§ Mr. BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) pursuant to the report by the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs on Reducing the Environmental Impact of Consumer Products (HC 149), what further regulatory measures he intends to take in respect of on-pack claims about the environmental impact of products; [100040]
(2) what assessment he has made of the conclusions of the report by the National Consumer Council entitled, The Green Claims Code: Is it Working? (reference PD53/B2/99). [100039]
§ Dr. HowellsIn the White Paper "Modern Markets: Confident Consumers" (Cm4410) published in July we said that we would explore the extent to which the Director General of Fair Trading's powers under the Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations could be used more effectively to combat misleading on-pack environmental claims. My Department and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions are doing this with the trading standards service and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). OFT is currently investigating a range of claims with a view to taking appropriate action and is using, among other sources of information, the results of the NCC shopping survey.
I was encouraged to note that the NCC report recognises that there have already been improvements in a number of sectors in the short period between 149W publication of the Green Claims Code and the NCC's research and I understand that the OFT's initial work has revealed that there has been some further improvement since.