Asked by: Baroness Coffey (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 the Sustainable Farming Incentive on environmental targets, particularly species abundance and reducing river nutrient pollution.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have paused the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) ahead of reforming it. This is the third time SFI has been paused. We will confirm plans for the reformed SFI in the summer and we expect that scheme to contribute to these outcomes. There are also tens of thousands of farmers in SFI for three years, supporting those outcomes.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (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 18 February (HL4686), whether they will now answer the question put, namely how many miles of the King Charles III England Coast Path (1) have been, and (2) are still to be, completed.
Answered by Baroness Hayman
The Government is continuing to make progress on the King Charles III England Coast Path (KCIIIECP), with over 51% of the path completed and now open for public use.
Of the remaining 1,270 miles, establishment works are underway on 976 miles, with less than 300 miles still to be approved. The entire project is set to be completed by Spring 2026, and when finished, the KCIIIECP will become the longest waymarked and managed coastal walking route in the world.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what the budget for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was and is in 2021–22, 2022–23, 2023–24 and 2024–25.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs budgets are published as Supplementary Estimates each year.
The table provided below shows the Departmental Expenditure Limits following Supplementary Estimates for the Resource and Capital Budgets, excluding Annually Managed Expenditure and Non-Budget Expenditure.
Year | Resource DEL £m's | Capital DEL £m's | Total DEL £m’s |
2021-2022 | £4,444.55 | £1,420.23 | £5,864.78 |
2022-2023 | £4,743.14 | £1,761.60 | £6,504.74 |
2023-2024 | £5,381.61 | £2,112.65 | £7,494.26 |
2024-2025 | £5,694.28 | £2,300.31 | £7,994.59 |
Further details can be found by searching for the published Central Government Supply Estimates for the relevant years on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many miles of the King Charles III England Coast Path (1) have been, and (2) are still to be, completed.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The King Charles III England Coast Path is expected to be completed by Spring 2026. This government has inherited a delivery programme that has been delayed by several factors such as rising costs of materials and constrained capacity in local authorities.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect the King Charles III England Coast Path to be completed.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The King Charles III England Coast Path is expected to be completed by Spring 2026. This government has inherited a delivery programme that has been delayed by several factors such as rising costs of materials and constrained capacity in local authorities.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to be implemented.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is strongly committed to requiring standardised Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) in new developments. These should be to designs that cope with changing climatic conditions as well as delivering wider water infrastructure benefits, reduce run off and help to improve water quality, amenity and biodiversity. It is also important to ensure appropriate adoption and maintenance arrangements are in place.
We have made some immediate changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to support increasing SuDS. The NPPF now requires all development to utilise SuDS where they could have drainage impacts. These systems should be appropriate to the nature and scale of the proposed development.
We will review the planning system holistically and consider whether further changes are required to address SuDS when we consult on further planning reform, including national policy related to decision making, in 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - 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 much funding his Department has allocated to the farming sector in Suffolk Coastal constituency since 2022 by (a) funding type and (b) recipient.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We do not hold details of Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) funding by constituency. Details of FiPL funding for projects in the Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape, which partly overlaps with the Suffolk Coastal constituency, can be found here.
The Rural Payment Agency (RPA) has supported the farming and rural sector through payments under a range of schemes.
Since 1 April 2022, the RPA has released through schemes and grants approximately £20,740,643 in the Suffolk Coastal constituency.
A breakdown of these figures provided below relates to payments released within the specified financial years 2022 to 13 May 2024, irrespective of the scheme year to which individual payments are related, and only covers payments that are provided to farmer businesses by the RPA.
Basic Payment Scheme | Countryside Stewardship Scheme | Environmental Stewardship | Sustainable Farm Incentive | Other Grants | Total |
13,056,470 | 3,533,148 | 2,200,580 | 221,924 | 1,728,521 | 20,740,643 |
To meet data protection obligations, it is not possible to break this down further by recipient.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 26 April 2024 to Question 22727 on Darwin Plus: Finance, if he will list the (a) funding and (b) recipient of the funding for each project per territory.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Pursuant to the Answer of 26 April to Question 22727, Darwin Plus projects awarded funding since 2019 for each Territory can be found in the attached table. The table includes grants from all Darwin Plus schemes: Main, Fellowships (recently rebranded as People & Skills), Covid 19 Rapid Response (A time-limited scheme for 2021), and two new schemes introduced in 2023, Local and Strategic.
Further information about active and completed Darwin Plus projects can be found on the Darwin Plus website, which will soon be updated to include the latest projects awarded in 2024.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2024 to Question 21017 on Darwin Plus, if he will provide a breakdown of Darwin Plus fund projects funded since 2019.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Pursuant to the Answer of 18 April to Question 21017, a summary of Darwin Plus projects funded since 2019, broken down by Territory, can be found below. These figures include the latest awards from Rounds 12 of Darwin Plus Main and Fellowships, Round 1 of Darwin Plus Strategic, and Round 3 of Darwin Plus Local.
Overseas Territory | Grant Funding from 2019 - 2024 |
Anguilla | £4,818,639.72 |
Bermuda | £961,876.60 |
British Antarctic Territory | £1,368,375.75 |
British Indian Ocean Territory | £1,695,969.14 |
British Virgin Islands | £4,652,346.29 |
Cayman Islands | £4,152,086.03 |
Falkland Islands | £3,789,195.36 |
Gibraltar | £319,343.10 |
Montserrat | £2,842,585.69 |
Pitcairn, Henderson, Oeno and Ducie Islands | £423,105.00 |
St Helena, Ascension and Tristan Da Cunha | £6,486,241.84 |
South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands | £5,278,964.75 |
Sovereign Base Area of Akrotiri and Dhekelia | £1,883,252.50 |
Turks and Caicos Islands | £4,120,137.14 |
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - 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 his Department has made of the implications for his policies of the size of the global market for recycled rigid plastics; and what steps his Department is taking to develop (a) recycling capabilities of local authorities and (b) the global market for recycled rigid plastics.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In December 2018, the UK Government published its Resources and Waste Strategy. This sets out how we will achieve a circular economy for plastic and achieve our ambition to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by 2042. Our goal is to maximise resource efficiency and minimise waste (including plastic) - by following the principles of the waste hierarchy: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – to keep plastic in circulation for longer. We will do this by making producers more responsible for the plastic they make with our incoming Collection and Packaging Reforms.
Simpler Recycling will make recycling clearer and more consistent across England. Local authorities will be required to collect the same materials from households in the following core groups: metal; glass; plastic: paper and card; food waste; garden waste by March 2026 (with plastic film collections being introduced by March 2027). This will reduce confusion with recycling to improve recycling rates, ensuring there is more recycled material in the products we buy, and the UK recycling industry will grow. As well as Simpler Recycling, we are introducing Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and a Deposit Return Scheme.
To tackle the use of virgin plastics, the Government brought in the Plastic Packaging Tax in April 2022, a tax of over £200 per tonne on plastic packaging manufactured in, or imported into the UK, that does not contain at least 30% recycled plastic. We have since increased the tax to £217.85 per tonne and will continue to monitor the situation and adjust accordingly.
There is a growing global demand for recycled plastics, including recycled rigid plastics. For example, IMARC estimates the size of the global plastic recycling market in 2023 to be $42bn and projects it to grow to $62bn by 2032.
With 35% plastic content, the Government earlier this year consulted on measures to reduce the 155,000 tonnes of small electricals that are thrown in the bin annually. The government response will be published in due course.