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 has made of the impact of the Environment Act 2021 on the level of food recycling by local councils.

Simpler Recycling will significantly increase the tonnage of household and business municipal food waste collected for recycling or composting in England, contributing towards Net Zero. The impact assessment accompanying our 2021 consultation estimated that over two metric tonnes of additional food waste per annum would be separately collected by 2030 under our central scenario for these reforms. These figures are being revised for our Final Impact Assessment on Simpler Recycling which will be published in due course.