Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has received an offer from (a) Philip Morris International, (b) Imperial Brands, (c) Japan Tobacco International and (d) British American Tobacco to tackle litter from their products following the ministerial round table held by his Department in September 2020 on that matter; and if he will bring forward legislative proposals to mandate such a scheme.

We believe that the tobacco industry must take responsibility for the litter created by its products. Since the roundtable, we understand that Keep Britain Tidy has been working with the tobacco industry to develop a non-regulatory producer responsibility scheme for smoking related litter.

We are watching this work with interest as it could provide a more rapid means of securing significant investment from the industry to tackle this litter than taking legislative action. We have been clear that any such scheme must be developed in accordance with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the FCTC guidelines and the Local Government Declaration on Tobacco Control.

If smoking related litter continues to be a significant environmental concern, we will reflect on the steps the Government can take to ensure that the tobacco industry takes more responsibility. Measures in the Environment Bill will allow us to legislate for an Extended Producer Responsibility scheme for tobacco products, if such an intervention was considered necessary.

Cigarette and tobacco product packaging will be covered by the reforms to the packaging producer responsibility scheme.