Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has created a final programme-wide business case for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), the Consistent Collections Project, and the Deposit Return Scheme for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This is in progress. The Collection and Packaging Reforms Programme Business Case (PBC) is being prepared for Defra Investment Committee consideration early in the new year.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish proposals for refill/reuse obligations as part of the Government’s waste and resource strategy.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging, as part of the Collection and Packaging reforms, will move the full cost of dealing with packaging waste generated by households from local taxpayers and councils to businesses that handle and use packaging (applying the ‘polluter-pays principle’). This will encourage businesses to think carefully about how much packaging they use and how easy it is to recycle. It will also encourage use of refillable and reusable packaging which will have a great role to play in driving down unnecessary waste.
We are working with WRAP to identify and analyse measures that could be used to encourage greater use of refillable and reuseable packaging. We remain committed to introducing refill/reuse obligations and will bring forward our proposals shortly.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will publish detailed delivery plans for (a) Extended Producer Responsibility, (b) Consistent Collections, and (c) the Deposit Return Scheme.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
An updated, outward facing roadmap for these reforms will be shared with impacted stakeholders early next year. This sits alongside a comprehensive stakeholder communications and engagement approach which includes monthly delivery forums and a fortnightly newsletter to ensure access to detailed delivery information.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has taken recent steps to identify measures that could be used to encourage greater use of (a) refillable and (b) reusable packaging.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are working with WRAP to identify and analyse measures that could be used to encourage greater use of refillable and reuseable packaging. We remain committed to introducing refill/reuse obligations and will bring forward our proposals shortly.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will undertake an impact assessment of the cumulative impact of extended producer responsibility, the Deposit Return Scheme, and the Packaging Recovery Note system on the brewing and hospitality sector.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Final Impact Assessments will be published for the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) to allow us to update the analysis to accurately reflect the January 2023 government response, and for extended producer responsibility for packaging (pEPR). These impact assessments will assess the impact on businesses which includes these sectors.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) agriculture and (b) horticulture businesses have access to adequate water for food production.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to strong domestic food production and the Plan for Water sets out the actions we are taking to secure water supplies, including for the agriculture and horticulture sectors. The Government and the Environment Agency are working with the sectors to help them improve the resilience of water supplies for the future.
The package of support includes improvements to water resources planning and investment in infrastructure, for example by aiming to increase the amount of water stored by the agriculture and horticulture sectors to support food production and protect the water environment. This includes £20 million of grants to help farmers with the costs of building on-farm water reservoirs and irrigation equipment, through two rounds of the Water Management Grant under the Farming Investment Fund.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department plans to take to support investment in water capture and storage infrastructure on farms after 2025.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government’s support for water capture via the Water Management Grant will continue to deliver investment in this vitally important policy area into and through 2025. We continue to evaluate delivery of the current scheme and will use this to help shape future grants offer.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure that abstraction licence holders are given adequate time to adapt when their licences are (a) modified and (b) revoked.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency makes changes to abstraction licences to achieve environmentally sustainable levels of abstraction to meet its legal duties and the Government’s environmental ambitions. If a change to an abstraction licence is required to make it environmentally sustainable, the Environment Agency recognises that abstractors need time to adapt to this change. Accordingly, the Environment Agency writes to abstractors to warn them that their licences may need to change in the future with further detail to follow once it has completed its review of the licences. Additionally, the Environment Agency has said it will give abstractors time to adapt to any licence changes on a case-by-case basis depending on the environmental risks.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of retail outlet disposal points for vapes.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations require retailers of vapes (and other electrical and electronic equipment) to provide take-back systems for their customers. We have committed to consult on reviewing the existing WEEE regulations in 2023 to strengthen the obligations placed on retailers (and producers) to make it easier and more convenient for householders to dispose of their unwanted equipment, including vapes.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department is taking steps to ensure manufacturers of vapes help fund their disposal.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations require the producers of electrical and electronic equipment (including vapes) to take financial responsibility for the collection, and proper treatment the products that they place on the market when those products become waste at household waste recycling centres or are returned to retailers.
We have committed to consult on reviewing the existing WEEE regulations in 2023 to strengthen the obligations placed on producers and retailers to make it easier and more convenient for householders to dispose of their unwanted equipment, including vapes. In so doing we will make sure that the treatment costs that rise from waste vapes fall squarely on those who manufacture or import them.