Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
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 policy paper entitled Transforming for a digital future: 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data, updated on 29 February 2024, what steps his Department has taken to mitigate the risks of red-rated legacy IT systems.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), in the Cabinet Office, has established a programme to support departments managing legacy IT. CDDO has agreed a frame-work to identify ‘red-rated’ systems, indicating high levels of risk surrounding certain assets within the IT estate. Departments have committed to have remediation plans in place for these systems by next year (2025).
It is not appropriate to release sensitive information held about specific red-rated systems or more detailed plans for remediation within Defra’s IT estate, as this information could indicate which systems are at risk and may highlight potential security vulnerabilities.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
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 meet the commitments of the Kigali Agreement.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol commits the UK to reduce its consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of refrigerant gases that are very damaging to the Earth’s climate, by 85% between 2019 and 2036.
Under the EU F-gas Regulation, quotas are allocated to HFC importers which are cut every three years until a 79% reduction is achieved by 2030. HFC consumption in the UK has already been cut by 37% since 2015, a world-leading phasedown which is faster than required under Kigali.
The Government will soon start a review of the F-gas Regulation, to be finished before the end of 2022, to decide how we will meet the final Kigali phasedown step between 2030 and 2036. The review will also look at how the UK can continue being even more ambitious than Kigali.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
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 ensure that perfluorooctanoic acid is not used in the manufacture of goods and products; and what assessment he has made of the adequacy of regulations on the use of that acid.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Perfluorooctanoic acid, known as PFOA, its salts and PFOA-related compounds, was listed as a persistent organic pollutant (POP) and banned from use under the UN Stockholm Convention with a number of time-limited specific exemptions at the Conference of Parties in May 2019.
POPs are toxic, persist in the environment, bioaccumulate in humans and animals and have long-ranging properties. The ban on the manufacture, sale and use of PFOA will come into force in July 2020 through the POPs regulation.
The effectiveness of this legislation cannot be assessed until it is in force but UK regulators will be responsible for ensuring that these regulations are adhered to and emissions monitoring will include PFOA.