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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme’s glass packaging fees on the competitiveness of small and medium-sized beverage producers that rely predominantly on glass.

In autumn last year my department published an updated assessment of the impact of introducing the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) scheme on packaging producers as a whole, when the regulations were laid in parliament. This impact assessment includes an analysis of the impact of pEPR on competition but does not include an assessment of the impact on specific materials or sectors.

pEPR in the UK has some of the most generous support measures for small businesses across any packaging scheme globally. These are exemptions from disposal fee and recycling (PRN) obligations for producers with an annual turnover below £2 million and packaging tonnage below 50 tonnes; and an exemption from data collection and reporting obligations for small businesses with turnover below £1 million and packaging tonnage below 25 tonnes. These exemptions apply to approximately 70% of businesses supplying packaging in the UK.