Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
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 merits of increasing support for citizen science to help improve understanding of the UK's water quality.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Citizen Science initiatives can provide invaluable data about our water environment, which complements monitoring and assessment work conducted by the Environment Agency (EA). In recognition of this the EA is delivering the first phase of a three-year citizen science project: Supporting Citizen Science. This project is working with partners across England to explore how the EA can best utilise citizen science evidence alongside its own monitoring data to further increase understanding of water quality. Recommendations from this project are expected in 2025.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of asking citizen science programmes to (a) test water quality and (b) provide that data to his Department.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We recognise the value of citizen science data, and the additional insight it can provide to complement monitoring and assessment work conducted by the Environment Agency (EA).
The EA is delivering the first phase of a multi-year citizen science project: Supporting Citizen Science. The project is working with partners across England to explore how the EA can best work with citizen science groups to observe and measure the environment, alongside their ongoing monitoring to further increase understanding of water quality.
Citizen scientists are not being asked to test water quality on behalf of the EA: the focus is instead on citizen science data providing supplementary insight.
The EA is working with catchment partners to provide data management guidance to support citizen scientists in the collection and storage of data to improve our understanding of the water environment.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will introduce year-round water quality testing.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Bathing Water Regulations require the Environment Agency to sample bathing waters at a fixed location using a pre-determined sampling schedule during the bathing season, which runs from 15 May to 30 September. The Government is committed to reviewing the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 to ensure they reflect changes in how and where people use bathing waters. That is why Defra has recently announced plans to consult on proposals to reform the Bathing Water Regulations for England. The proposed changes will drive work to improve bathing water quality, enhance monitoring and enable more flexibility around the dates of the bathing water monitoring season.
The EA also conducts wider water quality monitoring for a range of purposes including understanding the state of the environment year-round.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential barriers to wider deployment of biomass fuels.
Answered by Anthony Browne
The government’s Biomass Strategy, published in 2023, analysed biomass availability and recognised that sustainable biomass is a limited resource and there is uncertainty around future availability for use in the UK. It concluded its use should be prioritised where it offers the greatest environmental, economic, and social benefits.
This analysis has been built on in the government’s response to the second Sustainable Aviation Fuel Mandate consultation, published in April 2024. This set out that while biofuels have a significant role to play, international availability of different types of sustainable biomass may limit their total application for the decarbonisation of aviation.
The Government is preparing a Low Carbon Fuel Strategy for future publication.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking with local authorities to help increase the rate of reunification of children in kinship care with their birth families.
Answered by David Johnston
The department is committed to ensuring that looked after children are able to achieve permanence. Where a looked after child’s permanence plan is to return to the care of their parents, there should be a robust decision-making process to ensure this decision is safe and sustainable and will safeguard and promote their welfare. Local authorities should set out what support and services will be provided following reunification.
In the 2023 update to the statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ the department set out that local authorities may consider whether family group decision-making would support the child’s transition home from care, and the role the family network could play in supporting this.
The £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme will test family network reforms including through increased use of family group decision making. This reform area will empower families by prioritising family-led solutions, engaging wider family networks throughout decisions made about a child which may support reunification, including back to birth parents.
The number and percentage of looked after children returning home to live with parents or other people with parental responsibility is published annually in the department’s children looked after statistical release and can be interrogated at local authority level on GOV.UK. Figures are available for the last five years. The department does not intend to break down the data any further to identify returns to birth parents from kinship care.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring local authorities to (a) measure and (b) publish their performance on reuniting children in kinship care with their birth parents.
Answered by David Johnston
The department is committed to ensuring that looked after children are able to achieve permanence. Where a looked after child’s permanence plan is to return to the care of their parents, there should be a robust decision-making process to ensure this decision is safe and sustainable and will safeguard and promote their welfare. Local authorities should set out what support and services will be provided following reunification.
In the 2023 update to the statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ the department set out that local authorities may consider whether family group decision-making would support the child’s transition home from care, and the role the family network could play in supporting this.
The £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme will test family network reforms including through increased use of family group decision making. This reform area will empower families by prioritising family-led solutions, engaging wider family networks throughout decisions made about a child which may support reunification, including back to birth parents.
The number and percentage of looked after children returning home to live with parents or other people with parental responsibility is published annually in the department’s children looked after statistical release and can be interrogated at local authority level on GOV.UK. Figures are available for the last five years. The department does not intend to break down the data any further to identify returns to birth parents from kinship care.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the impact of local authority specialist family reunification teams on trends in the number of children who have been reunited with their birth parents in the last 10 years.
Answered by David Johnston
The department is committed to ensuring that looked after children are able to achieve permanence. Where a looked after child’s permanence plan is to return to the care of their parents, there should be a robust decision-making process to ensure this decision is safe and sustainable and will safeguard and promote their welfare. Local authorities should set out what support and services will be provided following reunification.
In the 2023 update to the statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ the department set out that local authorities may consider whether family group decision-making would support the child’s transition home from care, and the role the family network could play in supporting this.
The £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme will test family network reforms including through increased use of family group decision making. This reform area will empower families by prioritising family-led solutions, engaging wider family networks throughout decisions made about a child which may support reunification, including back to birth parents.
The number and percentage of looked after children returning home to live with parents or other people with parental responsibility is published annually in the department’s children looked after statistical release and can be interrogated at local authority level on GOV.UK. Figures are available for the last five years. The department does not intend to break down the data any further to identify returns to birth parents from kinship care.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question
To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, whether the Church of England has had discussions with the Clewer Initiative on the impact of its funding on its work; and whether the Church is taking steps to support the Clewer Initiative.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The Clewer Initiative was set up as a joint programme between the Church of England and the Trustees of the Community of St John the Baptist (known as the Clewer Sisters). It was launched in October 2017 with the backing of the then Prime Minister Theresa May and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It started as an initial three-year programme working to help the Church of England's 42 dioceses support victims of modern slavery and identify signs of exploitation in their local communities. Information about its work can be found here: https://theclewerinitiative.org/
Over the past seven years the Clewer Initiative has worked with a large network of volunteers drawn from across the Church of England. Sadly, the Trustees of CSJB feel unable to continue with funding and, in the absence of an alternative funding stream, the Clewer Initiative will close this summer. The National Church Institutions are currently working to ensure that the assets of the project, especially valuable tools such as the Car Wash App, which have led to many investigations and prosecutions for Modern Day Slavery, are transferred to other charities working in this field. The Church of England remains committed to combating modern day slavery and will consider other ways to continue its work in this area.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question
To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, whether the Church of England has had discussions with the Clewer Initiative on tackling modern slavery in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The Clewer Initiative was set up as a joint programme between the Church of England and the Trustees of the Community of St John the Baptist (known as the Clewer Sisters). It was launched in October 2017 with the backing of the then Prime Minister Theresa May and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It started as an initial three-year programme working to help the Church of England's 42 dioceses support victims of modern slavery and identify signs of exploitation in their local communities. Information about its work can be found here: https://theclewerinitiative.org/
Over the past seven years the Clewer Initiative has worked with a large network of volunteers drawn from across the Church of England. Sadly, the Trustees of CSJB feel unable to continue with funding and, in the absence of an alternative funding stream, the Clewer Initiative will close this summer. The National Church Institutions are currently working to ensure that the assets of the project, especially valuable tools such as the Car Wash App, which have led to many investigations and prosecutions for Modern Day Slavery, are transferred to other charities working in this field. The Church of England remains committed to combating modern day slavery and will consider other ways to continue its work in this area.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure that local authority trading standards bodies have sufficient (a) funding and (b) other resources to tackle (i) illicit vapes and (ii) underage sales.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The Government is concerned about the increase in the number of illicit vapes in the United Kingdom’s market, and the easy access and availability of these vapes to children. To strengthen our enforcement activity, we are providing an additional £30 million per year for enforcement agencies, including Trading Standards, to support work in tackling illicit and underage sales. We are working closely with Trading Standards to consider how the new funding can best support their programmes of local-level enforcement.
In April last year, we also provided £3 million of new funding for a new enforcement unit to tackle the illegal and underage sale of vapes, which has conducted targeted inspections in retail outlets and ports, upskilled Trading Standards officers, and piloted online underage test programmes.
The Government will also introduce fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for the underage sale of tobacco and vaping products. This will support Trading Standards in taking quicker and more proportionate enforcement action against the irresponsible retailers who allow underage sales. Enforcement authorities will retain all the proceeds from FPNs, to reinvest in the enforcement of tobacco and vaping product legislation.