Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce the use of single-use plastic packaging for fruit and vegetables in supermarkets.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to moving to a circular economy for plastics – a future where we keep our resources in use for longer, waste is reduced, we accelerate the path to net zero, we see investment in critical infrastructure and green jobs, our economy prospers, and nature thrives.
The Government’s funding of WRAP, who run the UK Plastics Pact (UKPP), has seen significant progression across industry. Members have increased the average recycled content in their packaging from 8.5% in 2018 to 24.1%. UKPP members cover the entire plastics value chain and are responsible for the majority of plastic packaging sold through UK supermarkets, and approximately two thirds of the total plastic packaging placed on the UK market. Since 2018, additional progress from members includes a 55% reduction by weight sold of the items listed as problematic and avoidable in 2018; 71% of their plastic packaging is now recyclable (up from 66% in 2018); and 55% of their plastic packaging is recycled (up from 44% in 2018).
The Government also supports innovation, having funded over 80 projects on innovative solutions to plastic packaging through the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge (SSPP), managed by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
We will continue to review the latest evidence on problematic products and/or materials to take a systematic approach, in line with circular economy principles, to reduce the use of unnecessary single-use plastic products and encourage reuse solutions.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much funding he plans to provide for the (a) Child Nutrition Fund, (b) Child Wasting Innovation Programme, (c) ready-to-use therapeutic foods and (d) other nutrition programmes in each of the next three financial years.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Decisions on how the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget will be used will be worked through as part of the ongoing Spending Review. We are currently unable to confirm exact levels of funding for the outer years until the spending review for this period has been completed.
The majority of funding for ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) and other nutrition programmes is administered by Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) country offices, and allocated through humanitarian programmes. It is therefore not possible to know in advance how much will be spent on nutrition. The FCDO retrospectively publishes nutrition spend on an annual basis. The most recent available data is from 2022 and can be found online.