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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to review the (a) permitting and (b) waste exemption regime under the (i) Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 and (ii) Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 in relation to small-scale textile manufacturing facilities that (A) want to recycle waste from every part of the manufacturing process and (B) require longer than 12 months to safely store material for sustainable manufacturing purposes.

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

The Government recently announced plans to reform the waste permit exemptions regime. We will remove three exemptions and tighten the conditions of seven others which have long caused problems and been abused. We will also introduce greater record keeping requirements for all waste exemption holders and impose limits and controls on how exemptions can be managed at one site.

Plans to tighten up the regulation of those who transport and manage waste services were also announced, moving them from a light-touch registration system into environmental permitting. This will give the Environment Agency a greater range of powers and more resources to be able to take action against those operating illegally.

The Government believes that small scale manufacturing facilities have an important role to play as we move to a circular economy. However, activities carried out under a waste exemption should be low-risk and small-scale and it is right that the throughputs and storage limits for exemptions do not exceed those of standard rules and bespoke environmental permits. Operators who wish to carry out larger scale operations that come with a heightened risk of, for example fire, should operate under an environmental permit.