To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs what steps his Department is taking to move towards the elimination of the use of plastic carrier bags.

My Department has and continues to adopt a systematic approach to tackling the causes of plastic waste and one of our major interventions has been through the Carrier Bag Levy. Having one of the most extensive levies in the UK, we have already removed in excess of 1.5 billion bags from circulation since introduction in 2013.

Our recently published bag usage annual statistics for 2019/20 outlined that there was a reduction of 13.9% bags from the previous year across NI marking the seventh year of downward usage trends. While these trends are most welcome I have asked officials to carry out work to analyse whether any changes to the existing levy are now necessary.

I am aware how the high levels of plastic waste in our environment is a global and often complex issue and I support the Executive’s way forward, as outlined in the ‘New Decade, New Approach’ document which included the commitment to create a plan to eliminate plastic pollution across NI. My Department will shortly issue a single use plastic reduction action plan providing guidance and instruction on the removal of Single Use Plastics across the NI Executive estate.

I have most recently enrolled my Department in the trailblazing UK wide Plastics Pact which seeks to meet four key targets by 2025 to address the problems of plastic waste and also we continue to collaborate with the other devolved administrations in the reform of the UK-wide packaging system to deliver greater collection and recycling of plastic waste.