Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the number of dog attacks (1) in general, and (2) on postal workers in particular.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We are working in partnership with the police, local authorities and animal welfare organisations to ensure that the full range of existing dog control powers are effectively applied to encourage responsible dog ownership and reduce the risk of dog attacks, including attacks amongst postal workers.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) serious injuries, and (2) deaths, have been caused by dog attacks in England and Wales in the past 12 months.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra does not collect this data. Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) published by NHS Digital include numbers of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) for hospital admissions in England that were caused by a dog bite or strike. The Office for National Statistics also collects details and figures on deaths registered in England and Wales, including underlying cause. Deaths registered in England and Wales – 21st century mortality - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether (1) the number of dog attacks in England and Wales has increased month by month over the past 12 months, and (2) the total number is greater than it was for the previous 12 months.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra does not collect this data. Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) published by NHS Digital include numbers of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) for hospital admissions in England that were caused by a dog bite or strike.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure there is a sufficient supply of fruit and vegetables in UK supermarkets.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We remain in close contact with suppliers, who are clear that current issues relating to the availability of certain fruits and vegetables are predominately caused by poor weather in Spain and North Africa where they are produced. These issues have been caused by unseasonal weather hampering production and harvest during December and January.
We are aware some supermarkets are limiting sales of certain fruit and vegetables. While short-term supplies may be tight, overall, the supply chain is robust, and we are keeping the market under review through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group.
The capability, levers and expertise to respond to disruption lie with industry. The Government's role is to support and enable an industry-led response. UK food security remains resilient, and we continue to expect industry to be able to mitigate supply problems through alternative sourcing options.
We work with industry bodies across the horticulture sectors, including with the Edible Horticulture Roundtable Group, as well as with other key stakeholders, such as the British Growers Association and the National Farmers Union to monitor and assess the current market situation. We also work with colleagues in the Devolved Administrations at the UK Agricultural Market Monitoring Group.
The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, Mark Spencer, held an industry roundtable with supermarkets on 27 February to explore their plans for a return to normal supplies and contingencies for dealing with these supply chain problems.
The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, as demonstrated throughout the Covid-19 response, and is well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption. Defra has a collaborative relationship with industry which allows us to respond effectively to disruption, should it occur.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve air quality in British urban areas.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Latest published figures (which go up to the year 2020) show that air pollution has reduced significantly across the UK since 2010. Air quality is a devolved policy. The UK Government and the devolved administrations work collaboratively and consult on actions needed to improve air quality across the UK.
In England, the Clean Air Strategy sets out our ambitious programme of action to reduce air pollution from a wide range of sources. This includes setting two stretching targets for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) under the Environment Act 2021. Our dual-target approach will tackle the highest concentrations of PM2.5, usually found in urban areas, and ensure continuous improvement across the country. Our modelling shows that achieving these targets would significantly improve public health, resulting in 214,000 fewer cases of cardiovascular disease, 56,570 fewer strokes, 70,000 fewer cases of asthma and 23,000 fewer cases of lung cancer.
We have provided £880 million to help local authorities develop and implement local nitrogen dioxide (NO2) reduction plans and to support those impacted by these plans. This government is also taking action across transport by supporting the switch to electric vehicles with £2.8 billion of investment, and £2 billion in funding for cycling and walking over this Parliament.
We also have recently awarded £11.6 million from Defra’s annual Air Quality Grant Scheme to 41 local authorities in England for local projects to tackle air pollution. The scheme will reopen for applications later this year, building on more than £38 million investment so far since 2010.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to reduce noise pollution in built-up areas.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The Government is committed to ensuring that noise is managed effectively to promote good health and minimise disruption to people’s quality of life. We have strong protections in place to avoid significant noise impacts from transport, as well as in our planning system, our environmental permitting systems, in vehicle and product standards, and noise abatement legislation. Defra helps to manage noise, mainly from transport, through the Environmental Noise (England) Regulations 2006, which aim to reduce noise exposure in the worst affected areas.
The Regulations require, on a five-year cycle:
- The determination, through noise mapping, of exposure to environmental noise from major sources of road, rail and aircraft noise including large urban areas (known as agglomerations).
- The adoption of Action Plans based upon the noise mapping results, which are designed to manage environmental noise and its effects, including noise reduction if necessary.
- Provision of information to the public on environmental noise and its effects.
The Regulations also require that the Action Plans identify ‘Important Areas’, where the 1% of the population affected by the highest noise levels is located. This approach has been taken in order to target mitigation efforts towards those at greatest risk of experiencing a significant adverse impact to health and quality of life as a result of their exposure to noise. These areas should then be prioritised for investigation and, where appropriate, action by the relevant transport authority or the relevant local authority depending on whether the noise is being caused by railways or roads.
The next Round of mapping is due to be completed later this year, with Noise Action Plans for Railways, Roads and Agglomeration due to be published in 2023.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to accelerate plans (1) to improve air quality, and (2) to reduce pollution, in city centres.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Our Clean Air Strategy sets out an ambitious programme of action to reduce air pollution from a wide range of sources in our towns and cities. We have also put in place a £3.8 billion plan to tackle roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations. Our Environment Bill makes a clear commitment to set a legally binding target to reduce fine particulate matter and enables greater local action by ensuring responsibility for tackling air pollution is shared across local government structures and with relevant public authorities. We are also strengthening the ability of local authorities to tackle smoke emissions from domestic solid fuel burning, which is a major source of fine particulate matter.
Under the Local Air Quality Management Framework, local authorities are required to review and assess local air quality and to declare an Air Quality Management Area if monitoring indicates exceedance of local air quality standards and objectives, and are then required to develop an Air Quality Action Plan to address the exceedance.
The UK plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations outlines how councils with the worst air pollution concentrations must take robust action to improve air quality. The plan requires local areas to produce their own plans to accelerate air quality improvement. These plans include Clean Air Zones (CAZs) which will deliver targeted action in air pollution hot spots. Bath & North East Somerset Council will introduce a CAZ on 15 March 2021 with Birmingham City Council following on 1 June 2021. We have committed a further £2.5 billion to support a number of cities improve their local transport systems through the Transforming Cities Fund - a number of these projects will help deliver air quality improvements.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the ability of online suppliers to maintain the delivery of food and other essential products to people self-isolating due to COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Government has well-established ways of working with the food industry during disruption to supply situations. Our retailers already have highly resilient supply chains and they are working around the clock to ensure people have the food and products they need. Industry has adapted quickly to these changes in demands, and we welcome the actions they are taking to support demand for online deliveries, including hiring more staff and prioritising delivery slots for those that need them most.
To help the industry, the Government has already introduced new measures to support online deliveries. We have temporarily relaxed elements of competition law to enable supermarkets to work more closely together to ensure people can access the products they need. Food retailers are now able to share data on their stock levels, cooperate to keep stores open and share staff, distribution depots and delivery vehicles. This is helping keep shops open and staffed and better able to meet high demand. Guidance has been issued to local authorities to show flexibility to allow extended delivery hours to supermarkets to ensure shelves can be replenished more quickly. The Transport Secretary has also announced a temporary and limited relaxation of the drivers’ hours rules so that more goods can be delivered to every store every day.
The Government has begun to deliver food parcels to those identified by the NHS as being extremely clinically vulnerable.
We are working quickly to support people who do not fall into the category of being clinically vulnerable, but still need help getting essential food supplies. We will be launching a communications campaign to signpost vulnerable people to a range of support options. We are working closely with Local Authorities to direct vulnerable people to support available at the local level, as well as working in parallel with supermarkets to prioritise vulnerable individuals. Wherever possible, people should continue to rely on friends, families and wider community support.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the Gulf Stream is slowing; and whether any such slowing is having an effect on (1) the UK's climate, and (2) any increase in extreme weather events, including flooding.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The Gulf Stream is a small part of a large, global-scale ocean ‘conveyor belt’ of circulation, driven by winds and by differences in temperature and salinity, known as the ‘Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation’ (AMOC). The AMOC has been measured since 2004 by an international observation system called RAPID, in which the UK plays a leading role. These measurements have shown a slowing over the last decade, however much of this may be from natural variability.
A recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in the Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, found some evidence to indicate the AMOC has already weakened relative to the pre-industrial period (1850 – 1900), and finds it very likely that the AMOC will continue weakening over the rest of the 21st Century.
A large slowing of the AMOC would be expected to cause more winter storms over northern Europe, a decrease in marine biological productivity in the North Atlantic and changes in sea level. These effects would be superimposed on the effects of climate warming due to greenhouse gases, and they are included in the climate model projections used by the IPCC. At this stage we do not have evidence that the observed weakening of the AMOC has had a detectable impact on the UK climate.
The second Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) published in 2017 identifies risks to flooding and coastal change as one of the UK’s top six risks from climate change. The second National Adaptation Programme (NAP) published in 2018, sets out a plan of actions across Government to address these risks (amongst others identified in the CCRA) over the following 5 years. In addition, updated UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) are a key tool to help the Government, businesses and the public understand the future climate and enable them to make climate-resilient decisions.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what evidence they have that the badger cull in Somerset and Gloucestershire has been effective.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
In September of this year, the Animal and Plant Health Agency published data showing there has been a drop in cattle TB incidence in the first two cull areas, where the number of new confirmed breakdowns has dropped by around 50%. In the Gloucestershire cull area, the incidence of TB has dropped from 10.4% before culling began to 5.6% in the twelve months following the fourth year of culling. In the Somerset cull area, it has dropped from 24% to 12%.
Using the TB incidence measure for this purpose is in line with the reporting of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial and National Statistics. It is the best way to monitor the impact of badger control in these areas. These data provide an encouraging sign that the steps we are taking to control the disease are having a positive impact, and are consistent with the effects seen during the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. Further analysis of the data is underway and will be submitted to a scientific journal for publication in due course.