Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the role of all farms in hitting the Government's targets for (1) the environment, (2) the climate, and (3) food security.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Farms have a key role to play in achieving our environment and climate targets and food security, and Defra is working closely with farmers and the wider food industry. The transition to more climate-friendly agricultural practices goes hand in hand with food security and farm productivity as well as supporting many of our environment targets. We need to support farmers to adopt low carbon farming practices, increasing the carbon stored on their land while boosting profitability. This is vital in achieving a resilient, secure and healthy food system that works with nature and supports British farmers.
Food security is national security. We need a resilient and healthy food system, that works with nature and supports British farmers, fishers and food producers. That is why this Government will introduce a new deal for farmers to boost rural economic growth and strengthen Britain's food security.
The UK has a resilient food supply chain and is equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption. We produce 62% of all the food we need, and 75% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year.
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to mitigate the impact on those subject to Basic Payment Scheme cuts who had planned to apply for the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We remain committed to investing £5 billion of funding in the farming budget this year and next (£2.6 billion for 24/25 and the £2.4 billion for 25/26, as previously announced), and are on track to do so, with every penny of the reductions to delinked payments staying within the sector.
We will target investments away from Direct Payments towards improving the Environmental Land Management schemes, including to those farms least able to adapt.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive is an important offer, but it is part of a wider package. We remain committed to investing in Environmental Land Management schemes. We plan to launch the new Higher Tier scheme later this year; Capital Grants will re-open in summer 2025; we continue to move forward with Landscape Recovery; and we are increasing payment rates for Higher Level Stewardship agreement holders to recognise their ongoing commitment to delivering environmental outcome.
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what provision they intend to make for those who were partway through the Sustainable Farming Incentive application process before its cancellation.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The high level of participation in the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) means we have now reached the upper limit and the SFI budget has been successfully allocated. This meant as of Tuesday, 11 March we had to stop accepting new applications for the SFI.
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend that any future reinterpretation of the Sustainable Farming Incentive would comprise distinct non-universal schemes for more targeted purposes such as small farms, hill farms and other designations.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No decision has been made on exactly how the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) will be adapted.
We are evolving the SFI offer and are exploring ways to better target the money, for instance, potentially towards smaller farmers, the least productive land or delivering specific outcomes. We will provide further details about the reformed SFI offer once the Spending Review has been completed.
However, although SFI is an important offer, it is part of a wider package. We plan to launch the new Higher Tier scheme later this year; Capital Grants will re-open in summer 2025; we continue to move forward with Landscape Recovery; and we are increasing payment rates for Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreement holders to recognise their ongoing commitment to delivering environmental outcome.
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what countries the UK has launched new trade negotiations with after (1) problems, and (2) drafting errors, have been found in continuity trade agreements.
Answered by Lord Grimstone of Boscobel
HM Government has secured trade deals with 69 non-EU countries, many of which sought to replicate the effect of EU trade agreements. This meant that, when rolling over these agreements, the majority of EU texts remained unchanged and some language was retained with the understanding that it may require modifications once we had taken back control of our trade policy.
When implementing agreements, it is standard practice to amend, correct or update them over time depending upon the circumstances, and this can be achieved without launching new trade negotiations. This principle applies to the agreement with Ukraine and to other trade deals.
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what drafting errors have been found in the continuity trade agreement with Ukraine; and what are the implications of those errors.
Answered by Lord Grimstone of Boscobel
HM Government has secured trade deals with 69 non-EU countries, many of which sought to replicate the effect of EU trade agreements. This meant that, when rolling over these agreements, the majority of EU texts remained unchanged and some language was retained with the understanding that it may require modifications once we had taken back control of our trade policy.
When implementing agreements, it is standard practice to amend, correct or update them over time depending upon the circumstances, and this can be achieved without launching new trade negotiations. This principle applies to the agreement with Ukraine and to other trade deals.
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many continuity trade agreements have been found to contain drafting errors after ratification; (2) which of those errors involve provisions that are no longer applicable to the UK now it has left the EU; and (3) what are the titles of the agreements affected by drafting errors.
Answered by Lord Grimstone of Boscobel
HM Government has secured trade deals with 69 non-EU countries, many of which sought to replicate the effect of EU trade agreements. This meant that, when rolling over these agreements, the majority of EU texts remained unchanged and some language was retained with the understanding that it may require modifications once we had taken back control of our trade policy.
When implementing agreements, it is standard practice to amend, correct or update them over time depending upon the circumstances, and this can be achieved without launching new trade negotiations. This principle applies to the agreement with Ukraine and to other trade deals.
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many plastic recycling facilities there were in England in (1) 2016, (2) 2017, (3) 2018, (4) 2019, (5) 2020, and (6) 2021.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The UK Government has made no assessment of carbon emissions produced by the export of UK waste. The UK monitors and reports emissions from the shipping industry through the National Emissions Inventory but this information is not disaggregated to the level of individual cargo movements.
Between 2017 and 2020 the Environment Agency inspected and prevented the departure of the following containers. The Environment Agency also issued the following stop notices in respect to suspected illegal waste shipments over the same period.
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 |
Containers inspected | 1,012 | 926 | 1,889 |
Containers prevented from leaving | 404 | 300 | 463 |
Stop notices issued | 106 | 238 | 444 |
The reasons for preventing the departure of these containers included:
All waste exports need to be made in accordance with the relevant legislation and the UK regulators have a system of inspections in place to verify compliance. The UK regulators take a pro-active, intelligence led approach to checking compliance with the legislation on waste shipments, targeting exports which pose a high risk and intervening to stop illegal exports taking place.
In addition, the regulators undertake rigorous checks to ensure businesses accredited as exporters of packaging waste under the Packaging Waste Regulations comply with their conditions of accreditation, this includes verifying evidence that exported waste is recycled. The conditions of accreditation have been tightened to require an exporter to provide the Environment Agency with full details of the final overseas reprocessing sites receiving packaging waste it exports and to provide access to export documentation to prove that the material reached or was accepted by these overseas reprocessing sites.
Stop notices are issued prior to the export of waste when the Environment Agency suspect a shipment to be illegal (this could be for single containers, or multiple containers). The notice is served on those in control of the waste at the time. There are usually multiple parties involved in the waste shipment process including load sites, brokers, freight forwarders, hauliers, shipping lines etc. Liability for the illegal export of waste is potentially held throughout the waste export chain and therefore only through conducting investigations are the Environment Agency able to determine a definitive number of parties involved.
Plastic recycling is carried out at many waste management sites across England and numerous sites will accept incidental amounts of plastic waste, as such it is not possible to give exact figures for the number of plastic reprocessing facilities in England.
It is possible however, to give the following figures for treatment sites that accepted over 1,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year up to the year 2019. This information has been extracted from data held by the Environment Agency, using European Waste Catalogue codes denoting plastic waste.
Year | No of sites |
2016 | 68 |
2017 | 71 |
2018 | 68 |
2019 | 68 |
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many operators were found by the Environment Agency to be illegally exporting waste in (1) 2018, (2) 2019, and (3) 2020.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The UK Government has made no assessment of carbon emissions produced by the export of UK waste. The UK monitors and reports emissions from the shipping industry through the National Emissions Inventory but this information is not disaggregated to the level of individual cargo movements.
Between 2017 and 2020 the Environment Agency inspected and prevented the departure of the following containers. The Environment Agency also issued the following stop notices in respect to suspected illegal waste shipments over the same period.
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 |
Containers inspected | 1,012 | 926 | 1,889 |
Containers prevented from leaving | 404 | 300 | 463 |
Stop notices issued | 106 | 238 | 444 |
The reasons for preventing the departure of these containers included:
All waste exports need to be made in accordance with the relevant legislation and the UK regulators have a system of inspections in place to verify compliance. The UK regulators take a pro-active, intelligence led approach to checking compliance with the legislation on waste shipments, targeting exports which pose a high risk and intervening to stop illegal exports taking place.
In addition, the regulators undertake rigorous checks to ensure businesses accredited as exporters of packaging waste under the Packaging Waste Regulations comply with their conditions of accreditation, this includes verifying evidence that exported waste is recycled. The conditions of accreditation have been tightened to require an exporter to provide the Environment Agency with full details of the final overseas reprocessing sites receiving packaging waste it exports and to provide access to export documentation to prove that the material reached or was accepted by these overseas reprocessing sites.
Stop notices are issued prior to the export of waste when the Environment Agency suspect a shipment to be illegal (this could be for single containers, or multiple containers). The notice is served on those in control of the waste at the time. There are usually multiple parties involved in the waste shipment process including load sites, brokers, freight forwarders, hauliers, shipping lines etc. Liability for the illegal export of waste is potentially held throughout the waste export chain and therefore only through conducting investigations are the Environment Agency able to determine a definitive number of parties involved.
Plastic recycling is carried out at many waste management sites across England and numerous sites will accept incidental amounts of plastic waste, as such it is not possible to give exact figures for the number of plastic reprocessing facilities in England.
It is possible however, to give the following figures for treatment sites that accepted over 1,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year up to the year 2019. This information has been extracted from data held by the Environment Agency, using European Waste Catalogue codes denoting plastic waste.
Year | No of sites |
2016 | 68 |
2017 | 71 |
2018 | 68 |
2019 | 68 |
Asked by: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how the Environment Agency ensures that waste is legally disposed of once it reaches another country.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The UK Government has made no assessment of carbon emissions produced by the export of UK waste. The UK monitors and reports emissions from the shipping industry through the National Emissions Inventory but this information is not disaggregated to the level of individual cargo movements.
Between 2017 and 2020 the Environment Agency inspected and prevented the departure of the following containers. The Environment Agency also issued the following stop notices in respect to suspected illegal waste shipments over the same period.
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 |
Containers inspected | 1,012 | 926 | 1,889 |
Containers prevented from leaving | 404 | 300 | 463 |
Stop notices issued | 106 | 238 | 444 |
The reasons for preventing the departure of these containers included:
All waste exports need to be made in accordance with the relevant legislation and the UK regulators have a system of inspections in place to verify compliance. The UK regulators take a pro-active, intelligence led approach to checking compliance with the legislation on waste shipments, targeting exports which pose a high risk and intervening to stop illegal exports taking place.
In addition, the regulators undertake rigorous checks to ensure businesses accredited as exporters of packaging waste under the Packaging Waste Regulations comply with their conditions of accreditation, this includes verifying evidence that exported waste is recycled. The conditions of accreditation have been tightened to require an exporter to provide the Environment Agency with full details of the final overseas reprocessing sites receiving packaging waste it exports and to provide access to export documentation to prove that the material reached or was accepted by these overseas reprocessing sites.
Stop notices are issued prior to the export of waste when the Environment Agency suspect a shipment to be illegal (this could be for single containers, or multiple containers). The notice is served on those in control of the waste at the time. There are usually multiple parties involved in the waste shipment process including load sites, brokers, freight forwarders, hauliers, shipping lines etc. Liability for the illegal export of waste is potentially held throughout the waste export chain and therefore only through conducting investigations are the Environment Agency able to determine a definitive number of parties involved.
Plastic recycling is carried out at many waste management sites across England and numerous sites will accept incidental amounts of plastic waste, as such it is not possible to give exact figures for the number of plastic reprocessing facilities in England.
It is possible however, to give the following figures for treatment sites that accepted over 1,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year up to the year 2019. This information has been extracted from data held by the Environment Agency, using European Waste Catalogue codes denoting plastic waste.
Year | No of sites |
2016 | 68 |
2017 | 71 |
2018 | 68 |
2019 | 68 |