Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 reintroduce red squirrels in parts of England.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The leading causes of red squirrel decline in England include competition from non-native grey squirrels, squirrel pox virus, and habitat availability. Conservation of red squirrels is therefore targeted to red squirrel stronghold areas in the north of England. All reintroductions in England are expected to follow the Code for Reintroductions and other Conservation Translocations.
The UK Squirrel Accord, to which Defra, Natural England, and the Forestry Commission are signatories, is working to better understand the appropriate strategies for conserving the red squirrel. This work includes identifying, protecting, and strengthening existing red squirrel populations, expanding their current range, and promoting better understanding and support for their conservation. Future conservation actions will be informed by this work. Once the work of the strategy has concluded and its recommendations set out, we will consider whether red squirrels should be reintroduced. In the meantime, the red squirrel action plan contains actions that could improve their habitats.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 press release entitled Record number of new bathing sites get the go ahead, published on 13 May 2024, whether the new wild swimming spots will be safe to swim in 365 days a year.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The current Bathing Water Regulations 2013 aim to drive improvement to water quality at sites where people swim, by putting in place duties on the Environment Agency, local authorities, sewerage undertakers and others to investigate pollution incidents at bathing water sites so that remedial measures can be put in place, and by encouraging collaboration around these issues.
This year, Defra will consult on reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013. 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 current bathing water monitoring offer will be maintained as a minimum. These changes will allow us to increase monitoring outside of the bathing water season in the future, to better embed water quality improvements within processes and to prevent automatic de-designation of existing bathing water sites.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 continuing Place of Destination checks for plants at Border Control Posts until January 2025.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Place of Destination scheme will not be carried forward beyond 30 April 2024. It was only ever intended to be a temporary solution, and moving controls to BCPs and Control Points is vital to achieving the biosecurity aims of the BTOM, by increasing the percentage of consignments we are able to inspect.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 it his policy to allow water customers to have a meter removed from their property.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has committed to a 20% reduction in water demand by 2038 and halving leakage by 2050. Metering is central to identifying and reducing leakage and enabling better value for money for the consumer. The Government set out that water companies in areas of ‘water stress’ can compulsorily meter, following evidence it provides value for money and has customer support in their resource planning. Where this is the case, a customer may not be able to switch back to unmeasured charges. Other water companies do offer the opportunity for customers to switch back to an unmeasured charge following meter installation. All water companies offer social tariffs as part of affordability packages for consumers who may be struggling to pay their water bills.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 plans to take to help ensure that Thames Water continues to (a) operate, (b) provide services and (c) keep bills low for customers.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Customers will not experience any change or disruption to their water supply or wastewater services as a consequence of the financial position of their water company. There are long standing processes in place whereby the regulator must approve individual companies’ investment plans to ensure they deliver on their requirements in an efficient way.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington 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 financial implications for her policies of trends in the level of debt acquired by water companies.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Water companies are allowed to raise debt to fund the delivery of their services.
Ofwat, as the independent economic regulator, assesses and monitors the financial resilience of each company, including levels of debt, on an individual and ongoing basis and challenges companies where they identify this is needed.
Over recent years, as investment requirements have risen, Ofwat has taken further steps to strengthen the financial resilience of companies. This includes increasing its financial monitoring and improving levels of reporting transparency. As part of this work, Ofwat produces an annual ‘Monitoring Financial Resilience Report’ to provide a publicly available assessment of the financial resilience of each water company.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 take legislative steps to suspend dividend payments to shareholders of water companies found to be in breach of restrictions on the release of sewerage into waterways.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are clear with Ofwat that increases to customer bills must not flow through to company profits, dividends or to executive bonuses where performance is poor.
Using new powers granted to Ofwat by this Government under the Environment Act 2021, Ofwat introduced new powers in May 2023 to ensure dividends are linked to environmental performance and cannot be paid where it would risk the financial resilience of the company.
Government and regulators will continue to work together to hold water companies to account on poor performance and drive improvements that benefit customers and the environment.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 a legally binding target to reduce sewage discharges by 90% by 2030.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is clear that the amount of sewage discharged into our waters is unacceptable. Through the Government's Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, we have set stringent targets for water companies to reduce the use of storm overflows, driving the largest infrastructure programme in water company history of £60 billion over 25 years. These stringent targets will prevent hundreds of thousands of storm overflow discharges every year.
If it is possible to go further and faster while balancing the cost to consumers, we will not hesitate to do so. The Government will review the targets in 2027, so that we stay as ambitious as possible, while balancing the impact on bills.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 take steps to pause utility prices for water companies that discharge pollutants into waterways.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has been clear that consumer bills should never reward pollution: if water companies do not deliver on their infrastructure commitments, then money is returned to billpayers. For example, in September, Ofwat announced financial penalties for several water companies, totalling £114 million, following underperformance in areas such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and customer satisfaction. This money will be rightly returned to customers through reduced water bills in 2024-25.
We want to see a step-change in the water sector, and this will require tough decisions for the long term. New infrastructure will need to be paid for, and while water companies can attract private investment, this will also need to come from customer bills.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 had discussions with United Utilities on bill prices.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State has regular meetings with stakeholders, including with water companies.
Government is working closely with both Ofwat and the Environment Agency to ensure all water companies, including United Utilities, can meet their targets for environmental improvements, without unduly impacting customers’ bills in the next price review cycle.