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

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to help local councils promote the use of reusable nappies to families.

In March this year we published the findings of the Defra-funded Life Cycle Assessment of disposable and reusable nappies which looked at these products across 18 equally weighted environmental impact categories (see attachments).

The assessment shows that while disposable nappies have a slightly higher global warming potential, reusable nappies have a higher environmental impact in other ways. As there is no clear consensus on whether reusable or disposable nappies are better for the environment we have no plans to take further policy action on nappies at this time, including support for nappy libraries or the promotion of particular product types.

A number of local authorities already provide support towards upfront purchases of reusable nappies. The decision to support a reusable nappy service rests with individual local authorities and we have no plans to duplicate that work.