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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the impact that increasing levels of isolations as a result of close contact with people testing positive for Covid-19 will have on the ability of local authorities to maintain refuse collections.

We are actively engaging with companies in the waste sector and local authorities to understand the current level of absences amongst their staff and the potential for this to impact their services.

We circulated a short survey to waste companies and local authorities on 21 July 2021 to gather data on staff absences and heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver vacancies. We intend to continue gathering this data over the summer to continue our assessment of pressures on waste and recycling services.