4. Statement by the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution: The Environmental Protection (Single-use Plastic Products) (Wales) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:13 pm on 20 September 2022.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 4:13, 20 September 2022

Well, thank you. That is a really important question, because, you know, we are not in a static environment. It's not about producing a list and then we can all go away and be satisfied that everything is satisfactory. And, of course, your question partly led on to what's been asked earlier, and that is, 'What are the other areas?' And, of course, we can all identify, I think, other areas that we'd be concerned with, and we wonder whether there should be changes there—particularly deposit schemes. I mentioned about the paper straws earlier. Well, as a kid, I spent a lot of my time hanging around building sites at the age of six and seven, picking up the bottles, because there was fourpence—four old pence—on each bottle, and that was how you got your pocket money in those days. And it was really disappointing that we never retained something that was so logical to use.

But I think you mentioned about other items, such as wet wipes, for example, well, those are things that are being looked at. There are certain complications over wet wipes, because there are issues to do with labelling. Wet wipes apparently aren't as simple a product as they’re made out to be; some of them contain different substances and so on. There are probably good reasons why wet wipes should be banned in any event because of the impact they have on the sewage systems. But, of course, one of the issues is labelling as well. Product labelling is not devolved to Wales but is reserved to the UK Government. But, it’s an area that we’re looking at and there are other areas as well that will be looked at.

The importance of this legislation is that it creates powers, but it does obviously retain anything that’s added or removed from the list—the power remains by the affirmative resolution within this Senedd. I think that is something that is extremely important. I suppose I should add also, of course, that under section 79(2) of the Government of Wales Act, a sustainability report has to be produced each year, and what the legislation does do, which again I think is important, is it creates a duty on Government to actually set out to the Senedd in that report what other items it is looking at, what progress is being made, what other items may be listed. So, this is an ongoing, continuing debate, as it should be, that will take place within this Senedd. So, this legislation is really the start of that process and not the conclusion of it, I suppose. Banning single-use plastic items is a process, not an event.