Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:07 pm on 23 October 2018.
Thanks, Minister, for your statement today. David Melding spoke first. He hoped there would be consensus. I think there is a fair measure of consensus, particularly on the plastic issue. This has become a matter of some public concern, with the recent tv programmes raising this issue, and I think many people today have talked about the problem of plastic packaging and what we can do about it.
Your approach, from what you've said today, is largely working with the UK Government. I think that's sensible. If it is possible to come up with a joined-up approach with the UK Government, then I'm sure that would be a very good solution, because of course the problem affects the whole of the UK. So, I do commend you in going forward with that joint approach, and maybe we'll need to hear further from Mark Drakeford about how his talks with the chief Treasury Secretary have gone regarding the tax.
But I note that Llyr Gruffydd did ask you specifically about the legislation. I know you've answered that, in that you can't really give a definitive answer at the moment. I'm just wondering about the issue of legal competence, because we are doing an inquiry into related matters on the environment committee at the moment. So, if the Welsh Government did have to do something on their own, just theoretically, I'm just wondering what levers are available regarding taxation. Obviously, we do have tax powers. What about also banning particular products, if there are similar products that don't have plastic packaging or plastic contained within them? Is there any scope for actually banning particular products?
Regarding the recycling issue as a whole, I think, of course, it's a good idea to try and attain high rates of recycling, but we do need to be mindful of possible adverse effects. There is a danger, sometimes, of not looking at the unintended consequences. I've mentioned before that we could have problems with fly-tipping if we go too far down the road of trying to enforce recycling. For instance, there's the issue of council tips. Sometimes you have contractors who get paid to clear out houses or clear out back gardens, and, of course, sometimes they're not able to access the council tip legitimately. Sometimes they will do so by falsifying addresses and things like that, but also there is the problem that sometimes they simply fly-tip. I note that fly-tipping has been on the increase in some Welsh county boroughs in recent years. So, I wonder if you do recognise that there can be—well, I wonder if you recognise that there is—a link between a too-strict approach to recycling and an increase in fly-tipping, and do we need sometimes to have a more balanced approach to this?
We do have a rather confusing picture in Cardiff. The council wants to push recycling, but at the same time, they have closed two of the four municipal tips. So, they are forcing residents to drive further in order to dispose of their recyclable material, which seems, in environmental terms, almost to defeat the object of the exercise. So, I wondered what your thoughts were on that. Diolch yn fawr iawn.