Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of food imports are subject to sanitary and phytosanitary checks.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Food is not a category used to record import checks within sanitary and phytosanitary controls as it covers a large range, of varying types, of imports. Imports are subject to controls based upon their composition or commodity type. Products are categorised as high, medium or low risk, with controls appropriately weighted against the risks posed both by the commodity and the country of origin. The current risk levels are identified on GOV.UK Import risk categories for animals, animal products, plants and plant products - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment has been made of whether existing policy guidance provides Natural England with sufficient powers to prevent cumulative ecological impacts on protected wetlands arising from strategic housing allocations.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra’s Regulatory Landscape Review, led by Dan Corry, was published in April 2025. As part of our work to implement its recommendations, we will soon publish Strategic Policy Statements for Natural England and the Environment Agency. These will set out expectations for their contribution towards our growth mission, particularly around reaching our ambitious homebuilding targets and fast-tracking major infrastructure projects.
The Corry review and the 2025 Post-Implementation Review of the Habitats Regulations both concluded that improvements could be made to the functioning of the Habitats Regulations. We are working with stakeholders to improve guidance on Habitats Regulations Assessments, including clarifying the respective roles of Natural England as a statutory consultee and planning authorities as decision makers on planning applications.
Natural England is a statutory consultee on planning applications and offers advice and guidance to planning authorities, but planning authorities are ultimately responsible for planning decisions, including imposing planning conditions where necessary to make development acceptable. The National Planning Policy Framework reinforces statutory protections, including by setting out how planning conditions should be used.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Department plans to review legislative frameworks governing commons management in protected landscapes.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The department has no plans to review legislative frameworks governing commons management in protected landscapes.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to Questions 112298 and 112296, what steps her Department is taking with the British sheep industry to help address workforce availability of sheep shearers.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
With a national flock of around 30m sheep, Defra recognises the importance that shearing sheep plays in managing the health and welfare of the UK flock. We acknowledge that industry faces continued challenges each year in sourcing sufficient numbers of trained and highly proficient shearers, particularly when individuals can often only utilise these skills for a few months of the year during the short early summer shearing period.
The department is also aware of the role that shearers and sheep farmers from countries such as Australia and New Zealand have provided in sharing skills and expertise with UK sheep farmers as well as in supporting the health and welfare of the UK flock.
Defra continues to work closely with the industry in addressing the challenges they face and to encourage the continued promotion, take up, and delivery of British Wool’s programme to deliver training for domestic sheep shearers. In each of the last five years (2021-2025) British Wool has invested an average of £134,000 net costs in providing shearing training for between 798 and 898 people at skill levels ranging from beginners through to highly proficient commercial shearers.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Department is taking to help ensure that UK sheep farmers have sufficient access to skilled seasonal shearers for the 2026 shearing season.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
With a national flock of around 30m sheep, Defra recognises the importance that shearing sheep plays in managing the health and welfare of the UK flock. We acknowledge that industry faces continued challenges each year in sourcing sufficient numbers of trained and highly proficient shearers, particularly when individuals can often only utilise these skills for a few months of the year during the short early summer shearing period.
The department is also aware of the role that shearers and sheep farmers from countries such as Australia and New Zealand have provided in sharing skills and expertise with UK sheep farmers as well as in supporting the health and welfare of the UK flock.
Defra continues to work closely with the industry in addressing the challenges they face and to encourage the continued promotion, take up, and delivery of British Wool’s programme to deliver training for domestic sheep shearers. In each of the last five years (2021-2025) British Wool has invested an average of £134,000 net costs in providing shearing training for between 798 and 898 people at skill levels ranging from beginners through to highly proficient commercial shearers.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will place in the Library Defra-held correspondence and assessments supporting the evidential basis that NEER155 underwent rigorous peer review.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The redactions made to Natural England’s response to EIR2026/00223, were applied because the material contained third-party personal data, which is exempt from disclosure under the Environmental Information Regulations. In addition, some material was outside the scope of the requestor’s EIR enquiry and was removed on that basis.
The Department does not consider it necessary to place the requested documents in the Library.
The NEER155 evidence review was carried out by Natural England, the Government’s statutory adviser on nature. As the statutory adviser responsible for the review, the tasks associated with carrying out that review including the peer review element were matters for Natural England. NEER155 built on Natural England’s 2013 review (NEER004) by incorporating 102 new studies on the effects of burning on peatlands. The external peer reviewers for NEER155 were leading peatland experts at major universities and other expert institutions.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reason two pages were redacted in Natural England’s response to EIR2026/00223 on its report on managed burning.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The redactions made to Natural England’s response to EIR2026/00223, were applied because the material contained third-party personal data, which is exempt from disclosure under the Environmental Information Regulations. In addition, some material was outside the scope of the requestor’s EIR enquiry and was removed on that basis.
The Department does not consider it necessary to place the requested documents in the Library.
The NEER155 evidence review was carried out by Natural England, the Government’s statutory adviser on nature. As the statutory adviser responsible for the review, the tasks associated with carrying out that review including the peer review element were matters for Natural England. NEER155 built on Natural England’s 2013 review (NEER004) by incorporating 102 new studies on the effects of burning on peatlands. The external peer reviewers for NEER155 were leading peatland experts at major universities and other expert institutions.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
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 adequacy of the peer review for the Natural England Evidence Review with reference NEER155.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The redactions made to Natural England’s response to EIR2026/00223, were applied because the material contained third-party personal data, which is exempt from disclosure under the Environmental Information Regulations. In addition, some material was outside the scope of the requestor’s EIR enquiry and was removed on that basis.
The Department does not consider it necessary to place the requested documents in the Library.
The NEER155 evidence review was carried out by Natural England, the Government’s statutory adviser on nature. As the statutory adviser responsible for the review, the tasks associated with carrying out that review including the peer review element were matters for Natural England. NEER155 built on Natural England’s 2013 review (NEER004) by incorporating 102 new studies on the effects of burning on peatlands. The external peer reviewers for NEER155 were leading peatland experts at major universities and other expert institutions.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
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 merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to ban the sale and supply of peat for horticulture.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government plans to legislate for a ban on the sale of peat and peat containing products when parliamentary time allows. This commitment is embedded within our Carbon Budget planning and, most recently, reflected in the recently published Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP).
The need to work with the Devolved Governments on this matter, to ensure a joined-up approach, was discussed at the Inter Ministerial Group on 5 February 2026.
Asked by: Adrian Ramsay (Green Party - Waveney Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to seek exemptions from dynamic alignment on animal welfare in the UK–EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement; and when she next plans to report progress on negotiations to Parliament.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As announced at the UK-EU Leaders' Summit on May 19, the UK and EU have agreed to work towards a common Sanitary and Phytosanitary Area. The EU has accepted there will need to be a number of areas where the UK needs to retain our own rules. The details of these are subject to negotiation, but the Government has been clear about the importance of being able to set high animal welfare standards. While those negotiations are ongoing, Defra cannot comment further however parliament will be informed when they are concluded.