I share the remarks about Wales. We should congratulate ourselves on being third in the world. That is actually a very, very significant accolade and obviously presents an opportunity to maintain our leadership position in terms of recycling as a contribution to our environmental goals, but also it provides us with an opportunity to grasp to put sustainability at the heart of our economy. This presents opportunities for us more broadly.

In her consideration in due course of this debate, when the Cabinet Secretary is back with us, I would ask her to consider the contents of the Bevan Foundation report in June 2016, ‘Tax for Good’, which actually makes some very interesting recommendations that are pertinent to today’s debate. It looks at the power under the Wales Act 2014 for the Assembly to propose completely new taxes in devolved areas.

One of the taxes that it explores in the report is the idea of a takeaway packaging tax, identifying expanded polystyrene, which is a very popular form of packaging, in particular with the takeaway food industry because of its thermal properties, it doesn’t affect the food and drink and it’s also highly cost effective. It comes in at about half the cost of biodegradable alternatives, which are significantly more expensive as a result.

The challenge for us of course is that there are only very limited recycling opportunities in Wales, as elsewhere, for polystyrene products. So, as a result, it’s a waste that tends to end up either in landfill or in litter. Two weeks ago, I think it was, I spent a lovely Saturday morning on the Neath canal cleaning the litter from the banks there. A significant proportion of that, it seemed to me, was polystyrene. It’s very light and it floats and therefore is a particular issue in terms of waterways and seas. So, I think there’s a particular challenge for us there.

This sort of tax is not without its obstacles and not without its limitations. There are significant potential compliance issues, although a number of the outlets that use it are ones that have existing relationships with local government, for food hygiene purposes and so on. So, there are mechanisms to deliver this outcome. We need to be careful about the employment consequences of introducing a tax of this sort. There are lots of jobs in some of the packaging sectors that would be affected. But, I think, on that latter point, we should look to some of the experience that they’ve had in some of the Scandinavian countries where there have been very progressive steps taken in relation to this sort of measure.

In Finland, for example, when they introduced a similar tax there, although the tax doesn’t raise very much revenue, it seems to have led to the production of new packaging industries and to other industries emerging, such as cleaning reusable glass. So, there are potential opportunities that arise from this. I think it’s a reminder to us that the circular economy—yes, it’s about recycling, but it’s also about a fundamentally different set of relationships with our assets and what we deal with in daily life, beyond disposability. There are opportunities for economic development that might arise out of this as well. So, I hope the Cabinet Secretary will give that careful consideration.