Report to the People
5th March 2007
Food Tax Gets Bagged
It’s
always a nice surprise when common sense prevails in politics (especially when
the Liberals are involved). But
that’s exactly what happened last week at Holyrood.
A
group of MSPs, led by Lib Dem MSP Mike Pringle, had for years been trying to
hike up weekly shopping bills with a new tax on plastic bags - a move which
would hit the poorest hardest and was far from guaranteed to work.
Extra pounds on the grocery bill wouldn’t deter the rich from using as
many bags as they pleased, but it could make the difference to those struggling
to make ends meet.
These
serious concerns about fairness and effectiveness were voiced, not just by me,
but by staff at Greenock’s bpi.packaging services and others.
And, thankfully, any ideas about taxing your family’s food have now
been consigned to scrap heap (or should that be the recycling centre?).
Retail
industry chiefs have agreed to take action themselves to cut the overall impact
of their carrier bags by 25% by the end of next year. To this end, they have pledged to use less plastic or
incorporate recycled content in their bags and to enable the recycling of more
carrier bags. They will also
encourage customers to use fewer bags and re-use the ones they have.
Working
with industry to a clear plan and towards an agreed outcome will, I am
confident, prove far more effective than the blunt instrument of simply imposing
financial penalties in the hope that they have the desired result.
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