Written questions by Snowden.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December 2024 to Question 16313 on Domestic Waste: Waste Disposal, what support is available to borough councils to meet their obligation to provide food waste disposal.

In February of this year, we provided £258m of capital funding to waste collection authorities to help with the purchasing of bins and vehicles. It is our intention to provide transitional resource funding for the 2024/25 early in the new year and funding for 2025/26 early in the financial year. Subject to agreement, we plan to fund LAs for reasonable costs of procurement, project management, communications and container delivery. Funding for ongoing resource funding from 1 April 2026 is subject to agreement through a spending review. We are aware that some local authorities may find the introduction of the reforms more challenging than others. We want to work with local authorities to support them in overcoming any difficulties they might face in relation to compliance within the legislative timeframes. We are also working with sector specialists WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) to provide guidance on best practice and scope additional areas of support.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department will require councils to collect household and food waste separately by March 2026.

Under Simpler Recycling, by 31 March 2026 local authorities in England will be required to provide weekly food waste collections to all households.

Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Government's net zero policies on food supply from British producers.

This Government is committed to delivering net zero by 2050, while ensuring that the transition to more climate friendly practices goes hand in hand with food security and farm productivity from British producers. We will work with farmers to support economic growth while protecting the environment by accelerating uptake of innovative technologies, to increase productivity and efficiency in the agriculture sector. This will in turn support net zero, food production, efficient use of land and nature recovery. To further support our farming businesses during net zero transition, we will protect our producers being undercut during international negotiations, make the supply chain work more fairly and prevent shock rises in bills by switching on GB Energy.

Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding his Department plans to provide for flood defences in Fylde constituency in the 2025-26 financial year.

Across England, we will invest £2.4 billion over the next two years to improve flood resilience, by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences. The list of projects to receive Government funding in 2025/26 will be consented over the coming months in the usual way through Regional Flood and Coastal Committees, with local representation.