Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential role of horticulture, including national plant collections, parks and gardens in delivering the Government's levelling up agenda from a cultural perspective.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Defra is leading the £5.77 million cross-Governmental project to test and evaluate green social prescribing in seven test and learn sites and to run national research work to understand its scalability. This can include the prescribing of gardening projects and activities in parks. We have also committed to treble tree planting rates in England, and bring trees closer to people, through trees on streets, in parks and urban orchards, supported through the Urban Tree Challenge and Local Authority Treescape Funds. In addition, Defra and Natural England are working with other partners and stakeholders to develop a Green Infrastructure Framework. This will show what good green infrastructure looks like, including parks, woodlands and community food growing.
In order to support all these initiatives, we will need a thriving horticulture sector to provide the necessary plants, flowers and trees, and we are looking at the opportunities and barriers that the horticulture sector faces to support sustainable growth in the sector, so that more of our plants and flowers can be sourced from our own domestic growers.
On national plant collections, Defra has also committed to funding a £15 million project to digitise a significant proportion of the Herbarium at Kew Gardens. The Herbarium is the world’s largest collection of plant and fungal specimens, with specimens collected over 170 years, including those collected by Charles Darwin. The significant injection of government funding will protect irreplaceable samples from deterioration and allow researchers from across the country and the globe to access the historic collection, help conserve nature and find solutions to some of the most critical challenges facing humanity.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many EU countries have been granted derogations for the use of thiamethoxam since its ban in 2018.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
EU legislation allows Member States to grant emergency authorisation for the use of a pesticide in special circumstances. Since the EU prohibited the outdoor use of thiamethoxam in December 2018, 15 EU countries have granted emergency authorisations for products containing thiamethoxam.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the contribution that horticulture can make in helping to deliver the levelling up agenda across the UK.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Farming and food production are at the heart of the Government’s levelling up agenda. We must continue to support a vibrant and profitable food and farming industry, including horticulture, which supports the Government’s levelling up agenda and helps safeguard our food security. We are working closely with the horticulture sector to explore opportunities for economic growth and creating jobs across the country.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Royal Horticultural Society on the environmental impact of the Chelsea Flower Show in terms of reaching net zero.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Defra Ministers and officials undertake a wide range of discussions with stakeholders on the UK achieving its net zero ambitions. Whilst the Chelsea Flower Show is a key annual event in the horticultural calendar, its environmental impact has not been a topic covered in ministerial discussions with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). The RHS has recently published its sustainability strategy, which includes its target to be net climate positive by 2030.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what support his Department is providing to local authorities to implement food waste collections.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Environment Bill will require all local authorities in England to arrange for the collection of food waste for recycling. This must always be collected separately from residual waste and dry recyclable materials so that it can be recycled.
On 7 May 2021 we published a second consultation on recycling consistency. This consultation closed on 4 July 2021 and sought views on the implementation of separate food waste collections, among other policies. The consultation included questions on the materials in scope of collection and delivery dates. We are currently analysing responses to the consultation and intend to publish our Government response in due course.
Given the additional costs involved in separate food waste collection, the Government will ensure that local authorities are resourced to meet any net new burdens costs arising from this policy. We will continue to engage with local authorities on the cost estimates that we provided in the impact assessment accompanying the second consultation, as well as the appropriate timing for funding to be provided to authorities, to enable sufficient lead-in time ahead of implementation.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to prevent fly-tipping on private land; and whether the Government plans to review sentencing guidelines for perpetrators of fly-tipping.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
We appreciate the difficulty and cost that fly-tipping poses to landowners and we are working with a wide range of interested parties through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, including the National Farmers' Union (NFU) and the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), to promote and disseminate good practice.
Our 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy set out our strategic approach to prevent, detect and deter waste crime. This included a commitment to develop a fly-tipping toolkit. The toolkit will be a web-based tool to help local authorities and others work in partnership to tackle fly-tipping.
Budget 2020 allocated up to £2 million to support innovative solutions to tackle fly-tipping. In April 2021 we commissioned a research project considering the drivers, deterrents and impacts of fly-tipping. This research project is due to be completed before the end of this year and will support informed policy making. We are exploring additional funding opportunities, including the role of digital solutions.
We are also preparing a number of legislative reforms to tackle waste crime, which should help to tackle fly-tipping. We are taking forward the commitment in the Resources and Waste Strategy to develop proposals for the reform of the waste carrier, broker, and dealer regime. We are working with industry and the regulator and we intend to consult later this year. We also intend to consult on the introduction of mandatory electronic waste tracking. Digital records of waste movements will allow regulators to detect when waste doesn't reach the next stage, which may indicate illegal activity including fly-tipping.
We are bringing forward several measures in the Environment Bill to ensure agencies and authorities can work more effectively to combat waste crime through better access to evidence and improved powers of entry. These new powers will help ensure waste criminals, such as illegitimate waste operators reliant on fly-tipping for income, are held accountable for their actions.
Sentencing guidelines are issued by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales, which decides its own work plan for developing/revising sentencing guidelines. The Sentencing Council has issued guidelines for environmental offences, which cover fly-tipping and other waste crimes. The Resources and Waste Strategy includes a commitment to work with the Sentencing Council to support any updates to the Environmental Offences Definitive Guideline should a review be undertaken.
In recent years we have bolstered local authorities' powers to tackle fly-tipping. We have introduced the power to issue fixed penalty notices of up to £400 to both fly-tippers and householders who pass their waste to an unlicensed waste carrier. We have also increased local authorities' powers to stop, search and seize vehicles of suspected fly-tippers.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the importance of (a) the Alcea collection and (b) other national plant collections to preserving the biodiversity of plants in the UK.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Defra values these national collections and the role they play in conservation. The Charity ‘Plant Heritage’ oversees the National Plant Collections and has a particular focus on rare cultivars, promoting the UK's horticultural heritage and engaging the public. The UK's first Alcea (Hollyhock) National Plant Collection in Lincolnshire is one of around 650 collections nationally. The Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG) Kew, which is a Defra arm's length body, is also a holder of some of these national collections. RBG Kew's Wakehurst National Collections like Nothofagus (southern beech) and Betula (birch) come from a range of global locations and may offer valuable indications of which species could be fit and functional in the long-term, in the face of biotic and abiotic threats. For instance, incorporation of the southern beech into our tree planting programmes could help to ensure functional future woodlands.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities undertaking food waste collections.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
We want to make recycling easier and ensure that there is a comprehensive, consistent service across England. This will help to reduce confusion with recycling, ensure that there is more recycled material in the products we buy and that the UK recycling industry grows. It would also constitute a significant step towards meeting our 25 Year Environment Plan commitment to eliminate avoidable waste by 2050 and contribute towards meeting recycling targets, including our commitment of 65% of municipal (household-like) waste to be recycled by 2035.
Following support at public consultation, the Environment Bill stipulates that all local authorities in England must make arrangements for a core set of materials to be collected for recycling from households. This includes a weekly separate food waste collection. On 7 May we published a second consultation seeking further views on recycling consistency, including setting out implementation timelines for food waste collection and asking questions on the provision of caddy liners to householders. Local authorities will be able to decide the end destination for food waste and garden waste, provided that the material is recycled or composted. One option is anaerobic digestion which presents the best environmental outcome for the treatment of unavoidable food waste, due to the generation of biofuel and digestate.
Any new financial burdens introduced through new statutory duties on local authorities will be assessed and the net additional cost covered by the Government. We are working to assess net additional costs to local authorities and will continue to engage with local authorities on the cost estimates that we have provided in the impact assessment accompanying the second consultation on recycling consistency, as well as the appropriate timing for funding to be provided to local authorities, ahead of introduction of recycling consistency reforms.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has for (a) penalty reforms and (b) community punishments in response to increases in littering.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Littering is a criminal offence, with a maximum penalty on conviction of a fine of up to £2,500, although most enforcement is carried out by local authorities using fixed penalties.
Following consultation, with effect from April 2018, we increased the maximum fixed penalty for littering from £80 to £150, and from April 2019, the minimum fixed penalty was also raised from £50 to £65. We have also given councils in England (outside London) new civil penalty powers to tackle littering from vehicles. We have no plans to make further changes to the level of fixed penalties or fines for littering at this stage.
Community Payback is the work carried out by offenders who have an unpaid work requirement as part of a community sentence. This can already include activities involving clearing litter.
It is often recommended that those found guilty of littering should be required to participate in litter‑picking. However, community sentences are only available for imprisonable offences and are therefore not available for littering offences.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the takeaway food industry on littering.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Litter Strategy sets out how we intend to work with the relevant industries to tackle certain types of problematic litter, including fast-food packaging.
To this effect, I held a roundtable in September 2020 with large fast-food retailers to understand what action they are taking now to tackle the litter created by their products. It was encouraging to hear about the initiatives they are working on and, more importantly, that they are committed to delivering lasting change by working together to tackle what is an industry wide issue. We are watching closely to see how this commitment translates into action in due course.
We believe that businesses should try to reduce the amount of litter their products generate. Through our reforms to packaging producer responsibility, we aim to reduce the amount of fast-food packaging that is littered and increase the amount of ‘on-the-go’ packaging that is recycled or reused. We will continue to engage with the takeaway food industry on these reforms.
Following responses from our 2019 consultation on Extended Producer Responsibility, we will seek views on policy proposals relating to littered packaging, such as takeaway food packaging, in our forthcoming consultation this spring.