Lobbying for the UK EPR delay: A needed deferral and an opportunity for Labour?

The UK’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) decision to delay the plastic packaging tax under the extended producer responsibility (EPR) by a year was taken under lobbying pressure from food industry bodies, according to meeting notes obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request. 

EPR was originally planned for implementation this month, but in July, the government announced it would not come into force until October 2025. The scheme will mean businesses must pay fees on plastic packaging data that is currently being collected. 

The meeting notes, which were obtained by Democracy for Sale and Observer, show that the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), British Retail Consortium and Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment met with Defra and urged a delay. 

FDF’s director of Corporate Affairs, Jim Bligh, tells Packaging Insights the delays were needed as there were no model costs established, no register of producers eligible to pay fees and no scheme administrator. “There was also no integration for invoices or to incur costs. Rolling EPR out would have meant it was not operable or deliverable,” he explains. 

But environmentalists at Greenpeace say the decision shows that Defra chose to ignore 

“NGO experts” and that the damage caused by continued plastic pollution outweighs administrative concerns surrounding the scheme’s implementation. 

EPR will be introduced in the UK in October 2025.Rudy Schulkind, political campaigner at Greenpeace UK, says: “This active embrace of industry and decision to freeze out of expert NGO voices shows not only their disregard for the plastic crisis but their apparent corporate capture on an issue the public care deeply about. This is not how good, democratic policy should be made.”

Insufficient circumstances 

An FDF spokesperson says lobbying for a delay was a sign of the industry’s sense of responsibility in creating a long-term sustainability plan. 

“Food and drink manufacturers take their sustainability commitments incredibly seriously. We have been working with the government for years to attempt to roll out a transformational EPR scheme that would truly deliver a circular economy in the UK and improve Britain’s flatlining recycling rates,” they say. 

“As part of this, producers and the FDF have spoken to a number of stakeholders, including NGOs, to discuss what a best practice scheme would look like, which pushes up recycling rates and doesn’t risk pushing up food prices.”

“We know from our role in delivering EPR schemes around the world that producers need to be at the heart of operating and driving a world-leading recycling system, and we are pleased that Defra is now ready to work with industry to make this happen, using schemes in Europe and around the world as models to replicate here.”

New political opportunity

Schulkind emphasizes that the EPR delay should be seen as a failure of the previous UK government and as an opportunity for Labour ministers to make needed changes. 

“The previous Tory government oversaw a broken waste system held together by vast amounts of dirty incineration and waste dumping abroad. Their policymaking was defined by dither, delay and failure,” he says. 

Schulkind says the EPR delay opens up a real test for this “fledgling” Labour government. “The cost of the EPR to industry is nothing compared to the cost of the plastic pollution crisis to our planet and to communities here in the UK and across the globe. They need to show their mettle and stare down the lobbyists.” 

“Otherwise they risk repeating the failure of the last government. The UK government is meant to be taking a world-leading position at the final round of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations this autumn.” 

“If they buckle under industry pressure on these modest domestic reforms, it will leave serious questions about their ability to face down the fossil fuel lobbyists pushing back hard against a strong treaty.”