Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their current estimate of the cost of leaving the EU REACH programme and creating an alternative UK Register for chemicals.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
UK REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals) aims to ensure that companies putting chemicals on the market understand and manage the risks they might pose. Under UK REACH, manufacturers and importers have a duty to register chemicals to access the GB market.
The transition to UK REACH has presented some challenges for the chemicals industry, particularly the cost of having to negotiate and potentially pay for access to data needed to support a UK REACH registration. In response to this, in December 2021, we committed to exploring alternative arrangements for UK REACH transitional registrations, aiming to significantly reduce industry costs whilst ensuring high standards to safeguard public health and the environment. This work is still in progress.
Our estimated cost to industry of registering under the original UK REACH model is £2 billion over six years; however, this estimate is uncertain and actual costs would be a matter of commercial negotiation. We have recently consulted on extending the existing deadlines for the transition to UK REACH so companies do not incur these costs while we complete the work to develop an alternative transition model.
Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many seizures of imported (1) products of animal origin, and (2) pig meat, have been made in the last three years.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Border Force holds the data on seizures of imported products of animal origin, including meat. Data on seizures of pig meat specifically is unavailable.
Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the current risk level of African swine fever for the UK.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Managing the threat of African swine fever remains a key UK priority. Whilst we have never had an outbreak in the UK, we continue to prepare for the eventuality of one. Given the deteriorating epidemiological situation in Europe, Defra has commissioned an update to the 2018 risk assessment which looked at the risk of African swine fever entering Great Britain from the European Union via movement of humans, animals or animal products.
The risk assessment has concluded that the overall level of risk to Great Britain has remained the same as in 2018. However, the risk of entry of contaminated goods into Great Britain via personal luggage or couriers has become high. The department is looking at a range of mitigations, including targeted interventions to prevent high-risk pork from coming into Great Britain from Europe.
Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many times African swine fever has been identified in imported products in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
ASF virus can be present in the meat and bone marrow of contaminated products from infected animals. We have regionalisation in place for ASF for some countries, and there are rules in place for products from an ASF disease restriction zone or an ASF endemic country to be exported. Therefore, a non-processed product from an ASF disease restriction zone or an ASF endemic country is usually considered to be a non-compliant import and should be destroyed.
Defra does not routinely test for ASF virus in imported commodities.
Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, what assessment they have made of the current level of water supply given the heatwave in parts of the UK; and what plans they have to deal with any shortage of supply.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Water companies are reporting that water storage levels are adequate for supply this summer. Water companies have a statutory duty to provide a secure supply of wholesome water at all times. They are legally required to have robust plans in place to maintain the supply of water in a range of hazards, including heatwaves.
Water companies use a range of measures to manage higher water demand expected during heatwaves and respond to any disruption. These measures include ensuring their networks are prepared, customer communications to help manage demand, rerouting of water via their networks, and the provision of alternative water supplies, for example via tanker deliveries. In the event of disruptions, water companies also maintain priority access registers, which vulnerable customers can register with for provision of bottled water.
The Government is communicating frequently with water companies to monitor their performance and reiterate the importance of maintaining supplies to customers.
Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the shortage of seasonal workers in the first six months of this year, and (2) the extent of the impact to crops of fruit and vegetables; and what plans they have to address this in 2023.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Horticulture has long relied on seasonal workers to bring home the harvest. After a series of annual pilots the government announced last December that the Seasonal Worker visa route has been extended to 2024 to allow overseas workers to come to the UK for up to six months to harvest both edible and ornamental crops. An initial allocation of 30,000 visas was made available for 2022, which will be increased to 40,000 (including 2000 for the poultry sector). Defra continues to monitor the supply of labour to UK horticulture throughout the year, working with operators and sector growers to ensure there is sufficient labour for harvesting the UK's fruit and vegetable crops.
Asked by: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many of the 570 Defra items listed on the Retained EU law dashboard, published on 22 June, relate to (1) phytosanitary, (2) plant, or (3) animal health, welfare and hygiene, measures.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Currently, of the 570 Defra Items listed on the Retained EU law dashboard 174 of these relate to phytosanitary, plant or animal health, welfare, and hygiene measures. The breakdown across each of these areas is displayed in the table below. This information is available on the Retained EU law dashboard at the link provided here: Retained EU law dashboard - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Defra will continue to review retained EU law to ensure it has an accurate record of it. The dashboard will be updated every quarter with any additional retained law added.
| Total REUL |
Phytosanitary | 6 |
Plant (excluding Phytosanitary) | 65 |
Animal Health | 88 |
Animal Welfare | 15 |
Animal Hygiene | 0 |
Total | 174 |