Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve water quality monitoring; and how many water quality monitoring stations are currently in place.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government’s new White Paper sets out once in a generation reforms that will transform the water system, including improvements to water quality monitoring. It sets out our commitment to ending ‘operator self-monitoring’ and to developing a new strengthened Open Monitoring approach for monitoring wastewater.
The Environment Agency (EA) currently undertakes water quality monitoring at 13,000 locations each year. Water quality monitoring is set to expand significantly by 2030 with the introduction of continuous water quality monitors at 25% of all applicable storm overflows and waste treatment works, and the installation of event duration monitors at 50% of all emergency overflows.
More broadly, the EA is actively exploring the potential for innovation, integration of data collected by other organisations and citizen scientists, and other opportunities to improve water quality monitoring. The EA is planning to integrate new data with its own monitoring to improve its understanding of water quality.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the percentage change in the number of sewage discharges from sewage overflow from 2024 to 2025.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Water companies are required to submit their storm overflow Event Duration Monitoring return data for 2025 at the end of February 2026.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of integrated strategies which connect mental health services and skills training to employment support for young people.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The integration of services for young people is a key Government priority. We continue to assess how best to strengthen links between employment support, skills provision and mental health services. That is why we have announced the expansion of Youth Hubs to every area of Great Britian.
Youth Hubs are community‑based spaces where DWP Work Coaches work alongside local partners, such as colleges, local authorities, employers, youth organisations, and mental health providers, to deliver joined‑up support for 16–24-year-olds in one location outside of the job centre. We have also announced that all Youth Hubs will operate to a national minimum service blueprint, which sets out the core offer every young person should be able to access. This includes employment and skills support, links to wider training, mental health and wellbeing provision, housing and homelessness support, and strong employer engagement. The blueprint ensures consistency while allowing flexibility to tailor services to local needs
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to introducing a single reporting mechanism for farmers and land managers to report fly-tipping incidents.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local councils are responsible for investigating most fly-tipping incidents, including those on private land. The gov.uk site has a single page entitled ‘Report Flytipping or Illegal Waste Dumping’ which directs people either to the relevant local authority via postcode search or to Crimestoppers, depending on the scale of what is being reported.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what measures they are bringing forward to co-ordinate joint working between police forces to tackle fly-tipping.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local authorities are responsible for investigating most fly-tipping incidents. Defra chairs the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group (NFTPG), through which we work with a wide range of interested parties, including local authorities and the National Police Chiefs Council, to share good practice with regards to preventing fly-tipping. The NFTPG has developed various practical tools including a guide on how councils can set up and run effective local partnerships, such as with the police, to tackle fly-tipping. These are available at: https://nftpg.com/.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to (1) bring forward new technologies for nutrient recovery, and (2) improve cross-body coordination of the monitoring of nutrient recovery.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We will soon be publishing the Circular Economy Growth Plan, which has been developed in collaboration with our industry-led Circular Economy Taskforce, over 1,000 external stakeholders, and cross-government officials.
The Growth Plan will set out how we will stimulate the investment in green jobs and vital infrastructure and innovation needed to turn materials that would otherwise become waste into economically valuable resources for businesses across England to support growth in sectors including: agri-food; built environment; chemicals and plastics; electrical and electronic equipment; textiles; and transport. We recognise the importance of nutrient recovery, including bringing forward relevant new technologies and ensuring effective cross-body coordination of the monitoring of nutrient recovery. As we develop the Growth Plan and continue our work, we will consider the evidence for action right across the economy and evaluate what interventions may be needed.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase public awareness of the household waste duty of care and the responsibility of households not to pass their waste to a third party.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra chairs the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group which aims to develop and disseminate various practical tools on tackling fly-tipping. These include a guide on how local authorities can raise awareness of the household waste duty of care, which can help to prevent householders from giving their waste to a fly-tipper. The guide provides suggested messaging, including the impact of fly-tipping locally.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the importance of women's oral health in bridging the gap between prison care and community health services; and what part that will play in their renewed women's health strategy.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Women’s oral health matters for pain, nutrition, mental wellbeing, confidence and for safe resettlement. Although no assessment has been made, evidence shows higher unmet dental need in prisons. Prisoners often enter prison with higher rates of dental decay and oral disease than their peers in the community but with lower levels of treatment. This was most recently reviewed in “A survey of prison dental services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland 2017 to 2018” published by Public Health England in 2019.
Our approach to tackling inequalities brings together the national prison dental specification, the Women’s Prisons Health and Social Care Review and the Women’s Health Strategy. We will strengthen trauma informed, preventative care in women’s prisons, promote pre-release dental planning wherever possible and use RECONNECT to support GP and dental appointments on release. RECONNECT offers liaison, advocacy and support to engage with community-based health services to help ensure health needs of people leaving prison are met. This helps improve treatment continuity and reduces inequalities between custody and community care.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the increase in energy prices and the tariffs on UK steel imports to the United States of America, when will the steel strategy be published.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government is committed to supporting the UK steel sector. We are cutting electricity costs for steel producers by reducing network charges via the British Industry Supercharger by 90%, up from 60%, as announced in our Industrial Strategy.
We are also ensuring the long-term viability and competitiveness of the sector through the steel strategy. A robust position on trade is a critical element of this strategy, underpinning our approach to defending against unfair practices and global overcapacity. We are prioritising developing robust measures in light of the UK steel safeguard expiring in June 2026 to protect our domestic sector and secure stable and reliable supply chains, and engaging with our partners. We will therefore publish the steel strategy in early 2026.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which measures funded by the nature restoration levy would take agricultural land out of food production.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government recognises that food security is national security and is committed to safeguarding the most productive agricultural land to maintain long-term food production. Farms also play a leading role in protecting nature and delivering environmental benefits, with nature markets an increasingly important source of income for farmers and land managers.
The impact of the Nature Restoration Fund on agricultural land will depend on the individual Environmental Delivery Plan and the conservation measures identified to address the impact of development. Natural England already considers the impact of its activities on agriculture. For example, when designing mitigation measures, the existing Nutrient Mitigation Scheme seeks to avoid the best and most versatile agricultural land. We expect Natural England to apply this approach to Environmental Delivery Plans.