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 support waste collection authorities to deliver mandatory household food waste collections from 2026-27.

To support waste collection authorities to deliver household food waste collections, we provided capital transitional funding in February 2024 to cover reasonable costs of purchasing trucks and bins needed to deliver weekly food waste collections from 31 March 2026.

We are preparing to deliver transitional resource new burdens funding to local authorities for weekly food waste collections for households in two batches, one in early 2025 and the other in spring 2025.

Funding for ongoing resource funding from 1 April 2026 is subject to agreement through a spending review and we will confirm details when we can.

We are also working with sector specialists WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) to provide guidance on best practice and scope additional areas of support.