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 support sustainable fashion and textiles businesses who export to the EU with meeting the EU's Extended Producer Responsibility commitments.

The Commission announced their intention to propose harmonised EU Extended Producer Responsibility rules for textiles as part of the revision of the Waste Framework Directive and we look forward to seeing these final proposals and will consider how they might fit with our own independent regulatory framework.

The Government’s 2018 Resources & Waste Strategy for England identified textiles as a priority sector for action. A key part of this strategy is working with the textiles industry to reduce their environmental impact. We have brought major retailers together to commit to reducing carbon and water footprints through our Textiles 2030 programme and we are currently looking into both near and longer-term policies to reduce textiles waste.