Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 ensure that farmers are paid fairly for produce.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We want all farmers to get a fair price for their produce and the Government is committed to tackling the unfairness that exists in the agri-food supply chain. Powers contained in the Agriculture Act 2020 enable us to introduce statutory codes of contractual practice, which would apply to businesses when purchasing agricultural products directly from farmers. The development of regulations to cover the UK dairy sector is well advanced and it remains our intention to introduce the legislation later this year. We are also developing regulations for the UK pig sector, following a consultation last year. At the recent Number 10 Farm to Fork Summit, we also confirmed that reviews of the egg and horticulture supply chains will begin from this autumn.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 ensure access to raw milk.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government wants consumers to have access to a wide variety of different food and drink products to suit individual tastes. In England it is legal to sell raw drinking milk directly to the consumer by a limited number of Food Standards Agency approved premises, provided the milk complies with all relevant legislation, including hygiene and safety legislation. Approved premises include, among others, registered milk production farms and farmers selling their product at registered farmers’ markets. More information is available on the Food Standards Agency website at the following link:
Raw drinking milk | Food Standards Agency
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when her Department plans to bring forward secondary legislation on due diligence provisions for forest-risk commodities.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We ran a consultation from 3 December 2021 to 11 March 2022 to seek views on the details of regulations that will implement the Environment Act provisions, to ensure that these are designed effectively. The Government published a summary of responses to this consultation on 1 June 2022 and is committed to implementing due diligence provisions at the earliest opportunity through secondary legislation.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will take steps to encourage the placement of sanitary bins in men’s public restrooms for the use of those affected by prostate cancer.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities manages Building Regulations and Approved Documents for provision of toilets in publicly accessible buildings, but powers in the Building Act 1984 and the Building Regulations 2010 cannot require sanitary bins in men’s toilets. Defra oversees policy and legislation with respect to the safe management of waste and of litter. However, Defra has no powers to compel the provision of sanitary bins as the maintenance of public toilets is usually a matter for the relevant local authority, and I would encourage the hon. Member to raise the issue locally. Councils have a duty to make arrangements for the regular emptying and cleansing of any litter bins that they provide or maintain. They also have the power to clean and empty litter bins provided in any street or public place. The emptying of litter bins must be sufficiently frequent to ensure that no such litter bin or its contents becomes a nuisance or gives reasonable grounds for complaint.
Where public sanitary bins are provided in local authority provided toilets, the relevant local authority must ensure that bins are managed in accordance with the relevant waste legislation, including the Waste Duty of Care, and are responsible for the maintenance and repair of public toilets. Sewer blockages can lead to flooding inside homes and businesses and are expensive to clear. There are measures in current water industry legislation to protect drains and sewers from damage due to misuse including pouring damaging substances down drains and sewers. Damaging these infrastructures is an offence punishable by a fine or, in more serious cases, imprisonment for a maximum of two years.
Provision of healthcare services and how they should be managed is the policy responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Care.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 ensure the protection and preservation of (a) the Ribble and Alt Estuaries, (b) Southport’s sand dune habitats and (c) other aspects of Southport’s coastlines.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
This part of the coast is protected by the following designations; Sefton Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Ribble Estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Sefton Coast Special Area of Conservation, Ribble and Alt Estuaries Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ribble and Alt Estuaries Ramsar. Natural England (NE) provides statutory nature conservation advice to Local Authorities, landowners and others on activities affecting these designated sites to ensure they are protected
NE’s aim for this area is to reconnect coastal designated sites to the low-lying coastal plain and the River Alt by a series of naturally regenerating wetlands and grasslands. Key to achieving this is NE’s work with farmers and landowners to encourage uptake of our Environmental Land Management Schemes and NE’s Catchment Sensitive Farming Advisers support farmers and growers to produce food in a way that protects water, air and soil.
The Environment Agency (EA) has created new saltmarsh habitat on the Ribble Estuary at Hesketh Out Marsh and is strategically looking at other coastal realignment opportunities for both flood risk management and biodiversity net gain benefits.
In 2022/23 the EA funded work with Mersey Rivers Trust investigating the nature and extent of pesticide and herbicide content within the lower reaches of the River Alt. Through Catchment Abstraction Management Strategies (CAMS) the EA also ensures the water resources of the catchments along the Ribble, Alt & Southport coast are sustainable.
Southport is a priority bathing water and the EA will be taking regular water quality samples throughout the coming bathing water season, 15 May to the end of September. Funding from Defra in 2021/22 provided resource for the EA to carry out farm inspections at an additional 30 farms in the South Fylde/Ribble Estuary area. These inspections were focused on developing improvement plans to reduce diffuse pollution impacting the receiving watercourses in the area and thereby the bathing waters at Southport.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 monitor and mitigate the risk of the H5N1 virus to wild and farmed birds as seabirds return to the UK's coastlines for nesting.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We recognise the significant threat posed by avian influenza to both kept and wild birds and share the concerns about the impact on wild bird breeding populations in the future, particularly seabirds that nest closely in large numbers.
For kept birds the enhanced biosecurity measures mandated by the Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) in force across the UK remain vital to protecting flocks across the country. For wild birds Defra’s Mitigation Strategy for Avian Influenza in Wild Birds in England and Wales supports the Notifiable Avian Disease Control Strategy for Great Britain and provides guidance to conservation charities, ornithologists and land managers including local authorities, on how to prepare and respond to suspected and confirmed findings of avian influenza in wild birds.
Defra’s approach to tackling this year’s avian influenza outbreak continues to be led by international best practice and the latest evidence, which suggest that unlike in kept birds there are limited measures that can be taken to reduce transmission between wild birds and in seabird colonies in particular. However, we’re doing all we can to tackle the impact of avian influenza in wild birds, with year-round surveillance, a new research consortium – backed by £1.5m in research funding – to develop new strategies to tackle avian influenza outbreaks, and working closely and meeting regularly with conservation charities, including the WWT, National Trust and RSPB, to consider any further action we can take. We will work with Natural England as well as key external organisations to develop and implement appropriate actions to support the recovery of vulnerable bird populations in England.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 tackle increases in food prices..
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Tackling inflation is this Government’s number one priority, with a plan to more than halve inflation this year.
We understand that food price inflation reached 19.2% in March of this year, an increase compared to February 2023 when it was 18.2%. This was driven by a combination of inflationary factors across the food chain. Industry analysts are of the opinion that we are either at or very close to the food price inflation peak. They then expect food price inflation to gradually decrease over the remainder of 2023. This means that food prices are expected to still increase, but at a slower rate than before.
Food prices are set individually by businesses and it is not for HM Government to set retail food prices nor to comment on day-to-day commercial decisions by companies. Through regular engagement, Defra will continue to work with food retailers and producers to explore the range of measures they can take to ensure the availability of affordable food. For example, by maintaining value ranges, price matching and price freezing measures.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department is taking steps to plan for a potential increase in flooding across the UK.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government published a flood and coastal erosion risk management policy statement in July 2020, setting out the long-term ambition to create a nation more resilient to flood and coastal erosion risk. The Environment Agency (EA) also published the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) Strategy for England in July 2020.
In June 2022 the EA published the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy Roadmap to 2026, outlining the practical actions the EA and other organisations will take to implement the FCERM Strategy by 2026.
The EA continues to build and repair flood and coastal defences to make the nation more resilient to flooding, delivering on the Government’s record £5.2 billion investment in flood and coastal risk management announced in March 2020. This has already resulted in more than 35,000 properties being better protected from flooding and coastal erosion since April 2021. A list of capital schemes protecting properties, completed between April 2021 and March 2022 is available on data.gov.uk .
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 research by Fathom and the University of Bristol, entitled A climate-conditioned catastrophe risk model for UK flooding, published on 7 March 2023, whether his Department has made an assessment of the implications for its policies of that research and its forecasting of future damage from UK flooding.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) flood mapping provides a national picture of flood risk for England. The EA provides all its flood risk mapping as open data, as well as it being available to view on gov.uk services, such as check your long term flood risk and flood map for planning. This combines both local and national modelling, and uses industry best practice in terms of modelling software and approaches.
The EA always seeks to improve modelling to reflect the latest climate science, including a major investment in producing a new national assessment of flood risk by 2024. This will be used to update its Long Term Investment Scenarios (LTIS) last published in 2019. LTIS are an economic assessment showing what future flood and coastal erosion risk management could look like over the next 50 years in England.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help reduce food inflation.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I recognise the impact high food prices are having on household budgets. High food prices are the result of many different factors, including agri-food commodity import prices, domestic agricultural prices, domestic labour and other manufacturing costs such as fuel and energy, as well as Sterling exchange rates. Of these factors, farmgate prices are seen to be the most influential driver of food prices.
The Government has already committed £37 billion to support households with the current exceptionally high cost of living. £1 billion of this has gone towards help with the cost of household essentials.
The most recent food inflation statistics published by the Office for National Statistics, showed that in January 2023, food inflation was 16.8%. Food inflation is higher than overall inflation given the multiple pressures across the food chain.
The Government has little influence on consumer food prices. The UK has a very competitive food retail sector which helps to keep some downward pressure on food prices. We continue to work with food retailers and producers to explore the range of measures they can take to ensure the availability of affordable food. To help with increased cost of living, retailers have introduced incentives for customers such as new reward cards offering discounts or “cashback” on future purchases. A number of stores are also offering meal deals either in store or within their cafes to help vulnerable groups.
The Government has taken action to help alleviate inflationary pressure across the food chain by expanding the number of seasonal workers visas for horticulture to 45,000 this year and initiated an Independent Labour Review to provide recommendations on how labour pressures could be addressed. The Government has also provided energy bill support via the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, cut tariffs to reduce feed costs, improved avian influenza compensation schemes and taken a range of measures on fertilisers.