Mary Creagh

What a tour de force this has been across the House, apart from the tumbleweed silence of the official Opposition. Where are the former DEFRA Ministers, having been muscled out of this debate? Where is the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), who, as late as April 2024, was speaking enthusiastically about how he was moving ahead with implementing a deposit return scheme for single-use drinks containers by October 2027? They are missing in action—the long-term view muscled out for a short-term hit of political opposition. I am old enough to remember when the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) was a Minister. Presumably he signed off on the write-round on the Environment Act 2021, which introduced the enabling legislation for many of the reforms that we are bringing in. Amnesia seems to be a rather convenient illness among the Conservative Front Benchers. Let me answer some of the points raised in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) asked about metals. I hope that we will not have to wait for a whole Parliament before we make progress on tackling the issues in the metals and tyres recycling business. As he is aware, we have also banned single-use vapes to tackle the battery fires they cause. I will work with other Ministers across Government to consider how to tackle the growing problem of lithium battery fires. Glass is excluded from the DRS in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The Government’s position is that glass would add considerable up-front cost and create complex challenges for the delivery of the DRS, particularly in the hospitality and retail sectors, as well as disproportionately impacting small breweries. It would be inconvenient for consumers due to its weight and its potential for breakage in transit to a return point. Glass drinks containers across the UK are included in the extended producer responsibility for packaging scheme to ensure they are efficiently and effectively recycled, and the glass recycling targets within that scheme have been increased from 83% by 2030 to 85%. We are also considering how reuse systems could be developed in the future, and I have met representatives of the drinks industry in the last fortnight to discuss that. We will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good when bringing in these regulations. On Wales, waste is a devolved issue. How a future scheme works in Wales will be for Welsh Government Ministers to determine, and we will continue to work with devolved Governments and industry as we progress the DRS.