LONDON: Prime Minister Theresa May has delivered a landmark speech on the environment in which she laid out the government’s 25-year plan for reducing waste and tackling climate change.

The Prime Minister pledged to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042, alongside a range of other measures, but environmental groups said the plan lacks “urgency, detail and bite”.

Also included in the Government’s strategy are a £7bn fund for “plastics innovation” and plans to encourage supermarkets to set up plastic-free aisles.

Elsewhere, Boris Johnson will use a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to raise the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The British mother has been imprisoned in Iran since April 2016.

And new analysis commissioned by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, showed a no deal Brexit could cost the UK economy up to £50bn.

Surreal scenes in the Commons chamber earlier this afternoon, as the normally procedural questions to the Leader of the House descended (or, depending on your musical tastes, was elevated) into a discussion on 80s pop group Bananarama.

 It all began when Valerie Vaz, Labour’s Shadow Leader of the House, joked about Theresa May’s Cabinet reshuffle earlier this week.

She said: “I’m not sure if Bananarama was on the playlist of the Prime Minister but I don’t know if you recall the song ‘It Ain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It’ — and that’s what gets results.

“But with the reshuffle it was the same old, same old, same old people, new titles, all of the responsibilities were already in their departmental portfolios.

“”It seems men can say no and the PM goes, ‘Oh, all right then’, but when a woman says no she is sacked.”

In response, Conservative whip Paul Maynard, who was standing in for Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, replied: “As a child of the 80s, I have very fond memories of Bananarama and their many hits.

“But maybe she might recall their Comic Relief guise Lananeeneenoonoo [a spoof band], because that was much more, I think, the tone of what she had to say with her comment on the reshuffle.”

SNP MP Pete Wishart then said he was pleased Ms Leadsom had kept her job during the reshuffle, adding: “In the words of Bananarama, it’s not been a Cruel Summer but pretty much a cruel winter.”