Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
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 with Cabinet colleagues to ensure the continuity of (a) patient care and (b) NHS resilience in respect to specialist food products used by the NHS in the context of the implementation of the Windsor Framework.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra officials are working with colleagues across the Government to ensure continuity of supply into Northern Ireland of specialist food products used by the NHS and to facilitate patient care, recognising the importance of these products to enable patients to meet their dietary requirements and live full lives.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to (a) clean up water ways in a timely manner and (b) encourage companies to invest in waterways to improve infrastructure in the water industry.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Ofwat on 11th July proposed allowing a spending package of £88bn by water companies. This investment will deliver upgrades of 1500 wastewater treatment works, improvement of thousands of storm overflows and investment in improving bathing waters.
The Secretary of State and I also secured agreement that funding for vital infrastructure investment is ringfenced and can only be spent on upgrades benefiting customers and the environment. Ofwat will also ensure that when money for investment is not spent, companies refund customers, with money never allowed to be diverted for bonuses, dividends or salary increases.
The Water (Special Measures) Bill will strengthen regulation, giving the water regulator new powers to ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met and increase accountability for water executives.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to reduce plastic pollution.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to reducing plastic waste and in April 2024 announced a ban on plastic-containing wet wipes. We will be assessing further actions to take to address the challenge of plastic pollution and move to a circular economy for plastics.
As plastic pollution is a transboundary challenge, later this year, the UK will be attending the final round of negotiations to develop a legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution globally and is committed to negotiating an ambitious treaty.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
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 with business to reduce the (a) manufacture and (b) distribution of single use plastic products.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to banning the sale, supply and manufacture of wet wipes containing plastic.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether canaries can be transported without paperwork between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain and the return journey.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Owners should continue to follow existing arrangements with regards to the movement of canaries.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of glass recycling for reducing CO2 emissions.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will reconsider excluding glass from the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to increase the glass recycling rate.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
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 impact of excluding glass from the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme on the (a) proportion of street litter that is glass and (b) glass recycling rate.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what safeguards the Government has put in place to protect high British food and farming standards after new trade deals are agreed with countries outside the EU.
Answered by Victoria Prentis
The Government has a clear manifesto commitment that in all of our trade negotiations we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.
Legal protections for our standards are in place. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains standards on environmental protection, animal welfare, animal and plant health and food safety. This includes the prohibition on the use of artificial growth hormones in both domestic production and imported meat products and that no products, other than potable water are approved to decontaminate poultry carcases.
The Government has recently taken additional steps to give Parliament a greater role in scrutinising trade agreements. In the Agriculture Act 2020, we have established a duty for the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of our Free Trade Agreements on the maintenance of UK food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards.
In July we established the Trade and Agriculture Commission, an independent board set up to advise and inform the Government’s trade policies on environmental and animal welfare standards in food production. We have since moved to put it on a statutory footing in the Trade Bill and the Commission will directly feed into the Agriculture Act reporting process.