Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
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 bring forward legislative proposals to ban the import of dogs with cropped ears.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, it is already an offence in England and Wales to carry out a non-exempted mutilation, including the cropping of a dog’s ears or the docking of their tails. The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 creates tougher penalties for anyone convicted of such an offence face, either being sent to prison for up to five years, or receiving an unlimited fine, or both.
We are aware that Selaine Saxby MP has introduced a Private Members’ Bill on restricting the importation and non-commercial movement of pets. In accordance with Parliamentary convention, the Government will set out its formal position on this Bill when it receives its Second Reading.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when his Department plans to publish a summary of the outcome of the consultation entitled Changes to the rules on bringing pets into Great Britain.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are carefully reviewing the feedback gathered from our consultation and wider engagement with stakeholders, and a summary will be published in due course.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
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 publish (a) the membership of, (b) a list of the regular participants of, (c) the key stakeholders who have engaged with and (d) the number of meetings held to-date of the Responsible Dog Ownership working group.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Publication of the membership, regular participants and key stakeholders who have engaged with the Responsible Dog Ownership working group is expected later this year alongside their conclusions. We are currently working in partnership with the police, local authorities and animal welfare organisations 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.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what timeframe her Department set the Responsible Dog Ownership working group for reporting its recommendations.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We expect the Responsible Dog Ownership working group to publish its findings later this year.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
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 make an assessment of the potential merits of reducing fees for UK Regulation, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The current UK REACH fee structure was carried across from EU REACH using Withdrawal Act powers and given legal effect in secondary legislation. Work is underway to review our approach to this fee structure
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
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 make an assessment of the potential merits of pursuing an agreement with the EU on data access to reduce the costs of UK Regulation, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals for industrial enterprises.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU includes a Chemicals Annex to facilitate trade in chemicals. During negotiations the EU did not wish to progress discussions on data sharing. They view access to this data as only for members of the Single Market, and therefore any data sharing arrangement would require the EU to change their very clear position on the matter.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
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 (a) adequacy and (b) effectiveness of national publicity of Clean Air Zones to all road users, including the (i) location and (ii) applicable time periods of those Zones.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We believe that local authorities are best placed to deliver communications on their local Clean Air Zones (CAZ). To support the local authorities with the communication of their local air quality plans, in this financial year, we have allocated £1.5m for their regional marketing campaigns.
We commissioned evaluations of the communications campaigns which showed that they were effective in raising and supporting awareness of the CAZ, driving people to the vehicle checker which provides further details of the individual CAZs.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Government plans to establish a national standard notification framework to ensure that Clean Air Zones are (a) fairly and (b) clearly notified to non-local road users.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Under the Clean Air Zone Framework, a national standard notification was established through the requirement to delineate zones by use of standard signs along major access routes.
Local authorities are best placed to deliver communications on their local Clean Air Zones (CAZ). To support the local authorities with the communication of their local air quality plans, in this financial year, we have allocated £1.5m for their regional marketing campaigns. We also work with local authorities to ensure that their communications are appropriate to notify non-local road users.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what equalities impact assessment his department has made of Clean Air Zones; and if he will make an assessment of the equalities impact of methods of notification to (a) local and (b) non-local road users of (i) Zone location and (ii) payment requirements.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
A wide range of distributional and equalities analysis is carried out to determine which groups could be unduly impacted by proposed Clean Air Zones (CAZ). Each local authority’s distributional impact assessment is conducted in line with Defra guidance, which mandates the types of analysis and demographic groups that must be considered, as a minimum. These assessments are subsequently used to inform what mitigation measures could be introduced to alleviate the adverse impacts identified for the relevant groups. Individual local authority CAZ distributional impact assessments can be found published on their respective websites.
Asked by: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Government has taken steps to ensure road users are fairly and clearly notified of the implementation of Clean Air Zones including to non-local drivers.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Communications related to Clean Air Zones (CAZ) are the responsibility of local authorities. However, under the Clean Air Zone Framework, a national standard notification was established through the requirement to delineate zones by use of standard signs along major access routes.
In addition, early notice letters are issued to owners where their vehicles drive in a CAZ prior to the activation of charging. These measures help road users to identify and understand that they need to check whether their vehicle is compliant.