Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Windsor Framework on the trade in seeds between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Windsor Framework permits the movement of all seeds from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Previous movements of seeds would require a Phytosanitary Certificate which can be costly and burdensome. Since 1 October 2023, professional operators have been able to move seeds from Great Britain to Northern Ireland under the Northern Ireland Plant Health Label scheme, allowing seeds to move freely around the United Kingdom. Defra continues to engage widely and regularly with relevant stakeholders to understand the impact of the Windsor Framework on the plant and seed trade.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his Department's policy is on providing support to householders who believe that actions taken by the Environment Agency have caused flooding to their properties.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) take flood risk incredibly seriously and have a long-term plan to upgrade and invest in flood defences across England to benefit local communities. When building flood defences there is a legal requirement that they cannot increase the flood risk of communities either upstream or downstream.
Creating climate resilient places lies at the heart of the EA’s National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England (FCERM Strategy) and Roadmap to 2026. The EA’s role in flood and coastal erosion risk management is outlined here. The EA is also a Category 1 responder set out by The Civil Contingency Act (2004).
The EA are in the third year of the current 6-year £5.2billion Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) investment programme. The funding can be spent on projects that better protect properties in England as well as the development of future projects.
At the end of March 2023, the EA estimated that approximately £1.5 billion of this funding has been invested with over 200 flood risk schemes completed.
Around 60,000 properties have benefited from better protection since the start of the current 6-year programme (between April 2021 to March 2023). This takes the total number of properties protected to 374,000 since 2015.
During Storms Babet and Ciarán around 2,400 properties sadly flooded but defences protected a further 110,000.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what financial support his Department provides to National Plant Collection holders who have suffered (a) flood and (b) storm damage.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government acknowledges the terrible impact Storm Babet and Storm Ciarán have had on householders and businesses and sympathises with those affected. There is no specific funding for National Plant Collection holders however, the Government has triggered the Flood Recovery Framework, to provide funding for affected households and businesses as a result of severe flooding caused by the storms.
In addition, the Government will be activating the Defra Property Flood Resilience Repair Grant Scheme for areas affected by Storm Babet. Eligible flood-hit property owners will be able to apply for up to £5,000 to help make their homes and businesses more resilient to future flooding.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Leader of the House on parliamentary time for legislation prohibiting the sale of peat in the horticultural retail trade.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
It remains our policy that we intend to legislate to restrict, and ultimately ban, the sale of peat and peat containing products when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the impact of the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023 on businesses that already operate closed loop recycling collections.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023 require producers of packaging to collect, retain and report data on the packaging they supply to others or discard themselves. These regulations place no greater reporting burden on producers that already operate closed loop recycling collections than they do on comparable producers that do not operate closed loop recycling collections. The costs of producer data reporting are assessed in an Impact Assessment published in 2022 alongside the Governments response to the 2021 Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) consultation.
We are aware of the concerns of producers that operate closed loop recycling systems and have sought further views on this through a consultation on the proposed EPR Regulations which closed on the 9th of October. We are now reviewing the responses to the consultation, and we intend to publish a high-level summary of responses in spring next year.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to support agricultural export businesses in Essex.
Answered by Mark Spencer
In May, the Prime Minister announced a programme of support for UK agricultural exporters including:
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to protect agricultural land from development that reduces the availability of land for food production.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The National Planning Policy Framework sets out clearly that local planning authorities should consider all the benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land, when making plans or taking decisions on new development proposals. Where significant development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, planning authorities should seek to use poorer quality land in preference to that of a higher quality. Planning Practice Guidance also sets out a preference for the use of lower quality agricultural land.
In the National Planning Policy Framework consultation, published in December 2022, the government consulted on a change that will ensure that food production on high value farmland is adequately weighted in the planning process. Government will respond to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support food producers from (a) Essex and (b) the UK to increase exports of produce.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We are delivering our commitment to boost UK exports, as part of the Government’s ‘Made in the UK, Sold to the World’ export strategy, a 12-point plan to help UK businesses hit £1 trillion in exports. We want people at home and abroad to be lining up to buy British.
We have an ambitious programme of negotiations for free trade agreements (FTAs) which is delivering results. On 31 May the UK’s first new FTAs with Australia and New Zealand came into force, opening up markets for UK producers across all products. On 31 March the Government substantially concluded negotiations on the UK’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, an FTA including 11 members: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. This trade deal will see new export opportunities for food producers including for exporters of dairy products, including cheese and butter, having greater access to lower tariffs in Canada, Japan, and Mexico, and exporters of chocolate will benefit from zero tariffs on exports to Mexico and Malaysia.
The Prime Minister recently announced a food and drink export package to boost export capability and deliver on growing demand for our high-quality UK produce across the world. This includes a further expansion of our global agrifood and drink counsellor network who negotiate removal of trade barriers in growing global markets. The package also includes investments of £2 million in global trade shows and missions, promotion through the £1.6 million GREAT food and drink campaign, and bespoke support for seafood (£1 million) and dairy exports (£1 million).
To further support food producers export, we have held a range of national and regional food summits with dedicated SME workshops to highlight export opportunities and how to access support.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
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 made an assessment of the potential merits of providing compensation to businesses that can demonstrate that they have (a) been unable to trade as normal and (b) had their trading activities severely limited as a result of avian influenza restrictions.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We are aware that the current unprecedented outbreak of Avian Influenza (AI) has created challenges for poultry and egg producers. We are working with the industry to support continued business activities.
In October 2022 we announced new support for the poultry industry to assist farmers and producers with the impacts of AI. This includes a change to the existing AI compensation scheme allowing us to provide swifter payments to help stem any cash flow pressures and give earlier certainty about entitlement to compensation. Any other compensation available to producers would come from the payout of private AI insurance policies and we are working with the industry to support continued access to insurance for those that require it.
We have also introduced market support measures to assist businesses impacted by AI. These included:
Following a reduction in the risk levels, the lifting of the Avian Influenza Prevention Zone mandatory housing measures on the 18 April 2023 will come as welcome news to producers. This means that from 18 April, eggs laid by birds with access to outside range areas can return to being marketed as ‘free range’ eggs.
We continue to monitor the impacts of Avian Influenza on the poultry and egg sectors.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which flood alleviation schemes her Department has provided funding to in (a) full and (b) part in the latest period for which data is available; what the total cost is of each scheme; and how much funding (a) her Department and (b) other sources have provided to each scheme.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government announced in March 2020 that the amount invested in flood and coastal erosion schemes would be doubled in England to £5.2 billion. This current six-year programme of flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) projects runs from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2027.
At the end of March 2023, the Environment Agency (EA) estimates approximately £1.5 billion of this funding has been invested, with around 60,000 properties better protected from flooding and coastal erosion by over 200 completed schemes.
In the first year of this programme, between April 2021 and March 2022, the EA worked with other risk management authorities (RMAs) to complete around 120 FCERM projects. A list of capital schemes protecting properties, completed between April 2021 and March 2022 is available from Asset Information and Maintenance Programme (data.gov.uk). More details on investment in FCERM work can also be found in the EA’s recently published Flood and coastal erosion risk management report: for 2021/22. This annual report describes the extensive work undertaken by all RMAs to: manage the risks from flooding and coastal erosion; achieve the objectives of the National FCERM Strategy for England; and plan for future flood and coastal erosion risk.