Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
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 her Department's press release, Lamb exports to America closer, published on 27 July 2016, what information she holds on when the first Welsh lamb exports to the US are expected to take place.
Answered by George Eustice
The US authorities are conducting the necessary steps to formally lift their restrictions on exports of EU lamb to the US. Defra is working with the US authorities to ensure exports of lamb from the UK can commence as quickly as possible once the restrictions have been lifted.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many inspections Trading Standards has undertaken of animals during transit for slaughter abroad in each of the last three years.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra does not hold data on local authority Trading Standards inspections of animals during transit for slaughter abroad. APHA carry out supervised loadings on export consignments of live animals for slaughter.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many prosecutions there have been for breaches of the animal welfare regulations governing live animal exports in each of the last three years.
Answered by George Eustice
Information is available on the number of convictions rather than on the number of prosecutions. In the last three years there have been the following number of convictions for breaches of the regulations protecting animal welfare during transport in England and Wales. Separate figures are not kept for convictions relating to live animal exports.
2015 - 8
2014 - 15
2013 – 14
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many vehicles the Animal and Plant Agency has inspected (a) during the loading of live animals and (b) at ports from which live animals have been exported in each of the last three years.
Answered by George Eustice
Number of vehicles the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has inspected:
(a) during the loading of live animals:
99 during 2014
66 during 2015
127 during 2016
(b) at ports from which live animals have been exported:
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
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 (a) the environmental benefits of the plastic bag charge and (b) potential merits of introducing such a charge for disposable coffee cups.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
A full impact assessment considering the potential environmental benefits of the plastic bag charge was developed as part of introducing it in October 2015. It is available at: www.legislation.gov.uk/
We recently published the first 6 months’ data reported to us on the charge. Based on this, we expect English consumers to use around six billion less single-use plastic carrier bags this year.
Major coffee chains already have a financial obligation to recover and recycle a proportion of the packaging they place on the market, including disposable coffee cups, as they are captured under the Packaging Waste Regulations. The industry is also taking further voluntary action aimed at significantly increasing paper cup recycling rates by 2020.
The Government is developing the 25 Year Environment Plan, part of which will consider our policies for resources, waste and recycling.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what value of dairy produce was imported from each country of origin in each of the last five years.
Answered by George Eustice
The HMRC data has been provided on a ‘country of despatch’ basis, rather than the requested ‘country of origin’ basis, as ‘country of despatch’ trade data is considered a more accurate representation of actual levels of trade.
The table below shows the value of dairy produce imported into the UK, for the last five years, according to HMRC trade statistics:
£/million | |||||
Country | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | *2015 |
Irish Republic | 689.1 | 662.6 | 767.3 | 702.6 | 594.1 |
France | 484.2 | 510.0 | 559.5 | 568.4 | 392.0 |
Germany | 286.3 | 283.5 | 336.5 | 345.1 | 241.4 |
Netherlands | 169.2 | 237.2 | 277.2 | 252.1 | 187.3 |
Belgium | 216.3 | 209.5 | 239.4 | 196.0 | 142.0 |
Italy | 174.1 | 162.4 | 168.5 | 174.5 | 111.9 |
Denmark | 214.1 | 195.1 | 153.1 | 160.0 | 70.7 |
Greece | 44.8 | 44.9 | 53.7 | 60.7 | 70.2 |
Poland | 28.4 | 31.9 | 42.0 | 43.4 | 41.2 |
Spain | 31.8 | 36.8 | 44.3 | 39.6 | 31.9 |
Cyprus | 16.3 | 17.2 | 20.4 | 26.6 | 22.2 |
Others | 96.8 | 95.9 | 102.6 | 134.7 | 91.9 |
Grand Total | 2,451.4 | 2,487.0 | 2,764.4 | 2,703.6 | 1,996.9 |
Source: HM Revenue and Customs. Data prepared by the Food & Trade Statistics team, Great British Food Unit, Defra. |
*2015 data are subject to amendments. Totals may not add up to the sum of their components due to rounding. |
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many applications for emergency authorisation for the use of neonicotinoids have been received in 2016; and how many of those applications have been granted.
Answered by George Eustice
No applications have been received in 2016 for the emergency authorisation of neonicotinoids.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
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 declaration by the African Union that the Crans Montana Forum in Dakhla, occupied Western Sahara, should be cancelled.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Having received no invitation, no assessment has been made.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has received an invitation to the Crans Montana Forum in Dakhla, occupied Western Sahara; and whether she plans to send a representative to that forum.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
An invitation to the Forum in Dakhla has not been received.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the financial return from her Department's investment in agricultural research and development since 2010.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra has not made any assessment of the financial returns on investment in agricultural research since 2010 as this is considered too short a time frame to fully evaluate the impact of research and development. However, research used for the ex-ante evaluation of the £160 million UK Agri-tech strategy suggests strong returns to UK public research of the order of 17-60% per year (internal rate of return) for a period of 25 years¹.
An ex-post evaluation design and baseline study for the Agri-tech strategy is currently being developed by Defra, BIS and DfID in conjunction with evaluation experts SQW. We are also developing a framework for estimating the value for money of new Defra research and development activities.
¹ Thirtle and Holding (2003) “Productivity of UK Agriculture: Causes and Constraints”