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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to support closed loop recycling schemes; and if he will bring forward legislative proposals to protect those schemes through regulations.

The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024, which reform the UK’s producer responsibility system for packaging came into force on 1 January 2025. Extended Producer Responsibility is a major reform that will be iterated over several years to incentivise packaging producers to reduce their material footprint and use more recyclable packaging. We continue to consider further improvements to the scheme with input from a range of stakeholders, including how to treat businesses which run closed loop recycling systems for packaging that is commonly collected by Local Authorities, and my officials are reviewing options to bring forward an offset for closed loop recycling systems at the earliest opportunity.