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 4:09 pm on 20 September 2022.

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Photo of James Evans James Evans Conservative 4:09, 20 September 2022

Thank you, Counsel General. My party are very glad that this legislation is coming forward because we need to do as much as we can to reduce single-use plastics right across the globe, because it is the great scourge of our time that we are seeing plastics littering our oceans and killing our animals, and that is totally unacceptable.

With the Welsh Government going further, banning more items than they have in England, this is going to cause problems—as my colleague Rhys ab Owen has said—with the internal market Act. The Scottish Government went further than what they did in England and managed to get exclusions agreed on the list. And I'd like to know, Counsel General—it's probably more your brief than the climate change Minister's—what discussions you are having with the UK Government to see if we can get exclusions put in, to make sure that this legislation can pass through this Senedd quite seamlessly, to make sure we can get this in place to reduce single-use plastics. Because, unlike my colleague Rhys ab Owen, I don't want to see this going to the Supreme Court; I want this actually going where both Governments can work together to get good legislation through this place and to respect the devolution settlement here in Wales.