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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she had made of the implications for her policies of the Impact Assessment entitled, Introducing a Deposit Return Scheme on beverage containers, published on 15 February 2019.

We published an impact assessment that detailed the costs and savings to local authority finances, including possible reduction in litter cleaning costs and loss of material revenues. However, under the reformed packaging producer responsibility system, packaging producers will be responsible for the costs of dealing with the packaging waste they produce, so the identified kerbside costs and benefits are expected to fall to packaging producers, rather than placing a burden on local authorities.

The Government has also committed to funding any additional net costs that the new policies will bring to local authorities.

We will continue to refine our analysis of the costs and benefits as we receive more evidence and as we develop further policy options.