Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with Brighton and Hove City Council on the recycling rate for household waste; and if he will make a statement.

We have not had any recent discussions with Brighton and Hove City Council on recycling rates for household waste. This Government is committed to recycling 50% of household waste by 2020 and we've made a great deal of progress: 44% of household waste is now recycled in England compared to 11% in 2001. While we are pleased that Brighton and Hove City Council has maintained weekly collections of residual waste for its residents, it is interesting to note it has a recycling rate of only 25.8% as other, perhaps similar, coastal towns with weekly collections of residual waste such as Bournemouth Borough Council and Southend-on-Sea Borough Council are now recycling over or around 50% of their household waste, in part because of funding received through the Weekly Collection Support Scheme. These and many other councils are demonstrating that you do not need to switch to fortnightly collections to achieve high recycling rates. We would urge Brighton and Hove City Council to learn from these other councils and take steps to improve its recycling rate.

We are aware that projects are being implemented in the city and expect them to have an impact in the coming months. In November 2012, Brighton and Hove City Council was awarded £840,000 from the £250 million Weekly Collection Support Scheme to improve recycling in the city centre by: replacing the existing service with communal recycling points, making the service more user-friendly and introducing associated recycling reward schemes. In May 2014 we received an update stating the communal recycling roll- out should be completed by June 2014. We would therefore expect to see an increase in Brighton and Hove's recycling rate in its 2014/15 figures.