently the case, the monitoring and enforcement activity for the producer responsibility regime will be funded by the associated charges in the draft regulations, such as those for registration and accreditation. The charges operate on a cost recovery basis. They have therefore been increased from the levels in the 2007 regulations to reflect the new duties placed on the regulators and the increased level of monitoring and audit activities. To conclude, there is no such place as “away”; everything that we put into the planet we put into our environment and, ultimately, into ourselves. It is therefore critical that we create the foundations to transition to a circular economy for packaging, ensure resources are kept in use for longer and secure vital carbon savings. As we look at the global plastic pollution treaty negotiations in Busan, South Korea, we certainly hope to play our part in that work.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  That is a valid point. We have had to collect the data, but the data is not 100% there yet. Illustrative base fees were shared in August and we did new base fees in September to reflect some of the comments from business. We are looking at 2024, which has not ended yet, so we need to look at the tonnage and packaging for 2024 before we publish the final, definitive fees from April. We have tried to share illustrative fees with people, because we know there are long supply chains and they need six to 12 months to plan properly. Further iterations will follow up to the summer next year, when we will share those final fees. They will be invoiced in October 2025, which will cover the period from 1 April 2025 to March 2026. At that point there will be absolute clarity and certainty. If there is anything that we feel is not working or that is driving behaviour in the opposite direction from what we want to see, we will not hesitate to change things further. As a new Government—we have been in power for only five months—this has been a big elephant to digest, one bite at a time. The hon. Member for North East Fife asked me about producer obligations in the two schemes. The regulations carry over the obligation on the Environment Agency to publish a list of large producers from the 2023 data regulations, as amended. That should help producers to reduce the risk of double obligation, because we do not want people to be obligated under two separate schemes. If a producer discovers that it has reported packaging that it was not required to report, the regulations enable it to make a resubmission to correct any errors. We will continue to review the reporting requirements and engage with industry to ensure that the regulations operate effectively. The payments will also apply to online marketplaces, something that is important for all of us as constituency MPs. We have seen the displacement of traditional high street businesses by online retailers, where it is usually cheaper to buy something. These regulations try to reset the level playing field. We have legislated for that by creating the online marketplace producer class to address the rising prevalence of products imported into the UK as a result of sales on a third-party website. Where that happens, the operator of an online marketplace established in the UK must now take responsibility for that packaging under pEPR. At the same time, we do not want to unnecessarily burden small producers, so we are retaining the current de minimis thresholds. We will use the data gathered in the first year of the scheme to review the approach to small producers after that first year. We need to see if it is working as intended. I hope I have covered most of the questions raised by hon. Members. The legislation is necessary to kick-start the circular economy, drive up our recycling rates, drive down our carbon emissions and change our approach to packaging in the UK, to ensure that materials and products are kept in use for longer. I hope that hon. Members understand and accept the need for the instrument, and I am grateful for the Committee’s time. Question put and agreed to.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I thank hon. Members very much indeed for their kind and constructive words. We are seeing today an outbreak of unity on the basis of a project of seven years’ gestation. I remember the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs telling the Environmental Audit Committee, which I then chaired, that they would introduce a DRS scheme back in 2017. Here we are, and it falls to a Labour Government to introduce it. Once we pull one thread out of the packaging bin, we affect the income streams on which councils depend—I have a little joke in the Department that simpler recycling is actually hellishly complex recycling. It is a very complex project. There were issues with it during the covid pandemic and there have been four consultations on these reforms, so it has certainly taken a long time to see the light of day. I would gently say to the shadow Minister that when we left Government in 2010, the recycling rate was more than 40%. It is now at 44%, and kind of going backwards. The original target in 2002 was for us to be at 50% recycling by 2015. The real lesson for all of us as lawmakers of whatever party is that, if we do not continually update policy, encourage behaviour change and give business certainty, these things do not happen on their own. The shadow Minister asked me about taxes; I welcome his constructive comments on charities, but obviously he knows that taxes are a matter for the Chancellor. I believe that the Finance Bill is still being debated in the main Chamber and I am sure he will have an opportunity, should he want to intervene there. We talked about support for businesses. My officials have worked incredibly closely with businesses on this scheme. I met with a very large bottled drinks manufacturer yesterday in the Department, and I met with other businesses this morning as part of an all-party parliamentary group. We are not getting any comments from businesses that they have not been heard. There has been a consultation. There have been some philosophical questions about where glass should sit, and glass is now in pEPR. We want anyone involved in the production of packaging, such as the great Quaker Oats brand that the hon. Member for North East Fife has near her. That is an example of absolutely perfect cardboard packaging. It is sort of the perfect recycled package—wholesome on the inside and wholesome on the outside. Most people know that the hard-to-recycle packaging is the plastic films. That is the really tricky stuff. If we look in our waste bins, by the time we have taken out the cardboard, plastic bottles, milk bottles and cans, what is left is food waste—collected in some areas, but not others, and the main source of methane in our landfill—and then the plastic film. Similarly, coffee cups have a plastic liner a few microns thick and then the thick cardboard around it, but they need the plastic to hold the drink. It is a question of product design and innovation. None of this is new, and a lot of it is happening, with pEPR happening in around 30 other countries in the world. Industry and representative groups have actively engaged with Government on developing these schemes and have offered support by sharing their data on recycling. I take the point from the hon. Member for North East Fife about the two schemes. In a way, it is a bit like Brexit—we have the old regulations, the new regulations, and there are costs. What was supposed to be a bonfire of legislation actually ends up causing more regulation. We also have a number of industry representative groups taking part in the co-design of the future of scheme administration, including consideration of greater value chain involvement in the scheme. Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom—this is the first time we as a nation are doing this.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  Thank you for that clarification, Sir Christopher. I am happy to withdraw my remarks. We are all learning in our new jobs, and we are grateful to you for your wisdom, advice and guidance on these areas.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne) for tabling this debate, the second on fly-tipping in just three months. How extraordinary it is that not a single Opposition Member has turned up to listen and contribute; that tells us something about the party of the countryside, and the party that is on the side of people who want to do the right thing and keep their areas clean and tidy. I thank all colleagues for their thoughtful contributions—fly-tipping is a serious crime, and we know it blights local communities. I have been reading about the horrendous case of the front garden on Peach Avenue in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham), and we appreciate the difficulty it poses to all landowners. Local councils reported over a million fly-tipping incidents in 2022-23—that is a significant burden on the UK economy, and was an increase of 10% on the three previous years. During that time, we had covid, where we were not allowed out for several months at a time, so I think we can say it is increasing year on year. What we are here to say is enough is enough. Things have to change. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford has said, there have been years of Conservative failure on this, and we have a plague of rubbish on parks, streets, front gardens, farms, rural estates, and industrial estates. I was in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) yesterday and was sending him texts on the way home because I could see some illegal burning going on as I drove back from the beautiful Hainault forest. We want to end our throwaway society: stop this avalanche, increase recycling rates, reduce waste, and crack down on waste crime. To the point about the circular economy made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan), yesterday we laid the deposit return scheme regulations in Parliament, and we have a statutory instrument on extended producer responsibility tomorrow. There are colleagues in the room who will participate in that debate to show the three legs of the stool—simpler recycling, EPR, and DRS, all of which are going to drive up our recycling rates, with the intention of getting to 65% by 2035. I looked back at some news items from 2002, when the last Labour Government was trying to get the recycling rate up to 50% by 2015. That tells you something about the progress that has stalled over the last 14 years, that we are still hovering around a 43% to 44% recycling rate, and actually going backwards in some areas. We have committed to forcing fly-tippers and vandals to clean up the mess that they have created as part of a crackdown on antisocial behaviour, and I look forward to providing further details on that commitment in due course. I met the Prisons Minister, Lord Timpson, to discuss how we can equip prisoners for their release and rehabilitation through some of the environmental work in this area.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  I think there is a really interesting philosophical reflection there, because one person’s rubbish is another person’s treasure. I remember leaving a beautiful Italian leather bag outside my house—it had a hole in it, and had come to the end of its life with me—and I thought I would put it on the doorstep and see what happens. Someone knocked on my door and asked if that bag was to go, and I said yes, and she was so pleased. Maybe she was going to take it away and sew it. There was also a tradition when I lived in Belgium of the braderie, where people put their stuff out—got rid of things from their granny’s attic, got rid of different things, like a massive car boot sale, because people like to get a bargain—and I do think there is a role for people to do that. We do not want to stop people putting things out for other people that might be useful, but I encourage people to ask, “Is it going to rain? Is the item going to be destroyed?” It needs to be done in a sensible way. On the council clearing things up, one often finds that other people come along and clear it up before the council even gets there. Councils have enforcement powers to punish those who harm our communities and to deter other would-be offenders, and I encourage them to make good use of those powers, including their power to prosecute. I pay tribute to the council in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford for their actions. Fly-tipping can lead to a fine, community service or even imprisonment. Sentencing is a matter for the courts, but the national fly-tipping prevention group, which is chaired by officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has produced guidance to support councils to present robust cases to court. I urge colleagues to encourage their councils to join that group, because there is no monopoly on wisdom in this area and it is good to share initiatives such as the wall of shame. Instead of prosecuting, local authorities can issue fixed penalty notices of up to £1,000 to those who fly-tip or of up to £600 to those who pass their household waste to someone who does not have the proper licence. They also have powers to stop, seize and search the vehicles of those suspected of fly-tipping. They have the powers; whether they have the finances and resources after losing almost two thirds of their budgets after years of cuts to local authorities is a different question. Ahead of the previous fly-tipping debate, I wrote to those councils that reported no enforcement actions in 2022-23, and I will consider what further action is needed to encourage more councils to increase their efforts to bring them all up to the level of the good. We are under no illusions about the scale of the funding pressures that local authorities face, and I know that many colleagues have served on local councils. We are committed to resetting the relationship between local and central Government, and we will get councils back on their feet by providing multi-year funding settlements, ending the competitive bidding for pots of money and reforming the local audit system. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford raised the issue of rural fly-tipping, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger). Some 80% of farmers have been affected by fly-tipping on their land. We will continue to work with the National Farmers Union and others to promote and disseminate good practice on how to prevent fly-tipping on rural land. The public have a vital role to play in tackling this, because 60% of fly-tips involve household waste. Householders must check the register of waste carriers to avoid giving their waste to rogue operators who promise quick, cheap waste collection.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  It is good to see my hon. Friend. I have been travelling in Azerbaijan where I could not get his texts and phone calls, so I have had a week off, but I am glad to see that he is back, as an almost permanent shadow. I have not had my latest Walleys Quarry update, but I am sure that will come shortly after the debate. I pay tribute to the persistence of his constituents, Jane and Norma; from their Member of Parliament, I see that the Newcastle-under-Lyme persistence is contagious, and I pay tribute to him for everything he has done on behalf of his constituents in this area. It is important that we educate householders about their duty of care in this area. I am considering reform to the waste carrier, broker and dealer regime to make it easier to identify rogue operators. I have met representatives of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management to talk about how we can introduce qualifications around licensing. I am keen to do as much as we can in that area. Whether they live in the countryside, a town or a city, people should walk through their community feeling proud of a clean environment that is free of rubbish and litter. That is why, with councils, communities and local authorities, we will work together with regulators to force offenders to clean up their mess, put a stop to the waste criminals and keep our communities clean.

• 14 Nov 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. I met his colleague from DAERA at an inter-ministerial group in September. I am aware of the concerns in rural areas about fly-tipping, which blights swathes of our countryside. I am working with the National Farmers Union and others through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to promote good practice, including on private land. We know from the national waste crime survey that 86% of landowners and farmers have been affected by this terrible crime.

• 14 Nov 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  I understand that my hon. Friend’s council has just changed political colour, so I hope that the new Labour administration will take the problem a lot more seriously. I am aware that waste permit exemptions allow low-risk waste activities to be carried out under a registration scheme, and that that can be abused by criminals. Let us not be under any illusion: there is serious organised crime in this area. I am considering proposals to tighten the regime, and I am happy to speak to my hon. Friend’s council about how we tackle this together.

• 14 Nov 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  I am aware of some serious incidents in my hon. Friend’s constituency, including one where a significant amount of rubbish was fly-tipped on a driveway near a school and pupils suffered bad health impacts. I am concerned that the carrier, broker and dealer regime that the last Government left is far too weak and not fit for purpose. I am actively considering how the regime can be reviewed, and I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to hear her input.