It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for his excellent speech introducing the debate. As he says, the public determination to deal with the scourge of plastic packaging is overwhelming, and MPs and the Government need to take heed of those concerns and act now.
I also thank all hon. Members who spoke and intervened, and I am delighted that there is a high level of agreement across parties on the issue. I will pick out a few points. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) said that any recycling solutions we introduce need to fit with local authority capabilities. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) mentioned that there is no point trying to prevent plastic pollution in this country if we do not manage to prevent it in other countries and in their oceans.
The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), in his substantial speech, made the strong point that we can reduce plastic packaging—that that is eminently achievable—but that we need to ensure that the correct plastics are treated in the correct way. He also made the case for a coherent national system, a case with which I very much agree. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) pointed out in his speech the importance of enabling communities to combat plastic litter. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) said that we need to recognise the difference between items for which plastic packaging is unnecessary and those for which it is a sensible solution, and the importance of ensuring that compostable plastic really is compostable.
The petition calls for an end to non-recyclable and unsustainable food packaging, and goes on to call for a 100% recycling rate. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge made the point that it is not enough to call for packaging to be recyclable—it has actually to be recycled. Virtually every form of waste could be recycled if the public were able to separate it out, the local authorities were able to collect it, the plant were there to process it, and the manufacturers were willing to use the resulting recyclate rather than cheap raw materials. Some materials are clearly far more easily recycled than others, and when materials can be and are being recycled people need to know that.