Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The Government supports both a competitive farming sector and the need to maintain high animal welfare standards in the UK.

No such assessment has been undertaken. No data is held on the production method of imported pork.

The Government, in line with manifesto commitments, is considering all lawful means of achieving its ambition that half of all food purchased across the public sector should be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards. In order to understand where we are starting from, we are currently assessing what food the public sector buys and where it comes from. In due course, this will tell us the proportion of food served by public sector organisations, including Defra, that is British.

This Government is increasing its funding for flood protection. We are investing £4.2 billion over three years in flood defences across the country – an average of £1.4 billion each year and a 5% increase compared to the current spending review period. This money will fund construction of new flood schemes and maintain and repair existing defences.

This Government is increasing its funding for flood protection. We are investing £4.2 billion over three years in flood defences across the country – an average of £1.4 billion each year and a 5% increase compared to the current spending review period. This money will fund construction of new flood schemes and maintain and repair existing defences.

For farm businesses to stay viable in an increasingly uncertain world, they must be able to profit from other activities.

The Government is offering a New Deal for Farmers to help address this. We have allocated a record £11.8bn to sustainable farming and food production over this parliament, protected farmers in trade deals and unlocked new markets for British produce, and extended the Season Worker Visa Scheme for 5 years. We have started to make the supply chain fairer, and we want our farmers to be primed to bid for a fair share of the £5 billion pounds a year spent on public-sector food and catering contracts.

Defra will be launching a consultation on implementation of Part IV of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement on Environmental Impact Assessments. Through this consultation, we will seek information from UK maritime stakeholders on marine activities occurring in areas beyond national jurisdiction and views on marine licensing regime arrangements.

The proposed changes in the consultation will be further to provisions in Part 4 of the BBNJ Bill which was introduced in Parliament on 10 September 2025.

Defra does not hold information on total global carbon emissions and as such Defra does not hold information on the amount of UK consumption carbon emission attributable to these sectors however these emissions are considered within our UK Carbon Footprint statistics.

Information about the Carbon footprint for the UK is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint. Data are available up to 2022.

Defra does not hold information on total global carbon emissions.

Environment Agency (EA) officers have been working with all local partners on the initial and long term clean up strategy and have gathered the necessary evidence from impacted areas. The EA will apply their enforcement and sanctions policy when deciding on an appropriate enforcement response.

The Government will respond to the recommendations published in the final report of the Independent Water Commission through a White Paper. We will bring forward root and branch reform to secure better outcomes for customers, investors and the environment and restore trust and accountability. Together with the building blocks the Government has already put in place, this will mark the most fundamental reset to our water system in a generation.

The Government's day-one response committed to a regional approach to water system planning, including a catchment-based model to strengthen local involvement and tackle all sources of water pollution more effectively.

The former Secretary of State’s statement on the quality of water in Scotland compared to England was based on statistics from Scottish Water, Water Industry Commission for Scotland, Ofwat, and the Environment Agency.

Defra policies are based on the best available analysis and evidence, including official statistics. All Official Statistics in Defra are produced in line with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics. Defra acknowledges the statement from the OSR and its findings.

A reply to the hon. Member is being prepared and will be issued as soon as possible.

The Government is committed to requiring sustainable drainage systems in new developments and we are working together with MHCLG to ensure that new developments do not overwhelm the existing sewerage network. Defra has established the Ministerial Water Delivery Taskforce to ensure that water companies deliver on their planned investments to provide water and wastewater capacity. It will look at projects that are essential for growth.   It will ensure the additional water, wastewater and drainage capacity needed to meet the ambitious growth targets in the Government's Plan for Change are understood, and that suitable plans are in place for delivery within and beyond the PR24 programme.   It is currently working closely with MHCLG colleagues to identify and resolve blockers to wastewater projects that require cross-government action and resolve challenges before they are able to obstruct growth ambitions.

Ofwat’s Price Review 2024 (PR24) final determinations set a total expenditure allowance of £104 billion over the 2025-2030 period. This provides:

• £60 billion of base expenditure to maintain the long-term capability of assets.
• £1.8 billion to increase capacity at sewage treatment works to accommodate population growth over the 2025-26 to 2029-30 period.
• £8 billion for actions associated with the Water Resource Management Plans, including the Strategic Resource Options (SROs).

The Government’s Water Delivery Taskforce is working across Government, water regulators and stakeholders to deliver planned water infrastructure that is essential to growth.

A dedicated team is focused on identifying and resolving blockers for the nine new reservoirs in England and is considering the recommendations from the Purposeful Finance Commission’s report and its alignment with the recommendations of the Independent Water Commission, which also examined some of these areas within its remit.

A full response to the Independent Water Commission’s recommendations will be outlined later this year through a White Paper and a new water reform bill. These will set out the Government’s vision for a new partnership based on effective regulation – bringing forward root and branch reform to secure better outcomes for customers, investors, and the environment.

The Government’s Water Delivery Taskforce is working across Government, water regulators and stakeholders to deliver planned water infrastructure that is essential to growth.

A dedicated team is focused on identifying and resolving blockers for the nine new reservoirs in England and is considering the recommendations from the Purposeful Finance Commission’s report and its alignment with the recommendations of the Independent Water Commission, which also examined some of these areas within its remit.

A full response to the Independent Water Commission’s recommendations will be outlined later this year through a White Paper and a new water reform bill. These will set out the Government’s vision for a new partnership based on effective regulation – bringing forward root and branch reform to secure better outcomes for customers, investors, and the environment.

The Government’s Water Delivery Taskforce is working across Government, water regulators and stakeholders to deliver planned water infrastructure that is essential to growth.

A dedicated team is focused on identifying and resolving blockers for the nine new reservoirs in England and is considering the recommendations from the Purposeful Finance Commission’s report and its alignment with the recommendations of the Independent Water Commission, which also examined some of these areas within its remit.

A full response to the Independent Water Commission’s recommendations will be outlined later this year through a White Paper and a new water reform bill. These will set out the Government’s vision for a new partnership based on effective regulation – bringing forward root and branch reform to secure better outcomes for customers, investors, and the environment.

The Government recognises the importance of access to nature for people’s health and well-being. We are considering our approach to improving access, including to unregulated inland waterways, and are committed to working with stakeholders as this develops.

Other than a site visit to the Swanscombe Peninsula Site of Special Scientific Interest, hosted by Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (EDC) in July 2025 and attended by officials from Defra, Natural England, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, EDC has made no communication to the Department since 4 July 2024.

Single-use vapes have been banned in the UK since 1 June 2025, we are continuing to monitor the impact of the ban, including the illicit market. In March 2025, the Government announced a £10 million funding boost to trading standards to tackle illicit vapes, including those that are single-use, to ensure that the ban is successfully enforced.

Defra is funding research into the environmental impacts of agricultural goods including oil seeds such as palm oil and multi-ingredient/complex food products. We are also funding a life-cycle assessment on alternative proteins, which may include products involving varying levels of processing. The findings will be published once complete.

UK Research and Innovation is taking forward a public dialogue on ultra-processed foods to ensure public views feed into research and innovation priorities and programmes at an early stage. The oversight group for the dialogue involves multiple stakeholders from academia, Government and policy bodies, NGOs and food industry organisations.

The Government is committed to supporting sustainable production, trade and use of palm oil. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee has created the Global Environmental Impacts of Consumption indicator, which includes analysis of the impact of palm oil in global supply chains. The indicator estimates that UK consumption of palm oil drove 2,800 hectares of deforestation in 2022. We recognise the urgency of taking action to ensure that UK consumption of forest risk commodities is not driving deforestation. Oil palm is a very efficient crop, producing more oil per hectare than other vegetable oil crops. Substitution of other oils which typically require significantly more land to produce may lead to greater environmental impacts as more land is converted to agricultural use.

As part of the Simpler Recycling reforms, the Government has made an exemption in regulations to allow local authorities and other waste collectors to co-collect plastic, metal and glass in the same container. This applies in all circumstances without the need to produce a written assessment, based on the evidence that co-collection does not significantly affect the potential for those materials to be recycled.

The decision to allow dry materials to be co-collected has been taken based on evidence to indicate that simplifying the number of bins can help increase participation in recycling. Evidence also suggests that fully co-collecting systems (with one mixed dry recycling bin) have the highest levels of contamination (for example, broken glass stuck on paper or soggy paper from the liquid from bottles and cans), and that paper and card are particularly vulnerable to cross-contamination, which will affect the recycling rate. By default, therefore, paper and card should be separately collected from all other dry materials so their potential to be recycled is not reduced.

The Department is working with PackUK to appoint a Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO) which will be responsible for administering certain elements of the pEPR scheme. The sorting of collected materials and consistent collections is not within PackUKs remit, so no discussions have taken place so far on the involvement of the PRO in this area.

We are working with WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) and waste industry representatives to support MRF (Materials Recovery Facility) readiness for the Simpler Recycling requirements in England.

This Government’s commitment to transitioning towards a circular economy builds a path to economic growth, progress towards Net Zero, restoration of nature, and creates a more resilient economy with investment in green jobs and vital infrastructure. The UK’s existing circular industries deliver £67 billion to the economy, and industry estimates indicate that the ongoing reforms in the packaging sector alone have the potential to support an estimated 21,000 new jobs and stimulate over £10 billion of investment in recycling capability over the next ten years.

We will publish a plan for delivering the Government’s circular economy ambitions in the coming months and the action plan will set out the biggest opportunities to support growth in sectors right across the economy, including: agri-food; built environment; chemicals and plastics; electrical and electronic equipment; textiles; and transport. We also convened a Circular Economy Taskforce of experts to help us with this – they have undertaken extensive engagement with industry leaders, trade associations, and other key stakeholders to ensure that the needs and opportunities for all are considered.

This Government’s commitment to transitioning towards a circular economy builds a path to economic growth, progress towards Net Zero, restoration of nature, and creates a more resilient economy with investment in green jobs and vital infrastructure. The UK’s existing circular industries deliver £67 billion to the economy, and industry estimates indicate that the ongoing reforms in the packaging sector alone have the potential to support an estimated 21,000 new jobs and stimulate over £10 billion of investment in recycling capability over the next ten years.

We will publish a plan for delivering the Government’s circular economy ambitions in the coming months and the action plan will set out the biggest opportunities to support growth in sectors right across the economy, including: agri-food; built environment; chemicals and plastics; electrical and electronic equipment; textiles; and transport. We also convened a Circular Economy Taskforce of experts to help us with this – they have undertaken extensive engagement with industry leaders, trade associations, and other key stakeholders to ensure that the needs and opportunities for all are considered.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) are strategies whose primary purpose is to identify where action for nature recovery and wider environmental improvement would be more effective. Defra will work closely with responsible authorities to deliver priority actions identified by LNRS.

Landowners and managers are being encouraged to carry out proposed actions within an LNRS.

Actions that have been taken will be reported when each LNRS is reviewed and republished. This will ensure that LNRS remain up to date and effective in helping nature to recover.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) set out nature recovery priorities for their area and where action could best be taken on the ground to achieve those priorities.

All public authorities must “have regard” to LNRSs and Planning Practice Guidance has been updated to set out how Local Planning Authorities should use LNRSs when preparing local plans and in decision making. A new requirement for all tiers of planning to “take account” of LNRSs is expected to come into effect.

The Simpler Recycling reforms will ensure that across England, people will be able to recycle the same materials, whether at home, work or school.  Every household and workplace (businesses and relevant non-domestic premises like schools and hospitals) across England will be able to recycle the same materials in the following core waste streams: metal, glass, plastic (including cartons), paper and card, food waste, and garden waste (for households only). These reforms begun from workplaces on 31 March 2025 (except for micro-firms with less than 10 FTE), will begin from households by 31 March 2026 and micro-firms by 31 March 2027.

These reforms will make recycling easier and ensure there is a comprehensive, consistent service across England. This will reduce confusion with recycling to improve recycling rates.

This will support our ambition to recycle 65% of municipal (household-like) waste by 2035, reducing emissions from landfill and waste incineration, decreasing reliance on virgin materials, and supporting the growth of the UK recycling industry.

The Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for drinks containers will launch in October 2027 across England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Earlier this year we appointed UK DMO as the deposit management organisation for the schemes in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and they are continuing to progress at pace with delivery of the scheme.

On 1 April 2023 Natural England changed from a unit (or area)-based assessment and reporting process to one based on the features within each site, called Whole Feature Assessment. A feature is a habitat, species, or geological characteristic for which the site is important.

The table below shows the percentage of Sites of Special Scientific Interest features in each county that are assessed as being in favourable condition as of 31st October 2025:

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The lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles are classified as “waste industrial batteries” once they can no longer be used in a vehicle. Sometimes they are repurposed for something else, for example, energy storage. Otherwise, they must be sent to an appropriate battery recycling facility — they cannot be disposed of, for example, incinerated or landfilled.

The battery recycling centres in England must be approved and have the right environmental permits from the Environment Agency. You can find a list of these approved facilities online in the Environment Agency’s Public Register Public Registers Online.

Some batteries may be sent to another country for recycling. If so, they must go through an approved exporter. These exporters are also listed in the same Public Register.

This Government is committed to enacting a ban on trail hunting in line with our manifesto commitment. Work to determine the best approach for doing so is ongoing and we will consult on how to deliver a ban in the new year. Stakeholder engagement will form an important element of the consultation process, and we will ensure everyone has the opportunity to give their views and present their evidence.

This Government is committed to enacting a ban on trail hunting in line with our manifesto commitment. Work to determine the best approach for doing so is ongoing and we will consult on how to deliver a ban in the new year. Stakeholder engagement will form an important element of the consultation process, and we will ensure everyone has the opportunity to give their views and present their evidence.

The Government reconfirmed its commitment to Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes in the Autumn 2024 Spending Review. More than £2.7 billion a year will be invested in sustainable farming and nature recovery from 2026/27 to 2028/29.

Defra wants Landscape Recovery to work for collaborative groups of farmers delivering ambitious nature recovery at the landscape scale. The Department is pleased the projects currently in the scheme involve over 1,000 land managers, many of which are farmers. As the first projects are entering the implementation phase, farmers are benefitting directly from engaging in long-term nature recovery projects.

The Government’s skills white paper sets out our ambition for an employer focussed skills employment system. This means equipping individuals with life and work skills, while ensuring businesses also invest in developing the current future workforce. The Farming Roadmap will set out how farming can evolve in response to changing markets, technologies, and environmental pressures, and how the Government will support this transition.

The Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for drinks containers will launch in October 2027 across England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Earlier this year UK DMO were appointed as the deposit management organisation for the schemes in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and they are continuing to progress at pace with delivery of the scheme.

We recommend that interested parties email UK DMO at enquiries@dmouk.com if there are specific queries or visit their website to register for news and updates from UK DMO themselves: https://ukdmo.co.uk. UK DMO have monthly newsletters with updates on DRS progress.

Chalk streams are embedded in our plan to reform the water industry. The Government has announced an ambitious programme of reforms to clean up our rivers, lakes, and seas for good. Subject to consultation, we will abolish Ofwat and create a new, powerful, and integrated regulator, including a regional element to ensure greater local involvement in water planning and allow all sources of pollution to be addressed across the river catchment.

The Government is investing £1.8 million through the Water Restoration Fund and Water Environment Improvement Fund for locally-led chalk stream clean-up projects across affected regions. Through the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP), over 1000 improvement projects are planned within chalk stream catchments between 2024-2029.

The Government recognises that catchment planning is a vital part of improving the water system. Local Catchment Partnerships are a well-established way to plan and deliver improvements to water quality, manage quantity and reduce flood risk. Following the IWC report and the Costa Beck Court of Appeal judgment, we are moving to a catchment-based model and developing a targeted, ground-up approach to review and identify new measures in a small number of catchments.

Chalk streams are embedded in our plan to reform the water industry. The Government has announced an ambitious programme of reforms to clean up our rivers, lakes, and seas for good. Subject to consultation, we will abolish Ofwat and create a new, powerful, and integrated regulator, including a regional element to ensure greater local involvement in water planning and allow all sources of pollution to be addressed across the river catchment.

The Government is investing £1.8 million through the Water Restoration Fund and Water Environment Improvement Fund for locally-led chalk stream clean-up projects across affected regions. Through the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP), over 1000 improvement projects are planned within chalk stream catchments between 2024-2029.

The Government recognises that catchment planning is a vital part of improving the water system. Local Catchment Partnerships are a well-established way to plan and deliver improvements to water quality, manage quantity and reduce flood risk. Following the IWC report and the Costa Beck Court of Appeal judgment, we are moving to a catchment-based model and developing a targeted, ground-up approach to review and identify new measures in a small number of catchments.

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 does not include an assessment of the impact on specific materials or sectors however, my department has engaged extensively with the glass manufacturing sector to understand the impacts on them. This engagement will continue.

I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Manchester Rusholme, Afzal Khan, on 20 October 2025, PQ UIN 78472.

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 including impact on CPI inflation and impact on consumers weekly expenditure, when the regulations were laid in parliament.

We continue to work with businesses to ensure the scheme is implemented fairly and proportionately, supporting our shared aim of reducing packaging waste while limiting the impact on consumers.

To support rural communities and farmers, we:

• are funding actions to improve the environment, mitigate flood risk, and boost resilience such as natural flood management, through the Environmental Land Management schemes.
• are investing over £300 million in natural flood management under the Government’s new flood investment programme, the highest figure to date for the floods programme.
• have provided £91 million in funding to internal drainage boards , supporting greater flood resilience for farmers and rural communities already benefiting over 400,000 hectares of farmland and over 200,000 properties, and will avoid around £10 billion of economic damage.
• have established the Rural Flood Resilience Partnership, a collaboration with the Environment Agency and rural stakeholders to support agricultural businesses in adapting to increase their resilience to flood risks.
• have introduced the Flood Resilience Taskforce, where the NFU has a seat at the table, which will enhance coordination between central Government local authorities, local communities and emergency services to better protect communities across the UK.