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 she plans to introduce restrictions on the use of disposable barbecues in national parks.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are commissioning research to examine the impact that disposable barbecues have on the environment and potential avenues for mitigating significant risks. We expect this research to be completed in the new year, when we will be in a position to consider further action.
Current legislation allows for local authorities to restrict and enforce against the use of disposable barbecues in parks and other public spaces. There are also existing powers in legislation which can be used by authorities to regulate and prohibit the lighting of fires on Access Land in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) and National Parks.
The Government is working with AONBs, National Park Authorities, and other Government Departments to promote a series of videos containing guidance about travelling to the wider countryside and safely spending time outdoors. This includes an updated Countryside Code, which advises not to light fires and to only have BBQs where signs say you can.
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, when the Deposit Return Scheme will commence.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Further details on when a Deposit Return Scheme will be introduced will be set out in the Government response to the 2021 consultation. We are working towards publication in late 2022.
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 ban single use plastic in food packaging.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Plastic has an important role to play in certain applications and we must think carefully about how we solve the problems that arise from plastic waste in order to avoid unintended consequences.
Therefore, we intend to take forward the proposals set out in HM Government Response to the consultation on packaging extended producer responsibility and to introduce measures to incentivise producers to make better, more sustainable decisions in their design and use of packaging and to require more packaging to be recycled at end of use.
For particularly problematic packaging items, we are seeking to go further. We have recently consulted on proposals to ban expanded and extruded polystyrene food and beverage containers, including cups.
Businesses are also seeking to go further. In April 2018, WRAP and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched their world-leading UK Plastics Pact, with support from HM Government, and all the major supermarkets have signed up to it. The Pact brings organisations from across the plastics value chain together with four key targets for 2025 that aim to reduce the amount of plastic packaging waste generated. These targets include action to eliminate problematic or unnecessary single-use plastic packaging items.
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 it is the Government’s policy to reduce the use of palm oil in UK supply chains.
Answered by Scott Mann - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We are committed to supporting sustainable production, import, and use of palm oil. Oil palm is a very efficient crop, producing more oil per hectare than other vegetable oil crops. Substitution of other oils (for example, soybean, rapeseed, sunflower), which typically require significantly more land to produce, may lead to greater environmental impacts as more land is converted to agricultural use.
We are working closely with industry, including with supermarkets and manufacturers, to support sustainable production and use of palm oil. For example, in 2012, the Government established the UK Roundtable on Sourcing Sustainable Palm Oil, bringing together key British businesses and supporting them to shift to sustainable palm oil supply chains. Latest reports show that 71% of palm oil and palm kernel oil imports into the United Kingdom were certified sustainable in 2020 – up from 16% in 2010. It is not HM Government’s policy to reduce the overall use of palm oil in United Kingdom supply chains.
HM Government is also committed to tackling the use of illegally produced forest risk commodities – agricultural commodities whose production is associated with wide-scale forest loss, which currently include palm oil. We have introduced world-leading due diligence legislation to make it illegal for larger businesses operating in the United Kingdom to use key forest risk commodities produced on land illegally occupied or used. From December 2021 to March 2022, we consulted on which specific commodities we should regulate through initial secondary legislation. This included seeking views on regulating the following shortlist of commodities: cattle, cocoa, coffee, maize, palm oil, rubber, and soy.
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 his Department is taking to help reduce leakages in the UK’s water infrastructure.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Water companies are responsible for reducing leakages in their network. Ofwat has set companies a performance commitment to reduce leakage by 16% by 2025 and water companies committed to a 50% reduction by 2050.
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 his Department is taking to increase the number of trees.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Trees are at the forefront of the Government’s plans to achieve net zero by 2050, whilst also helping achieve many other environmental and economic outcomes.
Our England Trees Action Plan (ETAP), published in May 2021, sets out the long-term, generational vision for trees and forestry to 2050. The Plan details how we will treble tree planting rates in England by the end of this Parliament, contributing to 30,000 hectares of new trees per year across the UK by 2025. The Plan is supported by the £675 million Nature for Climate Fund. We have already:
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 discussions and engagement his Department has had with the UK's highest polluters to encourage them to reduce their emissions.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Under the Environmental Permitting Regulations, a wide range of industrial installations require an environmental permit to operate. Permits set conditions of operation, including limits on emissions of pollutants. Permits for large and more polluting industries are issued and enforced by the Environment Agency. Smaller premises are regulated by local authorities.
Permits require use of best available techniques (BAT) to prevent and reduce emissions to air, water and land. The UK Government and Devolved Administrations have published the government response to the joint consultation on the ‘Best Available Techniques’: a future regime within the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
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 his Department is taking to help protect UK marine wildlife from the increase in ocean temperatures.
Answered by Steve Double
In the UK we are committed to ensuring that climate change adaptation, resilience and mitigation are fully considered in our marine and fisheries policies, and work is underway to prepare for the Third National Adaptation Programme, due to be published in 2023.
Through our UK Marine Strategy, we have put in place a legal framework for assessing and monitoring the status of our seas, and implementing the measures needed for UK waters to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES). We have consulted on a programme of measures proposed for inclusion in Part 3 of the Strategy, which include measures supporting the increased resilience of the marine environment/species to climate change impacts.
We are also working with those countries we share our seas with through OSPAR, the regional seas convention for the North-East Atlantic, to implement its strategy to 2030, which includes developing coordinated management approaches to strengthening ecosystem resilience, including to the consequences of climate change.
Ocean action should be underpinned by transformational ocean science, and the UK is a hub of world class ocean and climate scientific expertise. We continue to develop and invest in our world-leading science, including though partnerships like the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership, to champion ocean climate research across key areas such as blue carbon, nature-based solutions, ocean acidification and global monitoring systems.
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, when he plans to announce details of how the Platinum Jubilee fund will be administered.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Detail of how the Platinum Jubilee Village Hall Improvement Grant Fund will be administered will be published in the autumn.
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 plans he has to ban e-collars.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
One of the key reforms in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare is to ban hand-held remote-controlled electronic training collars (“e-collars”), given their scope to harm the welfare of dogs, including those deemed reactive. We continue to work closely with the animal welfare sector, enforcement agencies and Governments across the four nations on this ban.
The ban will be made via secondary legislation under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. The legislation needed to ban remote controlled electronic training collars in England will be laid before Parliament as soon as Parliamentary time allows.