Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding has been allocated to (a) St Helens, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK for flood prevention and remediation in each year since 2010.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Government has invested £2.5 billion over six years on improving flood defences to better protect over 300,000 homes. This is a real terms increase in capital investment – up from £1.7 billion in the last Parliament and £1.5 billion between 2005 and 2010.
The table below summarises the total capital investment on flood and coastal risk management for St Helens, Merseyside and England for each year since 2010.
| Total capital investment on flood and coastal risk management (£k) | ||
St Helens (Metropolitan Borough) | Merseyside | England | |
2010/11 | 318 | 4,501 | 363,985 |
2011/12 | 188 | 1,329 | 321,900 |
2012/13 | 377 | 466 | 323,219 |
2013/14 | 10 | 78 | 380,217 |
2014/15 | 0 | 206 | 507,884 |
2015/16 | 0 | 0 | 412,952 |
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding for flood prevention her Department has allocated to each local authority in 2016-17.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Department provides funding for flood risk management projects through Grant in Aid to Risk Management Authorities, which include the Environment Agency, local authorities and internal drainage boards. Please see the attached table which shows Grant in Aid funding allocated to Risk Management Authorities in 2016/17. This is a snapshot for the current year and reflects the bids made by authorities for specific projects.
In addition funding for local authorities’ ongoing flood prevention responsibilities is provided through the Local Government Settlement. Local authorities have freedom to determine their own priorities and so there is no specific flood allocation by authority.
Funding for two ongoing flood responsibilities, the Lead Local Flood Authority role and local authorities’ role as statutory consultee on surface water for major developments, was previously provided through Defra and DCLG grants but as of 2016/17 has been fully rolled into the settlement. The visible lines show a notional amount for each authority for these two purposes. The lines indicate the priority central government gives to these two services but do not affect authorities’ freedom to set their own priorities locally.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many applicants for common agricultural policy payments from (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK were awaiting payment by the March 2016 payment deadline.
Answered by George Eustice
As at the end of March 2016, in addition to claims which the Rural Payments Agency cannot pay due to legal reasons such as probate, there were 13,531 English claimants still awaiting a BPS Payment. Of these 54 applicants were in Merseyside and 25 in St Helens North. The RPA does not hold the information for the UK as payments in Scotland and Wales are made by their respective governments.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens 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 her Department is taking to reduce the level of inaccurate Common Agricultural Policy payments.
Answered by George Eustice
The RPA introduced new features to enable farmers and agents to apply for 2016 BPS online, as well as view their land and transfer land and entitlements to others. With over 80% of claims received online, this means the number of cases requiring manual data-entry this year was significantly reduced.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many inaccurate Common Agricultural Policy payments were made to farmers in (a) St Helens North, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK in each year since 2010.
Answered by George Eustice
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) said it would investigate Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) 2015 claims where there’s a discrepancy between the claim information and that held on the Rural Payments service, through a planned payment reconciliation process. This started after the BPS 2016 application window closed and looked at an initial stock of 13,600 claims for England.
Of these claims, 14 related to farmers in St Helens and 41 in Merseyside. The RPA does not hold this information for the UK. The agency will continue to investigate new queries which customers raise and make any top-up payments due.
No comparable data is available for the previous scheme which ran between 2005 and 2014.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much the UK paid to the European Commission on disallowance penalties for Common Agricultural Policy payments which did not comply with regulations in each year since 2010.
Answered by George Eustice
As from financial year 2010/11 Defra has accrued £402m for disallowance following the conclusion of EU audits, broken down by financial year as shown in the table below. This relates to a number of different Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Schemes over a number of historical scheme years as disallowance is paid in arrears.
Disallowance (*) £m | |||||
2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 |
181 | 42 | 2 | 30 | 81 | 66 |
(*) Reflects the sums the European Commission have ruled cannot be reimbursed (i.e. the amounts they have “disallowed”).
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much waste was recycled in (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK in each year since 2010.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Waste data is reported by all local authorities in England and the UK through WasteDataFlow. The data in the following table is taken from WasteDataFlow. The table shows the percentage of all local authority collected waste which was sent for recycling from 2010/11 to 2014/15 for St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council and Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority. Data is not reported on the basis of St Helens North constituency.
Percentage of all local authority waste recycled/composted (*) | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 |
St Helens MBC | 31.3% | 31.7% | 29.3% | 36.8% | 40.6% |
Merseyside WDA (MBC) | 36.5% | 36.9% | 36.2% | 39.7% | 41.9% |
UK | 40.2% | 42.5% | 42.1% | 43.2% | 43.7% |
(*) Includes reuse |
The data is published through the annual results for local authority collected waste and is available on GOV.UK at: www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/env18-local-authority-collected-waste-annual-results-tables
It should be noted that the official UK recycling measure which is used to report against the Waste Framework Directive is the narrower ‘waste from households’ recycling rate. This is reported on a calendar year basis. UK recycling rates for this measure are given in the table below. This information is not available for individual local authorities.
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
UK Waste from household recycling rate | 40.4% | 42.9% | 43.9% | 44.1% | 44.9% |
The data is published in the UK Waste Statistics publication which is available on GOV.UK at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-waste-data.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of waste sorted for recycling has ended up in landfill in (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK in each year since 2010.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Waste data is reported by all local authorities in England and the UK for all local authority collected waste. Rejects are recorded at three points in the waste movement chain, i.e. waste that is rejected at kerbside collection, at the materials recovery facility and at the gate of re-processors.
Information on the amount of recycling rejects as a proportion of all local authority waste collected and sent for recycling is provided in Table A. For England for the three years 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14, approximately one third of the total recycling rejects or 1% of all local authority waste collected and sent for recycling were disposed to landfill. Information on the disposal of recycling rejects for England for other years and for individual local authorities is not readily available.
Table A Recycling rejects as a proportion of total local authority waste collected and sent for recycling1 (%)
Year | England (%) | St Helens MBC2 | Merseyside MBC |
2014/15 | 3 | - | 1 |
2013/14 | 3 | - | 2 |
2012/13 | 2 | - | 2 |
2011/12 | 2 | - | 2 |
2010/11 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
1: includes preparation for re-use and composting.
2: no rejects were reported for 2011/12 to 2014/15. .
The data is published through the annual results for local authority collected waste and can be viewed at: www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/env18-local-authority-collected-waste-annual-results-tables with additional information on rejects published through several freedom of information requests available at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/defra-foi-eir-releases.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the average household bill for water was in (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK in (i) 2010 and (ii) 2015.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The average water and sewerage bill in the St Helens North constituency and Merseyside was £359 in 2010 and £411 in 2015. Both of these areas are served by United Utilities. The average water and sewerage bill in England and Wales was £339 in 2010 and £385 in 2015.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens 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 implications for her policies of the report by the National Audit Office, The economic regulation of the water sector, HC487; and what steps her Department is taking to ensure that customers benefit from water companies' unexpected financial gains.
Answered by Rory Stewart
We accept the recommendation that we should develop further our assessments of the affordability and cost-effectiveness of environmental improvements. The Environment Agency has recently published the most comprehensive cost-benefit appraisal ever conducted for improving the water environment in England.
The remaining recommendations of the report are for Ofwat, the independent economic regulator of the water sector. Its independence is crucial to ensure stable economic regulation to keep investment costs down and customer bills low. The Government does not intervene in any regulatory decisions made by the regulator.