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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Extended Producer Responsibility is a tax.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) decides the classification of taxes, while the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) determines how they are treated in fiscal forecasts. In earlier fiscal events OBR have treated pEPR fees as adjustment to departmental budgets as “there was previously not enough detail on the fees for this to be reflected as a tax in our receipts forecast”.

The OBR determination is a technical classification that has no effect on pEPR policy.

This technical classification does not affect the distribution of revenue to local authorities. Revenue from pEPR will be distributed directly by PackUK, the scheme administrator, to local authorities.