Statement in response to London Assembly’s call for national bag tax

Responding to the report from the London Assembly calling for a national bag tax London Councils executive member for sustainability, Councillor Sean Brennan said:

"As the instigators of the Bill to ban the distribution of free throw away shopping bags in the capital, London Councils welcomes the Assembly's moves to further reduce plastic bags use across the country.

"We took the decision to present a Bill to Parliament last month to ban the distribution of free, throw away shopping bags in the capital following an extensive London-wide consultation.

"Council leaders believe that a ban is the most effective way of reducing plastic bag use in the capital. A levy is something only the government could implement on a national scale."

Notes to Editors

The London Local Authorities (Shopping Bag) Bill was deposited in Parliament on 27 November.

The public consultation on throw away shopping bags ran from Friday 14 September, to Friday 26 October 2007.

1,752 people took part in the online consultation, with another 100 emails and 270 letters received. An extensive list of industry, environmental and government bodies were also contacted directly to take part in the consultation.

91.5 per cent of respondents to the online consultation said that they supported London Councils proposals to introduce either a levy or an outright ban on throwaway shopping bags in the capital.

Of the proposed options, 58.2 per cent of online respondents called for an outright ban on throwaway shopping bags. The majority of respondents - 64.6 per cent - called for any action only to apply to plastic bags.www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/thebigquestion

Two leading environmental organisations, Waste Watch and We Are What We Do, have also added their support to the London Councils  proposals.

In the UK, over 13 billion bags are issued every year to shoppers - roughly 220 per person every year. For London, a conservative figure based on population size would indicate Londoners use at least 1.6 billion bags per year - although the number of tourists in the capital suggests that this figure is probably much higher.  

While some of these bags will be re-used once or twice, official figures reveal that only one in 200 of them are recycled, meaning that billions of shopping bags are sent to landfill every year. Many of these will be plastic bags that can take over 400 years to break down.

Waste Watch is a leading environmental organisation working to change the way people use the world's natural resources. Its vision is a less wasteful society, and the organisation believes everyone has a part to play in reducing waste and living more sustainably.http://www.wastewatch.org.uk/ Opens in a new window

We Are What We Do is a movement working to inspire people to use their everyday actions to change the world. It is running a nationwide campaign to reduce the use of plastic bags, and co-created the Anya Hindmarch cotton shopper to raise awareness of the issue.http://www.wearewhatwedo.org Opens in a new window 

For press enquiries please contact: holly Sutton on 020 7934 9842Holly.sutton@londoncouncils.gov.uk   Fax 020 7934 9777

For non-media enquiries contact: London Councils, 59½ Southwark Street, London SE1 0AL  Tel 020 7934 9999www.londoncouncils.gov.uk