Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to open the Property Resilience Repair Grant Scheme in the context of the floods in Oxfordshire on 22-24 November 2024.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Property Flood Resilience (PFR) grant scheme can provide up to £5000 for eligible households and businesses to install PFR measures. The PFR grant scheme is typically activated alongside the Flood Recovery Framework (FRF) coordinated by MHCLG and only activated where there is large scale and widespread flooding. With localised flooding incidents, we expect Local Authorities to have well established contingency arrangements in place and to be able to respond and support their local communities within existing budgets. Below that local authorities provide support as needed. The flooding in November was not at the scale where we would expect to open FRF and PFR schemes.
To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, we will invest £2.4 billion in 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience, by building, maintaining, and repairing flood defences.
Included in this programme, the Environment Agency is working proactively with local authorities to deliver Property Flood Resilience (PFR) projects, where it is cost beneficial to do so, in areas where PFR is the best solution for reducing flood risk. The EA’s PFR programme is focused on reducing risk to those households and businesses at the highest risk.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 an assessment of the potential impact of frequent flooding on the (a) economy and (b) social cohesion of areas impacted.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Flood defences are critical to the protection of life and property and the effective functioning of the economy. Resilience and adaptation to the changing climate provide economic resilience and are key to supporting the government’s mission to kickstart economic growth.
The Environment Agency gathers data on how flooding affects the economy. The economic losses from the winter 2019 to 2020 flooding are estimated to be about £333 million. However, the economic damage avoided because of the protection provided is at least 14 times greater, at around £4.6 billion to £9.3 billion.
Around 36% of the damages caused by floods are to publicly owned infrastructure like roads, railways, schools and hospitals.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to respond to the letter of 24 June 2024 from the UN Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders under the Aarhus Convention entitled Statement regarding the criminal prosecution of Mr. Daniel Shaw for his involvement in peaceful environmental protest in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK welcomed the creation of the Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders under the Aarhus Convention.
The Government is considering the issues raised in the Special Rapporteur's recent letters, in the context of the UK's obligations under the Aarhus Convention.
We will respond in due course.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support people in Oxfordshire who have been affected by Storm Henk.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Storm Henk impacted large parts of Oxfordshire, including homes, businesses and infrastructure. My thoughts are with those affected.
The Environment Agency worked tirelessly to minimise the impacts of flooding by operating flood assets, issuing flood warnings, making sure rivers were free of blockages and, where appropriate, putting out temporary barriers. Following the storm the Environment Agency continues to engage with impacted communities to gather information that will help them, and partners, better understand how they can support the communities to increase their resilience flooding.
The Environment Agency is working with partners to provide a joined-up approach so that communities get the most appropriate and swift support, including the ongoing work to develop and deliver projects such as the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme.
In January 2024, the Government announced the launch of the Flood Recovery Framework for areas most affected by Storm Henk. These schemes closed on 12 April and included:
Defra also activated the Property Flood Resilience (PFR) Repair Grant scheme where eligible properties can receive up to £5,000 to install PFR measures. Households and business who suffered from internal flooding should contact Oxfordshire County Council to apply. The PFR scheme opened on 8 January and will close in July 2025.
We are also actively reviewing the areas eligible for support through the Farming Recovery Fund to ensure it supports areas where farmland is most impacted due to Storm Henk. Oxfordshire is among these areas being considered for inclusion in the Fund. We are working through the impacts and will set out the position on the additional areas to be included in the Fund shortly. We will write to all those eligible farmers informing them of the funding they are able to claim.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 sewage discharges into the River Thames on the health of (a) dogs and (b) other pets.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is clear that the volume of sewage being discharged into our waters in unacceptable. That is why our Plan for Water sets out more investment, stronger regulation, and tougher enforcement to tackle pollution and clean up our water.
Alongside this, our Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan sets clear and specific targets for water companies, regulators and the Government, to work towards the long-term ambition of eliminating ecological harm from storm overflows.
No specific assessment has been undertaken on the impact of sewage discharges on dogs and pets.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 evidence required for bathing status designation, how many swimmers are considered adequate to reach the threshold of a large number of people.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Bathing Water Regulations 2013 require the Secretary of State to identify and maintain a list of the surface waters in England where she expects a large number of people to bathe. All applications for bathing water designation are assessed against this criterion and other criterion as set out in the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 and in the guidance available at Bathing waters: apply for designation or de-designation - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding his Department has made available to the Environment Agency to (a) monitor and (b) classify bathing water in beaches and waterways in each of the last five years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Environment Agency is allocated Environment Protection Grant in Aid funding in total from Government rather than Grant in Aid by activity. This is then allocated to teams delivering Environment Protection. A range of different teams delivering Environmental Protection contribute towards bathing water quality as well as other core outcomes. This limits breakdown beyond the level set out below, which represents a total of resource and capital funding. However, funding for 2022/23 includes £2.2 million, specifically for water company enforcement activity, including at least 4,000 farm visits per year and 500 sewerage inspections.
£m | 18/19 | 19/20 | 20/21 | 21/22 | 22/23 |
Environment Protection Grant in Aid funding | 70 | 74 | 94 | 127 | 142 |
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 make it his policy to introduce additional penalties for water companies that miss pollution incident reduction targets consistently over 5 years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Ofwat has recently announced financial penalties of almost £150 million applying to 11 water companies. These penalties are the result of missed targets on areas such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and internal sewer flooding. This money will be returned to customers through water bills in the next financial year.
Since 2015, the Environment Agency has brought 54 prosecutions against water companies, securing fines of almost £140 million. On 9 July 2021, Southern Water was handed a record £90 million fine after pleading guilty to thousands of illegal discharges of sewage that polluted rivers and coastal waters in Kent, Hampshire and Sussex. The fine will be paid solely from the company's operating profits, not customer bills.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Environmental Information Regulations relating to sewage cases have been submitted to her Department since 1 January 2005; and how many have been rejected on (a) being manifestly unreasonable, (b) relating to unfinished documents or incomplete at date of receiving and (c) protection of environment.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Defra only retains Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests for three years. Cases prior to this have been destroyed in line with our retention schedule.
The number of EIR requests managed in Defra with ‘sewage’ in the case title since 2019 is 14.
a) None of those were refused under regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIRs which relates to manifestly unreasonable.
b) None of those were refused as under regulation 12(4)(d) of the EIRs which relates to material which is still in the course of completion, to unfinished documents or to incomplete data.
c) None of those were refused as under regulation 12(5)(g) of the EIRs which relates to the protection of the environment to which the information relates.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she provides additional resources to community groups and water companies in areas with excellent or good bathing water status to help maintain water quality.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government does not fund water company investment, water companies raise funds through private mechanisms and customer bills which is highly regulated. However the EA works closely with partners to help maintain water quality and deliver bathing water regulations.