Local Authorities: Aluminium Recycling

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) on securing this important debate, and I thank her for the considerable work that she has done to examine how aluminium is collected, recycled and ultimately reprocessed across the country.

We know that this is a significant issue. In 2024, 287,000 tonnes of aluminium waste was generated in the UK, of which only 54.7% was recycled. Across its different uses, the aluminium industry contributes an estimated £9.4 billion to the UK economy, supporting sectors all the way from packaging to car manufacturing, energy infrastructure and defence. Of course, the Government have rightly recognised aluminium as a critical material.

Aluminium, as has been referenced, is one of the most valuable materials in the household recycling stream, and it is therefore vital that councils have a clear understanding of what they are collecting, what the material is worth and what happens to it when it leaves their possession. If neighbouring local authorities are receiving dramatically different returns from comparable aluminium material, as has been rightly pointed out by the hon. Member and others, why is that the case? It would be very interesting to know whether DEFRA and the Minister are looking at the scale of those differences nationally, as such disparities have been raised throughout the debate.

This is also a matter of public confidence. Residents are repeatedly encouraged to recycle—and rightly so—but they believe that what they are doing is having a positive impact on the environment. Surely they are also entitled to know what happens in the recycling process itself. If a council cannot say confidently where the aluminium ultimately goes, how can residents do so? How can elected councillors scrutinise what taxpayers are receiving and whether it is value for money? I hope the Minister agrees that greater transparency is needed throughout the whole system, and I would like to understand what steps the Government are taking to ensure that councils have the information and expertise they need to properly scrutinise the process and ultimately make the right decisions.

That leads me on to the second major issue that has been raised in the debate, which is the sheer amount of valuable aluminium scrap that is leaving the United Kingdom. The figures are striking: the UK currently exports almost half the aluminium scrap that it produces, and at the same time, the UK spends around £5 billion importing aluminium. Make UK has warned that the rate of export risks affecting future industrial resilience, and estimates that the domestic aluminium scrap sector may need to grow by around 25% every year to meet the anticipated demand from British industry.

To be clear, the Conservatives strongly believe in free trade. Aluminium scrap is traded internationally, and it would be wrong to suggest that every ton of exported scrap represents a policy failure. However, the Government should not ignore the wider strategic consequences when increasingly large quantities of a material that they have designated as critical are leaving the country when demand from British industry is expected to rise. The Government have designated aluminium as critical because it is essential to defence, energy, car manufacturing and other key industries, so it is surely reasonable to ask whether we are retaining enough of our own secondary aluminium to meet our growing requirements.

We have British businesses investing in recycling infrastructure right here. British industries are demanding more aluminium, but councils are exporting large quantities of that material abroad. That cannot be right, so I ask the Minister what proportion of exported aluminium could be processed in this country. What assessment have the Government made of the implications of scrap aluminium exports for British industry and manufacturing, and what conversations is DEFRA having with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade to ensure our recycling policy and our industrial strategy are pulling in the same direction?

That brings me to the extended producer responsibility and packaging. There is huge concern that the sheer cost of Labour’s implementation of these measures is having a detrimental impact. The Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that EPR will raise around £1.6 billion a year on average over the first five years, but it also recognises DEFRA’s estimation, based on its own information, that EPR is not likely to have a material impact on recycling rates or packaging waste volumes over that period. If businesses are being charged that much, and the cost of those measures is ultimately being passed on to consumers through higher prices, Ministers must be able to show how they are ultimately improving recycling rates in this country. I therefore ask the Minister how much more recycling of aluminium EPR will actually deliver, and how much of that funding will result in better local authority recycling services and decision making. We cannot end up with a system where businesses, consumers and families pay more, but recycling rates ultimately do not move at all. It is vital for the success of EPR that these measures are open and transparent.

In aluminium, Britain has an extraordinarily valuable and useful material. It can be recycled time and time again and supports industries that are worth billions of pounds to our economy. The Government themselves have designated it as critical, yet we are still exporting almost half of the aluminium scrap we generate. Local authorities do not always know where the material they collect goes, or where it ultimately ends up. Some appear to be securing dramatically better returns for their aluminium than others, while at the same time, British recycling businesses are investing in capacity and British manufacturers are increasingly needing the very aluminium that those local authorities are allowing to leave this country. That should concern Ministers.

The previous Government implemented much of the framework that is in place; the challenge for the current Government is to ensure that that framework works effectively. If businesses are being asked to meet enormous costs through EPR, they must see better recycling rates as a result. If councils are collecting valuable material, taxpayers deserve to know where it goes and whether they are receiving proper value for it, and if aluminium is genuinely a critical resource, Government policy should reflect that reality. We need a system that recycles more; uses that recycled material at home, not necessarily abroad; gives councils better value for money; protects businesses and consumers alike from unnecessary costs; and strengthens British industry. Ministers now need to show that they are capable of meeting that challenge.