"We will think about how we can make sure that the current way in which coffee cups, which in many respects can't be effectively recycled and are an integral part of our throwaway-takeaway culture - what we can do in order to deal with it.

"It's already the case that we have introduced a very successful charge, which is the 5p charge on plastic bags. The critical thing is that when a recommendation like this is made, we need to make sure that it will work. We need to test the policy."