My Lords, this is a powerful suite of amendments to tackle waste and our throw-away culture. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said, the Government have had some success in tackling the low-hanging fruit—issues such as cotton buds containing plastics—but, somehow, sachets did not quite get included in the early initiatives. Clearly, with Covid, some uses of single-use sachets are helpful, but, in other instances, such as beauty products, it is really time for them to be banned.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, made a very compelling case for more duties on companies to ensure that there is mandatory reporting of plastic packaging. In the past, this Government have trusted too much in companies and gone down the route of voluntary schemes. Now is the time to encourage more mandatory reporting of companies in this critical area.
Of course, we are not just talking about plastics here. I was pleased to co-sign Amendment 139, in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, which will encourage charges for all single-use items. He very powerfully made the case that a number of these alternatives are equally environmentally reckless and certainly will not cut our global greenhouse gas emissions, so we have to not only tackle single-use plastics but look at the alternatives that might be proposed.
My noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville has done an absolutely sterling job tonight of raising a number of key issues and, in this group, lucidly reflecting on the issues around the importance of compostables, which can make a real contribution to moving towards more sustainable packaging alternatives. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, rightly said, the public need more education about compostables, and we need more local authorities to be collecting compostable films, because not all of them can be composted in back gardens—and indeed many households do not have back gardens, so they could not use compost bins even if they wanted to.
On behalf of the Lib Dems, I say that we absolutely support the Government’s plastic tax initiative, which is very welcome, although it clearly needs to avoid perverse penalties that would curtail the options for compostable films and incentivise their development for the future.
It was interesting to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said about polystyrenes, which is clearly an area that needs a lot of attention. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, I think that this is a complex issue, and, in the long term, we need to look at how they can be used less in construction. However, now we absolutely need to support alternatives, because these exist for food packaging. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, clearly made the case that this has been happening in a number of places around the world already. We need to get on to this and address the issue of stopping polystyrene being used in food packaging.
Like other Members, I attest to the fact that there is support on all Benches for more support and action by the Government to tackle waste. As we move towards the end of the evening, I hope that the Minister might be able to respond positively at last to some of these amendments.