Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether she plans to encourage investment in (a) chemical recycling and (b) other new green technology.

Chemical recycling covers a range of emerging technologies that could potentially offer a complementary recycling route for plastics where mechanical recycling is impractical or uneconomic. The Government has funded innovative demonstrator projects, including on chemical recycling, through UK Research and Innovation’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging programme. In April of this year HM Treasury announced plans to consult on whether and how chemically recycled content could be accounted for in the Plastics Packaging Tax using a mass balance chain of custody model.

The Government works with public finance institutions such as UK Infrastructure Bank, British Business Bank, UK Research and Innovation, Export Credit Agency and UK Export Finance, to support investment in green technologies.