Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
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 Adaptation Committee’s recommendations on page 28 of the Climate Change Committee's report of June 2021 entitled, Progress in adapting to climate change: 2021 Report to Parliament, what plans his Department has to take steps to mitigate the effects on agriculture of a two degrees Celsius warming scenario.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Mitigating and adapting to climate change is essential to support the productivity of farming businesses and support global food security. The UK Climate Change Act 2008 requires the Government to prepare, on a five-yearly cycle, a UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA), followed by a National Adaptation Programme (NAP), setting out actions to address the risks identified in the CCRA. The Climate Change Committee's Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk offers a detailed and up to date insight into the growing risks and opportunities the UK and its natural environment faces from climate change, including in relation to agriculture.
This evidence has informed our third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3), which we laid in Parliament on 17 January 2022. The evidence will inform greater ambition and action on enhancing resilience to the impacts of climate change through the third NAP (NAP3) and highlight gaps where the Government needs to go further. NAP3 will address the risks and opportunities for a 2ºC warming scenario, to build a more resilient country, with a focus on enhanced ambition, implementation, and evaluation.
Our policy development and delivery for agriculture's contribution to net zero can provide a multitude of adaptive benefits. For example, Defra intends to offer greater support for agroforestry through the 2020s, which will help to: sequester carbon; reduce soil erosion and flood risk; improve tolerance to drought; and reduce heat stress and wind exposure in livestock through the provision of shelter and shade. We will continue to consider the importance of climate adaptation as we develop our environmental land management schemes to support a resilient agricultural sector.
Defra continues to support research to promote agricultural resilience. For example, the Genetic Improvement Networks research projects aim to enhance the productivity, sustainability and resilience of the main UK crops. Defra has also recently introduced new regulations that will make field trials and research easier for plants produced through precision breeding technologies, such as gene editing, which has the potential to develop crops that are more beneficial to the environment, more resilient to climate change and more productive.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
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 Adaptation Committee’s recommendations on page 28 of the Climate Change Committee's report of June 2021 entitled, Progress in adapting to climate change: 2021 Report to Parliament, what plans his Department has to take steps to mitigate the implications on water management of a two degrees Celsius warming scenario.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Adapting to climate change is essential if we are to meet the 25 Year Environment Plan goal of achieving clean and plentiful water.
The Climate Change Committee’s Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk offers a detailed insight into the growing risks and opportunities the UK and its natural environment faces from climate change. This evidence has informed our third Climate Change Risk Assessment, which we laid in Parliament on 17 January 2022, and will inform the development of the third National Adaptation Programme, expected to run between 2023 to 2028. NAP3 will address the risks and opportunities for a 2ºC warming scenario, to continue to build a more resilient country, with a focus on enhanced ambition, implementation, and evaluation.
The Environment Agency is committed to designing an approach to working with regulated industries around impacts (including those related to water scarcity) associated with a 4°C rise in global mean temperature by 2100.
The Environment Agency’s National Framework sets out how we expect to see improved collaboration to aid the environment and the sustainable use of water resources. This approach will inform water companies’ statutory water resources management plans, which set out how they will secure water supplies in the long term. The statutory plans must take account of future pressures, including climate change and drought resilience improvements. To further improve water demand management, the Government is consulting on a water demand target under the Environment Act 2021.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
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 Adaptation Committee’s recommendations on page 28 of the Climate Change Committee's report of June 2021 entitled, Progress in adapting to climate change: 2021 Report to Parliament, what plans his Department has to take steps to mitigate the effects on nature conservation of a two degrees Celsius warming scenario.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Mitigating and adapting to climate change is essential if we are to meet our historic target to halt the decline of nature by 2030. The UK Climate Change Act 2008 requires the Government to prepare, on a five-yearly cycle, a UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA), followed by a National Adaptation Programme (NAP), setting out actions to address the risks identified in the CCRA.
The Climate Change Committee's Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk offers a detailed and up to date insight into the growing risks and opportunities the UK and its natural environment faces from climate change, from terrestrial and freshwater habitats to soil health and natural carbon stores and to agriculture.
This evidence has informed our third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3), which we laid in Parliament on 17 January 2022. The evidence will inform greater ambition and action on enhancing resilience to the impacts of climate change through the third NAP (NAP3) and highlight gaps where the government needs to go further. NAP3 will address the risks and opportunities for a 2ºC warming scenario, to build a more resilient country, with a focus on enhanced ambition, implementation and evaluation.
Restoring our natural habitats has a number of potential benefits for helping support the resilience of ecosystems to climate change. For example, improving the condition and diversity within, and connectivity between, our wildlife habitats will help species survive in their existing locations and allow them to move towards more suitable climates where necessary. This work is supported by policies such as the nature recovery network and Local Nature Recovery Strategies, as well as the policies set out in the England Peat and Trees Action Plans. We have also invested significant funding into nature, including over £750 million in the Nature for Climate Fund and £80 million through the Green Recovery Challenge Fund.
The environmental land management schemes will be key mechanisms for enhancing our natural landscape's resilience and its adaptive benefits to society, by rewarding farmers for their roles as environmental stewards and improving the resilience of their agri-businesses as well.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Landscape Recovery scheme pilot will also include blocks of land that are hydrologically connected, rather than contiguous, to assess how to maximise the benefits of floodplain restoration, including sustainable regenerative farming.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
The first round of Landscape Recovery is open to bids from projects of 500 to 5,000 hectares of broadly contiguous land.
The application process for this round will be competitive and bids will be assessed against set criteria. The environmental outcomes that projects will deliver will be assessed as part of the environmental objectives criterion. As part of this criterion, we will assess a range of benefits which could be delivered by floodplain restoration, including for biodiversity, resilience to extreme weather events and improving water quality.
Contiguity is important for many of the environmental outcomes we are seeking. However, we recognise that habitats and land ownership in England are sometimes fragmented, so we will take a pragmatic approach to contiguity. Project areas can have some gaps, but applicants should demonstrate how any gaps will not compromise their project’s environmental outcomes. This will be assessed as part of the ‘project leadership and delivery’ criterion.
We are not ruling out projects which include elements of farming in the landscape. However, projects that are mainly focused on sustainable and regenerative farming or making space for nature in the farmed landscape are likely to be better suited to other schemes such as Countryside Stewardship, the Sustainable Farming Incentive and, in due course, Local Nature Recovery.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Environmental Land Management Local Nature Recovery scheme will support (a) floodplain restoration and (b) other measures on productive land.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
The Local Nature Recovery scheme will pay for locally targeted actions to make space for nature in the farmed landscape and the wider countryside, alongside food production. This could include, for example, managing and creating habitats, adding trees to fields, or restoring peat, wetland areas or flood plains in appropriate areas of a farm. We set out more information on the themes Local Nature Recovery will initially pay for in the January 2022 Policy Paper on Local Nature Recovery.
We will publish more details on the full list of land management activities the scheme will pay for later this year.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the average response time was for his Department to respond to an enquiry from an MP once an enquiry had been received by the MP (a) hotline and (b) account management team in (a) 2019, (b) 2020 and (c) 2021.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from MPs, either directly or on behalf of their constituents.
Defra does not have an MP hotline. The average response time for enquiries received by the Rural Payments Agency’s MP hotline was 37 days for 2019, 22 days for 2020 and 17 days for 2021.
Defra does not have an account management team, and the Defra correspondence team does not hold information on the average response time to enquiries from MPs, as correspondence performance is monitored by the percentage of correspondence responded to within the target response time set by the Department.
Data on the timeliness of responses to correspondence from MPs and Peers for 2019 and 2020 is published on Gov.uk here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers. Data for 2021 will be published by the Cabinet Office in due course.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with representatives from the brewing and beer industries on the potential impact of an industrial carbon dioxide shortage on that sector in the coming months.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
We are aware of the issues faced by the brewing and beer industry due to the shortage and are working closely with them to provide support and advice. We have had extensive meetings with representatives from food and drink sectors, and those conversations are continuing to further explore impacts and discuss potential solutions.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
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 is taking to ensure that harmful chemical products are not used in disposable and reusable period products.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Period products are regulated under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 which require that only safe products are placed on the market. Producers are responsible for the safety of the products they place on the market and have to provide relevant information and adequate warnings so that that the risks can be assessed.
Both the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety and the Swedish Chemical Agency have carried out studies that have considered the safety of these products. Both studies concluded that the risks were low.
If there were significant concerns about the presence of hazardous substances in a product, then there are measures in the UK REACH legislation, such as a UK REACH restriction, that could be taken to address this. However, we would need to be convinced that there was clear evidence before considering such action.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
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 steel procured by her Department was produced in the UK, in each of the last five years.
Answered by George Eustice
This Government remains committed to supporting the UK steel industry.
Defra collates information about steel spend for projects with the largest steel requirements, including origin where known. This information is published annually on GOV.UK at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/steel-public-procurement
The data was first published in January 2019, with the next iteration due to be published shortly.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
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 8 December 2016 to Question 55615, if she will provide to the Sheep Dip Sufferers Support Group the minutes of the meeting the Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food held with it on 19 November 2015.
Answered by George Eustice
The note of the meeting is that to which I referred in my previous response.
The Sheep Dip Sufferers Support Group was provided with the note taken, which they then published on their web site. This is still available at:
http://www.sheepdipsufferers.uk/campaigning/Summary%20of%20meeting.pdf