Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to develop a strategy for (a) preventing and (b) responding to wildfires.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Prime Minister announced in February 2025 that the Home Office’s fire functions would move to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) from the 1 April 2025 under a machinery of government (MOG) change. This included its responsibilities as lead government department for wildfire.
In the Third National Adaptation Plan (2023) the previous government committed to scoping a wildfire strategy and action plan. Prior to the MOG the Home Office convened a number of stakeholder workshops with the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra), its’ agencies, and other stakeholders to identify policy options for addressing wildfire risk. The outcomes of this work are currently being considered.
Since 2024 the government has funded a National Resilience Wildfire Advisor to assess what additional national capabilities might be needed in the fire sector to increase resilience to wildfire risk. In addition to ensuring the effective coordination of approaches across the sector, MHCLG has also been working with other departments, stakeholders and partners to identify further research opportunities to enhance our understanding of wildfire risk.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
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 will introduce statutory guidance for the implementation of Simpler Recycling.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have published non-statutory guidance to assist local authorities, other waste collectors and workplaces implement the Simpler Recycling requirements. This includes guidance on:
We welcome stakeholder feedback, and we are working with our networks of local authority and waste collector stakeholders to identify and develop additional guidance where appropriate.
We are also working collaboratively with sector experts, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), to provide further tools and guidance to support the implementation of Simpler Recycling.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
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 considered introducing (a) performance standards and (b) other mandatory requirements for material recovery facilities to sort materials collected at kerbside under the Simpler Recycling in England policy.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is working with WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) and waste industry representatives to support MRF (Material Recovery Facility) readiness for the Simpler Recycling requirements.
We have engaged with MRF operators and local authorities through WRAP’s MRF Forum to identify challenges with MRF capacity, investment, upgrade timelines, and to work with the sector to identify interventions to support MRFs as they prepare for Simpler Recycling.
The MRF operators who are engaged with us are aware of their obligations and are working hard to upgrade their facilities to ensure they can separate the target materials as required by Simpler Recycling.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
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 plans to introduce a target for the recycling of fibre-based composite packaging.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government continues to keep the need and timing for the introduction of a separate FBC targets under review. We will consider further once we have improved data on the tonnages of FBC placed on the marked, and the tonnage currently recycled, to establish appropriate targets.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that cartons collected by local authorities (a) currently and (b) following the implementation of Simpler Recycling requirements are (i) recycled and (ii) not sent for (A) incineration and (B) refuse-derived fuel production.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Simpler Recycling reforms will require the same materials to be collected for recycling from every household and workplace (such as businesses, schools and hospitals) across England. These materials fall into the following core groups: metal; glass; plastic: paper and card; food waste; garden waste (household only). This includes cartons (as part of the plastics recyclable waste stream). These materials must be collected for recycling or composting.
The Environmental (England and Wales) Permitting Regulations 2016 include permit conditions for landfill and incineration operators, meaning they cannot accept separately collected paper, metal, glass or plastic for landfill or incineration unless it has gone through some form of treatment process first and is the best environmental outcome.
Defra is currently strengthening the evidence base regarding waste and recycling infrastructure needs and we will continue to work closely with key stakeholders including local authorities and waste management companies on this. We recently published a Recycling Infrastructure Capacity Analysis with WRAP. This should provide a signal to investors as to where there could be a likely over or under-provision of waste management capacity.