Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 29 October 2024 to Question 10797 on Inland Border Facilities: Dover, what the operating status is of Bastion Point Border Control Point as of 22 January 2025.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The site at Bastion Point is currently retained in a non-operational state. The Government will explore further options for the site in the future.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
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 the Timed Out Decision Contingency Feature has been used for medium-risk animal products in each month since February 2024.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Individual Local and Port Health Authorities will hold local data and will be able to identify when the Timed Out Decision Contingency Feature has been used.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of vehicles entering the Port of Dover being under no obligation to attend Sevington Border Control Point if asked to do so on biosecurity.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Consignments called in to Sevington Border Control Post (BCP) for an inspection will have completed the necessary customs declarations and pre-notifications. These goods will not be legally cleared for sale or use within the UK until they have checked and been cleared by the BCP. If the importer fails to attend, the Port Health staff will commence the necessary action.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many tonnes of (a) dangerous and (b) illegal meat were intercepted at the (i) Port of Dover, (ii) Port of Felixstowe, (iii) Port of Liverpool, (iv) Port of London, (v) Port of Grimsby and Immingham, (vi) Port of Southampton, (vii) Port of Tees and Hartlepool, (viii) Port of the Forth and (ix) Port of Belfast in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Please see the table below for total seizures of illegal meat, for full year on year. We are unable to provide further levels of detail as we do not release details of the location of seizure; this information could risk undermining border security, by providing intelligence in our resource deployment and targeting.
Total seizures for full year on year since 2022 are as follows:
2022 (Sept-Dec) | 3745kg |
2023 | 44,482kg |
2024 | 92,270kg |
2025* | 5,593kg |
*2025 runs from 3 to 10 January 2025
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many products of animal origin spot checks were undertaken at the (a) Port of Dover, (b) Port of Felixstowe, (c) Port of Liverpool, (d) Port of London, (e) Port of Grimsby and Immingham, (f) Port of Southampton, (g) Port of Tees and Hartlepool, (h) Port of the Forth and (i) Port of Belfast in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Our checks are intelligence-led and based on biosecurity risk. To protect the integrity of this approach, we cannot share granular data on inspections.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much was spent on products of animal origin spot checks at the (a) Port of Dover, (b) Port of Felixstowe, (c) Port of Liverpool, (d) Port of London, (e) Port of Grimsby and Immingham, (f) Port of Southampton, (g) Port of Tees and Hartlepool, (h) Port of the Forth and (i) Port of Belfast in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Our checks are intelligence-led and based on biosecurity risk. To protect the integrity of this approach, we cannot share granular data on inspections
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether there were any financial implications to the Exchequer of the sale of the White Cliffs Business Park that hosts the Bastion Point Inland Border Facility site on 4 September 2024.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra considers this to be commercially sensitive information and therefore may not be released.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many incidents of flooding have been reported in (a) South Norfolk constituency and (b) Norfolk in the last five years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Lead Local Flood Authorities undertake formal investigations after significant floods and produce Section 19 reports, which include the number of properties affected. Not all floods require a Section 19 investigation. Criteria for investigation include the number of properties internally flooded, nature of flooding, frequency of flooding, and critical infrastructure affected.
Over the last five years, Norfolk County Council recorded over 900 reports of flooding to properties, 139 of those in the South Norfolk Constituency. In this period, the most significant flooding event in this Constituency occurred on 23 and 24 December 2020 with 83 properties flooded.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Sustainable Farming Incentive payments were made (a) within and (b) after four months.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Sustainable Farming Incentive has a rolling application window with the first payment normally issued four months after the start of the agreement and quarterly thereafter.
As of 21 November 26,329, payments have been made within fourth months and 371 not within four months.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 20 November 2024 to Question 13929 on Water Abstraction: Licensing, what the regional breakdown of these water abstraction licences was in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The number of water abstraction licences (temporary, full and transfer) live for all or part of the financial year for each of the last ten financial years is shown in the tables below. This data is shown by former Environment Agency (EA) regions.
This had been done by former EA regions to ensure consistency and allow comparison, as the EA changed its area boundaries in 2016.
For the purposes of this analysis, the boundary of each former EA region is river catchment based.
Also, these figures are for the country of England only. Figures for the former ‘Wales’ and ‘Midlands’ EA regions only include water abstraction licences with abstraction points located in England.
Former EA Region | 2014/2015 | 2015/2016 | 2016/2017 | 2017/2018 | 2018/2019 |
Anglian | 4761 | 4717 | 4610 | 4488 | 4556 |
Wales | 450 | 447 | 434 | 408 | 413 |
Midlands | 3566 | 3506 | 3481 | 3386 | 3299 |
North East | 2184 | 2162 | 2140 | 2065 | 2033 |
North West | 1657 | 1675 | 1645 | 1615 | 1606 |
South West | 2225 | 2179 | 2165 | 2049 | 2023 |
Southern | 1702 | 1669 | 1642 | 1631 | 1567 |
Thames | 1689 | 1672 | 1648 | 1607 | 1603 |
Total | 18234 | 18027 | 17765 | 17249 | 17100 |
Former EA Region | 2019/2020 | 2020/2021 | 2021/2022 | 2022/2023 | 2023/2024 |
Anglian | 4466 | 4507 | 4580 | 4640 | 4656 |
Wales | 412 | 471 | 474 | 471 | 465 |
Midlands | 3277 | 3339 | 3320 | 3482 | 3447 |
North East | 2028 | 2115 | 2104 | 2152 | 2157 |
North West | 1576 | 1580 | 1600 | 1621 | 1609 |
South West | 2002 | 1999 | 2021 | 2055 | 2054 |
Southern | 1566 | 1551 | 1639 | 1687 | 1677 |
Thames | 1613 | 1622 | 1648 | 1706 | 1714 |
Total | 16940 | 17184 | 17386 | 17814 | 17779 |