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Written Question
Marine Management Organisation: Conditions of Employment
Tuesday 14th November 2023

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether Civil Service employees from core departments retained continuity of employment for contractual purposes when they transferred from working for their previous department to work for the Marine Management Organisation in 2009.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Continuous statutory service would be transferred as per the protocols. However, Defra does not keep information on staff who have transferred under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)/ Cabinet Office Statement of Practice. All data becomes owned by the organisation that the work moves to, as the staff are theirs as if they had always been their staff.


Written Question
Marine Management Organisation: Secondment
Tuesday 14th November 2023

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, under which staff-transfer protocol employees of core civil service Departments were transferred to the Marine Management Organisation in 2009; and whether this protocol has been applied to other employee transfers.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra follows the correct protocols for each staff transfer as set out in the Statement of Practice.


Written Question
Pesticides
Monday 10th July 2023

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

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 set a target for a reduction in the use of chemical pesticides.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

We have been assessing the potential role of targets to support our policy ambitions to reduce reliance on the use of conventional chemical pesticides We are clear that any targets that we set must be meaningful and designed to deliver our desired outcomes, which are to minimise the risks of pesticides to the environment and encourage sustainable pest management.


Written Question
Pesticides
Monday 3rd July 2023

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

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 merits of treating biopesticides under a separate regulatory system than chemical pesticides.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Microbiologicals formulated into products, semiochemicals, plant extracts, and other substances based on biological materials are regulated as biopesticides, under the same regulatory system as chemical pesticides, if one of their functions is to protect a plant from pests. We currently do not intend to change this.

However, we plan to review regulatory processes and data requirements to identify where approvals and permissions for biopesticides can be made simpler and speedier. Our assessment is that this should reduce regulatory burden on applicants and lead to quicker approval timelines, without compromising environmental and human health standards.


Written Question
National Parks
Monday 1st March 2021

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

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 effect of the proposed National Landscapes Service on the management of National Parks.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The independent Landscapes Review, led by Julian Glover, set out a compelling vision for more beautiful, more biodiverse and more accessible National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).

We welcome this ambition, as the Government is committed to ensuring our protected landscapes flourish as havens for nature and are places that everyone can visit and enjoy.

The Landscapes Review included recommendations for long-term structural changes, such as creating a new National Landscape Service and changing National Park and AONB statutory purposes, that would require legislation were they to be taken forward.

We are working closely with National Park Authorities, AONB organisations and wider stakeholders to consider the potential effects of the Landscape Review’s recommendations and to develop a well-informed response to the review, which we will publish in due course.


Written Question
National Parks Review
Wednesday 24th February 2021

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Government plans to publish its formal response to the Glover Review.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The independent Landscapes Review, led by Julian Glover, set out a compelling vision for more beautiful, more biodiverse and more accessible National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).

We welcome this ambition, as the government is committed to ensuring our protected landscapes flourish as havens for nature and are places that everyone can visit and enjoy.

The Landscapes Review included recommendations for long-term structural changes, such as creating a new National Landscape Service and changing National Park and AONB statutory purposes, that would require legislation were they to be taken forward.

We are taking time to carefully consider the recommendations and working with partner organisations to inform and develop our response to the review, which we will publish in due course.

In the meantime, we are working to implement the ambitions of the Review on the ground now. For example, we are leading a £5.77m cross-governmental project to test nature-based social prescribing in seven test and learn sites, run national experimental work to understand its scalability, and deliver a robust project evaluation. This will help improve mental health and wellbeing by connecting more people to nature, including in protected landscapes.

The £80m Green Recovery Challenge Fund, which launched in September 2020, will kickstart a programme of nature-based projects to restore nature, tackle climate change and connect people with the natural environment. Some of these projects will help deliver on the Landscape Review's recommendations, such as the proposal to give every child a night under the stars in a national landscape.


Written Question
Total Allowable Catches
Monday 22nd June 2020

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

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 remove Total Allowable Catch limits from particular stocks.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

We have no plans to remove total allowable catch limits. Any decision to remove a stock from management by setting a total allowable catch would need to be guided by robust scientific evidence. Scientific advice for 2020 for most stocks in the North East Atlantic will be published by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea on 30 June.


Written Question
EU External Trade: Beef
Monday 10th September 2018

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

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 effect of the proposed review of the EU hormone-free beef quota on the allocation of EU and UK tariff rate quotas.

Answered by George Eustice

The High Quality Beef quota (also known as the EU 481 grain fed quota) established under the Revised Memorandum of Understanding of 21 October 2013 is an autonomous tariff rate quota not bound in the EU’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) schedule. The review of this quota consequently has no bearing on the apportionment of the tariff rate quotas in the EU’s WTO schedule between the UK and the EU-27.


Written Question
EU External Trade: Beef
Monday 10th September 2018

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

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 effect of the potential redistribution of the EU hormone-free beef quota on UK beef exports to the EU in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

Answered by George Eustice

The European Commission submitted a draft negotiating mandate to the Council for approval on 4 September. The draft negotiating directives specify that the Commission may offer the United States a country-specific allocation of a certain proportion of the annual tariff rate quota for High Quality Beef (also known as the EU 481 grain fed quota). They make clear, however, that negotiations should not increase the total volume of the quota or total market access into the European Union. As this nonetheless encompasses a range of potential outcomes, it will not be possible to make an assessment of the impact until the negotiations are concluded and the details of any allocation that may be agreed upon are known.


Written Question
EU External Trade: Beef
Monday 10th September 2018

Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

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 effect on the UK beef sector of the European Commission’s proposal to allocate a larger share of its hormone-free beef quota to the US.

Answered by George Eustice

The European Commission submitted a draft negotiating mandate to the Council for approval on 4 September. The draft negotiating directives specify that the Commission may offer the United States a country-specific allocation of a certain proportion of the annual tariff rate quota for High Quality Beef (also known as the EU 481 grain fed quota). They make clear, however, that negotiations should not increase the total volume of the quota or total market access into the European Union. As this nonetheless encompasses a range of potential outcomes, it will not be possible to make an assessment of the impact until the negotiations are concluded and the details of any allocation that may be agreed upon are known.