Nappies

Nice – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 22 May 2007.

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Photo of Jessica Morden Jessica Morden PPS (Rt Hon Peter Hain, Secretary of State), Wales Office 2:30, 22 May 2007

What support or guidance her Department gives to maternity units to give new mothers access to reusable or biodegradable nappies.

Photo of Ivan Lewis Ivan Lewis Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health) (Care Services)

It is for individual national health service hospitals and trusts in England to determine the practicalities of promoting the use of reusable and disposable nappies in their maternity units. For the rest of the United Kingdom, that would be a matter for the devolved Administrations.

Photo of Jessica Morden Jessica Morden PPS (Rt Hon Peter Hain, Secretary of State), Wales Office

I thank the Under-Secretary for his response. Having just become a new mum, I am keenly aware of the special access that manufacturers of disposable nappies have to new mums when they are in hospital. Given nappies' contribution to landfill, will he look at ways to level the playing field, and will he at least encourage samples of biodegradable and reusable nappies to be made available in hospitals? Once people start using a product, they are more likely to continue using it.

Photo of Ivan Lewis Ivan Lewis Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health) (Care Services)

We have to be careful not to encourage too much of a nappy state. We give first-time mothers a pregnancy book and a birth to five book, both of which discuss in some detail the case for and against each kind of nappy. It has to be said that a report by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs found that, in the end, in terms of overall environmental consequences, there was very little difference between disposable and reusable nappies. I understand that the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend Andy Burnham, is happy to host a meeting with the Nappy Alliance to discuss the matter further.

A

Yes, but that LCA was flawed. Firstly the representative samples used were inordinately bias towards disposable users, with over 2,000 parents using disposable nappies surveyed, but as few as 2 people using cloth nappies were used for certain key assumptions. Also, the report did not accurately indicate how reusable nappies are used. Most parents own no more than 24 nappies and wash at 60oC. Not only that, but the report did not consider that...

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