Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
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 work with local authorities to improve the safety of footpaths.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local highway authorities are responsible for the management and maintenance of public rights of way (and ensuring they are free from obstructions).
They are required to keep a Rights of Way Improvement Plan (ROWIP) to plan improvements to the rights of way network in their area for all users. These are available on the authority’s website. This must include an assessment of the local rights of way including the condition of the network.
Local authorities are best placed to understand local priorities and allocate funding for rights of way activities accordingly.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
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 her Department has allocated for advertising public schemes for recycling water.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We continue to work closely with regulators to support progress in this area to reduce water demand.
Ofwat are on track to launch the Water Efficiency Campaign (WEC) in spring 2026 and continue to engage closely with Defra, the Welsh Government, NRW, the Environment Agency, and water companies on the campaign’s governance, structure, and strategy.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
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 help improve air quality in major cities.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has provided £576 million to support local authorities to improve air quality. The Government is supporting 64 local authorities through the NO2 programme specifically to develop and implement measures to address their Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) exceedances in the shortest possible time. For example, between 2019-2023, in the areas of cities that have a Clean Air Zone, NO2 concentrations have reduced by between 15% and 42% on average.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the consultation on poultry catching and handling, which ended on 2 May 2025, what steps he is taking to ensure that the research project to study the impact of various catching methods and different housing systems will reflect the practices of (a) the Netherlands, (b) Brazil and (c) other countries where upright catching is mandatory.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Poultry catching summary of responses was published in June, and includes a summary of views on the research and how robust data could best be generated. As set out in the Government response to the public consultation, we have commissioned research that will focus on addressing gaps in the scientific evidence on the impact of upright and two-legged catching within a commercial GB setting.
The research has started at SRUC and the University of Bristol and will take account of published peer-reviewed research, which may include information from other countries where relevant.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether Parliamentary time will be allocated for an annual debate to monitor progress towards achieving the goals set out in the animal welfare strategy.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Government has no such plans at the present time. The Prime Minister announced that we will be publishing an animal welfare strategy later this year.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
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 improve navigation assets along the non-tidal Thames.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) maintains its non-tidal Thames Navigation assets through the combination of a capital investment programme to deliver major refurbishment projects, and a revenue maintenance programme which sustains the safe day-day operations of these assets.
During 2025/26 the EA are investing £16.3 million on the highest priority lock refurbishment projects to benefit their Navigation customers and will support the vital retention of the River Thames water resource through the refurbishment of specific weirs.
The EA’s future investment programme has identified approximately £18 million of investment need over the next 5 years to progress more lock and weir refurbishments. This programme also focuses on the operational reliability of the Navigation assets and is planning to upgrade 22 lock operation systems, which are the main source of temporary lock breakdowns. The EA will bid for the identified funding as part of the government’s spending review process.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to include (a) blue carbon habitats and (b) seabed sediments as designated features within existing Marine Protected Areas as part of the upcoming Marine Protected Area network review.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) protect a variety of habitats as designated features, including those that play a role in carbon capture and storage, such as maerl beds, saltmarsh and seagrass meadows. The MPA network review aims to identify approaches to improve climate change resilience across designated sites in English seas, including those protecting carbon-storing seabed sediments (e.g. sublittoral mud in North East of Farnes Deep Marine Conservation Zone).
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what statutory instruments will be required to align UK Sanitary and Phytosanitary standards with those of the EU.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
We have agreed a commitment for the UK to dynamically align with the EU on specific SPS rules. Operating under the same regulatory framework will facilitate the removal of unnecessary barriers to trade. The UK and the EU are partners with similarly high standards for agrifood products.
The exact mechanism for agreeing and implementing new EU rules is subject to further negotiations, but there will be a role for Parliament. We look forward to bringing forward legislation to provide Parliament with an important opportunity to scrutinise new arrangements and to have its say.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps to encourage the use of a standardised puppy contract scheme, in the context of the one promoted by The Kennel Club.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
The statutory guidance that supports our dog breeding licensing scheme in England mandates the use of a puppy contract by high star-rated dog breeders. The contract was co-developed by key sector organisations and can be found here: The Puppy Contract - for responsible puppy breeding and buying.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
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 Overseas Territories on the Darwin Plus programme.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In November 2024, Minister Doughty and Minister McCarthy met with the elected leaders and representatives of the Overseas Territories at the UK Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council. The UK Government confirmed that it would continue to work in partnership with the Territories to support the protection of their unique environments and to help address biodiversity loss and noted their strong support for the continuation of Darwin Plus.
As set out in our previous answers to UIN 61101 and UIN 63667, Defra will be finalising plans to fund new Darwin Plus projects with applicants this summer. Whilst decisions have yet to be made on the totality of future funding available to Darwin Plus following the department’s multi-year funding commitment from HM Treasury, the department will engage closely with stakeholders to ensure transparency and support continuity wherever possible.
The department will provide updates in the usual way as soon as they are available.