Asked by: Jackie Doyle-Price (Conservative - Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential effect the proposed ban on burning coal in domestic settings on fuel poverty.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
As stated in the Government Response published on 21 February, we want to see a move from bituminous coal to less polluting fuels in the domestic setting. We will facilitate this transition by only allowing the sale of smokeless coal (or anthracite) and low sulphur manufactured solid fuels for the purpose of domestic combustion.
Asked by: Jackie Doyle-Price (Conservative - Thurrock)
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 particulate emissions is generated by domestic coal burning.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Details on emissions of particulate matter (PM) by fuel type are not available for the latest year’s emissions inventory (first published 14 February 2020). This information will be available later in the spring via the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory website. Levels and trends in annual emissions of particulate matter in the UK are available from the National Statistics on emissions of air pollutants. These can be found at the following URL:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/emissions-of-air-pollutants
Data from the previous year’s inventory (published in 2019) indicate that approximately 3% of all PM2.5 emissions and 2% of all PM10 emissions in the UK were attributed to the domestic burning of coal in 2017. This equates to 3.3 kilotons and 3.4 kilotons of PM2.5 and PM10 emitted from domestic coal combustion in 2017, respectively. These figures include the burning of anthracite which is coal with a high carbon content.
Asked by: Jackie Doyle-Price (Conservative - Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many times the Thames flood barrier has been closed in each month since January 2017.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
There have been 12 Thames Barrier Flood Defence Closures since January 2017. The table below shows how these have fallen over the following months.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Total |
January | 2 | 3 |
|
| 5 |
February |
|
|
| 2 | 2 |
March |
|
| 1 |
| 1 |
April |
|
|
|
|
|
May |
|
|
|
|
|
June |
|
|
|
|
|
July |
|
|
|
|
|
August |
|
|
|
|
|
September |
|
| 1 |
| 1 |
October | 1 |
| 1 |
| 2 |
November |
|
|
|
|
|
December |
| 1 |
|
| 1 |
There have been 46 Thames Barrier Closures in total since January 2017. This includes monthly test closures and flood defence closures. A table showing the monthly breakdown is below:
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Total |
January | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
February | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
March | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 4 |
April | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 |
May | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 |
June | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 |
July | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 |
August | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 |
September | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 |
October | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| 5 |
November | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 |
December | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 |