Asked by: Lord Spellar (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 facilitate the transfer of water between regions in England to ensure adequate water supplies in areas experiencing increased water stress.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Water companies set out how they plan to continue to supply water to their customers through statutory Water Resources Management Plans (WRMPs) which include demand management and new water resources infrastructure, including transfers.
£104 billion of private sector investment has been secured which will fund essential infrastructure including large scale water transfers.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Hayman of Ullock on 28 April (HL16679), what progress they have made in collecting the necessary data on poultry procurement and deciding what further action is needed.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has commissioned research to better understand the extent to which public sec-tor settings are serving food, including poultry, from local and sustainable sources. This research is currently underway, and we expect the work to be completed by Summer 2027.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of chicken procured for Government contracts was produced in the UK in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Public bodies are not required to report on the origin of the food they procure and information on the origin and sustainability of food in government supply chains is limited. Defra is therefore collecting new data to understand the extent to which government and other public sector settings are serving food from local and sustainable sources and what further action is needed. The department expects this work to be completed by Summer 2027.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (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 support the development of drought and heat tolerant varieties of crops for UK farmers.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Genetic technologies offer huge potential for British farmers, enabling development of crops that are more nutritious, resistant to pests and disease, resilient to climate change and more environmentally beneficial.
The department is supporting innovation through Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, funding a £12.5 million competition specifically for precision breeding, including drought resistant crops. Defra’s Genetic Improvement Networks Platform also supports £15m crop breeding R&D for priority climate resilience traits, including drought and heat.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their procurement policy regarding priority for British produced chicken in food and catering contracts.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is open to 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.
The Government wants British farmers and producers to be well‑placed to bid for a fair share of the £5 billion spent each year on public sector food and catering contracts.
The Government has already published a new national procurement policy statement.
It sets expectations for Government contracts to favour products certified to high environmental standards that we think high-quality British producers are well-placed to meet.
Given the limited information on the origin and sustainability of food in the public sector supply chain, Defra has begun collecting new data to understand how far public sector settings are serving food, including chicken, from local and sustainable sources and what further action is needed.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - 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 carbon footprint of water desalination plants in England.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The carbon footprint of water supply schemes is an integral factor for water companies in considering how future water demand should be met. The water industry has made net zero commitments by 2030, and the Government has ensured that Water Resources Management Plans (WRMP), which outline water company proposals for new supplies and demand reduction measures, describe how all measures contribute to company and Government net zero commitments.
Water demand is growing due to climate change, the need for drought resilience, population growth and to address unsustainable abstraction. Where water companies have planned new desalination plants, they have shown that the scheme is part of a best value plan for society. This includes assessment balancing the costs, carbon footprint, environmental impacts and social benefits of all potential alternatives for increasing water supply and reducing demand. Regulators have scrutinised WRMPs and are satisfied that only best value schemes have been proposed that meet the challenges facing water supplies.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) documentary checks on, (b) physical checks on, (c) foreign supplier verification checks on and (d) rejections of consignments imported with a catch certificate validated by China were undertaken under the Sea Fishing (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing) Order 2009 in 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer
This information is not held centrally by the Government.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent progress the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Action Alliance has made; and what representations the UK has made at the Alliance since the Our Ocean conference in Panama in March 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The UK Government is a founder member of the IUU Action Alliance, and as its current chair and secretariat the UK works closely with its partners globally to ensure the Alliance’s long-term success. The Alliance now contains 11 members with 9 supporters, with an ambitious work programme agreed by its members.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help protect stocks of sand eels in English North Sea waters.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra is presently preparing its response to the public consultation on the future management of sandeels in English waters of the North Sea. I am grateful to everyone who responded. A summary of responses is here: Summary of responses - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). I will announce my decision shortly.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of consolidation in the veterinary sector on veterinary costs for pet owners.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Defra considers the establishing and an agreement of fees to be a private agreement between the vet and the client. If unsatisfied the client can take their custom elsewhere; thus setting the market in which the veterinary business has to compete. The Competition and Markets Authority is the UK's principal competition authority, responsible among other things for enforcing the law against anti-competitive practices, and investigating mergers that could reduce competition.