I agree with the Minister that we can be very proud of our success in recycling; before devolution, 5 per cent of waste was being recycled, now it's 60 per cent. But a lot of that has been driven by the taxation on waste, and that's gone up. Local authorities have worked harder and harder in order to recycle. Now we need to look at taxation as a driver for changing people's behaviour.

I think everybody welcomes the ban on microbeads. In fact, I think that if we'd had this discussion 10 years ago, most of us wouldn't have known what a microbead was. The 5p charge for plastic carrier bags has had a visible effect on the environment. You only have to look back to before it existed, and everywhere you went where there was grass, there'd be carrier bags; now there aren't. If you see a carrier bag on a sports field, it's unusual; if you see one in a grassed area, it's unusual. It used to be a very common sight.

Recycling and reusing products and materials for as long as possible in a circular economy provides environmental benefits and economic benefits. Can I just add my voice to that of Simon Thomas? If you want to have things reused, a deposit scheme is the way to do it. It doesn't even have to be very much. If somebody came and asked me for 5p now, I'd give it to them, but paying 5p for a plastic bag, I feel I don't want to, and I'll do anything possible to try and avoid doing so. An awful lot of people follow that—. It's the fact you're paying for something and you don't really need it. I think exactly the same can be true with bottles. Some of us are old enough to remember taking Corona bottles back and getting the 5p. That worked incredibly well. Unfortunately, we've gone to so much plastic and so little glass.

Of course, recycling and reusing are second and third best, because the best is not to use, or if we have to use it, then use less. That's got to be our priority, and we need to give more thought to that. And it's not just plastic. We seem to have gone to plastic now as something that we talk about, but we've also got glass, tin-plated steel and aluminium—they could all be made thinner, and thus reduce the weight of recycling.

Something we've got to be looking for is trying to reduce the weight of recycling by trying to reduce the amount of metal, glass and others in the materials being created. So, what is the Government doing to promote less material in packaging? You probably want a tin of baked beans—you wouldn't want to get them loose; carrying them home might be a bit difficult and embarrassing—but do you really need such a thick tin? It's in the interests of the manufacturer, the consumer and the environment to get thinner tins. So, what is being done to try and reduce those sizes?