Our proposed tax on take-away packing supported in Senedd

Environment A polystyrene cup
NewsMarch 15th, 2017

The Bevan Foundation’s recommendation that there should be a tax on polystyrene takc-away packaging has received support in a National Assembly for Wales debate.

Speaking in the short debate on Municipal Waste and Recycling on 14th March 2017, Assembly Member Jeremy Miles said:

In her consideration in due course of this debate, … I would ask [the Cabinet Secretary] to consider the contents of the Bevan Foundation report in June 2016, ‘Tax for Good’, which actually makes some very interesting recommendations that are pertinent to today’s debate. It looks at the power under the Wales Act 2014 for the Assembly to propose completely new taxes in devolved areas.

Jeremy Miles described the impact of polystyrene waste on the local environment and said that although there would be challenges in introducing a tax there would also be benefits in terms of changing the whole approach to how assets are used:

This sort of tax is not without its obstacles and not without its limitations [but] there are potential opportunities that arise from this. I think it’s a reminder to us that the circular economy—yes, it’s about recycling, but it’s also about a fundamentally different set of relationships with our assets and what we deal with in daily life, beyond disposability. There are opportunities for economic development that might arise out of this as well.

Jeremy Miles concluded that he hoped that the Cabinet Secretary would give the idea careful consideration.

Find out more about our work on new, devolved taxes here.

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