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Written Question
Inter-ministerial Group for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Disclosure of Information
Tuesday 11th March 2025

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government when the communique for the Inter-Ministerial Group for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs held on 27 January will be published on Gov.uk.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The communique was published on 26 February 2025 and can be accessed here.


Written Question
Health Services
Monday 10th March 2025

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government how the Circular Economy Taskforce will engage with ministers and the healthcare sector to coordinate work to develop a circular health economy.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

This Government is committed to transitioning to a circular economy. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has convened the Circular Economy Taskforce to help us develop a Circular Economy Strategy for England, which will be supported by with a series of roadmaps detailing the interventions that the government and others will make on a sector-by-sector basis.

This is a cross-government agenda and together we are considering the evidence for interventions right across the economy. We are exploring the circularity impacts of a wide range of levers, including in the health sector, as we develop our strategy.

Furthermore, the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) Design for Life programme is dedicated to the delivery of a circular economy for medical devices, through greater reuse, remanufacture, and recycling. DHSC published the Design for Life Roadmap in October 2024, which sets out the plan to achieve this vision and transition away from all avoidable single-use medical technology products by 2045.


Written Question
Packaging: Recycling
Wednesday 5th February 2025

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment was made of the impact of the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 in the development of the illustrative base fees for the extended producer responsibility for packaging.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The impact assessment for the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 is published here: The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024

The development of the illustrative base fees for the extended producer responsibility for packaging are for the Scheme Administrator to set each year with engagement from industry.


Written Question
Packaging: Recycling
Wednesday 8th January 2025

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they intend to engage with industry in relation to the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024 as part of the development of illustrative base fees; and what plans they have to publish the methodology used to develop the most recent illustrative fees.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Under the new Government, Defra has engaged with industry to ensure that the calculation of local authority costs to manage household packaging waste is as accurate as possible. This engagement continues and underpins further development of illustrative Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) base fees to ensure robust quality assurance of the modelling.

We included a summary of the methodology to calculate pEPR fees as part of the two publications of pEPR illustrative base fees, in August and September 2024. As part of our current engagement with industry we are sharing further details on our methodology and will continue ensuring that the information is shared more widely.


Written Question
Packaging: Recycling
Tuesday 7th January 2025

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to mitigate against the impact of material switching as a result of the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Once the Scheme Administrator has been established it will look at what measures may be needed to mitigate against material switching, where switching may produce perverse environmental outcomes. As pEPR places the cost of disposing of packaging back on those who place packaging on the market, the system contains intrinsic incentives against producers switching to materials which are more expensive to reprocess in the waste stream.


Written Question
Inter Ministerial Group for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Friday 3rd January 2025

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government when the communique for the Inter-Ministerial Group for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs held on 18 November will be published on GOV.UK, given their commitment to publish communiques within two weeks of the Inter-Ministerial Group taking place.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The four Governments have committed to jointly agreeing a communique for the Inter-Ministerial Group for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs within two weeks of the meeting taking place. Each government will then take the necessary steps to arrange for publication on respective websites as soon as possible. Some governments published the communique on their relevant websites earlier this month and it has now been published on GOV.UK (attached).


Written Question
Beverage Containers: Deposit Return Schemes
Thursday 2nd January 2025

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - 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 deposit return scheme on plastic bottles and cans in England.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

On 19 November 2024, the Government published a policy update reaffirming its commitment to deliver a Deposit Return Scheme in October 2027. The materials included in the scheme are single use (PET) plastic, steel, and aluminium drink containers. UK Government will work closely with the Scottish Government and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland to launch the scheme across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We laid the regulations for England and Northern Ireland before Parliament on 25th November 2024. This is a significant milestone. We plan for the regulations to come into force in late January (assuming parliamentary time allows). The application process for the deposit management organisation (DMO) for the deposit return scheme is now live and appointment of the DMO(s) for England, Northern Ireland and

Scotland is planned for April 2025.


Written Question
Agricultural Products: UK Trade with EU
Tuesday 5th November 2024

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made on developing a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the European Union.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Following their meeting in Brussels on 2 October, the President of the European Commission and the Prime Minister have agreed to strengthen the relationship between the EU and UK, putting it on a more solid, stable footing. We have already said we will seek to negotiate a UK-EU veterinary/SPS agreement to help boost trade and deliver benefits to businesses and consumers in the UK and the EU. The UK and EU are like-minded partners with similarly high standards. We recognise that delivering new agreements will take time, but we are ambitious, have clear priorities and want to move forward at pace.


Written Question
Import Controls: Inflation
Monday 4th November 2024

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to review the inflationary impact of the Border Target Operating Model.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra continues to monitor and review the impacts of new controls introduced under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM). We will work closely with industry, trade partners and enforcement agencies to minimise costs to trade and disruption, while continuing to protect our biosecurity.

The Government’s modelling of the inflationary impact of the BTOM uses a peer-reviewed econometric model, including the impacts of non-tariff measures related to checks such as the cost of Export Health Certificates and port fees, and upstream impacts such as administrative processing time, training, certificates of origin and security deposits or guarantees when moving agricultural goods under licence.

Analysis has indicated the BTOM policies would lead to an approximate increase in consumer food price inflation of less than 0.2 percentage points over a three-year period

An outbreak of a major disease could have a much more significant impact. The 2001 outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease cost £12.8 billion in 2022 prices, £4.8 billion of which was cost to Government and £8 billion cost to the private sector.


Written Question
Forests: Commodities
Monday 4th November 2024

Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they plan to introduce forest risk due diligence regulations under Schedule 17 to the Environment Act 2021.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

We recognise the need to take action to ensure that UK consumption of forest risk commodities is not driving deforestation, and we will set out our approach to addressing this in due course.