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 make an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a fund which is financed through a charge on the sale or transfer of benefiting properties to support (a) coastal protection and (b) flood prevention.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

To speed up the delivery of new defences and ensure that the challenges facing businesses and rural and coastal communities are adequately taken into account, a consultation will be launched in the new year which will include a review of the existing formula for allocating money to proposed flood defences.

We want to ensure that floods funding policy drives close partnership working and brings in wider financial contributions to flood and coastal erosion schemes, to make Government funding go further. We plan to consider this as part of the abovementioned review.

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 report entitled REview24, published by the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology on 14 November 2024, what steps he plans to take to tackle the potential increase in methane emissions from landfill sites.

Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

This is a devolved matter, and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

Defra is aware of the issue raised in the REview24 report. We are actively engaging with the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology (REA) and the landfill gas industry to establish the scale of the potential impact of the ending of the Renewable Obligations Scheme from 2027.

The Government is committed to tackling methane emissions from landfill. We will achieve this by developing and delivering policies to support diverting waste from landfill, carrying out ground-breaking research in measuring and managing methane emissions in the waste sector, and exploring how to support and enable additional ways of managing legacy emissions such as passive capture.

Methane emissions from organic waste was a priority at COP29 and the Government was pleased to endorse the Declaration on Reducing Methane from Organic Waste, building on our Global Methane Pledge commitments.

Found: Questions 1-15 Representations made I: Jayne Kirkham; Perran Moon II: Max Wilkinson III: Mrs Sharon