Asked by: Kemi Badenoch (Conservative - North West Essex)
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 was consulted prior to the publication of the revised planning policy on onshore wind.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The planning policy on onshore wind was announced pre-election. It was supported by the voting public and has our full support.
Asked by: Kemi Badenoch (Conservative - North West Essex)
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 20 September 2024 to Question 5409 on Recycling, what his planned timetable is for bringing forward the secondary legislation to meet the timescales set out in Annex A.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The relevant legislation introducing Simpler Recycling in the Environment Act 2021, launched under a Government she was part of, has now come into force.
This means that the requirements regarding separate collection of the core recyclable waste streams will automatically come into effect as per the previously announced timetable.
Asked by: Kemi Badenoch (Conservative - North West Essex)
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 impact of the Government's planning policies on large-scale solar farms on food (a) production and (b) security in England.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The total area used for solar farms is very small, and – even in the most ambitious scenarios – solar farms will occupy less than 1% of the UK’s agricultural land, causing minimal impact on food production.
We produce 62% of all the food we need, and 75% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year. Food security is built on supply from diverse sources, strong domestic production and imports through stable trade routes. Imports supplements domestic production, ensuring that any disruption from risks such as adverse weather does not affect the UK's overall security of supply.
As we face up to the challenge of the energy transition, we must plan for how we use land in this country to ensure a proper balance between food security, nature recovery and clean energy. We will publish a Land Use Framework for England to help find this balance, working in tandem with our spatial energy plan.
Solar power is crucial to achieving net zero, providing an abundant source of cleaner, cheaper energy on the mission towards 2030. We do not believe that the rollout of solar power poses a threat to food security.
Asked by: Kemi Badenoch (Conservative - North West Essex)
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 merits of the recommendations of the Mayor of London's London Climate Resilience Review to levy charges on households that pave their front gardens.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
On 13 March 2024 the previous government published its response to the National Infrastructure Commission’s study into Reducing the risk of surface water flooding accepting four recommendations and partially accepting five.
This included the recommendation to undertake a review of the effectiveness of all available options to manage unplanned increases in impermeable (or hard) surfaces, and their costs and benefits. Defra, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and other key stakeholders will be taking this review forward in due course.
The Mayor of London's London Climate Resilience Review expanded on the impermeable surfaces review and recommended that “the government consider introducing stormwater charges for people who pave over gardens and incentives to remove paving”. We will consider whether to include this as part of the review during the scoping phase.
Asked by: Kemi Badenoch (Conservative - North West Essex)
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 effect of the UK not enforcing the EU's REACH regulations after 29 March 2019 on enabling chemical substance importers to explore alternative regulations.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
We have been engaging with a range of stakeholders, including importers, to understand the impacts of Brexit and deliver the best possible outcome for the industry after we leave. Our priority is to maintain an effective regulatory system for the management and control of chemicals to safeguard human health and the environment, respond to emerging risks and allow trade with the EU that is as frictionless as possible.
That is why we are aiming for a UK-EU free trade area on goods including chemicals. The chemical sector is highly regulated and, as set out in the White Paper ‘The Future Relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union’ published on 12 July 2018, we are seeking participation in the European Chemical Agency (ECHA), accepting its rules including the REACH Regulation, and contributing to its costs. This approach will enable us to meet our objective of ensuring that chemicals only need to be approved once in either market and ensure that UK businesses could continue to register chemical substances directly, rather than working through an EU-based representative.
In the event of a no deal scenario we will ensure an effective regulatory system is in place. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act will convert REACH into domestic law ensuring that those regulations continue to apply in the UK. As part of the Government’s Technical Notices being published later this month, we will be providing further information on our plans for this scenario in order to guide businesses and the public on how they can best prepare for leaving the EU.