Kingston Council has backed Government plans to ban plastic bags.

The London Local Authorities (shopping bags) Bill could give local authorities the power to ban shops from handing out plastic bags and fine those that continue to do so.

At a council meeting last week, Kingston councillors voted for the council to be included in the Bill if it was passed through Parliament.

Council leader Councillor Derek Osbourne said: "Plastic bags are one of the biggest contributors to landfill and we use billions of them, most of which are thrown away.

"We have to weigh up the commercial interests of the retailers and environmental factors - and the planet comes first.

"Local authorities don't have the powers to tax them. That would have been our preference."

He urged shops to raise the plastic bag tax as an option if they were unhappy at the proposals to ban bags, but only if they were prepared to foot the cost, or make their customers pay.

A spokeswoman for Kingston Chamber of Commerce welcomed the move to reduce plastic bags, but was worried about the financial implications a tax might have.

She said: "All too often a plastic bag is given out of habit at the till rather than of necessity to hold a large number of items.

"But most businesses would prefer anything other than a tax to enforce politics. Nothing turns people off more than being taxed to do the decent thing."