Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what data has been used to assess the western boundary of the Bristol Clean Air Zone, specifically the Portway and Brunel Bridge regional through route.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Bristol is introducing a Clean Air Zone (CAZ) to bring the roads in the city into compliance with NO2 limits in the shortest possible time.
Bristol has proposed that the zone boundary should include the Portway and Brunel Bridge routes, and has carried out modelling to understand the traffic and air quality data to show the impact of removing these routes from the CAZ. This modelling indicated that removing these roads from within the zone boundary would delay the date by which roads in Bristol are compliant with legal limits for NO2. The Government is currently considering this information as part of our review of Bristol’s Full Business Case.
Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
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 the Environment Agency on the capacity of the emergency leak protection bund at the Redcliffe Bay Petroleum Storage Depot.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No such discussions have taken place.
Redcliffe Bay Petroleum Storage Depot is jointly regulated by the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency under the Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) Regulations 2015 as an Upper Tier establishment. The Environment Agency has had discussions at an operational level with the site operator about containment in the event of an emergency. Based on the information obtained at the last inspection, the Environment Agency was satisfied with the containment and associated procedures at the site.
Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what food security planning her Department has undertaken for the UK in times of conflict, crisis and war situations.
Answered by George Eustice
Food supply in the UK is a critical national infrastructure (CNI) sector and a sector resilience plan is completed annually by Defra as lead Government Department. The plan sets out the background to resilience of the sector, an assessment of risk, and a plan for mitigation action. A summary of the plan is published by the Cabinet Office at
Food supply is considered to be resilient because of the size, diversity, and strong contingency planning in the food industry sectors, as demonstrated by the response to potentially disruptive challenges in recent years. There is a clear recognition of the dependency on other critical sectors such as energy, transport, and communications, and Defra works closely with the industry sectors and with other lead Government Departments to mitigate risk.
Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the payment window for the single farm payment and basic payment will open.
Answered by George Eustice
The payment window for the Basic Payment Scheme 2015 runs between 1st December 2015 and 30th June 2016.
We received around 88,000 Basic Payment Scheme applications for 2015. On the 1st December, the opening of the Basic Payment Scheme 2015 payment window, we paid around 33,000 claims. This means that, as a proportion, around 62% of claims are still being processed.
Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
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 single farm payment and basic payment claims to the Rural Payments Agency are outstanding.
Answered by George Eustice
The payment window for the Basic Payment Scheme 2015 runs between 1st December 2015 and 30th June 2016.
We received around 88,000 Basic Payment Scheme applications for 2015. On the 1st December, the opening of the Basic Payment Scheme 2015 payment window, we paid around 33,000 claims. This means that, as a proportion, around 62% of claims are still being processed.
Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether food security is part of the Government's agricultural planning; and what assessment her Department has made of the amount of farmland required to guarantee food supplies in a time of crisis.
Answered by George Eustice
The Government sees the contribution of UK agriculture as vital to our food security. A detailed analysis of the global and domestic factors affecting UK food security, the UK Food Security Assessment, was published in 2010 and refreshed in 2012. Its main conclusion was that UK food security depends on a combination of a strong domestic food production base and access to a wide variety of world markets. The assessment also analysed the impact of extreme scenarios and concluded that if necessary the UK could feed itself from domestic resources.
The Government is working on a 25 Year Plan for Food and Farming which will set out ways our domestic food production base can be further strengthened, building on the Great British brand.
Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much importance is accorded to food security in the determination of the Government's agricultural policy.
Answered by George Eustice
Food security considerations form an important part of agricultural policy, and is built on the combination of a strong food production base in the UK with access to a wide variety of markets and an open, rules-based world trading system. We are developing a long-term plan to boost the competitiveness of the British food and farming industry and maximise its contribution to economic growth.
The Government spends approximately £450million a year on agri-food research to address the challenges posed by food security. This is coordinated by UK funders via the Global Food Security Programme. The Agri-Tech Strategy (£160million investment) aims to make the UK a world leader in agricultural technology, innovation and sustainability. The Strategy is industry-led and driven by a Leadership Council which brings together Government departments, farming and industry as well as the agricultural science community.