Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that (a) the 30 per cent of exported UK plastic waste destined for Turkey is managed to standards equivalent to those in the UK and (b) leakage into the environment, rivers and seas is prevented.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The UK and Turkey are both Parties to the United Nations Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal. The Convention provides a global system for controlling the export of hazardous wastes and wastes collected from households. The UK and Turkey are also both members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and are subject to an OECD Council Decision which provides the legal framework for the control of movements of wastes within the OECD to ensure the environmentally sound and economically efficient recovery of wastes.
The requirements of the Basel Convention and the OECD Decision are implemented in UK law by the EU Waste Shipment Regulations and the UK Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations. This legislation requires that those involved in the shipments of waste take all necessary steps to ensure waste is managed in an environmentally sound manner throughout its shipment and during its recycling or recovery in the country of destination.
The UK regulators take a proactive and intelligence-led approach to checking compliance with waste shipments legislation and intervene to stop illegal exports taking place when necessary. In England in 2018/19, the Environment Agency (EA) inspected almost 1,000 shipping containers at ports and returned over 200 of those to sites. During this period, the EA also prevented 12,000 tonnes of waste from reaching ports which may have otherwise been exported illegally.
Any operators found to be illegally exporting waste can face severe sanctions - from financial penalties to imprisonment for a period of up to two years.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many trees have been planted in each (a) region, (b) local authority area and (c) parliamentary constituency since April 2010.
Answered by David Rutley
Forestry Commission statistics published as part of their Corporate Performance Indicators on 13 November 2018 indicate that at the end of September 2018 at least 15.2 million trees have been planted since April 2010 with government support, equivalent to approximately 12,900 hectares of woodland. Annual figures are provided in the same report.
A separate report has been produced by the Forestry Commission using the best available information New Planting of Trees Supported by the Rural Development Programme for England, and other forms of Government Support; April 2010 to September 2018. This gives a breakdown of government supported planting by region, local authority area and parliamentary constituency. A draft copy of this report, which is subject to further review, has been placed in the library. The Forestry Commission is planning to publish the final version of the report with the next release of their Corporate Performance Indicators in February 2019.
Asked by: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)
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 the £700 million allocated in Spring Budget 2016 to boost spending on flood defences and resilience funded by the 0.5 per cent rise in Insurance Premium Tax has been (a) allocated and (b) spent.
Answered by David Rutley
Of the £700 million announced in the Spring Budget 2016 to boost spending on flood defences and resilience, £446.6 million has been allocated to Defra and £150.5 million to the Department for Transport.
£406.6 million of this funding for Defra has been allocated for specific purposes to improve defences or better manage flood risk. We anticipate that a decision will be made by summer on the remaining £40 million.
£117.9 million of the funding allocated to Defra had been spent by March and £73.7 million of the funding allocated to Department for Transport has been committed to be spent in 2018.