My Lords, we now move on to the next part of the Bill, dealing with resource efficiency. I very much look forward not only to the coming debate on my amendments but to the debates on a number of groups in the days to come. For now, in moving Amendment 119 in my name, I add my support to the other amendments in this group.
Amendment 119 is simple but important. It adds to Schedule 4 the requirement that a new extended producer responsibility scheme should be introduced by 1 January 2024. It sounds technical, but it is a fundamental part of delivering a circular economy.
This new charging system will place a powerful onus on manufacturers to ensure that they design their products so that they can be re-used, dismantled or recycled at the end of life. It will move waste up the hierarchy and cut down on the unnecessary use of resources. It will ensure that they pay the full cost of disposal of their packaging, which will encourage them to cut down on unnecessary packaging, and it will provide additional charges for materials which cannot be recycled. It will include requirements on labelling to ensure consumers are clearly directed as to how to dispose of the item. It would also, potentially, provide additional charges on producers of materials which are routinely littered. It would indeed ensure that the polluter pays. I know these issues are very dear to the hearts of your Lordships. Incidentally, I tabled a number of Written Questions last week about the absolute scandal of Amazon destroying millions of items of unused stock simply because they did not want to pay to store them. I hope a scheme such as this would catch Amazon in its net as well.
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This could be a really exciting initiative if we get it right and introduce it in a timely way—but herein lies the problem. As it stands, Schedule 4 simply says:
“The relevant national authority may, by regulations, make provision for imposing producer responsibility obligations on specified persons in respect of specified products or materials.”
It does not say when this might happen, and we have been waiting for an initiative of this kind for far too long. I spent the weekend chasing through government documents to see what they said on a possible implementation date. A lot of fine words have been written about the Government’s ambition on extended producer responsibility, going back to the publication of the 25-year environment plan back in January 2018. Since then we have had the Resources and Waste Strategy for England, published in December 2018, and the Waste Prevention Programme for England 2021,
published earlier this year. There have also been two consultations on extended producer responsibility, one in 2019 and one earlier this year.
All this time the clock has been ticking, but no scheme has materialised. So far, nearly four years have passed. We already have a scheme for producer responsibility for packaging, which has been in place since 1997, but it is seriously out of date and, by most measures, ineffective. As I understand it, it is due to come to a natural break at the end of 2023. This is why we fixed January 2024 as the date for the new scheme to start.
I did finally find a reference to an implementation date in the latest government consultation on packaging. It says that
“we remain committed to the implementation of packaging extended producer responsibility as soon as possible and propose implementing EPR through a phased approach commencing from 2023”.
If this is the case, there should be no problem with the Government agreeing to our amendment. However, I should add that we have not yet seen the outcome of that consultation, which finishes this month—and other consultations on electronic goods, batteries and end-of-life vehicles have not even started yet. I should also acknowledge that the Minister has tabled several amendments allowing consultations that have already taken place to meet the requirement to consult in the Bill. Of course, that is a relief, but it does not give us any more guarantee that a new scheme will be operative by 1 January 2024. I should also add that, once again, we seem to be behind on these issues, with the EU’s ambitious circular economy package due to be operational by January 2023.
In conclusion, I hope that noble Lords and the Minister will understand our frustration with the ongoing delays in implementation. Our amendment is an essential precondition to cutting back packaging, reducing plastic waste, cutting back on single-use items and rationalising all the use of scarce resources that will make up a proper resource-efficient scheme. It goes hand in hand with all the other issues that have been tabled in other amendments in this group. These schemes could make a real difference to our resource-efficiency strategy and the management of waste. I hope that noble Lords will support our amendment and I beg to move.