Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support restorative and regenerative farming and agriculture across the UK.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We are speeding up and refining the rollout of our Environmental Land Management schemes, so they work for farmers, support resilient and sustainable food production and contribute to our ambitious targets including water quality, biodiversity, habitat creation and net zero.
The Countryside Stewardship scheme includes actions that can form part of a regenerative or restorative farming approach; to improve soil quality, enhance biodiversity, decrease water pollution and restore, create and manage habitats. We are expanding the Countryside Stewardship scheme to make around 30 additional actions available to farmers by the end of 2024, as well as targeting our funding towards actions in places where they can have the biggest impacts, in ways that are joined up across larger areas.
Later this year, we will open the next round of Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier, Higher Tier and Wildlife Offers for farmers and land managers wanting to start their agreements in January 2024.
Organic farmers will continue to have access to the Countryside Stewardship organic options, and other actions that may be relevant such as those relating to grassland, arable land, permanent crops, boundaries, waterbodies, and woodland and trees.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme was launched in June 2022. Farmers and land managers can apply for the scheme at any time, through a simple application process. People with a Sustainable Farming Incentive agreement can also have a Countryside or Environmental Stewardship agreement, so long as we are not paying for the same actions twice on the same piece of land, and the actions for which we are paying are compatible.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme contains standards that can support a regenerative approach and are designed so that there are options available for all types of farmer. The three standards available now are:
The six new standards being rolled out in 2023 are:
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to take steps to increase her Department's resources to deal with legislation effected by Retained EU Law.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra is in the process of analysing our Retained EU Law stock and determining what should be retained as part of domestic law.The Secretary of State has set out our approach to Parliament. We will remove legislation superfluous to the UK, review the effectiveness of EU regulation in achieving environmental outcomes and we will retain, by default, environmental legislation for the UK to achieve existing environmental outcomes.
The Department is conducting an exercise to establish how we can achieve our plans via secondary legislation and therefore what resources will be required.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to ban the import of dogs.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
We do not have plans to ban the import of dogs.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to allow wild camping to take place in Dartmoor National Park.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 established a right of access to the commons on foot and horseback for the purpose of open-air recreation and provided the National Park Authority with certain powers to regulate and manage public access to the commons
Following the recent court judgement an agreement has been reached in principle that will enable people to continue wild camping in parts of Dartmoor National Park.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she is taking steps to ban the online sale of live crustaceans from online retailers, including Amazon.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
No. Government will continue to engage with industry and stakeholders on the welfare of crustaceans.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans she has to increase public access to nature in England.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Government recognises the importance of providing access to the outdoors for people’s health and wellbeing and are working to ensure this is safe and appropriate. We want to continue to work with landowners and user groups directly to ensure responsible access is granted in the right places to achieve our 25 Year Environment Plan commitment to make it easier for more people, from every background, to enjoy nature.
The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 provides the public a right of access to most areas of mountain, moor, heath, down, registered common land and coastal margin. The Government is delivering a number of policies to increase access to nature including:
• Working to complete the England Coast Path which, at around 2,700 miles, will be the longest waymarked and maintained coast walking route in the world. Over 2,000 miles have now been approved as England Coast Path, with nearly 800 miles already open. It will also create 250,000 hectares of new open access land within the coastal margin.
• Creating a new National Trail across the North of England.
• Carrying out the first review of Open Access Maps since they were created in 2004/05. The review will clarify where rights to access land exist and provide better clarity and consistency on access rights to both landowners and the wider public.
• In the England Trees Action Plan, we committed to the provision of safe and appropriate public access in as many woodlands as possible through a suite of measures from updating Forestry Commission guidance through to plans to encourage improvements to the quality and permanency of existing access. This will include how we might support greater access for all abilities. We will also encourage more access provision through our woodland creation grants. We recently amended the England Woodland Creation Offer to offer a higher incentive for the provision of access to new woodlands, and made more applicants eligible to apply for funding for access.
We are aware that we must balance the needs of all those who live and work in the countryside with those who visit to ensure that public access brings all the benefits we know it can without affecting nature recovery and food production or security.
Access to nature and the countryside is provided for under the Countryside Stewardship Higher and Mid-Tier schemes. Applicants can receive funds to install access capital items, create woodland access where it would benefit people, and provide educational access to school pupils and care farming clients. As we evolve the CS scheme going forward, we expect this to continue. The Farming in Protected Landscapes programme also funds the creation of opportunities for people to understand landscapes and cultural heritage, including permissive access. Customers of the English Woodland Creation Offer receive higher payments if woodland is near settlements and provide new long-term permissive access for recreation.
We are exploring how we can pay for actions covering permissive access, managing existing access pressures on land and water, and expanding education access offers. We are also exploring, geographically, where we can support actions to create access and engagement opportunities where they will have the most impact.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make an assessment of the implications for proposal eight of the independent report entitled Landscapes review: final report, published on 27 May 2018, of the decision of the High Court in Darwall and Darwall v Dartmoor National Park Authority of 13 January 2023.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Landscapes Review included proposals to increase engagement with all parts of society, particularly younger and more diverse audiences. Programmes such as Generation Green demonstrate that national-scale partnerships and coordinated collaboration can augment what our lead partners are already doing so well. We are also aiming to establish a new national landscapes partnership that can work with our lead partners to enhance and expand community engagement through national strategic partnerships and collaborative programmes
We are also actively developing opportunities to work across government to strengthen the role that protected landscapes can play in supporting the country’s health, wellbeing, and education.
A number of National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are undertaking initiatives to provide opportunities to connect young people with nature.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
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 2 November 2022 to Question 71262 on Sewage: Storage, how many permits have been granted to each water company in England since January 2015 to regulate discharges from (a) sewer overflows and (b) wastewater treatment works.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Permits for water companies are publicly available via: Environmental Permitting Regulations – Discharges to water and groundwater (data.gov.uk).
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to consult with (a) the general public and (b) relevant stakeholders on the Environmental Improvement Plan which is due to be finalised by 31 January 2023.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 13 December 2022 to the hon. Member for Newport West, PQ 106471.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department will publish the analysis used to support the air quality targets developed for England under the Environment Act 2021.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The analysis has already been published as part of the Consultation.