Devolution saves 6 billion plastic bags

At first, the UK Government – for these purposes the Government of England – was a bag tax sceptic. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and its expert advisers pointed to evidence to show that the life cycle benefits of reducing plastic bag use were ambiguous, and ministers did not want to waste political capital on something they thought would be unpopular. But now the 5p charge, introduced last October, is being hailed as an environmental boon – reducing bag use by 80% and saving plastic, according to Defra, weighing the equivalent of three million pelicans. But the route to this policy change is like a road trip around the British Isles. Irish initiative The plastic bag tax attained ‘totemic’ status for governments aiming to show they cared about our wasteful use of resources and that they were keen to reduce the impact of plastic on marine life. The pioneer was the Republic of Ireland, which introduced an 11 cent charge in 2002 and saw a dramatic cut in plastic bag use. Baton passed around Wales then followed Ireland (skirting around rules that did not allow it to introduce new taxes under its devolution settlement) and introduced a 5p charge in 2011. The civil servants who implemented the levy wrote it up as a case study for their fellow civil servants. Northern Ireland followed in 2013, Scotland introduced a similar charge in 2014, and finally England followed a year later. England gets there – in the end This policy transmission route – from Ireland taking the initiative, to the devolved administrations picking up the idea, and ultimately England being unable to sustain the case for inaction – is not unprecedented. We saw something very similar with another policy we all take for granted: the ban on smoking in public places. Again, the Government was forced to move in England after the case became unanswerable with bans elsewhere in the UK. Last year we also saw the then-Chancellor, George Osborne, following a Scottish lead in restructuring stamp duty on property. Devolved experience as practical policy evidence Both these changes are interesting examples of what, in a report the IfG produced earlier in the year with the Alliance for Useful Evidence called Devolution as a Policy Laboratory. One jurisdiction goes first, the policy works both practically and politically, and then migrates around the other administrations. This sort of policy transfer also sheds light on the sort of evidence ministers want to see before embarking on a policy change. First, they want to know that a policy is implementable – that it is not too burdensome and that there is a reasonable level of compliance. Being able to see how another similar jurisdiction has managed this can be a powerful persuader. In the case of carrier bag charges, there were questions about the impact on retailers; in the case of the smoking ban there were originally concerns on enforcement. The second area ministers seek reassurance is on the political acceptability of a change that they feel may be seen as ‘nannying’. The high level of political consent for both policies in the early adopters such as Ireland, and the feeling that England was a laggard, were both powerful motivators for change. And the third thing ministers will look for is evidence that the change had its desired effect without too many unintended consequences. That is why it is important that the impact of these changes is properly measured and (where possible) evaluated. It is not always possible to guarantee that if it works in one place, it will work in another – cultures, political systems and consumer behaviour all differ. And the devolved administrations have been reluctant to follow the UK Government lead on arguably more important areas of public sector reform, where it has been more innovative. But the opportunity to see policies working in other parts of the UK (and Ireland) offers a high degree of assurance to cautious ministers – which is why, as devolution develops, we may see more examples of policy innovation leading to policy transfer.