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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to inform local authorities of changes to the financing of waste collection as a result of the policies in Our waste, our resources: a strategy for England published on 18 December 2018.

Earlier this year, the Government published three consultations: ‘consistency in household and business recycling’, ‘reforming the UK packaging producer responsibility system’ and ‘introducing a deposit return scheme for drinks containers’. The consultations sought views on the policies in our Resources and Waste Strategy (RWS) including the financing of waste collections.

During the consultation period, we held events for local authorities where we invited views on the proposals in the consultations. We have also made it clear to local authorities that the Government is committed to funding any additional net costs that the new policies will bring. We have also made local authorities aware that the reform of the packaging regulations will mean that they receive funding to pay for the collection of packaging materials for recycling.

The Environment Bill was introduced on 15 October https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2019-2020/0003/20003.pdf. It contains the draft legislation relating to the policies in the RWS. We will continue to have regular discussions as we develop our final proposals which we will consult on in 2020.