Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
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 area of land occupied by solar panel arrays that was previously arable land usable for economically farmed fruits or vegetables.
Answered by George Eustice
Data held by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/solar-photovoltaics-deployment), suggests that as at June 2015 there were 432 Renewables Obligation (RO) ground mounted solar installations across all land use types compared to 227 at the same point in 2014, an increase of 90% in a single year.
Earlier this year, planning authorities received clarification from government about how to consider applications for siting solar panel arrays on our Best and Most Versatile (BMV) agricultural land in order to help protect our long-term productive capacity.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will place in the Library the report on the suspension of the digital service for the Basic Payment Scheme for farmers which was commissioned by her Department and the Rural Payments Agency in March 2015.
Answered by George Eustice
The digital service for the Basic Payment Scheme has not been suspended. Over 80,000 farmers and agents have registered on the Rural Payments system, and farmers cannot be paid without registering on the new system.
Defra and the Rural Payments Agency have received a number of reports from the Major Projects Authority about progress with the Rural Payments IT System. Such reports are not made public in order to protect the effectiveness of the reviews which the Major Project Authority undertakes.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
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 had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the effect of tax credits on farmers.
Answered by George Eustice
The Secretary of State has not had any discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this issue. However, the NFU has written directly to the Chancellor about tax payments and the National Living Wage. Ministers and Defra officials meet regularly with representatives of the farming industry to discuss a range of issues affecting farm businesses.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what cost was incurred by her Department as a result of the withdrawal of the CAP-D programme in March 2015.
Answered by George Eustice
CAP-D is a 10 year programme designed to enable the Department to implement the most recent CAP reforms. The programme was not withdrawn in March 2015. There had been some performance issues with the online interface that enables farmers to input data directly, but the core of the new Rural Payments system is working well. Over 88,000 farmers and agents have successfully registered on the system.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reasons the Rural Payments Agency was not able to make advance basic payments from 16 October 2015.
Answered by George Eustice
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) remains focused on making full payments from December. The RPA is on track to make full payments on 2015 Basic Payment Scheme claims as soon as possible within the payment window, making the majority of payments in December and the vast majority by the end of January 2016.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 8 April 2014, Official Report, column 211W, on waste disposal: fire, how many of the incidents of fire reported at local authority operated waste management sites in 2012 and 2013 were repeated incidents at the same site.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
None of the five incidents of fire at local authority-operated waste management sites were repeated incidents at the same site.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many fires were reported at privately-owned waste management sites in the last two years.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Environment Agency records show that there were a total of 595 incidents of fire reported at privately operated waste management sites in 2012 and 2013. This represents an average of one fire for every 18 privately operated sites.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many fires were reported at local authority-owned waste management sites in the last two years.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Environment Agency records show that there were a total of five incidents of fire reported at local authority-operated waste management sites in 2012 and 2013. This represents an average of one fire for every 110 local authority-operated waste management sites.