Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has undertaken a risk analysis of the potential impact of the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility on glass manufacturers.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK’s packaging Extended Producer Responsibility policy has been in development since 2019. This is underpinned by extensive consultation and engagement with industry stakeholders, including the glass manufacturing sector, to provide businesses with a clear indication of the scheme’s design and implementation.
Consultations were held in 2019 and 2021, concluding with a final consultation on reforms to the Packaging Recovery Note system in 2022. In 2023, the four nations of the UK jointly consulted on the operability of the draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024. Feedback from stakeholders during this process directly informed a number of amendments made prior to final regulations.
Throughout this period, Defra officials engaged closely with industry experts, including the glass industry. This collaboration has helped to ensure that the modelling of local authority costs used in the scheme reflects the practical realities of waste management operations.
We have made a full assessment of the expected business impacts of the policy on the packaging sector as a whole. This is detailed in the official impact assessment for the Producer Responsibility Obligations (packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024, which remains publicly available here.
The Government remains committed to ongoing engagement with manufacturers and other stakeholders to support the successful and fair implementation of the scheme.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking with regulators to increase adoption of non-animal New Approach Methodologies.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Labour Manifesto includes a commitment to “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing”, which is a long-term goal.
The Government will publish a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods in basic, applied, translational and regulatory research and testing later this year. As part of this we are engaging with regulators including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and international medicines regulators such as the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) as to how we will take this commitment forward.