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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Answer of 29 June 2026 to Question 12585 on Packaging: Recycling, whether the ongoing review of the wider impacts of Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging includes extending the exemption of charities and non-profit organisations from producer fees to social enterprises that reinvest their profits for social or environmental purposes.

Under the scheme, obligations are based on packaging placed on the market and statutory thresholds, rather than business model. Producers are exempt from disposal fee and recycling obligations where they have annual turnover below £2 million and place less than 50 tonnes of packaging on the market. Defra keeps the thresholds and wider operation of the scheme under review as it is implemented. We are not currently considering a change to the status of social enterprises within the scheme.