Minister’s dig at Gove over plans to ban plastic straws

LIZ Truss last night risked a Cabinet rift after she appeared to criticise government plans to ban plastic straws.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove unveiled the proposals earlier this year as part of efforts to protect the ocean.

But last night Miss Truss, who is Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said it was not the job of ministers to tell the public how they should run their lives.

In a speech at the London School of Economics, she called for the Government to use Brexit to cut ‘unnecessary red tape restricting business and consumer freedom wherever we can’.

She also appeared to take a dig at Mr Gove over his proposed plastic straws ban and crackdown on wood-burners. Miss Truss said: ‘Many of the rules that we have in place are important in guaranteeing public safety.

‘But it’s hard to shake the feeling that sometimes they just get in the way of consumer’s choices and lifestyles.

‘And the Government’s role should not be to tell us what our tastes should be.

‘Too often we’re hearing about not drinking too much, eating too many doughnuts, drinking from disposable cups through plastic straws, or enjoying the warm glow of our wood-burning Goves… I mean stoves.

‘I can see their point: there’s enough hot air and smoke at the Environment Department already.

‘A guy in my constituency, who brought in £10,000 a year to Mundford FC by setting up advertising hoardings around the ground, had to take them down, after one person complained. If Frances McDormand can put up three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, why can’t we do the same outside King’s Lynn, Norfolk?’