Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 replace the Sustainable Farming Incentive in this financial year.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We will provide further details about the reformed SFI in summer 2025.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 4 April 2025 to Question 42420 on Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, on how many occasions in the last five years have people who had animals being kept in domestic settings been found to be in breach of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This information may be held at local level by local authorities, but it is not information Defra collects or holds centrally.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 his policy to review the effectiveness of the implementation of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government currently has no plans to review the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of whether the UK meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department has made no recent assessment of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target of a 50% reduction of food waste by 2030.
Latest data from the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) showed that between 2007, the baseline used for reporting food waste progress, and 2021, UK per capita food waste fell by 26kg per person per year, representing an 18.3% reduction. To meet the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target of a 50% reduction by 2030, a further 45kg per person reduction or 32% of the baseline will be required.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 monitor the value for money of Government-funded biodiversity projects over the next five years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Defra has a number of schemes which provide funding to support biodiversity projects. This includes the Landscape Recovery Scheme, The Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme, and Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme Capital Grant Scheme.
Each individual scheme has its own monitoring and evaluation framework to evaluate the impact of the projects, and this will include evaluation of the value for money delivered. For example, the Species Recovery Programme is currently commissioning an evaluation for the current Spending Review period which will include evaluating whether the Programme is providing value for money.
Defra is also currently developing an overarching monitoring and evaluation framework to strengthen its understanding of progress towards meeting its statutory biodiversity targets, including its target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. This work will include an overall evaluation of the value for money delivered by the suite of government interventions for biodiversity.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 hold discussions with his counterparts in the devolved Administrations on bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The UK has a comprehensive surveillance programme in place to monitor the level of BSE over time and check on the continued effectiveness of our BSE controls. It was the effectiveness of these controls that recently identified a case in Scotland. Defra officials have engaged closely with Scottish counterparts on this matter, as they do regularly on animal disease issues more broadly with officials from all UK administrations under the Animal Health and Welfare Framework.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 set a food waste reduction target for the Waste and Resources Action Programme.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are fully committed to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target, which seeks to halve global food waste at consumer and retail levels by 2030. We fund the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to manage the Courtauld Commitment, a voluntary agreement with industry to tackle food waste across the supply chain, with a target of a 50% per capita reduction in food waste by 2030 against the UK’s 2007 baseline.
These are ambitious targets, and we are making progress. Between 2007-2021, UK per capita food waste fell by 26kg per person per year, that’s an 18.3% reduction. Through WRAP we continue to support businesses and citizens to take action, with more than £2 million going to our food waste prevention programme this year.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 meet the Species Reintroduction Taskforce to discuss ongoing work to increase the number of red squirrels in the UK.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Defra is committed to working closely with the England Species Reintroductions Taskforce to help it achieve its objective to realise the full benefits of species conservation translocations for nature recovery and society. To do so, Defra attends Taskforce meetings as an observer. The Taskforce is committed to developing and publishing materials to better understand the risks and benefits of species translocations. Defra will engage with the Taskforce on the applicability of these outputs to Defra’s priorities, whether on red squirrels or any other species, once they are produced.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 ensure an adequate supply of labour in the food supply chain.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra is aware of the impact that labour shortages are having on the food supply chain and we continue to speak regularly with the sector and other government departments to understand labour supply and demand, including both permanent and seasonal workforce requirements.
To inform future decisions on labour across the sector, Defra commissioned John Shropshire to carry out an Independent Review into Labour Shortages in the Food Supply Chain throughout 2022 and 2023, considering how automation, domestic labour and migrant labour could contribute to tackling labour shortages in our sectors. This report was published on 30 June 2023 and the government response – which will also be informed by the Review of Automation in Horticulture – is expected to be published in early 2024.
At the same time as the response, the government will set out how it will support the sector to access the labour it needs alongside actions to reduce the sector’s reliance on migrant labour including via our work on automation and promoting domestic labour procurement and training.
Alongside this, the Government announced last May that there would be 45,000 Seasonal Worker visas for the horticulture sector in 2024, with a further 2000 for seasonal poultry workers, ensuring these sectors can plan their workforce needs for the year ahead with confidence.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, will the Responsible Dog Ownership working group continue beyond the forthcoming publication of it’s findings.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra will continue to work with members of the Responsible Dog Ownership working group including police, local authorities and animal welfare organisations to facilitate the recommendations of the taskforce’s report. Conclusions from this work aim to address all aspects of tackling irresponsible dog ownership effectively, from prevention to robust, consistent enforcement, focussing on owners as well as on their dogs.