Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which organisations Ministers in her Department met between 1 May 2022 and 31 May 2023 to discuss General Licence 43 for releasing gamebirds in protected areas.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department has held frequent meetings with stakeholders, including those interested in the release of gamebirds.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what fiscal steps his Department is taking to meet the targets set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The package agreed at COP15, including the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, represents a historic step forward towards addressing the biodiversity crisis. The key is now to fully implement this ambitious framework globally. The framework was agreed alongside a package of international nature finance to support its implementation and put us on the path to nature recovery. The UK has committed to spending at least £3 billion of International Climate Finance to protect and restore nature and biodiversity by 2025/26 and is supporting the development of the new Global Biodiversity Framework Fund agreed at COP15 to launch in 2023.
Domestically we are also committed to fiscal support on target delivery. This includes over £750 million for woodland and peatland restoration through the Nature for Climate Fund, current and future agri-environmental schemes, and other support to help restore and create a range of habitat types and reduce key drivers of biodiversity loss. A new multi-million Species Survival Fund was announced within our Environmental Improvement Plan which will support the creation and restoration of wildlife-rich habitats including on protected sites, and will be launched soon. We have also set an ambitious target to raise at least £500 million in private finance for nature’s recovery every year by 2027, rising to more than £1 billion a year by 2030.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress she has made on Target 14 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The package agreed at COP15, including the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, represents a historic step forward towards addressing the biodiversity crisis.
Internationally, the UK has committed in our latest International Development Strategy to taking steps to ensure our bilateral Official Development Assistance becomes ‘nature positive’ in alignment with the Framework.
To help drive action by businesses, the UK Government supports the market-led Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) initiative, which is on track to launch a clear, user-friendly risk management and reporting framework on nature-related impacts, dependencies, and risks by September 2023. The TNFD will support the realignment of financial flows towards nature-positive outcomes by integrating biodiversity into economic decision-making.
In England, we have set four legally binding targets for biodiversity: to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030; then to reverse declines by 2042; to reduce the risk of species extinction by 2042; and restore or create more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat, also by 2042. We have set out our plan to deliver on these ambitious targets, along with our other environmental targets, in the revised Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP23) published 31 January 2023.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the removal of T8 exemptions on the mechanical treatment of end-of-life tyres by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government published its plans to reform the waste exemptions regime on 6 February and legislation will be laid before Parliament to implement the changes. The T8 exemption will be removed from the waste exemptions regime due to the negative impacts of illegal activity on legitimate businesses and associated risk to the environment and human health.
No assessment has been made of the implications for our policies of the removal of T8 exemptions on the mechanical treatment of end-of-life tyres by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency removed the T8 exemption in Scotland in 2016. Our plans for the reform of the waste exemptions regime detail that the T8 exemption will now also be removed in England and Wales.
The 2018 consultation on proposals to tackle crime and poor performance in the waste sector stated that there were 1,404 T8 exemptions registered in England and Wales. As of September 2022 there were 1,149 T8 exemptions registered in England. We do not hold information on what proportion of recycling companies hold a T8 exemption.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
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 rescind the T8 exemptions on the mechanical treatment of end-of-life tyres as part of her upcoming reforms of waste handling regulations.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government published its plans to reform the waste exemptions regime on 6 February and legislation will be laid before Parliament to implement the changes. The T8 exemption will be removed from the waste exemptions regime due to the negative impacts of illegal activity on legitimate businesses and associated risk to the environment and human health.
No assessment has been made of the implications for our policies of the removal of T8 exemptions on the mechanical treatment of end-of-life tyres by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency removed the T8 exemption in Scotland in 2016. Our plans for the reform of the waste exemptions regime detail that the T8 exemption will now also be removed in England and Wales.
The 2018 consultation on proposals to tackle crime and poor performance in the waste sector stated that there were 1,404 T8 exemptions registered in England and Wales. As of September 2022 there were 1,149 T8 exemptions registered in England. We do not hold information on what proportion of recycling companies hold a T8 exemption.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of (a) tyre recycling technologies and (b) pyrolysis.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No assessment has been made of the effectiveness of tyre recycling technologies, including pyrolysis.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many times her Department has met with the Tyre Recovery Association in the last year.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
My officials have met with the Tyre Recovery Association once in the last year.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of tyre recycling companies were using the T8 exemptions on mechanical treatment of end-of-life tyres in (a) the latest period for which data is available and (b) 2018.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government published its plans to reform the waste exemptions regime on 6 February and legislation will be laid before Parliament to implement the changes. The T8 exemption will be removed from the waste exemptions regime due to the negative impacts of illegal activity on legitimate businesses and associated risk to the environment and human health.
No assessment has been made of the implications for our policies of the removal of T8 exemptions on the mechanical treatment of end-of-life tyres by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency removed the T8 exemption in Scotland in 2016. Our plans for the reform of the waste exemptions regime detail that the T8 exemption will now also be removed in England and Wales.
The 2018 consultation on proposals to tackle crime and poor performance in the waste sector stated that there were 1,404 T8 exemptions registered in England and Wales. As of September 2022 there were 1,149 T8 exemptions registered in England. We do not hold information on what proportion of recycling companies hold a T8 exemption.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential financial risk to local authorities from climate change-related (a) weather and (b) temperature-related incidents in summer 2023.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Government published the third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3) in January 2022 which included findings from the ‘Monetary Valuation of Risks and Opportunities in CCRA3’ report which provides a synthesis of existing evidence estimating the economic costs of climate impacts. The CCRA informs decisions taken across the country to adapt to climate change impacts, both for central and local government.
Defra, alongside DLUHC, continue to work with local government partners to better understand climate impacts at a local level and to support their plans to deliver greater climate resilience.
Departments across Government worked to respond to heatwave of 2022, including as part of the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) Heatwave Plan for England. What we have learned from these events will form a key part of the underpinning evidence for the next CCRA, the development of the UKHSA Single Adverse Weather and Health Plan, and the UK’s third National Adaptation Programme which is due for publication this year.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
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 take steps to ringfence funding for local authorities to help manage climate-related incidents in summer 2023.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Local Government Finance Settlement for 2023/24 makes available up to £59.7 billion for local government in England, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022/23.
The majority of the funding is un-ringfenced in recognition of local authorities being best placed to understand local priorities.
To assess the amount of funding required for local government ahead of fiscal events, we estimate the additional resource required to fund the expenditure needs of local authorities. Government uses a range of forecasts and indices to estimate demographic and unit cost pressures facing local government. We ensure the assumptions underlying our modelling are robust by holding in-depth financial conversations with local authorities and regular conversations with treasurer societies.