Last week marked the final Queen’s Speech of the current parliamentary session: the Government has set out its remaining legislative proposals before we all head to the polling stations in May 2015. Like the proverbial curate’s egg, it is good in parts, but my heart sank when I saw that Her Majesty’s Government has decided to proceed with an idea that has hitherto been mooted: the plastic bag levy.
Alas, subject to the legislation being passed by Parliament, from October 2015 there will be a compulsory levy of five pence for every carrier bag given out by shops in England, which brings the country into line with the law in Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland too is expected to follow suit later this year.
The previous Labour government had earned a reputation as one in favour of meddling and micro-managing the lives of the citizenry. I had hoped that a government composed of the Conservative party—which had done so much in the 1980s to promote economic freedom—and the Liberal Democrats—which, well, at its best could draw on its classical liberal heritage—would have sought to dispense with the sort of right-on, earnest, bien pensant Big Government do-goodery of its predecessor.
Alas, the proposals to find ever more ways to tax and regulate us to death continue to emerge: bans on using e-cigarettes in public places, bans on smoking at all in cars containing children, minimum pricing for alcohol, plain packaging for cigarettes et cetera ad naseum. These proved beyond any doubt that the health zealots were never going to give up after their 2007 success in getting the original smoking ban passed in England & Wales. But they also demonstrated a wider sense that the Government’s commitment to promoting freedom and liberty was a bit patchy.
The plastic bag levy is an assault on freedom and liberty: the freedom for shops to provide us with a complimentary lightweight waterproof container to protect our purchases. Ostensibly this is about “saving the environment” but in reality it’s another empty gesture to allow the political classes to feel good about themselves. It is true that a number of shops had taken to charging for carrier bags—WH Smith, the food department at M&S—but this was their choice to do so; if you didn’t like it, you could shop elsewhere.
The Plastic Bag Levy Bill—or whatever it gets called—in essence has the effect of nationalising the policy here: the Government has decided it knows better than the retailers and customers, all the way from Newquay to Newcastle. In the 1970s, the government made your car under the auspices of British Leyland; today, it decides you need to pay extra to take a carrier bag from a shop. Is this really progress?
It is important to note that the “free” bags were never free anyway: the cost to provide them was absorbed into the price of goods in the shop. However, it is unlikely that we will see prices lowered elsewhere to offset for the additional income received by the retailers. Perhaps they will follow the example of M&S, and promise to devote the ‘profit’ made on the bags to some doubtlessly worthy eco-cause: they get the credit, the rest of us get the bill. It’s not an especially good deal for the customer.
Lest this starts to sound like a moan, I’d like to focus on some of the impracticalities of a plastic bag levy, both for consumers and retailers:
- · What constitutes a ‘plastic bag’? Some disposable bags are made out of paper and I can’t imagine it is beyond the wit and wisdom of the manufacturers to come up with a product that falls outside any statutory definition of what is ‘leviable’.
- · What about home delivery? Many supermarkets now allow one to purchase groceries online: these are then delivered by van and usually come in plastic bags. There isn’t an immediate practical way to resolve this one, as you can’t take your own bags to an online shop, but why should online consumers be punished for this?
- · What would happen if a retailer just, you know, didn’t charge for bags? Who would find out? There are over 50 million people in England buying goods in many thousands of businesses every day: is trying to regulate these transactions to ensure compliance with a five-pence-per-bag levy really a good use of public funds?
The other point worth noting is that, for all the claims that “bags are used once and thrown away”, plastic bags serve many useful purposes when one gets home from the shops. You can use them for putting rubbish into (and indeed, you’ll need lots of them for all the different bins you have), keeping your muddy shoes in, as a makeshift waterproof, low budget suitcase…the list goes on. It seems ludicrous that we are now forced to buy something to fulfil these tasks where once the bags were given away free.
Pre-David Cameron, the Conservative party used to have as its logo “the torch of freedom”. Alas, it would appear that the torch has been put out, doubtless on some spurious eco-grounds. If the Prime Minister would like to win the next election, he will need to see off UKIP from his right flank—putting ideas like the plastic bag levy firmly in the dustbin, closing the lid and re-lighting the torch of freedom might be a good place to start.
Jonathan Galbraith is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and a member of the Conservative Party. Born and educated in southern Scotland, he now lives in Warwickshire and works in the pensions industry. He writes in a personal capacity.
Sources:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/queens-speech/10874480/5p-plastic-bag-tax-announced-in-Queens-Speech.html
