Global Plastics Treaty

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

The world produces over 460 million tonnes of plastic each year. On our current trajectory, plastic pollution is set to triple by 2040, and every year 11 million tonnes of plastic goes into our oceans.

In Devon, this picture is very obvious. According to the Marine Conservation Society’s data, an average of 103 litter items were found per 100 metres of beach in Devon. The vast majority are single-use plastics and packaging, and anyone taking the very wise decision to have a holiday in Devon this year will see from it themselves. I have seen it for myself. When I wander along the beaches of Sidmouth, Seaton and Beer, I see bottles and wrappers washing up with the tide, wedged between pebbles and entangled in seaweed. We are very fortunate to have some fantastic volunteers, with groups such as the Sidmouth Plastic Warriors, who give freely of their time to clean our beaches. On its most recent outing last month, 30 people picked up an incredible 70 bags of litter. Their work is extraordinary, but there should not be 70 bags of plastic litter on the beaches of Sidmouth.

Of course, the problem does not start on the beach. It starts in how we produce and consume plastic in the first place, but there are serious shortcomings in the UK’s recycling. We were sold a myth that if we just spent a little bit of time each week sorting our rubbish, the problem would take care of itself. However, in 2024 CleanHub reported that the UK exported 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste to countries around the world to be recycled, and these places do not have the infrastructure to recycle properly. Much of this is burned or dumped, and we have seen evidence that it is polluting other countries’ ecosystems, while we tick a box and say it has been recycled.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

On this important point about the capacity of different countries to hit certain standards, the hon. Gentleman may have reprocessors—companies that take plastic waste and repurpose it—in his constituency. An important part of this debate has to be about packaging recovery notes and packaging export recovery notes, which provide an equivalence, but waste is often taken to countries such as Turkey that have much lower standards than in this country, which is bad not only for British businesses, but for the global environment. I think the Government are working on that, and I would love to hear a bit more about that from the Minister, but what does the hon. Gentleman have to say about it?

[Richard Foord]

The hon. Member makes a very good point. The business of our standards being very different is one we should look at first. These notes plainly need to be looked at, and we will have to go about some international negotiations to try to improve standards elsewhere. The UK has high recycling standards internationally, but it is not acceptable to simply offshore the problem, which does not serve any of us well.

Not only is plastic waste a hazard to people, but it is killing seabirds, as well as hundreds of thousands of sea mammals, turtles and fish, and it is having a devastating impact on our environment more broadly.

[Deirdre Costigan]

Does the hon. Member agree that the Government’s banning of disposable plastic vapes is another way we can help reduce this plastic waste?

[Richard Foord]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. I voted in favour of that initiative when it came before us, and the banning of disposable plastic vapes was very welcome.

Too much waste still ends up in incinerators. Sometimes, what we think will be repurposed or recycled is in fact burned. The number of incinerators in the UK has risen from 38 to 52 in the last five years. This is the dirtiest form of energy production, releasing more greenhouse gases than any other method.

While my constituents may have been enjoying their ice creams at Seaton or walking the south-west coast path during the recent heatwave, these hotter summers are a stark reminder of our collective failure to tackle climate change. If we can increase the amount of plastic we reuse and create the circular economy that my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned, we can use less disposable plastic and less single-use plastic, and therefore reduce carbon emissions.

Germany is the leading recycler of municipal waste in the European Union, which is partly down to its deposit refund scheme. Recycling rates on plastic bottles have reached an outstanding 98% in Germany. I have to acknowledge that it is thanks to the measures the Government introduced in January that a deposit return scheme for plastic and metal containers will go live in the UK in 2027. This scheme, which will offer a small refund for returning bottles and cans in the UK, is a practical step towards reusing plastic.

Although national action is welcome, we need to match our own UK action with international action, and the UK can be a real leader in this space. We can press for our ambition to be matched by other countries in the global plastics treaty negotiations. We must push for legally binding targets to reduce plastic production elsewhere, not just voluntary pledges. We offshore a lot of our production—including to China, which accounts for 40% of the world’s plastic production. We know that the carbon emissions produced as a result are staggering, and we must do something about them. If the Government are serious about deepening ties with Beijing, they must also be serious about holding it to account, and that starts with applying pressure at the global plastics treaty negotiations next month.

As we know, the US President has never been a great advocate for tackling climate change or reducing plastic waste. He made that abundantly clear in his attention-seeking stunt in February, when he proudly brought back plastic straws. At the heads of delegation meeting earlier this month, the US backtracked on its previous position. It walked away from earlier commitments on control measures and financing, and came out firmly against plastic production caps. The Prime Minister has explicitly cited family values as a foundation of his strong relationship with the US President. Could the Minister urge the Prime Minister to leverage that personal connection, and ask the President to consider not just global leadership, but the world that his own family will inherit? We have to consider young people in this picture, and for that we will need serious and concrete commitments at the global plastics treaty negotiations.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech, much of which I agree with. I am sure that he, like me, visits many schools. Does he agree that when he visits them and speaks to young people, they are very, very concerned about the environment, and in particular plastic pollution? In many ways, our great hope is that their laser focus on this issue will be reflected in the policy of future generations and that plastic production is reduced.

[Richard Foord]

The hon. Gentleman is dead right. Children from Sidmouth primary school wrote to me earlier in the year, urging me to advocate for reduced plastic use and for cutting down our plastic use. I quoted them in a debate and the Minister for Nature, who is no longer in her place, summed up the debate with their words.

Let us be honest: voluntary efforts have failed. The World Wildlife Fund reports that in the past five years plastic pollution has increased by 50%, despite a 60% rise in national and voluntary initiatives. The treaty must therefore tackle the source of the problem—the production of plastic—and confront the power of the fossil fuel lobby, which is desperately trying to water down the talks. At last year’s round of negotiations, 220 fossil fuel lobbyists were present in Busan. Their goal was to protect their own profit, not the planet. We cannot allow short-term commercial interests to derail the long-term health of our oceans and communities. Plastic production is forecast to triple by 2040. If we do not act, no recycling scheme will be enough.

I will hand my last paragraph to the children at Sidmouth primary school. They want to see “deeds, not words”.