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Written question asked by Barry Sheerman (Labour) on Monday, 19 February 2024, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 21 February 2024. It was answered by Robbie Moore (Conservative) on Monday, 26 February 2024 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Plastic Bags: Fees and Charges

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much money has been raised (a) in total and (b) for (i) charitable and (ii) community causes by the charge for single-use carrier bags in each year since 21 May 2021.

Answer

Since the Government introduced the charge, it has generated over £190 million for good causes and the number of single-use plastic carrier bags used in the main supermarkets has fallen by more than 7 billion, a reduction of over 98%.

A full dataset of details for each retailer on the amount of gross proceeds, VAT, total costs and net proceeds can be found on gov.uk.


Defra publishes a summary of this data which includes the amounts of money given to good causes: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carrier-bag-charge-summary-of-data-in-england.

There is no requirement in the legislation which requires retailers to donate proceeds from the charge to good causes. Only large retailers are required to keep a record of and report on the uses to which these proceeds have been put.

With regards to the request to provide a detail of how much money has been raised (a) in total and (b) for (i) charitable and (ii) community causes by the charge each year since 21 May 2021, this level of breakdown is not something that Defra holds.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
14471
Session
2023-24
Subjects
Finance Fees and charges Civil society Plastic bags
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk