Global Plastic Pollution Treaty

Baroness Alexander of Cleveden Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Alexander of Cleveden]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how they are supporting progress on the global plastic pollution treaty.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the UK is a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution and a strong proponent for an ambitious global treaty. At the negotiations in August, the UK worked closely with our partners to push for strong global measures, effective measures of implementation and the ability for the treaty to develop over time. We are therefore very disappointed that no agreement was reached, but the UK remains committed to reaching an agreement when negotiations resume.

[Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for her Answer. As she says, in light of the rejection of any limits on plastic production by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the United States at the recent intergovernmental negotiating committee, will the Government, along with other high-ambition countries, consider moving from the current consensus decision-making process to one on a voting basis at the intergovernmental negotiating committee to accelerate progress? Finally, given that the UK itself has one of the highest plastic waste levels per person globally, including UK households throwing away 60 items per week, when will the Government bring forward their promised regulations to restrict the export of plastic waste from the UK?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

On the first part of the question, the INC has been adjourned; it will be resumed at a later date, at a time to be agreed. We remain steadfast in our commitment. We think that it is important to work with all countries if we are to make the kind of progress that we need in order to make a real difference. So, although no agreement was reached in Geneva, and neither of the two treaty texts put forward by the chair was accepted as a starting point, progress was made on other areas of the treaty. It is important to point out that this was not a complete waste of time. For example, the work the UK co-led with Chile and Panama to progress articles on product design and releases of plastic production in the environment resulted in a much better understanding of country positions and progress towards a landing zone. So we will keep all options under review, but we will continue to work towards a treaty that has broad support, because we want to have absolute maximum impact. Regarding the domestic policy that my noble friend mentioned, we are very keen to work and drive towards a more circular economy. We want to recycle more plastic waste, and we also need to ensure that it is recycled in the most effective and appropriate manner. So all these things are being considered under our circular economy policy.