Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 February 2023 to Question 136753 on Packaging: Recycling, whether the Impact Assessment needs to be reviewed in response to recent increases in costs for businesses.

In May 2022, in response to increasing inflationary pressure in the economy, we modelled an increase in the full net cost of collecting and managing household packaging waste. Specifically, we looked at the impact of an increase in fuel costs, staff costs due to an increase in wages, and in the cost of trucks used for collections. Fairly sizeable increases in these costs were modelled and the result was that the overall increase in full net costs was not substantial.

An updated impact assessment will be published later this year alongside the draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2023.