To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, pursuant to AQW 12351/22-27, for his assessment of the Carrier Bag Levy Annual Statistics 2023/24.

Following my reply of 31st May 2024 to your AQW 12351/22-27, a further set of annual validated statistics were published on 22nd August 2024. These are the second set published since the introduction of the new legislation on 1 April 2022 (The Single Use Carrier Bags Charge (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2022), which increased the carrier bag levy charge from 5 pence to 25 pence and extended the scope to include all new carrier bags with a retail price of five pounds or less.

I welcome the success of the current Carrier Bag Levy legislation, which has seen a further reduction of 5.3 million carrier bags from circulation. I will continue to monitor the annual statistics year on year to help inform any future review of the current legislation.