The next item is a debate on a Member's legislative proposal, and this item is on single-use plastics, and I call on Huw Irranca-Davies to move the motion. Huw Irranca-Davies. 

Motion NDM7155 Huw Irranca-Davies

Supported by Alun Davies, Andrew R.T. Davies, David Rees, Dawn Bowden, Delyth Jewell, Hefin David, Jack Sargeant, Jayne Bryant, Joyce Watson, Neil McEvoy, Rhianon Passmore, Vikki Howells

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes a proposal for a Bill on the use of single-use plastics.

2. Notes that the purpose of this Bill would be to:

a) significantly reduce the use of single-use plastics based on the best international practice and research, which would establish Wales as a world-leader in reducing plastic waste;

b) introduce appropriate taxes and levies to significantly reduce the production and use of single use plastics in Wales;

c) introduce a cross-government action plan including a comprehensive suite of measures to significantly reduce use of single use plastics;

d) establish targets and milestones for the reduction of specific single-use plastics.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. Wales is in a great position to lead globally on significantly reducing single-use plastic waste, using the best international practice, evidence and research, using our new powers over taxes and levies to drive behavioural change, and by bringing forward a cross-Government action plan with a comprehensive suite of measures, targets and milestones. We can stop the rising plastic tide and we must, because it is increasingly seeming more like a tsunami than a tide.

Around 40 per cent of plastic is used in packaging in the UK, and the UK generates around 2.4 million tonnes per year of packaging waste, of which around 1.7 million tonnes is from households. Over 90 per cent of plastics are derived from fossil fuels, so they account for 6 per cent of global oil consumption, equivalent to the aviation industry. According to a 2016 report, around 237 million coffee cups and 183 million coffee-cup lids are consumed annually in Wales, representing 2,600 tonnes of coffee cups and 550 tonnes of lids. It's estimated that only 0.25 per cent are recycled. And, shockingly, 72 per cent of plastic packaging is reported to be leaked into the environment or sent to landfill worldwide.

We know that macroplastics are polluting our rivers and soil, our beaches and seas, from surface waters to deep ocean trenches, and microplastics are contaminating our pristine arctic ice and snow in the high Pyrenees, remote lakes in Mongolia and the Great Lakes of North America, floodplain soils in Switzerland, the sands of the Sahara, and the very groundwater and rainwater that feeds our crops and gives us water to drink. Having wrapped our food and everything else in plastic, this wonder material of twentieth-century science, we're now wrapping the planet in plastic too. And microplastics have been found in mussels, in fish, in chickens and even in honey—in honey. With the notable exception of vegans, this carries a whole new twist on 'You are what you eat.' 

Plastics are so useful in so many ways, yet in our throwaway culture single-use plastics are now destroying the planet we love, and are trashing the environment we see around us and the microenvironment we can't see so easily. So, let's look at some of the ways in which legislation can help turn the tide on plastics.

Complete bans on single-use plastics like carrier bags, done in Bangladesh and in Canada, have worked; plastic straws have been banned in some US states, and cutlery banned in France have proven the easiest way to make a dramatic effect. In Wales, we should actually take a broader approach, and we should include cotton bud sticks and cutlery, beverage stirrers and straws, plates, sticks for balloons, expanded polystyrene food containers, beverage containers and cups, wet wipes, plastic sauce sachets, and we should consider now phasing out all single-use carrier bags totally.

We should act on the significant confusion over the recyclability of materials in Wales, despite our great success in improving recycling rates, and find ways such as Ellie's Fund to raise awareness of how to recycle more difficult materials like pens, crisp packets, toothbrushes and cleaning bottle tops. Introducing a 'made in Wales, recycled in Wales' trademark and logo would drive reuse and recycling within Wales, as would proposals to require businesses to remove and recycle the plastics in delivered items, from food packaging to washing machines, or hay bales wrapped in plastics, as we saw earlier on today.

Funding initiatives to promote the switch to reusable sanitary items could help engage with schools and GPs and prenatal support centres. Considering mandating water fountains in public spaces could bolster Wales's ambition to be a water refill nation. And, let me say, financial mechanisms work. Introducing a 5p paper cup levy led to a 156 per cent increase in the use of reusable cups in just six weeks in Starbucks in London. It works. Evidence shows the greater the plastics levy, the greater the impact. In Wales, we could extend this to harmful products that fall outside the extended producer responsibility and market restrictions, so plastic clothing and balloons, chewing gum, single-use pens, protected postal packaging and wet wipes. Deposit-return schemes are globally proven to increase recycling rates, reduce contamination and simplify materials' use. Whilst the UK mulls over this, a deposit-return scheme centrally administered here in Wales could create jobs, spur market demand, and ensure the benefits of such a scheme are kept in Wales, and we should, in doing this aim, ensure that all containers of all sizes are within these DRS measures.

We could introduce a carefully targeted single-use plastics tax based on the proportion of recycled material in the product and with penalties for virgin plastic use. We could offer as well tax incentives, such as temporary tax relief or reductions for support of sustainable procurement and bulk purchasing in business improvement districts for zero-waste towns, or for other organisations pursuing zero-waste status, such as schools and hospitals, or even individual zero-waste retailers and businesses and reuse and repair initiatives. And we should bring forward an action plan on single-use plastic reduction, addressing different sectors appropriately, much like, I have to say, the current Welsh Government decarbonisation plan, focusing on key areas like social care and farming, tourism and construction. In tourism, for example, Presiding Officer, a zero-waste Wales could be our destination offer to the world, not just an ambitious waste policy. On procurement, we could develop revised and strengthened guidelines to promote sustainable procurement through our anchor institutions, like health boards, education authorities, housing and social care services, and get rid of anomalies like plastic milk cartons being used in schools. We could introduce a requirement for all publicly funded events, programmes and projects to ban single-use plastics, and go further to ensure that all events, including food festivals and sporting events, should commit to a ban on single-use plastics as part of their permitting requirements. And in respect of targets and milestones, we can go further than the single-use plastic directive and introduce in Wales a measurement of how this affects carbon emission reductions and analysis of litter data and waste composition.

Now, these are just some opening thoughts on what this legislation could do. I look forward to hearing from fellow Assembly Members and the Minister too, before I conclude what I'm sure will be a very constructive debate on how to stop the plastic tide.

I’d like to thank Huw Irranca-Davies for bringing this motion before the Senedd. I was very pleased to support the motion to propose legislation to reduce single-use plastics on behalf of Plaid Cymru.

Since plastic has been used on an industrial scale, pollution because of that has increased daily to the huge scale that we see today, for the simple reason that plastic doesn't rot over time. According to Beachwatch, there's been an increase in the last decade of plastic for every 100m of coastline, from 381 pieces to 485 pieces. Now, every piece of plastic pollutes that environment and has a terrible impact on natural life.

The environment committee in the Senedd heard recently from Cardiff University that half of the insects in the Taf had plastics in them, and microplastics were a plague in Welsh rivers. This isn’t a problem that we can recycle our way out of either, because of the nature of plastic, and it’s a cause of huge concern that over 60 per cent of the plastics that Wales recycles is exported. A nation that wants to be globally responsible shouldn't be exporting pollution elsewhere.

I announced recently that Plaid Cymru in Government would aim towards the banning of unnecessary single-use plastic by the middle of the next decade. The Welsh Government could start that work now by announcing its intention to ban single-use plastic bags as soon as possible, as 70 nations have already done, aiming then to ban wet wipes and polystyrene, and some of the other things that Huw Irranca-Davies has already mentioned.

There are other steps that can be taken, including educating people on the need to reduce their use of single-use plastics; labelling plastic products in order to enable consumers to make informed decisions in buying goods; promoting goods that don’t add to the problem with a particular label, as Fairtrade has done already in a different way for ethical products; introducing a levy on products such as single-use cups, as has already been mentioned, to encourage people to use their own caps; and to introduce regulations to reduce use in festivals and so on.

Llywydd, Plaid Cymru is pleased to support this legislative proposal today as a small but significant step on the road towards eradicating single-use plastics from our economy. Thank you.

I'm very pleased to support Huw Irranca's initiative, because we really can't go on eating plastic and breathing in plastic particles in the air we breathe. We cannot stand by and do nothing to prevent the plastic mountains we are creating from increasing further, according to the briefing we had from the various charities that are supporting this initiative, because of our failure to find more sustainable alternatives for everyday low-tech items, when there are so many other alternative materials we can be using.

We can be proud of our recycling record in Wales, being third in the world, but we need to do more—we cannot stand by and see our oceans being poisoned. In the Public Accounts Committee on Monday, we were looking at our performance on municipal recycling and two things we heard stick in my mind. One is that the corn starch bags for food recycling that are handed out for free by many local authorities, but charged for by others, were, in fact, clogging up the machinery used to process food waste, and that many local authorities were now going to be reverting to asking people to put them into plastic bags instead, which they were then going to extract at the recycling plant. Now, that seems absolute madness to me. What's wrong with a bit of newspaper to wrap up your chips or your food waste? That seems to me a much better way of lining the food caddy, and I don't understand why local authorities aren't moving straight to that much more sustainable and less harmful material.

Secondly, we heard that the recycling of rubbish on the go at major public events like sporting events was really in its infancy—that people hadn't really got the idea that just because you've got a bottle in your hand, you can either just chuck it on the floor or that you put it in the residual waste bin. It was great to see at the Eisteddfod that there were separate bins provided so that people could put it into the plastic, the paper or the residual waste, but it does need quite a lot of supervision.

So, just want to applaud the people who organised the Cardiff Half Marathon that was held earlier this month, because they're put a great amount of effort into ensuring that when we do have these large events—and obviously, a marathon doesn't just involve operating in one field, but over quite an extensive area—they really thought about the sorts of things they needed to do. For a start, they were employing a cleansing team to work at the event with participants, to ensure that waste wasn't contaminated, preventing it from then being recycled; putting food into the hard material recyclable waste is an absolute no-no; and they also worked with their water partner, Brecon Carreg, to offer smaller water bottles made of recyclable plastic, to enable people to understand the importance of recycling and sustainability. They have—

You need to bring your contribution to an end. I have a number of speakers who want to contribute.

Okay. And they've phased out plastic goody bags at the event. All events could be doing this sort of thing to ensure that we're not producing this more, but we may need legislation in order to focus our minds.

We must be careful, in any debate on the use of plastic, not to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are many legitimate cost-effective and sensible uses for plastic. So, if we are to be effective in our fight against plastic pollution, we have to concentrate our efforts on those uses that are totally avoidable, or on those whose use is extendable. It is the single-use plastic items that we should aim to drastically reduce, or, better still, eradicate entirely. I think we would all agree that the use of single-use plastic items is now at epidemic levels. There is also no doubt that single-use plastic items are a major contributor to the Earth's pollution levels. The chief culprit is, of course, the throwaway plastic bottle. The statistics are horrendous. The human race purchases 1 million plastic bottles every minute. Only 23 per cent are recycled, which means over three quarters are left to pollute the planet. There has been an exponential rise in the use of plastic bottles over the last few decades, primarily due to the purchasing of bottled water, almost unheard of in the UK until the 1980s, and limited primarily to glass bottles on the continent and the rest of the developed world. The soft drinks industry as a whole is a major factor in single-use plastic figures.

So, we know the problem—is there a long-lasting, sustainable answer? I think we should all agree that there is no silver bullet solution. It will be found in a number of interventions, some of which we in Wales may activate unilaterally, and others that will need UK and international co-operation and implementation. The options for unilateral interventions for Wales are limited. The possibility of introducing a deposit-return system has been discussed in Plenary previously. I am a great believer in this solution, with the proviso that the deposit element must be at a level that will truly encourage people to recycle. We could explore the possibility of encouraging producers and supermarkets to reduce their use of plastic packaging, and we can establish recycling banks to facilitate the recycling of bottles.

We were, of course, the first to introduce a charge for plastic bags, but given that, worldwide, 4 trillion plastic bags are issued every year, with only 1 per cent recycled, perhaps we could consider an outright ban on plastic bags in Wales, which, as with the charge, may be replicated by all UK Governments.

I thank the Member for Ogmore for bringing this debate to the Chamber. We must not leave this as an interesting discussion. The Welsh Government must do everything in its power to help mitigate this environmental disaster, and we are pleased to support this legislative proposal.

Can I begin, also, by thanking my colleague Huw Irranca-Davies for bringing this debate forward today and the fellow Members from across the Chamber who also supported this legislative proposal? Plastic waste is one of the most visible symptoms of environmental damage and a legacy we must not be accused of leaving to our future generations. Our oceans, rivers, beaches, fields and hedgerows are all too often filled with discarded single-used plastics, as are the ecosystems they provide.

With this groundbreaking legislative proposal, we have a real opportunity to make Wales an international example of best practice when it comes to reducing single-use plastics. As individuals, there are changes that we can and we should all make to reduce our plastic waste, but it is my firm belief that we cannot achieve the huge reductions in single-use plastics that we need with individual action alone. This is not to negate it, but all too often it is used as excuse for a lack of legislative action.

So, this is an issue that we must all take extremely seriously, both as legislators and citizens, as part of the climate emergency that this Chamber and this Welsh Government have rightly declared. I believe, as does this Welsh Government, that for the sake of our future generations, we must take action immediately before the situation gets any worse, and I would therefore like to praise the actions being taken in my own constituency right now. Caerphilly council have pledged to spend every penny of the Welsh Government's period dignity grant for the borough only on plastic-free menstrual products. This example of positive public procurement, being led by Councillor Philippa Marsden and thanks to the Cardiff-based campaigner Ella Daish, is a fine example of how institutions in Wales can use their powerful procurement power to cut down on plastic waste and lead the way. Hygiene and sanitary products are often amongst the highest causes of single-use plastic waste, and any way in which we can incentivise voluntary switches to more environmentally friendly alternatives should be welcomed.

Government—local, regional, national and international—must do more than play a part. They must lead the way and fight the fight like never before. Though I know there are many examples of best practice across Wales, more often than not these are individual schemes, so this innovative and important Bill could help to facilitate both a holistic and a strategic approach in reducing plastic waste, and it should not be up to the Greta Thunbergs of this world to point out where nations lead and then be castigated for it.

We in Wales have fully recognised the urgency and declared—the first to do so—a climate emergency. For most in this Chamber, the debate has moved on. It is no longer why, but how we now deliver on our mandate. Immediately establishing national targets and an important cross-governmental action plan demonstrates how seriously we're taking the climate emergency so that Wales can become a world leader in reducing its consumption of single-use plastics. So, I urge all Members of this Chamber to recognise climate change and work with us in making that needed change, and move Wales out of climate emergency and into climate stability.

I welcome and support this legislative proposal. In listing many of the steps that could be taken, it started to sound like the Plaid Cymru manifesto back in 2016, but certainly I am very pleased to see that the ambition of seeing Wales being a world leader in this area is one that's included within the motion. Because, I have to say, we haven’t seen enough done by the Welsh Government on this to date, and this joint working with the Westminster Government—well, they are not in a particularly good place at the moment. I think they are slightly too dysfunctional to be operating at the pace that we would like to see them operating at. In the meantime, we see Scotland forging ahead to implement some of these ideas. So, I think there is a lesson for us in that regard.

Now, the climate change committee has been looking at this area and has called for a 10-year strategy to reduce the use of plastics and, however we do that, it’s important we look at particular sectors, be that social care, agriculture, tourism, construction or health. I noticed this week that the NHS in England had pledged to cut 100 million items of plastic per year from English hospitals, including straws, cutlery, cups and so on. So, where are we in Wales? Why don’t we share those same ambitions?

Now, a deposit-return scheme is something that we in this party have said needs to be implemented for years. 10 per cent of waste comes from plastic bottles and cans that could be recycled through such a scheme. Extended producer responsibility—we have to shift the cost from the taxpayer to the producer of dealing with this waste, and, if we do that, then it won’t be long until they do respond by taking action and working differently and producing less of this waste in the first instance.

We heard of the possible contribution of different levies and I agree—we need to look at things such as clothes that include plastics, we need to look at balloons, we need to look at single-use pens. One of the things that angers me is receiving all of this packaging in the post. We do have to be far less content to accept these situations. We need to look at exemptions for zero-waste shops. And another thing we’ve been calling for consistently over the years is that we need to change planning regulations for licensing festivals and public events, which means that, if there is any use of single-use plastic, then that event can’t happen. It can be done, so come on, Welsh Government—where is the momentum? Where is the enthusiasm? Because time is not in our favour and my patience is starting to run out.

I'd like to thank Huw Irranca-Davies for bringing this legislative proposal forward today, and I'm really pleased to support it wholeheartedly. We've come quite a way in our awareness and in how we recycle. It was something I first got an understanding of—like many people my age—when I was 10 years old, following Blue Peter's recycling campaign. Wastesavers in my local authority in Newport really did lead the way here in Wales, but recycling now is really not enough.

I believe there's a real desire by people who want to know more about how they can change their habits and cut back on the amount of plastic they consume on a daily basis. We have to end the throwaway culture and think about how we can reduce, reuse and recycle. Of course, individual habits cannot stand alone—some supermarkets are making a start with reducing plastic, while, in Italy, the Government are looking to introduce discounts on the price of food items and detergents sold without packaging, and to promote drinks, shampoos and other liquids to be sold from dispensers and reusable containers. You’re even able to get straws made of pasta, which offers a practical solution to what is now a most famous issue. These examples are innovative and welcome, and it’s this kind of thinking that we need to be looking at, from both the private sector and us as a Government, to help drive this change. And Huw and others in this Chamber today have mentioned some of the initiatives that I think we should be looking to take action on.

The fallout from single-use plastic is seen everywhere. In my constituency of Newport West, there are some great voluntary groups that work tirelessly to help make their local communities a better place to live, work and visit. Groups such as Pride in Pill, Celtic Horizons Litter Pickers, Rogerstone Routes and the Duffryn Dusters all regularly collect bags and bags of plastic. One of their biggest bugbears is plastic bottles. As such, they’re eager to see an establishment of a bottle deposit-return scheme. They're understandably frustrated by the length of time it’s taking, and this is a great idea, which is very popular and something that the public want to see, and I’d hope the Minister can give us an update in her contribution later. And, speaking to fishermen who fish on the River Usk, I know that plastic is a significant issue—it’s suffocating our seas, oceans, rivers and waterways.

I just want to finish by quickly mentioning sanitary products. Sanitary products are the fifth most common item found on Europe’s beaches—more widespread than single-use coffee cups, cutlery or straws. And, as Rhianon Passmore has said, I’d like to pay tribute to Ella Daish, who’s convinced Sainsbury’s to stop producing plastic applicators for its own brand of tampons. And she convinced Caerphilly council to buy only plastic-free menstrual products from the Welsh Government’s free school sanitary products. And it would be great to see all councils following suit. I know that Ella’s aim is for all period products to become plastic free, and I fully support Ella on this. So, there’s much more that we can do. We have a real opportunity here in Wales. Be ambitious, be bold, and I really hope Members from across the Chamber support this today.

Like others, I’m very grateful to the Member for Ogmore for bringing forward this debate this afternoon. Presiding Officer, we remember the conversations and the debates we had about the 5p charge on a carrier bag. And, at the time, that was seen to be groundbreaking legislation. It led to a 71 per cent reduction in their usage, which had two impacts, of course: it changed public behaviour and it demonstrated the power of Government to change public behaviour and to drive change in the culture of behaviour. But, when we were doing that, of course, we thought we were groundbreaking, in the vanguard of environmental action at the time. But, since then, in the decade since those debates, we have seen how microplastics and plastics are not just disfiguring our environment, but poisoning our ecosystems. I remember hearing Sir David Attenborough saying that, wherever he goes now, wherever it is—be it in the mountains and moors or on the coast—there is discarded plastic everywhere. And he says about the UK Government:

‘The government hasn’t a clue, by the time they act it will be too late.’

And that’s a standing rebuke for Governments across the world. We’ve seen that Greenpeace has found that even the remotest parts of Antarctica are now contaminated with microplastics, not only ruining one of the most pristine environments on the planet, but those tiny shards of plastic, less than a twentieth of a millimetre wide, quite often, are mistaken for prey by tiny marine animals. The microplastics make their way up the food chain, potentially inflicting harm on larger animals, such as seabirds and whales, as well as getting into our own food chain via shellfish. In this way, we have reached a crisis point. We need now to see Government action again and Government taking the lead.

I believe we produce more waste in the United Kingdom than we actually understand. We’ve seen studies that say we produce 50 per cent more plastic waste than projected. And we in Wales, quite rightly, champion high recycling rates, but I want to be clear, and I believe that our responsibility for the waste we create goes far beyond local recycling centres.

We have seen already how waste from Wales has ended up in the pacific ocean. It is completely unacceptable that we allow any waste at all from this country to pollute our seas and oceans, and unacceptable that we dump our waste on the poorest people on the planet. We should not be doing that. I believe that we need to take action and I believe that the Welsh Government needs to take action as well. We've seen popular demands, growing demands, from across the globe for action, and growing demands in Wales—a popular demand for change. I've seen, and I spoke earlier of, how the Welsh Government was able to drive behavioural change, but we're also seeing how change is being driven by people understanding the impact of our behaviour on the planet. How many of us can forget the image of a turtle wrapped in a plastic sack, or the photo of the stork wrapped in a plastic bag? The BBC brought us those images. If we do not use our power to legislate, then these images will keep coming back, but then it is us who will be guilty for allowing that to happen.

The Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government, Hannah Blythyn.

Diolch, Llywydd. I want to thank Huw Irranca-Davies and all of the Members who've been part of bringing forward this debate today. I think the strength of cross-party support of speakers in the debate is testament to the non-partisan passion in this area, a passion that I share both personally and politically. I think the interest to tackle the use of single-use plastic within here, within this place, is also reflective and perhaps partially driven by what I hear loud and clear across the country, whether that be from our eco-schools or from our communities who are taking action to become single-use plastic free. There is an enormous amount of commitment and goodwill across the country to drive a change in the amount of plastic that we use and clamp down on single-use plastic and I want to strongly support that. 

At the outset, I want to make it clear that I'm certainly singing from the same hymn sheet as Members who are calling for us to prevent or reduce unnecessary or non-recyclable plastic products and packaging. I'm keen to go further and faster in this area, but firstly I want to just, only briefly, touch on what we've done and what we're doing. We can be proud, as Members have said, of what we've done to date. Wales was the first country in the UK to introduce a charge on plastic carrier bags in 2011, and we're a global leader when it comes to recycling, with plastic amongst the materials and others collected from every household in Wales. 

We've recently launched a consultation, which, effectively, requires businesses to separately collect materials for recycling for collection, just as householders in Wales have been doing for years. The result of this will be more high-quality segregated materials that are available for recycling and less waste going to landfill. But, as you've heard here today, to really tackle plastic waste and pollution we know that we must go beyond recycling and reduce waste in the first place.

Huw Irranca-Davies's opening talked about a broader approach in terms of banning some single-use plastic items. That's why we want to bring forward a ban or restriction on the sale of the 10 most commonly littered single-use plastic items. This will include straws, stirrers, cotton buds, single-use plastic cutlery, and expanded polystyrene food packaging and drinks containers. 

To maximise the impact we have, we've been collaborating with other Governments to bring about wider change and have already announced that we are taking forward reforms to the packaging regime through extended producer responsibility and developing proposals to produce a deposit-return scheme alongside the UK Government. 

I want to make it clear to Members that, whilst we actively work with counterparts across the UK in both the UK Government and Scottish Government on legislative proposals and needed an Order to take action on single-use plastic—we hear from businesses and consumers that this would make things easier across the piece for everyone—likewise I want to reassure Members that we are not afraid to go it alone if needs be, and we're committed to working in parallel.

The UK Environment Bill that was laid yesterday contains provisions that will enable the development of new regulations in Wales for game-changing initiatives such as extended producer responsibility, deposit-return schemes, charges for single-use plastic items and environmental labelling and standards for products—all avenues that I'm committed to pursuing. However, as I said, whilst we're committed to working collaboratively, in a cross-border fashion, we're also not afraid to go it alone where needs be and to take forward things that we can do on a Wales-only basis as well. 

I started, Llywydd, by setting out my support for Members' calls for action on single-use plastics, and our aim as part of this is to move towards the more circular economy in Wales, where waste is avoided and resources are kept in use as long as possible. This not only cuts down on waste but is a key part of the action needed on climate change, and, on the day we had our first climate conference, it also brings broader and bigger economic opportunities as part of the transition to a low-carbon economy. And I know that many businesses are already shifting away from single-use plastics.

Members have raised the possibility of introducing a single-use plastics Bill, and it's right that we should aim to prevent or reduce unnecessary non-recyclable plastic products and packaging where we can. I am committed to taking action to reduce our consumption of single-use coffee cups and other single-use cups for beverages. A range of options are currently being actively explored—options that include possible levies, charges or taxes. I think Members have recognised that, unfortunately, while we want things to happen as quickly as possible, obviously there are processes to go through and some things can be quite complex, and we need to make sure that, if we do things, we do things in the right way that doesn't have any unintended consequences. So, while these proposals are being worked up and finalised, I've asked officials to identify other measures and steps we could take to much sooner lead the way in Wales—steps that could build upon the many voluntary initiatives that have been developed by companies across the UK. For example, I think a couple of Members touched on the waste produced by major events or stadiums, and while we've seen a shift in terms of good and best practice from some of the events and activities that Members have mentioned within this debate today and we've seen strides forward, perhaps we need a little push to take that work over the line now.

As a Government, we agree that addressing the challenge of plastic pollution must be central to our efforts to reduce waste and a comprehensive and ambitious approach is needed. I've already mentioned to Members previously that we'll be publishing a new and comprehensive strategy for consultation later this year, which will build on our earlier progress on the 'Towards Zero Waste' strategy. It will set out a plan as to how to take further action on plastics and other materials. It will be a strategic, cross-sector approach that will address the issue of plastic pollution, but also other materials. As Members have raised today, the nub of all of this is our consumption of single-use materials as well. And what I want to show Members with this strategy is that we often talk about strategies being written, done and dusted and put on the shelf, but I'm keen for this to be much more innovative and be part of an active conversation and to provide a platform for visible action and milestones.

I know I need to come to an end, Llywydd, so just to round up, we've heard many ideas, a lot of expertise and there's a lot of enthusiasm in this area, and I'd quite like to bottle that and take it away, but I assure Members I'd do so in a reusable and refillable bottle. But, indeed, just to close, to reassure the Member, I want to say that I'm keen to look at how we establish a means to bring people together, to get us in a room and around a table to talk about these ideas and how we implement them and take them forward, and also, importantly, to create a mechanism to enable communities across the country to input to this. From what I've heard today in this debate and the work with stakeholders and citizens alike and within Government, I know that, collectively and collaboratively, we continue to lead the way in Wales to a more sustainable world and a future that works in the interests of our environment, our communities and our economy. Diolch yn fawr.

Huw Irranca-Davies to reply to the debate. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, thank you very much. Could I just begin by thanking my colleagues Delyth Jewell, Jenny Rathbone, David Rowlands, Rhianon Passmore, Llyr Gruffydd, Jayne Bryant and Alun Davies—

You only have a minute. 

Oh, sorry—for all their contributions, because I think it's shown the Assembly at its very best in this quality of debate that we've had today, and I thank also those who have supported this who haven't spoken today as well. There's really strong cross-party support with a lot of common interest. Minister, if that helps give you support and encourages you to take to Cabinet proposals around legislation, if need be, but around other things we can do earlier, that would be absolutely excellent. 

In my brief concluding comments, things that stand out here are this idea of a popular demand for change. The public want this as well as politicians. We should not leave this legacy of building plastics for future generations. And, as Llyr said, 'Come on, Llywodraeth Cymru.' But it's actually, 'Come on, Llywodraeth Cymru a ni hefyd, gyda'n gilydd'—all of us together, what we can do here. So it's a very encouraging response. 

Can I just thank all those organisations who have thrown their support behind this as well: Friends of the Earth Cymru, Keep Wales Tidy, the Marine Conservation Society and members of Wales Environment Link, who have helped with research and debates for this? And can I say to the Minister, on the encouraging response that she's given, should the Government wish to co-develop the proposals going forward and the measures to make Wales a world leader on reducing single-use plastics, she will find us willing friends to do this? So we stand ready to help. 

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? The motion is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.