The Conservatives have promised to scrap the Environment Agency and abolish Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) if they win the next general election.
Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference, Shadow Environment Secretary Victoria Atkins pledged to scrap the Environment Agency and Natural England.
In comments reported by Sky News, Atkins accused the Environment Agency of ‘action, inaction and overzealous action’ and described the body as a victim of ‘mission creep’.
According to multiple reports, the Conservatives plan to bring the bodies’ necessary functions directly into the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra).
Labour has rejected the Conservative’s proposals, arguing that it is already making both bodies more effective.
In comments to the media, Labour said the Environment Agency ‘now has both the officers on the frontline and the powers to go after illegal waste criminals’.
The Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith also promised to aboblish pEPR, which was originally proposed by a Conservative Government as part of the 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy.
In his speech to the conference, the Shadow Chancellor described pEPR as ‘an administrative nightmare for businesses that puts up the price of every supermarket shop’.
A survey of retail industry leaders by the British Retail Consortium found over 80% of EPR costs are likely to be passed onto customers.
A spokesperson for the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) said that the proposals raise questions about the ‘desirability of putting costs back onto local authorities and taxpayers, and allowing environmental and professional standards to be lowered just at a time when our sector and government is addressing an epidemic of waste crime and the misery and anxiety it has caused’.
The spokesperson continued that while the proposals were ‘eye-catching’, they suspected they were put forward to ‘gain attention’ during conference season.
