Westminster Aroggance screws up Bag Tax in England

On of the great advantages of Devolution is that Wales.Scotland, Northern Ireland and England can learn from  each other, and when one puts forward legislation,  look at and it they wish adopt it and learn from any mistakes.

Welsha Carrier tax is Working

Since Wales introduced a charge on plastic bags it has largely been as a success so it is no surprise  that Northern Ireland and soon Scotland have fallen suit. The scheme to make people pay for their carrier bags has already worked in Wales where the number handed out has dropped by three quarters, while Northern Ireland has seen a reduction of 80%.

But since England has neither its own parliament or assembly it is left to Westminster MPs to introduce this policy and it looks like they made a mess of it.
 Which has led  to a group of MPs has described the Government plan to introduce a 5p charge for plastic bags In England as a "complete mess".

But it lloks like its going to be a mess in Englan

The Coalition hopes that introducing a levy on carrier bags next year will reduce the number of people using them, helping prevent littering and damage to the environment in the process as it has  here

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But the scheme will apply only to major supermarkets and retailers while paper or bio-degradable bags will be exempt from the charge.
The Environmental Audit Committee says making exceptions will cause confusion among shoppers.

So it seems that Westminster may have possibly  cocked  up legislation for such a charge because they could not bring themselves simply to simply admit that they only needed to copy the Welsh assemblies legislation.

Devolution means adopting legislation to your needs but it does not mean doing things differently for the sake of it.

If I was the Minister in charge of this I'd pop down to the bay and look at how we did this and copy it almost in its entirety.

But maybe and English parliament  may have done things better being more inclined to admit that the others devolved countries have got it right.