Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench). It was answered on Wednesday, 7 September 2011.

Environment: Litter and Waste

Question: My Lords, are the Government giving consideration to the decision taken by the Welsh Government to charge for plastic bags from 1 October, to encourage the reuse of bags and of good old-fashioned shopping bags?

Answer: My Lords, I have not always been the greatest fan of devolution but one of its great advantages is that we can profit from lessons learnt in other countries. We will certainly look carefully at what they are doing in Wales and keep an eye on that. The noble Baroness is quite right to talk about what she referred to as ““good, old-fashioned shopping bags”” or the bags made available by supermarkets at a cost to encourage reuse of them. Often the problem with those is that one ends up buying too many. I have a very large stack of those bags at home waiting to be reused.

Secondary information

Type: Oral question
Reference: 730 c274
Session: 2010-12
Oral question type: Supplementary
Chamber / Committee: House of Lords chamber
Subjects: Biodegradability Labelling Litter Standards Waste disposal Street cleaning Plastic bags
Link: View this Oral question on www.publications.parliament.uk