Why won’t Defra release Deposit Return Scheme consultation details?
The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has ‘ignored’ own advice and refused to reveal costs, according to critics.
Conducted in 2019 and then 2021, two separate consultations on the introduction of a national Deposit Return Scheme both pointed to strong support for the inclusion of glass, plastic and metal. Despite Defra’s agreement on this, Whitehall has pushed for the exclusion of glass in all parts of the UK.
Now a request for details on the amount paid to conduct the consultations has also fallen on deaf ears. Nature 30, a huge new coalition lobbying for reforms to make environmental protection efforts in Britain more effective and comprehensive, made the demand due to a perceived failure to take note of the consultation findings.
The group, made up of more than 80 charities, has asked to see total financial cost and hours spent by Defra staff on the whole process – which has now been described as a ‘wasted’ opportunity – until the publication of a report on 20th January 2023.
According to a Government statement, Defra ‘does not account either for staff time or the cost of staff time spent on specific tasks’. Meanwhile, the organisation itself has said it has ‘no knowledge of the information requested.’ As such, it has not conducted a public interest test.
‘Not only is the government ignoring the environmental and social cost of failing to implement its declared aim of “making the polluter pay”, but it is not even keeping track of the cost of its own policies. The government’s management of the entire issue has been a shambles. In this, as so much else, we have a government that acts at governing, but fails to deliver any effective action,’ said Baroness Natalie Bennett, former leader of the Green Party.
‘As collectively we bulldoze through the limits of this one fragile planet, the Government needs to be held to account for its failures – and questions asked about the role of industry influence in its decision making. A few are profiting while the rest of us pay with collapsing Earth systems,’ she continued.
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Image: Meizhi Lang