Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department monitors the amount of food waste generated by its offices each month.

The department monitors food waste from offices it manages in the UK on a monthly basis. We receive waste data from our office managed by Government Property Agency (GPA) on a quarterly basis, this includes waste disposed of via anaerobic digestion.

Waste management arrangements and regulatory requirements vary by country, therefore food waste across the overseas estate is not always collected separately. Waste from Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) offices managed under central Facilities Management (FM) contracts in Asia Pacific and North-West Europe are reported monthly. For all other offices outside of our FM contracts, waste data is captured and held locally where able. The FCDO is working to improve the quality and consistency of waste reporting across its overseas estate where practical within the local contexts.