Deposit-return Scheme

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 30 November 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:35, 30 November 2021

I thank the Member for those questions and for her consistent interest in this whole topic. She will be very familiar with the scheme that was tried out in Conwy earlier in the year, and a great deal of learning has been taken from that, as well as a pilot scheme in Northern Ireland, and the work that was done previously in the Wirral that I know she is aware of. So, we will be bringing forward proposals. I'm afraid they will be in the early new year now, rather than the autumn, because of the delay in the powers being transferred to us. We'll respond to the consultation that was held back between March and June of this year. It will address a number of the points that the Member has raised this afternoon, and she is right to draw attention to the Marine Conservation Society report, which was published only a week or so ago, Llywydd. It does show a drop in some forms of litter, particularly those where there's been concerted governmental action—cotton buds, for example, and single-use plastic bags. But 75 per cent of litter collected on beaches was plastic or polystyrene, and bottle caps were very prominent in the litter that was collected. It definitely does demonstrate the need for us to act both in relation to deposit-return schemes and also this Government's commitment to bring forward legislation to ban the most commonly littered single-use plastics, which we look forward to bringing in front of the Senedd later in this term.