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Lib Dem conference backs UK carrier bag tax

By Anthony Clark
Posted 25 September 2012

The Liberal Democrats have voted in favour of a plastic bag tax at their annual conference in Brighton. The proposed level of the levy is 10p per carrier bag.

The conference session that debated the tax was chaired by Councillor Justine McGuinness who said: "When you go to southern Ireland, where they have a plastic bag tax levy, you don't see plastic bags floating around in hedgerows and you don't see people just using them once because, of course, there is plastic bag levy. It has changed people's behaviour.

"For me that is a sign of a very good policy indeed. In fact, seeing what has happened in southern Ireland has helped changed my own behaviour so I would urge you to support this motion because it is a policy that will effect change."

Party officials claim that chancellor George Osborne is against the move although a Treasury spokesman claimed that this isn’t the case.


Comment on this article.

Comments:

I just have to make a further comment regarding councillor Justine McGuinness' reported comment "When you go to southern Ireland, where they have a plastic bag tax levy, you don't see plastic bags floating around in hedgerows and you don't see people just using them once because, of course, there is plastic bag levy. It has changed people's behaviour." Are you sure this is the root cause, or is the real reason more to do with population? There are only 4.6 million in Southern Ireland, whereas there is a population of 53 million in the UK, with 8.17 million in London alone. I live in a rural area of England and you rarely see any carrier bags here either even though we don't have a bag tax. So it really comes down to the old saying about statistics being the worst type of lie; but then what else would you expect from a politician.

- 27 September 2012 - Chris Wheeler

This tax is a very bad idea. Single use bags are completely sustainable and there is no need for then to contributor to rubbish problems when they are correctly disposed of, so rather than politicians just taking the lazy option of taxation, they should allow supermarkets who distribute the majority of these bags to come up with better recycling schemes, such as only charging for bags when an unusable one isn't returned, a little like the Bag for Life scheme already in place for the heavier weight reusable bags.

- 26 September 2012 - Chris Wheeler

This tax is a great idea. Single use bags are completely unsustainable and a huge contributor to rubbish problems. No reason at all why people can't take a shopping bag out with them, we've all just got lazy.

- 25 September 2012 - Nick P

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