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Written Question
Forests: Commodities
Friday 26th September 2025

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - 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 4 November 2024 (HL2037), what further progress they have made towards implementing the UK's Forest Risk Commodity regime.

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

We are working across Government to agree the most effective way to reduce the impact of the UK’s consumption of forest risk commodities on deforestation.

The Government will set out its approach to addressing UK consumption of forest risk commodities in due course.


Written Question
Agriculture and Countryside: Finance
Friday 19th September 2025

Asked by: Lord Mott (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 impact of reduction in funding for farming and countryside programmes as set out in the Spending Review 2025 (CP 1336).

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

We have allocated a record £11.8 billion to sustainable farming and food production over this parliament. Farmers will directly benefit from an average of £2.3 billion per year - continuing the average annual farming spend over the last Parliament - supporting farm profitability through investment in research and technology and sustainable food production, at the same time as improving the quality of the water in our rivers, the air we breathe and our spaces for wildlife.

We are determined to deliver value for taxpayers’ money. We have identified efficiencies in the farming budget and opportunities to better target incentives for farmers to deliver environmental benefits. For example, rapidly winding down subsidy payments that do not provide returns on investment, and increasing investment in environmental land management schemes from £1.8 billion in 25/26 to more than £2 billion a year by 28/29.

Public funding will also help leverage more private investment into nature restoration, including through the Landscape Recovery scheme where projects will be co-funded by a blend of public and private investment. This will provide farmers with new income streams and opportunities to be rewarded for nature restoration as well as food production.


Written Question
Reservoirs: Cambridgeshire
Thursday 11th September 2025

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve drought resilience by speeding up the development of a new reservoir in Cambridgeshire.

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

This Government has already taken urgent steps to improve water security, including changing the law to slash red tape and speed up the planning process for the building of new reservoirs. To support this, £104 billion of private sector investment has been secured. This will fund essential infrastructure, including the Fens Reservoir, to help secure our future water supply.


Written Question
Agriculture: Grants
Tuesday 11th March 2025

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government by what date the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will reopen its capital grants scheme following its closure in November 2024.

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

Defra announced on 24 February that the Environmental Land Management standalone Capital Grants scheme will re-open in summer 2025. We will confirm the date that it will re-open in due course.


Written Question
Proteins: Research
Monday 10th March 2025

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government what grants have been made since 4 July 2024 to fund research into alternative proteins for human consumption.

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

The Government recognises the importance of innovative approaches and novel technologies to boosting productivity sustainably.

In August 2024, the Government’s UK Research and Innovation body (UKRI) invested £15 million in the new National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC). This National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre will drive research and innovation bolstering the alternative proteins sector in the UK, fostering innovation across a variety of protein sources, including plant-based proteins, cultivated meat and protein-rich algae.

Innovate UK and BBSRC have also invested £15.6 million to support innovation funding (32 projects) as part of the Novel Low Emission Food Production Systems competition to address sustainable agriculture. These industry-led, collaborative projects include development of alternative proteins such as plant-based and cultivated meat.


Written Question
Land Use: Livestock
Monday 10th March 2025

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government what impact they expect their proposed Land Use Framework to have on livestock production.

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

The Land Use Consultation and its analytical annex clarify the land use change implied by the Environment Act Targets and Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector contributions to Net Zero.

The Land Use Framework will not prescribe changes in agricultural management. There are opportunities for grazing on grassland to contribute to target delivery, such as peat restoration in the uplands and restoration of species-rich grassland in other parts of the country. The Framework will provide guiding principles and tools for land managers to make informed decisions about their land and businesses.


Written Question
Deep Sea Mining: Environment Protection
Monday 23rd December 2024

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government when the UK Deep-Sea Mining Environmental Science Network last met.

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

The UK is a world leader on tackling climate change and an international advocate for the highest possible environmental standards. We recognise the growing pressure to extract deep-sea resources and are concerned about the potential impacts of mining activities on the fragile marine environment.

This is why the UK supports a moratorium on the granting of exploitation licenses for deep sea mining projects by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). We will not sponsor or support the issuing of any such exploitation licences for deep sea mining by the ISA until there is sufficient scientific evidence about the potential impact on deep sea ecosystems. This is why the UK has been driving the need for strong enforceable environmental regulations, standards and guidelines to be developed by the ISA and put in place before any mining commences.

To support this, the UK successfully launched a new multi-disciplinary UK deep sea mining environmental expert network to champion UK expertise in environmental sciences, leading on filling gaps in knowledge in order to provide sufficient scientific evidence to fully understand the potential environmental impacts of deep sea mining. The Network has gained 75 members who are multidisciplinary across environmental sciences, and plans are underway for the Networks inaugural meeting to take place early in 2025.


Written Question
Sandeels: North Sea
Monday 4th November 2024

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to make any changes to their policy regarding the permanent closure of sandeel fisheries in English waters of the North Sea.

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

Both the UK and Scottish Governments closed English Waters of the North Sea and all Scottish Waters to fishing for sandeel in March 2024. The closure is in place to shield sandeel as an essential food source for threatened seabird populations, commercially valuable fish and for marine mammals. The EU has raised a dispute that the UK’s decision to prohibit fishing for sandeel within UK waters is not compliant with the Trade and Cooperation agreement (TCA). The dispute proceedings are confidential therefore there is little more I can say at this time.


Written Question
Forest Products
Monday 4th November 2024

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect to make secondary legislation to implement the UK’s Forest Risk Commodity regime.

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.


Written Question
Farms: Domestic Visits
Tuesday 1st October 2024

Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government how many farm visits the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has undertaken in an official capacity since his appointment on 5 July.

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

The Secretary of State attended the Great Yorkshire Agriculture Show on 10 July 2024 and visited a farm and met with local farmers in Essex on 25 September 2024.