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 potential impact of base fees for steel packaging under the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme on plastic use; and whether she plans to review those fees.

In October 2024, the Government published an updated assessment of the impact of introducing the pEPR scheme on packaging producers as a whole, pre base fees calculation. This assessment did not split the assessment by material sector impact. Since, Defra and PackUK have engaged extensively with waste management experts and the packaging industry across all materials to ensure that the modelling of local authority costs underpinning the pEPR scheme base fees fairly reflects the costs on-the-ground in reality of waste management operations. From year 2 of EPR (2026/27) onwards, fees will be modulated to ensure that less recyclable packaging materials incur higher fees, and more recyclable packaging materials incur lower. The fee modulation policy will be reviewed every 3 years.