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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 12 September 2023 to Question 198331 on Deposit Return Schemes, for what reason the implementation of the regulations has been delayed since the publication of the consultation response; when she plans to appoint the deposit management organisation (DMO); and what recent estimate she has made of when the DMO will commence.

In May 2023, UK Government published a position statement setting out that interoperability of schemes across the UK is critical to avoiding unnecessary barriers to trade. Since then we have been working with Scottish Government, Welsh Government and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland on interoperability across the UK.

We are considering what changes are required to the draft legislation in each nation in order to implement interoperability of schemes across the UK. This will need to be completed before we can finalise the drafting and proceed through the legislative process. As this requires additional time to complete, it impacts our original SI timeline.

The next phase of DRS implementation will be finalising the legislation. We intend for this to come into force in summer 2024, and thereafter we will have the powers to appoint the scheme administrator (the Deposit Management Organisation, DMO).