Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
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 from the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich of 12 October 2020, originally addressed to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, on the approach of property insurers to mature trees in close proximity to homes that require underpinning to prevent or correct subsidence, ref 9602865.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra declined the transfer of this correspondence. It is currently with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to respond.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff in her Department are paid less than the London Living Wage; and what requirements her Department places on contractors to pay the London Living Wage to London-based staff.
Answered by George Eustice
This Government is committed to paying people a decent living wage, which is being addressed through the statutory National Living Wage (NLW). In April 2019, the NLW increased to £8.21 per hour, handing a full-time worker a further £690 annual pay rise. By 2024 the NLW will rise to £10.50 per hour, reaching 66% of median UK earnings. The scope will be expanded to everyone aged 21 and over and is expected to benefit over 4 million low paid workers.
There are 85 staff in core-Defra, based in the National pay region, paid less than the London Living Wage (LLW) rate of £10.55 per hour, as set out by the Living Wage Foundation (LWF).
There are less than 5 staff based in the London pay region paid less than the LLW. There will be no staff based in the London pay region paid less than the LLW once the 2019 Defra pay award (effective from 1 July 2019) has been implemented. This is expected to be in November pay.
The Government will always award contracts on the basis of the best value for money for the taxpayer.
The service providers contracted to carry out third party cleaning contracts for Defra managed buildings, including those of our executive agencies, are provided through an outsourced Total Facilities Management contract with Interserve FM. The contract requires Interserve FM to pay all employees the living wage as defined by the LWF. The Facilities Management supplier holds information on the rate of remuneration of its staff. Members of the LWF pay the voluntary real living wage, which is higher than the statutory rate and includes a higher rate for London based staff.
The LWF rates (published online) can be found on the link below:
https://www.livingwage.org.uk/
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding has been allocated to support ultra-low emission zones in England in the (a) current and (b) previous financial year.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Outside London, only Oxford City Council is considering the establishment of an ultra low emissions zone. Oxford City Council has received £50,000 for a feasibility study for a zone. It has also received £122,500 for city-wide communication programmes to support achievement of zero-emissions delivery freight, and £128, 500 for testing of low cost Zephyr sensor packages to compare with current sensors and improve data.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
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 25 Year Environment Plan published on 11 January 2018, what estimate he has made of the additional financial resources required to deliver the commitments made in that plan for the financial years (a) 2019-20 (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Delivering the plan requires systemic changes across all parts of our economy. Our recently published Green Finance Strategy is an example of how we are driving this change by ensuring environmental risks and opportunities are integrated into mainstream financial decision-making; and accelerating finance to support the delivery of our environmental ambitions.
A key pillar of this approach is our plan to replace the scheme of payments under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy with a new Environmental Land Management scheme. As we leave the EU, we will establish a new scheme of payments to reward land managers for providing public goods, aligned to the goals of the 25 Year Environment Plan.
In addition, the forthcoming Environment Bill will introduce a mandatory biodiversity net gain requirement for development. This will incentivise the avoidance of environmental impacts in development design, encourage the delivery of wildlife habitats in development sites, and stimulate the development of markets in habitat creation which will help to ensure that developers are able to fulfil net gain obligations off site when appropriate. We have also announced £50 million of funding for a new Woodland Carbon Guarantee to stimulate domestic carbon offsetting and incentivise new tree planting, and awarded £10 million of funding to four landscape-scale projects to help restore 6,580 hectares of upland and lowland peatlands over three years, with forecast 23,000 tonnes of carbon saved per year.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
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 Clean Air Strategy 2019, how much of the £3.5 billion allocated to tackle poor air quality through cleaner road transport has been allocated to projects in London.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
London has received over £147 million in funding from the £3.5 billion plan to improve air quality and reduce harmful emissions. This is on top of the money which has already been allocated to the Mayor of London for air quality in his £5 billion settlement.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he is putting in place to protect (a) children, (b) the elderly, (c) people with a (i) lung and (ii) heart condition and (d) other vulnerable people from air pollution.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Our recently published draft Clean Air Strategy sets out our proposals to reduce the emission of five regulated air pollutants, including PM2.5, which has the strongest evidence of harm to human health. The proposals in our the draft Strategy will result in reductions to PM2.5 concentrations which will halve the population living in areas with concentrations above the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) annual guideline of 10μgm-3, making us the first major developed economy to recognise the guideline. This ambition goes beyond EU requirements and has been welcomed by the WHO.
The measures in our draft Strategy will reduce concentrations of damaging pollution for all people, including those who may be more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution.
Defra has consulted on the draft Strategy and is currently considering the responses received from a wide range of interested parties, including views about adoption of WHO guideline limits and how best to engage with those who may be more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution. An updated Strategy published in due course.
Our proposals included additional powers for local authorities to tackle locally-important sources of air pollution, including around schools, care homes and healthcare facilities, if the local authority deems this appropriate.
Additionally, my officials are working with healthcare organisations to develop bespoke guidance for those who may be more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution, including children, older people and those with cardiopulmonary conditions.
In March 2017, Defra, Public Health England and the Local Government Association, jointly published an updated resource “Air Quality: briefing for directors of public health”, which enables further action at the local level.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the new Clean Air Strategy will include proposals to (a) tackle idling by cars and (b) raise awareness of the harmful levels of pollution inside cars.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
We set out our proposed approach to address air pollution from road traffic in the Clean Air Strategy Consultation and are currently analysing the responses. It is an offence to leave an engine running unnecessarily while the vehicle is stationary on a road and local authorities have powers to issue fixed penalty notices to drivers who commit such an offence.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will include the World Health Organisation’s limit for fine particulate matter PM2.5 in the upcoming Environment Bill.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
In our recent draft Clean Air Strategy consultation, we committed to halve the population living in areas with concentrations of fine particulate matter above WHO guideline levels (10 μg/m3) by 2025. We are the first major economy in the world to adopt targets based on WHO guidelines, going far beyond EU requirements. The Clean Air Strategy consultation has now closed and we will set out next steps in due course.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which body is planned to enforce regulations governing the release of F-gases after the UK has left the EU; and whether the Government plans for there to be any role for the proposed new environmental watchdog in such enforcement.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
In England, the Environment Agency will continue to enforce the requirements of the F-Gas regulations after the UK has left the EU.
The proposed new body is not intended to be a delivery body responsible for the operational implementation and enforcement of individual regulations.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
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 from the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich of 26 March 2018 on air quality and the planned cruise liner terminal building on land at Enderby Wharf, Christchurch Way, Greenwich SE10.
Answered by George Eustice
A response to the letter of 26 March 2018 was sent on 15 May 2018.