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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to reduce the amount of plastic packaging produced in the UK.

Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Reducing the use of single use plastic packaging produced in the UK is a key ambition of this Government. In December 2018, the UK Government published its Resources and Waste Strategy. This sets out how we will achieve a circular economy for plastic and achieve our ambition to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042. Our goal is to maximise resource efficiency and minimise waste (including plastic) - by following the principles of the waste hierarchy: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. To help us achieve this goal, in October 2023, Defra banned the supply of single-use plastic plates, bowls, and trays to the end-user and banned the supply of single-use plastic cutlery and expanded and foamed extruded polystyrene food and drinks containers, including cups.

The UK Government and the Devolved Administrations have also committed to introduce Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging. This will make producers of packaging, responsible for the costs of collecting and managing packaging when it becomes waste. This will encourage businesses to think carefully about how much packaging they use, to design and use packaging that is easily recyclable, and to use reusable packaging. In using more easily recyclable and reuseable packaging, producers will pay less.

To tackle the use of virgin plastics, the Government brought in the Plastic Packaging Tax in April 2022, a tax of over £200 per tonne on plastic packaging manufactured in, or imported into the UK, that does not contain at least 30% recycled plastic. We have since increased the tax to £217.85 per tonne and will continue to monitor the situation and adjust accordingly.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of cash losses incurred by his Department arising from (a) theft, (b) fraud, (c) arson, (d) sabotage and (e) gross carelessness in the last 12 months.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Estimates and actual losses for 2023-24 are currently in the process of being finalised and will be published in our Annual Report and Accounts. Losses from theft and fraud are expected to be in the region of losses incurred in previous years. The figures for 2021-22 and 2022-23 may be found in the following reports: Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22 and Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23. The level of detected fraud across Defra in 2021-22 may also be found in the cross-Government Fraud Landscape Report. We are unable to provide any estimates regarding arson, sabotage and gross carelessness as our losses data is aggregated and it is not possible to easily report this level of detail.