Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what further steps the Government is taking to reduce food waste in UK supermarkets.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which receives funding from Defra, launched the Courtauld Commitment 2025 in March 2016. This is an ambitious voluntary agreement that brings together organisations across the food system. Retailer signatories represent up to 95% of the UK food retail market. It is a ten-year commitment to identify priorities, develop solutions and implement changes at scale, both within signatory organisations and by spreading new best practice across the UK. The commitment goes further than ever before with ambitious industry targets to be reached by 2025. One of these is a 20% per capita reduction in food and drink waste in the UK.
On 21st December the Secretary of State announced that we will set up a new fund through the WRAP to ensure charities get additional resources to help redistribute food to those who need it rather than letting it go to waste. WRAP will make £0.5 million available to charities and other organisations. The new Food Waste Reduction Fund will provide grants to finance specific projects: fridges or vehicles, IT systems and software, or for training staff and volunteers about food safety skills.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans the Government has to promote the usage of brown food waste bins.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The provision of food waste collections has increased, with 50% of local authorities in England providing a dedicated food waste collection in 2016/17, either separate or mixed with garden waste, an increase from 27% in 2009. Separate food waste collected for recycling increased by 15% in 2016 to 353,000 tonnes from 307,000 tonnes in 2015.
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has carried out pilot projects to help local authorities increase the amount of food waste collected. Alongside industry, WRAP has also published a Food Waste Recycling Action Plan which sets out sixteen actions to increase food waste collection.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he has taken to develop an independent fisheries policy when the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Eustice
The Government has announced plans for a Fisheries Bill in this session, which, combined with our withdrawal from the London Fisheries Convention, will allow us to develop a new UK fishing policy as we leave the EU. This will mean that the UK can control access to, and set quotas for, fish caught in our Exclusive Economic Zone. Defra is currently developing the Fisheries Bill as outlined in the Queen’s Speech.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the timetable is for her Department's assessment of applications for emergency authorisation of neonicotinoid seed treatments; and whether she plans to remove restrictions on the use of neonicotinoids.
Answered by George Eustice
The timetable for assessing an application for emergency authorisation varies from case to case. It needs to enable expert scientific assessment and a decision to be made against the legal criteria in time for any authorisation to be of value to users.
Two recent applications for emergency authorisation of neonicotinoids as seed treatments for oilseed rape were turned down on 12 May following expert advice that they did not meet the criteria for authorisation.
The UK has fully implemented restrictions on the use of three neonicotinoids. UK experts are contributing to a review of the risks to pollinators from neonicotinoids being led by the European Food Safety Authority, which is due to complete by January 2017. The European Commission will then consider whether to propose changes to the current restrictions.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many people have registered for free flood warnings provided by the Environment Agency; and what steps she has taken to ensure that more people so register.
Answered by Rory Stewart
As of 1 March 2016 there were a total of 1,146,146 properties registered to receive flood warnings in England.
Environment Agency staff work with communities to prepare them for flooding. They encourage people to fully register for the service by knocking on the doors of residents and businesses who are not registered to receive flood warnings, running local events and attending appropriate shows and seminars to encourage sign-up. Callers to the Floodline call centre are encouraged to register if they are not already on the system.
Alongside work to encourage people to ‘opt-in’ to the service, the Environment Agency has automatically added 400,000 mobile phone numbers registered to locations at high risk of flooding provided by the company ‘EE’. They are currently working with 3 other major mobile phone companies to access their numbers too. This approach increases the number of people that the Environment Agency can automatically add to their warning system.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
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 has taken to increase public awareness of potential flood risk for home-buyers.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Maps showing flood risk are available on the Gov.uk website, allowing home buyers to check whether a property they are considering purchasing is at risk of flooding. Individuals can search by postcode and later this year the Environment Agency (EA) is introducing the ability to search by a specific address.
The EA also share this flood risk data with companies that produce home buyers reports, and approximately 400,000 property reports are produced annually that include this data.
Much of this data is already available as Open Data and several third party applications have already been developed that encourage public awareness. The EA is releasing more information by the end of June 2016, to encourage further growth and development of similar public awareness raising applications.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
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 discuss with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government the possibility of changing building regulations in flood-prone areas to enable buildings to be constructed in such a way as to mitigate some of the effects of flooding.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The current building regulations already enable the incorporation of flood resilience measures into building work. Under building regulations Approved Document C (site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture) the use of flood resilience measures, such as adequate sub-soil drainage, sewer non-return valves, anti-flooding devices and water resistant construction material is encouraged. We continue to promote better resilience and remain very open to hearing of any innovations in this field.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
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 (a) effectiveness of Flood Re and (b) whether her Department's long-term strategy fund for flood defences has been distributed fairly.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Flood Re began its operational testing phase in July 2015. The Flood Re Board expect to be ready to accept policies from April 2016, once it is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority. Once operational, Flood Re will be accountable directly to Parliament and be reviewed at least every five years.
The allocation of Government Grant in Aid for projects in the long term capital programme uses Defra’s Partnership Funding approach which ensures a fair allocation for projects throughout the country. Funding is potentially available for any project where the benefits of the scheme are greater than the cost and are allocated based on outcomes (economic damages avoided and number of households protected), rather than a percentage of the costs. This approach secures value for money for the taxpayer, ensures that a fair share is available for all projects over time and that flood management is not limited to what central Government alone can afford.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
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 plans to take with insurance companies to ensure that savings from Flood Re are passed on to consumers in flood-risk areas.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Through the prices it charges insurers that cede policies to it, Flood Re will enable insurers to offer subsidised premiums, set by council Tax bands or equivalent, and reduced excesses to those at the highest risk of flooding. This is a competitive market and insurers are confident there will be a wide range of products available to consumers under Flood Re. It will remain important that households continue to shop around to ensure they can access the best prices.
Flood Re will regularly monitor the accessibility and affordability of insurance for those at high flood risk. Defra and Flood Re will evaluate the success of the scheme at least every five years.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions she has had with flood insurers on the launch of Flood Re in April 2016.
Answered by Rory Stewart
I chaired a Flood Re readiness meeting on 12 January with Flood Re, major insurers, and delivery partners. Officials have regular contact with Flood Re on preparations for the Scheme’s launch. Flood Re has given assurances that the Scheme is on track to start accepting policies from insurers in April 2016.