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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential merits of aligning subsidies paid out of public expenditure with the food waste hierarchy statutory guidance.

The Government has not made any assessment of aligning subsidies with the food waste hierarchy guidance.

Our priority is to prevent food waste occurring in the first instance, this is in line with the food waste hierarchy. Where waste cannot be prevented, edible surplus food should be redistributed. For unavoidable food waste, the government’s Simpler Recycling reforms will require all local authorities, businesses and relevant non-domestic premises in England to arrange for the separate collection of food waste for recycling. The Government's preference is that food waste is treated via anaerobic digestion (AD), the main route for producing biomethane, which is a low-carbon replacement for fossil fuel natural gas.