Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has updated its contingency plans following foot and mouth disease outbreaks in mainland Europe in 2025.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra’s approach to foot and mouth disease (FMD) control is set out in the Foot and Mouth Disease Control Strategy for Great Britain supported by the Contingency plan for exotic notifiable diseases of animals in England.
Defra and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) keep preparedness under continual review but have refocused efforts following the recent outbreaks of FMD in mainland Europe. To this end, the FMD Control Strategy is being reviewed and will be published on GOV.UK in due course. The Contingency plan for exotic notifiable diseases of animals in England is reviewed annually, and the next update is due to be laid before parliament in late autumn this year.
APHA, which leads Government action on animal disease control in Great Britain, is in the planning stages of a national tier 2 exercise to test and validate our response to an outbreak of FMD, scheduled for late 2025.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has produced a risk assessment in relation to the potential spread of foot and mouth by hostile actors.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Maintaining biosecurity is a key priority for the Government and biosecurity risks are assessed on a regular basis, including through the National Risk Register, to ensure preparedness plans align with the threat landscape. The Biological Security Strategy provides an effective framework to ensure UK resilience against a range of malicious and naturally occurring biosecurity risks.
Defra possesses effective measures to detect new and emerging threats, including the incursion of FMD and actively works with other government departments and the sector through the Veterinary Risk Group (VRG) and the Human and Animal Infections Risk Surveillance (HAIRS) Group. Defra continues to adapt its policies as required and remains committed to protecting the UK’s biosecurity and livestock sector.
Robust measures to maintain and improve Defra’s ability to understand, detect, prevent, respond and recover from foot and mouth disease outbreaks are set out in the Foot and Mouth Disease Control Strategy for Great Britain supported by the Contingency plan for exotic notifiable diseases of animals in England.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of a foot and mouth disease outbreak on the dairy sector.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The impacts of a reasonable worst-case scenario outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) were assessed in 2023 for the National Risk Register which is available on GOV.UK. These national risks are reviewed on a regular basis, taking into account new developments.
Defra has robust contingency plans in place to manage the risk of FMD as set out in the Foot and Mouth Disease Control Strategy for Great Britain supported by the Contingency plan for exotic notifiable diseases of animals in England. Defra continues to adapt its policies in response to developments and remains committed to protecting the UK’s biosecurity and livestock sector. In response to the outbreaks of FMD in Europe, this includes working with Dairy UK to update the milk code of practice for FMD, which is a set of guidelines for milk hauliers, processors, and buyers to prevent the spread of FMD through milk and dairy products.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential implications for its policies of foot and mouth disease outbreaks in Hungary, Slovakia and Germany in 2025.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has closely monitored the 2025 foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks in Hungary, Slovakia, and Germany. Following Germany’s confirmed FMD case in January, its FMD-free status was temporarily suspended but reinstated by the World Organisation for Animal Health in April after swift containment.
Hungary and Slovakia reported FMD outbreaks in March 2025, prompting immediate action. Defra assessed the risk of FMD entering Great Britain from these countries as medium, citing potential spread via wild animals and human activity.
As a result, the UK imposed temporary import bans on live animals and certain products from affected regions. Defra also reinforced biosecurity messaging to livestock keepers and increased disease surveillance.
To strengthen long-term resilience, the UK is investing £200 million into its animal health infrastructure, including Weybridge’s national reference laboratory. Defra continues to adapt its policies in response to developments and remains committed to protecting the UK’s biosecurity and livestock sector.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment the potential merits of implementing recommendation 10a of the report by Policy Connect entitled Bricks and Mortar: flood and coastal erosion risk management policy for a new Government, published on 22 January 2025.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We thank Policy Connect for their report and will consider its findings as we continue to review our flood and coastal erosion policies.
This work includes a review of the current floods funding formula, and we will be launching a consultation this spring. This will ensure that the challenges facing businesses and rural and coastal communities are adequately taken into account when delivering flood protection, including consideration of alternative resilience approaches such as natural flood management and property flood resilience. The consultation will be open to everyone, and I welcome your, and your constituents’, participation.
In January 2025 the Environment Agency commissioned an independent review of Property Flood Resilience. The review will identify current gaps and opportunities to grow the property flood resilience market, resulting in a new action plan for all relevant parties to take forward. Report due in Autumn 2025.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the report by Policy Connect entitled Bricks and Water: Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Policy for a New Government, published on 22 January 2025.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We thank Policy Connect for their report and will consider its findings as we continue to review our flood and coastal erosion policies.
This work includes a review of the current floods funding formula, and we will be launching a consultation this spring. This will ensure that the challenges facing businesses and rural and coastal communities are adequately taken into account when delivering flood protection, including consideration of alternative resilience approaches such as natural flood management and property flood resilience. The consultation will be open to everyone, and I welcome your, and your constituents’, participation.
In January 2025 the Environment Agency commissioned an independent review of Property Flood Resilience. The review will identify current gaps and opportunities to grow the property flood resilience market, resulting in a new action plan for all relevant parties to take forward. Report due in Autumn 2025.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his Department's planned timeline is for bringing forward a consultation on the funding formula for allocation of money for new flood defences.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have set out plans to consult on a new approach for floods investment. A consultation will be launched shortly which will include a review of the existing formula to ensure that the challenges facing businesses and rural and coastal communities are adequately taken into account when delivering flood protection.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what limits his Department plans to set on effluent released into waste water from commercial food waste extraction and drying systems.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Trade effluent discharges to the public sewerage network are the responsibility of the discharging party to agree consent to discharge with the local sewerage undertaker. Under s.118 of the Water Industry Act 1991, the occupier of any trade premises in the area of a sewerage undertaker may discharge any trade effluent proceeding from those premises into the undertaker’s public sewers if they do so with the undertaker’s consent. Under s.121 of the Act, the sewerage undertaker may place conditions on the consent to discharge
Disposal of food waste to landfill or into the sewer system (even if pre-treated) should only be carried out as a last resort in accordance with the food and drink waste hierarchy. Any additional food waste that is not disposed of on-site must be collected separately for recycling as per the Simpler Recycling requirements.
Defra has commissioned research into the various technologies that treat and discharge food waste to sewer to better understand their respective environmental impacts.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 10 February 2025 to Question 29014 on Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Written Questions, when he plans to respond to Question 24518 on Farming Recovery Fund, tabled on 16 January 2025 by the hon. Member for North Shropshire.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Question 24518 was answered on 4 March 2025.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 the Farming Recovery Fund, if he will publish (a) the number of individual payments made by and (b) total costs of those payment to each local authority area for each year since the fund was established.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Farming Recovery Fund payments are made directly to farmers. The Farming Recovery Fund is activated by the Government of the day and has been activated in 2015, 2019, 2020 and again in 2024 depending on the scale and impacts of the flooding, these are detailed below:
- In 2015 when Storm Desmond produced 341mm of rainfall at Honister Pass in Cumbria in 24 hours.
- In 2019/2020, a flash flood in North Yorkshire affecting a single parish and the collapse of a flood embankment in Wainfleet, Lincolnshire, and widescale flooding across central and eastern England.
- In 2024 an expanded fund following Storms Babet, Henk and the exceptional wet weather during the six-month period October 2023 to March 2024
Each iteration of the Farming Recovery Fund is different depending on when, where and what the weather conditions were which caused the flooding. Farmers were able to apply for these funds the details of which are set out below.
Region | FRF 2015 | FRF 2019 | FRF 2020 | |||
Number | Amount | Number | Amount | Number | Amount | |
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire | 1 | £9,120.00 |
|
|
|
|
Cheshire |
|
|
|
| 1 | £3,948.94 |
Cumbria | 530 | £4,647,445.22 |
|
|
|
|
Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire |
|
| 18 | £78,834.38 | 4 | £28,006.84 |
East Anglia | 1 | £1,530.00 |
|
|
|
|
East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire | 8 | £34,027.49 | 2 | £5,515.78 | 1 | £1,361.30 |
Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bath/Bristol area | 1 | £2,924.20 | 1 | £21,387.50 | 35 | £241,976.01 |
Greater Manchester | 7 | £33,124.52 |
|
|
|
|
Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire |
|
| 6 | £52,665.32 | 70 | £362,580.74 |
Inner London - West | 1 | £3,603.00 |
|
| 1 | £1,730.00 |
Lancashire | 129 | £978,167.39 |
|
|
|
|
Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire |
|
| 1 | £5,829.50 |
|
|
Lincolnshire | 1 | £19,846.00 | 30 | £165,887.13 |
|
|
North Yorkshire | 212 | £1,507,147.20 | 36 | £266,871.18 |
|
|
Northumberland, and Tyne and Wear | 60 | £425,640.21 |
|
|
|
|
Shropshire and Staffordshire | 1 | £20,000.00 |
|
| 29 | £120,655.82 |
South Yorkshire | 1 | £514.90 | 12 | £39,280.42 |
|
|
Tees Valley and Durham | 15 | £106,270.76 |
|
|
|
|
West Yorkshire | 27 | £181,071.49 |
|
|
|
|
Total payments to English registered businesses | 995 | £7,970,432.38 | 106 | £636,271.21 | 141 | £760,259.65 |
Paid for land in England but business registered in other UK country | 4 | £31,867.98 |
|
| 3 | £7,368.36 |
Grand total | 999 | £8,002,300.36 | 106 | £636,271.21 | 144 | £767,628.01 |
We will publish data for the 2024 Farming Recovery Fund once payments have been finalised. The 2024 Farming Recovery Fund has paid around 12,700 farming businesses £57.5 million, to date.
Recovery payments were always intended as an exceptional intervention. Defra is working with the Flood Resilience Taskforce to develop a longer-term solution to the impacts of our changing climate on the agricultural sector. We are also investing in environmental land management schemes which include actions to improve flood resilience and water management on farms.