Draft Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment, etc.) Regulations 2025
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
General CommitteesRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment, etc.) Regulations 2025.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I rise to speak about an issue of growing urgency: the need to ensure that those who profit from the sale of electrical products take financial responsibility for dealing with the waste that those products will eventually generate. Our planet is facing a mounting waste crisis, and electrical waste is no exception to that. It is the fastest-growing waste stream globally, and the UK is the second biggest generator of electrical waste in the world. We should just ask ourselves how many iPhones and BlackBerries we have hoarded in our drawers at home. Members are all nodding in silent agreement.
Many electricals, including those sold from the online retail and vaping industries, end up in our bins, landfilled, littering our streets and, too often, harming our natural environment. Vapes can also cause fires in our waste storage areas, which has huge costs for the recycling industry. This is simply not sustainable economically, environmentally or socially. For that reason, the Government are taking decisive action. We must not only curb the amount of waste ending up in landfill, but ensure that those who profit from the sale and supply of electricals are responsible for meeting their end-of-life costs.
The draft regulations address two key areas. I will start with vapes, e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and other similar products, which, for convenience, I will refer to simply as vapes. The Government have already banned the sale of single-use vapes, which was a vital first step in taking an environmentally harmful product off the market. They were banned from 1 June, so there should be no more Lost Marys littering the streets—it will just be me if I am ever invited to turn up and do a visit.
Our work does not end there. Rechargeable and refillable vapes will continue to be sold, and we need to ensure that their collection and treatment is properly and fairly funded. Producers of electricals, including vapes, are already required to finance the cost of their treatment when they become waste. However, today’s amazing fact is that vapes are currently classified as toys and leisure equipment, so, under the current regulations, producers of toys and other leisure goods could end up cross-subsidising the waste management cost of vapes. It is an amazing thought—because they were such a new invention, they were categorised as toys.
This simply cannot go on. The responsibility for dealing with vapes when they become waste must fall squarely on those who produce them. That is why I am so pleased to introduce the draft regulations, which will hold those producers directly accountable for the environmental impact of the vapes and similar products that they place on the UK market. When I visited Sweeep, a waste recycling processer in Kent, I saw for myself just how difficult, expensive and manually intensive it is to recycle these vapes. The costs must be shouldered by those who profit from their sale.
I will turn my attention to the second issue of the day: the sale of electricals via online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon from sellers based overseas. There is no doubt that we are now in an era of astonishing convenience. With just a few clicks on our phone, a product made on the other side of the world can be shipped to our doorstep the next day. That is the magic of online shopping. But most overseas sellers on these platforms are not meeting their financial obligations to fund the costs of dealing with their products when they become waste. That is wrong, not least because it is compliant, UK-based, often high street businesses that are picking up the costs for those overseas sellers who are freeloading under the existing regulations. That must stop.
These regs will require online marketplaces to cover the underlying costs associated with products sold by overseas sellers into the UK using their platforms. The time to act is now. Sales made through online marketplaces are skyrocketing, with electrical goods being no exception. An estimated half a million tonnes of electrical products are placed on the UK market via online marketplaces each year.
This instrument is about fairness for the UK high street. It is about supporting businesses doing the right thing, creating a regulatory level playing field, and ensuring that the right people pay their fair share of the waste management costs associated with their products. In doing so, we send a clear message: environmental responsibility is not optional; it is part of doing business in a modern circular economy.
Transitioning to a zero-waste economy is one of five priorities that my Department will deliver as part of a mission-led Government to rebuild Britain. Our circular economy strategy, coming later this year, will set out further plans to stem the rising tide of electronic waste. This Government are committed to putting the “polluter pays” principle into action; we are tackling the waste cowboys, and we are cleaning up Britain.
For those reasons, I commend the measure to the Committee.
Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Stringer. I thank the Minister for bringing these regulations to the Committee today. It is again encouraging to see that this Government have drawn upon our previous consultations to shape this statutory instrument; between December 2023 and March 2024, the previous Conservative Government held a consultation with the devolved nations on reforming the producer responsibility system for waste electricals.
I am pleased that the Minister talked about the disposable vapes ban as well, which was initiated by the previous Conservative Government. We very much welcome the fact that this Labour Government have taken that baton and taken it forward. The Minister mentioned the important environmental benefits of that legislation; there are also other significant benefits in terms of public health, specifically for our young people, who have really been targeted inappropriately around these disposable vapes. It will protect wildlife and domestic animals as well, as I have spoken about to the Minister and in the Chamber.
Turning back to the legislation we are talking about today, that previous consultation proposed creating a new category of electrical equipment for vapes, and 91% of respondents agreed with that policy change. I am pleased that these regulations will create that new category, and I hope that businesses producing electrical and electronic equipment in the toy and leisure sector—category 7 of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013—will be happy to see that this will mean that they are no longer picking up the costs for those who produce e-cigarettes, vapes and heated tobacco products. Those products are considerably more costly to collect and recycle than toys and other leisure equipment, primarily due to the materials used in their construction and the need for specialised treatment to handle nicotine and other potentially toxic substances within the equipment. This statutory instrument will ensure that the financial obligation for those costs falls fairly on the producers of those devices.
The consultation also sought views on online marketplaces, and 87% of respondents agreed on that, highlighting that large volumes of electricals are being placed on the market via online marketplaces, which the Minister mentioned, and that there needs to be a level playing field between producers that sell electricals through different channels.
I am therefore pleased to say that we, His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition, are very supportive of this instrument. It is not right that the entirety of the financial obligations falls upon producers who are properly registered under the 2013 regulations. It creates an unfair situation in which those who avoid the financial obligations are benefiting, and those who follow the rules are bearing the costs. This also has serious consequences for competition, and at a time when businesses are facing rising costs due to the Chancellor’s mismanagement of economy, it is another hammer blow to businesses. While we are offering no objections to the instrument, I hope the Minister can provide some assurances on how the relevant authorities, such as the Environment Agency in England, will ensure that online marketplaces are complying with their new obligations.
With regard to the new responsibilities on online marketplaces, the Government have confirmed that they expect there to be small contractual and familiarisation costs. Does the Minister have any concern that some online suppliers may withdraw their products from UK markets, reducing choice and availability for UK customers?
We will be supporting the regulations, and I am grateful that they were brought before the Committee.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and I thank the Minister for bringing forward these regulations. The Liberal Democrats, too, think they are a good thing, and we will be supporting the instrument. It is nice to see the scourge of abandoning vapes—both disposable and non-disposable—in the community finally being tackled. Before I continue, I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my continuing membership of Teignbridge district council.
I will ask a couple of questions. Although I would really like to see the extension of the extended producer responsibility, and the particularly important balancing of the online responsibility to bring online traders in line with high street shops, in the interests of fairness, can the Minister give me an assurance that money for the costs of the disposal of vapes will be passed on to those authorities that are doing it, such as district councils? Disposing of vapes in those areas has been of particular trouble for the local councils.
I was delighted to hear the Minister talk about environmental responsibility being a fundamental part of business. That is absolutely why I bring my private Member’s Bill forward on Friday, which looks to change the director’s duties to include balancing the interests of shareholders, employees and the environment. I would be delighted to discuss that with the Minister if it might help her in her mission. Without wishing to detain the Committee any further, the Liberal Democrats thoroughly approve of this instrument, and will be supporting it.
Mary Creagh
I will reply and set out next steps. After the regulations enter into force in 21 days—after I lay and sign them—online marketplaces not already registered with a producer compliance scheme must do so by 15 November 2025. All online marketplaces will be required to submit the methodology that they will use for determining the amount of electricals placed on the market via their platform by their overseas sellers, by 15 November—so this is with a producer compliance scheme. That is then reported up to the regulator, which is the Environment Agency.
That data submission is a new requirement, and will help us to better understand the volume of products sold into the UK by overseas sellers through online marketplaces. At the moment, it is a bit hard to say, and online marketplaces may be a little bit chary about sharing data in the interests of competition. So, I genuinely cannot say whether this is going to change behaviour. What I would say is that we are a large, vibrant market—and heavy users of online shopping—so I do not foresee an environment where this change means that overseas sellers withdraw from the market.
Online marketplaces will then be required to report this data on a quarterly basis, in line with the existing reporting obligations. That is of course subject to transitional provisions, which have been made, to reflect that the regulations enter into force partway through the year.
Online marketplaces will only be required to report this data for the period after the regulations enter into force through to December 2025, and they must do so by 31 January 2026. DEFRA will then set a national collection target for 2026 for each of the categories of electrical equipment. The regulators will then issue producer compliance schemes with a share of that target on a market share basis—we will know the exact quantum, the exact market share, and we will allocate the notes in that way. For online marketplaces, that will be based on the data they report from the date that the regulations enter into force until December 2025.
I agree with the hon. Member for Newton Abbot on the single-use vapes issue. They are pocket-money products at pocket-money prices, marketed in lipstick colours, with watermelon and strawberry flavours. These are not products aimed at people trying to give up smoking; we are very much aware of that.
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about local authorities, local authorities act as the regulator for the single-use vapes ban. They are responsible for enforcing those regulations, so if you see any on sale, Mr Stringer, in Manchester or anywhere else, you should report it to your local trading standards. We have given them £10 million of new burdens funding to recruit and train up an entire new generation of trading standards officers—a service that was hollowed out under the previous Government. That was very much welcomed by the national Chartered Trading Standards Institute, which I met last month. These are serious jobs—often, such vapes are sold under the counter, and there is other illicit activity happening that means that these officers often have to work with local police forces to do the job. I thank them for their enforcement role.
On the enforcement of the new regs, the WEEE regulations are enforced by the Environment Agency and its equivalents in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They will need to ensure that online marketplaces are registering with a producer compliance scheme in the UK, and that they are submitting data on the amount of electricals placed on the market via their platform by overseas sellers. Producers of vapes and other similar products will need to submit data on the amount of each product that they are placing on the market to the Environment Agency in the new category 7.1.
Finally, on the Friday Private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Newton Abbot, we do of course have the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, which I am sure he is aware of. Under the previous Government, that sort of incorporated the work of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures; but last week, at London Climate Action Week, we saw a recognition of UK leadership in this space in terms of bringing climate and nature on to the books of companies. The days of the old linear “make-take-use-destroy-restore”—regret it and restore it—are over. We have to get to a much more resilient circular economy where we make things that last and that we are proud to own, proud to keep and proud to pass on, and where we have resilient supply chains in an ever more turbulent world.
I hope that the draft regulations meet with the Committee’s approval.
Question put and agreed to.