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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential (a) implications for her policies of differences between local council recycling policies and (b) merits of introducing a uniform UK-wide recycling policy.

Waste is a devolved policy and the devolved administrations have their own arrangements for household recycling and waste collections.

Following support at consultation, the Environment Act 2021 amends the Environmental Protection Act to stipulate that all local authorities in England will be required to collect a core set of materials for recycling. Last year we held a second consultation on implementation timelines, materials in scope and exemptions. We will publish a response and final impact assessment in due course.