Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007

I, too, thank the Minister for introducing the regulations and the noble Lord for introducing some interesting and detailed questions on them. I shall range slightly more widely. I should start by saying that as the document is not a thin one—it is 50 pages long—it will contribute nicely to the recycling targets of your Lordships’ House in due course. But this is a serious matter. These are amending regulations in many ways. They are the previous regulations from 2005 in a new form, with a certain number of changes, some of which are fairly minor but some of which are important. Particularly important is the ability of people to operate this system by electronic means; in other words, to submit data electronically and send in reports and information electronically. That in itself will help people to operate it more quickly, efficiently and cheaply. It closes some loopholes and reduces some of the burdens, and on that basis it is welcome. However, I should point out that it is about recovery and recycling targets. What it does not do is tackle the most fundamental problem of all—the quantity of packaging waste generated in the first place. Despite the fact that the proportion of commercial packaging that is being recovered and recycled has gone up very significantly, having doubled since the original 1997 regulations came in so that it is now approaching possibly more than 60 per cent, which is excellent, the total quantity of waste is still going up. The figure I have is that, since 1999, packaging waste in the UK has risen by 12 per cent. Until we start to get at the origin of the waste, we shall not be tackling the problem. Over-packaging remains a huge problem, as we all know. You only have to go to supermarkets to see the over-packaging of vegetables and fruit. Most ludicrous of all is the packaging of cucumbers, which come with the perfectly adequate natural package of their skin but which are nowadays invariably marketed in cling film. One could call them sheaths—but I am not sure what that would imply. However, electronic goods at the other end of the spectrum are getting smaller and smaller, while the boxes in which they come are not getting any smaller at all because the marketing of them is designed to make them look exciting, sexy and all the rest of it, whereas really they could be marketed in very much smaller boxes. In the days when I used to buy Hornby OO railway engines and rolling stock, they came in boxes the size of the rolling stock, not in great big boxes with the thing in the middle. There is no reason at all why iPods and other things that I do not understand should not be marketed in the same way. So there is a lot of work to be done in that regard. We must tackle these problems in a much more practical way. The Private Member’s Bill that my honourable friend Andrew Stunell presented yesterday or today would make it obligatory for supermarkets and similar shops to take back packaging that shoppers take and dump back on them. That is the kind of thing that we must do; we must make it possible for people to return the packaging to the places where it comes from so that those places would have to dispose of it, which would make them think much more carefully about what they package things in, because they would have to pay for it. I found some interesting information in the Official Report of the House of Commons discussion in Committee of these regulations. My honourable friend Martin Horwood has dug out the fact that, under existing legislation, prosecutions for wasteful packaging are hardly ever made. Clearly, that is also a way in which producers and retailers could be made to look at packaging. According to his research, there have been only four prosecutions for wasteful packaging in recent years. Yet we know it is there. We all ought to encourage the trading standards departments of local authorities to take a more vigorous approach to this matter. Having said that, however, I do not wish to be too critical. This is a useful piece of delegated legislation, and it has our support.