Source · Select Committees · Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 15
15
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 72
However, there is a risk that PPT, as currently designed, will not deliver against its...
Recommendation
However, there is a risk that PPT, as currently designed, will not deliver against its intended objectives. A flat 30% recycled content requirement may well prove too easy for some sectors to achieve while acting as an unavoidable financial penalty in sectors with no viable alternatives, encouraging producers to swap to more environmentally damaging options. We recommend that the Plastic Packaging Tax (PPT) should be modulated with different, stretching targets tailored to different sectors and including partial exemptions for recycled content levels below the level at which a full exemption is granted, but above 10%. The Government should also set out a timetable for increasing the percentage of recycled material needed to attract total exemption from the tax to further stimulate demand for recycled plastics. The first such increase should come into force by 2025.
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledges the recommendation to modulate the Plastic Packaging Tax, stating that the pEPR Scheme Administrator will prepare a statement on modulating fees and seek business views, but rejects hypothecating fees towards research.
Paragraph Reference:
72
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The government has laid the first regulation required to obligate producers to collate and report their packaging data for 2023. This will allow the pEPR Scheme Administrator to calculate producer fees and payments to local authorities in financial year 2024/2025. There will be a requirement in regulations for the pEPR Scheme Administrator to prepare and issue a statement of its policy with respect to varying (modulating) the fees to be charged to producers and to seek the views of businesses on its proposals. The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation to hypothecate fees towards research. Producer fees will pay for the collection and management of packaging waste produced by households and disposed of in street bins provided by local authorities. Indeed, the provisions in the Environment Act 2021 provide for regulations to be made requiring those involved in manufacturing, processing distributing or supplying products or materials to meet, or to contribute to, the disposal costs of these products or materials, meaning that the costs paid by producers cannot be hypothecated to fund research. pEPR is in most part a cost transfer. It will transfer the costs of dealing with packaging waste generated by households from taxpayers to the packaging producers, applying the ‘polluter-pays principle’. It will also support the costs of introducing new and improved services for the collection and management of packaging waste such as the collection of recyclable plastic films and flexible packaging for recycling.