Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department plans to take to tackle food insecurity in relation to reducing food waste, improving agricultural food production and increasing climate resilience.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is taking action to support farmers that are facing pressure from this summer’s exceptionally dry conditions. This includes temporary adjustments to Environmental Land Management (ELM) agreements, so farmers affected by drought can continue to receive payments and take practical steps to protect livestock, crops and land; an increase in funding for Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 Window 2; and action and funding to support building reservoirs.
Defra is also building greater long-term resilience to climate shocks, in line with the Farming Roadmap’s commitments.
In addition, Defra funded allocated £13.5 million through its farm surplus fund to help redistribution charities work with farmers in England to ensure more surplus fresh produce gets to those who need it most.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of extreme weather changes on food availability, flooding and fires; and what measures her Department will take to ensure that the risks associated with extreme weather changes will be mitigated.
Answered by Jenny Riddell-Carpenter - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government assesses climate risks through the Climate Change Risk Assessment process. Climate change is expected to result in warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier summers, and more frequent and intense weather patterns.
Our diverse and resilient food system, supported by domestic production and international trade, has historically responded well to localised production shocks. There is currently no indication that UK food security is at risk.
The Government is investing £10.5 billion in flood resilience between 2024 and 2036 to construct new flood and coastal erosion schemes and repair existing defences. Defra is strengthening its resource on wildfire and supporting MHCLG as the lead government department for wildfire through a cross-government programme of work covering risk assessment, prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. The Government is strengthening climate adaptation to ensure robust plans are in place to be resilient to a minimum of 2 degrees of global warming by 2050.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle inflation in the cost of produce caused by increased energy costs due to the conflict in Iran.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent the loss of UK moth species.
Answered by Mary Creagh
Defra is committed to delivering legally binding biodiversity targets including halting the decline in species abundance by 2030, reversing declines by at least 10% by 2042 compared with 2030, and reducing risk of national species extinction by 2042. The composite indicator we use to measure progress towards our species abundance targets includes over 400 moth species.
The Environmental Improvement Plan sets out actions we are taking to deliver these targets, including delivering a refreshed Pollinator Action Plan, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environmental-improvement-plan-2025/environmental-improvement-plan-eip-2025 which will set out key actions for pollinators, including moths, in England.
Natural England is working with partners such as Butterly Conservation to take specific action for threatened moth species, including specific grazing and cutting regimes in chalk grassland areas for Black-Veined and Straw Belle moths in Kent, and translocations such as the Rosy Marsh moth in Cumbria.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 increase climate resilience in agriculture.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
We are providing farmers and land managers with the support needed to help restore nature, which is vital to safeguard our long-term food security and build resilience to climate change. There are currently record numbers of farmers taking part in farming schemes such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive. As of April 2025, these schemes supported 885,000 hectares of arable land being farmed without insecticides; 330,000 hectares of low input grassland being managed sustainably; and 85,000 kilometres of hedgerows being protected and restored.
In the recent spending review, we allocated a record £11.8 billion to sustainable farming and food production over this parliament, the largest budget for sustainable food production in our country’s history.
This means:
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 extend funding for charities to redistribute food supplies to local (a) charities and (b) community organisations.
Answered by Mary Creagh
Defra recently announced grant funding of £13.6 million in 2025/26 to increase the capacity and capability of 12 charities to redistribute surplus food from farms into charitable networks. Applications were open to not-for-profit organisations redistributing surplus food including local charities and community organisations.
The longevity of the projects formed part of the selection criteria for funding, so we expect the funding to support the redistribution of farm surplus for many years to come.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps his Department has taken to protect (a) ancient woodlands, (b) coastal and estuarine habitats and (c) wetlands and reedbeds in Lancashire.
Answered by Mary Creagh
We are investing up to £400 million each year for nature schemes. Defra recently conducted and published a review into how ancient woodland and ancient and veteran trees are protected by the National Planning Policy Framework. This revealed that the policy is not being consistently implemented and in collaboration with MHCLG, we are looking at how this can be improved. We continue to update the Ancient Woodland Inventory. It was most recently updated on 2 June 2025 and has recorded over 52,000 ancient woodland sites in England.
Natural England (NE) updated the Ancient Woodland Inventory for Lancashire, published earlier this year. This ensures all mapped areas are now protected from negative development impacts under the National Planning Policy Framework. NE has been supporting the responsible authority in Lancashire to prioritise ancient woodlands in the Local Nature Recovery Strategy, including a key measure for the restoration, protection, and expansion of ancient woodlands.
Working proactively with ‘Our Future Coast’ project, NE is supporting natural coastal protection for communities. It is working in partnership with coastal groups to raise awareness of more natural solutions, whilst providing pre-consultation and statutory advice on flood schemes and development along the coast to protect the unique natural environment and birds.
NE is supporting wetter farming in Lancashire through an EU funded partnership research project called Pallus Demos. It is also working with Rivers Trusts and United Utilities to create more wetlands and reedbeds in the area through Natural Flood Management. Farming schemes are an essential tool and the Brock and Calder Landscape Recovery Project will provide landscape scale improvements in the Wyre Catchment. NE continues to provide statutory advice to protect existing protected habitats, and species.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps his Department has taken to protect (a) hedgerow habitats and (b) associated species.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Hedgerows are important ecological and environmental building blocks across our landscapes. As set out in the Environment Improvement Plan (EIP), Defra will support farmers to create or restore at least 30,000 miles of hedgerows by 2037, increasing to 45,000 miles of hedgerows by 2050.
On the 16 April the Government laid before Parliament new regulations that will place management practices for hedgerows on agricultural land into legislation. These practices include a cutting ban between 1 March and 31 August to protect nesting birds during this period, and a 2m buffer strip around a hedge where green cover must be established and maintained to protect the health of the hedge and the wildlife that use it.
The new regulations will be supplemented by actions being undertaken by many through Environmental Land Management schemes. There are now over 55,920 miles of hedgerows with one or both sides managed under 16,000 Countryside Stewardship and Sustainable Farm Incentive agreements.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 climate change on flooding in the UK.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government’s long-term flood and coastal erosion risk management Policy Statement, published in 2020, sets out our ambition to create a nation more resilient to future flood and coastal erosion risk.
The Policy Statement recognises that climate change will lead to sea level rise and more extreme rainfall, with an increase in the number of people at risk from flooding and coastal erosion.
It includes five ambitious policies and a number of actions which will accelerate progress to better protect and better prepare the country against these risks.
For example, the government announced in March 2020 a record £5.2 billion investment over 6 years in flood and coastal erosion schemes to better protect communities across England.
The government published the National Adaptation Programme 3 (NAP3) in July 2023. The NAP sets the actions that government and others will take to adapt to the impacts of climate change in the UK between 2023 to 2028. This forms part of the 5-yearly cycle of requirements laid down in the Climate Change Act 2008.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 implications for his policies of levels of plastic pollution per capita in the UK; what steps his Department is taking to tackle those levels; and what plans he has to reduce plastic waste generation in the long-term.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have banned the use of microbeads in rinse-off personal care products. Our single-use plastic carrier bag charge, now 10p, has reduced the number of such bags given out by the main supermarkets by over 98%. We brought in measures to restrict the supply of single-use plastic straws and single-use plastic stemmed cotton buds and ban the supply of plastic drink stirrers in 2020. In October 2023, we also banned the supply of single-use plastic plates, bowls, and trays to the end-user and banned the supply of single-use plastic cutlery and single-use plastic balloon sticks and expanded and foamed extruded polystyrene food and drinks containers, including cups. In April 2022, we brought in the Plastic Packaging Tax, a tax of £200 per tonne on plastic packaging manufactured in, or imported into the UK, that does not contain at least 30% recycled plastic. From April 2023, it has increased in line with inflation to £210.82/tonne.
Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (pEPR) will make producers responsible for the costs of collecting and managing packaging they place on the market when it is no longer used and becomes waste. This will encourage businesses to think carefully about how much packaging they use, to design and use packaging that is easily recyclable, and to use reusable and refillable packaging. This will contribute to our goals of a more circular economy, in which resources are kept in use for longer, minimising the waste we create, and cutting carbon emissions.
As one of the founding members of the high ambition coalition of countries calling for an end to plastic pollution by 2040, the UK will do all we can to press for the agreement of a high ambition Treaty by the end of 2024.