I am sure that one would not want a bishop to put himself forward as a paragon of virtue, but I have in my hand a bag that I have used for the last 20 years, which my Danish mother-in-law bought in Copenhagen. It is a shopping bag, and I walk around your Lordships’ House with it. There it is. I have two of them, which I treat as one might treat one’s pet cat or dog.
I welcome the order and hope that cathedral shops, which do not employ anything like 250 people, and other such places involved in the life of the church, will join the spirit of the change, make the charge and not just pocket the benefits for their own charitable purposes.
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Will the exemptions in this order parallel exemptions that apply in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland? If
not, why are some greater than others? It would be helpful to have that information and the logic of that. Also, the figure of 250 seems quite high. How easily would the Government be open to a reduction in that figure? Indeed, what is the equivalent figure in the other parts of the United Kingdom? Are other materials used in packaging single-use? Lots of vegetables are presented in plastic packaging that is essentially single-use. As I look around the roadsides at this time of year, when you especially see all the plastic debris before spring comes, the litter is by no means only single-use plastic bags from supermarkets.
My final question relates to the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay. If a plastic bag biodegrades, what does it biodegrade into? I had a misspent youth as a chemist and my guess is that the bag biodegrades into carbon dioxide, inasmuch as there is carbon in the plastic. Other people here will probably have greater scientific skills than me, but that is what happens. When plastic biodegrades, the carbon in the plastic becomes carbon dioxide—as I understand it and unless I can be corrected. Why make this order under the Climate Change Act and provide an exemption for biodegradable bags when they biodegrade into carbon dioxide? That is, if I have got my primitive chemistry correct, some decades on from when I last practised. I want to welcome this but some broader questions should be asked around the order.
4.15 pm