How the parties’ packaging policies stack up

Packaging News Election Manifesto 2010

Why we are backing the manifesto

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LABOUR
Enforcing Number 10′s waste commandments
Prime Minister Gordon Brown did not make many friends in the packaging industry when, back in November 2007, he promised to push for an end to the single-use carrier bag.

The plastic bag remark led to some in the industry seeing Brown as falling into the trap of environmental tokenism; yet it does not tell the full story of Labour’s approach to packaging.

The party’s most prominent figure for the packaging sector in recent times has not been the prime minister, but Hilary Benn, the former trade unionist who became environment secretary when Brown moved into Number 10. Under Benn, Defra last year published its Packaging Strategy – which focuses primarily on packaging’s performance in the waste stream – and Wrap completed the first Courtauld Commitment and has, in recent weeks, launched the second instalment of the agreement.

Labour’s ongoing support for the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) has been a key element in its approach to packaging, drawing criticism from some quarters over the quango’s obsession with packaging as opposed to other sources of waste.

Yet whether Labour wins the election or not, the current government’s true legacy for the packaging industry is likely to be felt more keenly in the tough economic climate which many feel its policies towards the banking industry helped create – not to mention its failure to force banks into lending again following the huge bail-outs of 2008 and 2009.

CONSERVATIVES
Backing for business and culls for quangos
The Conservatives are keen to position themselves as a pro-business party and, as such, say they will create a tax system, education and national infrastructure to help British firms “out-compete others in the world, not hold them back”.

Its business policies include cutting corporation tax, removing National Insurance contributions on the first 10 people employed by new businesses and opening up government procurement to SMEs.

On the environment, the Tories feel that consumers would respond better to a carrot rather than a stick and have proposed rewarding those who recycle with a voucher worth £130 a year. They would put a floor under the landfill tax until 2020 to provide long-term certainty for investment in waste disposal facilities.

In October, Tory leader David Cameron said businesses must take the cost of waste into account and take steps to design it out of products and that a Conservative government would demand supermarkets do more to reduce packaging.

There is also the proposed culling of a number of quangos to provide greater accountability that could potentially affect bodies such as Wrap. The Tories have also said they would overhaul the labelling system for alcoholic drinks and mandate guideline daily amounts to be displayed on food packaging.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
A shift to the balance of power
Cutting public sector spending was placed top of the Liberal Democrats’ agenda by party leader Nick Clegg at the party’s conference last year.

Clegg revealed government departments would be cut from 24 to 14, a move that could save the government £314.2m a year, according to the party. Clegg told his party of plans to remerge Defra with the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Department for Transport.

The proposal follows the creation of the DECC in last October’s cabinet reshuffle. The department combines the former competences of Defra and the then department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Quangos would also be “culled” under the restructuring put forward. “Central government in Whitehall is too big, too powerful and too expensive,” Clegg told delegates. “We could save billions by scrapping entire government departments and culling quangos.”

The party leader called for the closure of 90 quangos, which along with a senior minister wage cap would save £1.2bn a year.

Under the Lib Dems’ manifesto, councils would also regain control of business rates, “reconnecting local enterprise with local politics”.

Local Enterprise Funds would help people invest in growing businesses in their area and regional stock exchanges will provide companies with a way to raise public equity without entering into the risks posed by a London listing.

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