Welsh Labour’s Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing today welcomed the announcement in the Chancellor’s Budget Speech that the UK Government will use powers to put a levy on single use carrier bags if retailers don’t take enough action themselves.

Jane Davidson said: “I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to take strong action to encourage retailers to stop using single-use carrier bags.

“I have been concerned about the impact of free plastic carrier bags for some time and when I became Environment Minister in June last year I said I wanted to see them banned,” she added.

“Bags are used for a matter of minutes to carry our shopping and then sit for thousands of years in landfill sites, or blight our landscape, or cause harm and death to wildlife.

“Wherever carrier bags end up after they are discarded they cause misery and harm.

“It is time supermarkets took responsibility for the environmental impact of carrier bags.”

The Chancellor Alistair Darling said that the UK Government has already called on retailers to take voluntary action to encourage a shift away from single-use carrier bags.

He said that the Government was committed to taking strong action and if retailers did not make sufficient progress on a voluntary basis by the end of the year, it would legislate using the Climate Change Bill to exercise powers early in 2009 to impose a charge on these bags.

“I welcomed the recent move by Marks and Spencer to charge food shoppers 5p for its food carrier bags as a bold, brave and the right decision. It was a step in the right direction but more needs to be done by other retailers,” added Ms Davidson.

One of Ms Davidson’s first actions in June was to use new legislation to pave the way to look at legally banning free plastic bags in Wales.
This followed a move in February 2007 when the Assembly Government signed up to a voluntary code with the retail industry.

Ms Davidson added: “The voluntary code which we and the other UK administrations signed up to was just the start and I have been keeping a close eye on development since then.

“As Minister with responsibility for waste and the environment I laid a proposed draft Legislative Competence Order (LCO) on Environmental Protection and Waste Management before the National Assembly for Wales in June last year to have new law making powers in Wales to take this forward.

“This was only the second LCO proposed by the Assembly Government after the introduction of the recent Government of Wales Act 2006, which reflects how important this issue is.”