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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of recycling rates (a) nationally and (b) in York since March 2020.

Recycling rates for 2020/21 for local authorities in England are not yet available. Recycling rates for 2019/20 were published on 3 March 2021. An ad hoc set of provisional results covering April 2020 to June 2020 were published on 12 May 2021.

For the 2019 calendar year, the national 'waste from households' recycling rate was 45.5% for England. The provisional England 'waste from households' recycling rate for April to June 2020 was 45.0%.

The 'waste from households' recycling rate is not available at local authority level. The most recent publication of waste statistics show that the 'household waste' recycling rate for York City Council for the 2019/20 financial year was 48.4% and was 45.6% for April to June 2020.