The investigation, carried out by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), also found that some UK supermarket schemes are failing to adequately address the mounting problem of soft plastics and that a fund set up by some of the world’s largest brands to encourage UK soft plastic recycling has yet to pay out a penny.

In a briefing, published this week, the EIA notes that Mark Pawsey, MP for Rugby and Bulkington, has since 2020 had a second job outside Parliament as the £30,000-a-year chair of the Foodservice Packaging Association (FPA) lobby group.

The FPA’s position is that people, not producers, are responsible for plastic pollution, and it has been pushing to pause the implementation of UK policies currently being developed, including extended producer responsibility for packaging, which aims to ensure producers pay for the full disposal costs of the packaging they put on the market.

Pawsey is also chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG...