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 Prime Minister's authored article entitled What the PM’s new approach to Net Zero means for you, published 20 September 2023, whether he had held discussions with Cabinet colleagues on potential proposals for each household to receive seven bins for domestic waste; and whether he planned to introduce legislative proposals to implement such a policy before 20 September 2023.

The Secretary of State has regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a wide range of issues, and Cabinet discussions are considered confidential.

The Environment Act as it stands would require local authorities to collect six recyclable waste streams (glass, metal, plastic, paper and card, food waste and garden waste) separately from residual (non-recyclable) waste, and separately from each other unless there was a technical, economic or environmental exception to allow waste streams to be collected together. In practice this could sometimes lead to a situation where households would need to sort their waste into multiple different containers.

The new Simpler Recycling policy, which will shortly be announced, will ensure that local authorities retain the flexibility to collect the recyclable waste streams in the most appropriate way for their residents.