PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Plastic Bags: Fees and Charges (19 February 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much money has been raised (a) in total and (b) for (i) charitable and (ii) community causes by the charge for single-use carrier bags in each year since 21 May 2021.

Asked by:
Mr Barry Sheerman (Labour)

Since the Government introduced the charge, it has generated over £190 million for good causes and the number of single-use plastic carrier bags used in the main supermarkets has fallen by more than 7 billion, a reduction of over 98%.

A full dataset of details for each retailer on the amount of gross proceeds, VAT, total costs and net proceeds can be found on gov.uk.

Defra publishes a summary of this data which includes the amounts of money given to good causes: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carrier-bag-charge-summary-of-data-in-england.

There is no requirement in the legislation which requires retailers to donate proceeds from the charge to good causes. Only large retailers are required to keep a record of and report on the uses to which these proceeds have been put.

With regards to the request to provide a detail of how much money has been raised (a) in total and (b) for (i) charitable and (ii) community causes by the charge each year since 21 May 2021, this level of breakdown is not something that Defra holds.

Answered by:
Robbie Moore (Conservative)
26 February 2024