Tesco CEO: We don't profit from 5p bag charge

The plastic bag charge was introduced in England just over a year ago, but what has the impact been?

With major supermarkets charging customers 5p to take a bag home, has there been any profit for them?

Dave Lewis, Tesco CEO, says: "Since we put in the bag levy, plastic bags have declined by nearly 75% - that's 1.5 billion plastic bags fewer."

He added: "We've invested £25 million of that, from the bags we do sell, back into local community projects and we execute that through the Groundworks Project which is what the government set up so that these investments would be in the local community."

Lewis said: "Tesco does not profit from the bag levy, we administer the money we put in the local community through Groundworks in the way that the government intended the scheme to be."

The plastic bag charge was introduced on 5 October 2015 and the main aim was to reduce the amount of litter and waste being created.

The charge had previously had a positive impact in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

There are strict regulations as to when shops are allowed to charge for bags.

Policy says that small and medium-sized businesses will be exempt from the new 5p charges. This was done to reduce any impact on small and growing businesses.

Similarly shops with fewer than 250 full-time employees don't have to charge.