Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 adequacy of the Environment Agency's response to the fire at the Weir Road recycling centre on Saturday 7 September 2024.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency are responsible for the regulation of the environmental permit held by Reston Waste Management at 77 Weir Road. After being notified of the fire late on Saturday 7 September by the London Fire Brigade (LFB), Environment Agency staff worked throughout the weekend with LFB to review potential impacts to air, land and water. As the incident continued, the Environment Agency provided advice to LFB and London Boroughs of Merton and Wandsworth regarding impacts to the environment and maintained input via multi-agency meetings. Environment Agency staff attended the site on Tuesday 10th September following a large number of complaints about the smoke from the fire. Their attendance ensured that waste was being managed appropriately and no longer causing a discharge to enter the River Wandle.
Officers from the Environment Agency are in regular contact with the Cllrs in Merton and Wandsworth whose Wards were affected by the fire, along with officers from those boroughs. The cause of the fire is being investigated by the Environment Agency, alongside those partners. They will be working with the fire brigade to understand the cause of the fire, and the reasons why it took so long to extinguish. The London Borough of Merton is leading a formal multi-agency review of the incident and the Environment Agency will feed into this review. Alongside this, the Environment Agency is assessing the actions taken by Restons Waste Management, to understand if any more could have reasonably been done to prevent or mitigate the effects of the fire.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of programmes supported through the Blue Planet Fund were already in operation before the Fund was established.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Since 2021, the Blue Planet Fund has invested into 12 programmes. Three programmes were already being supported through Defra’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) allocation: the Blue Forests Initiative, the Global Plastic Action Partnership and one component of the Championing Inclusivity in Plastic Pollution programme. Two further programmes - the Ocean Country Partnership Programme and Sustainable Blue Economies - are new Blue Planet Fund programmes, but where we incorporated the strongest components of other pre-existing Defra ODA programmes that were then closed prior to the launch of the Blue Planet Fund.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he is taking steps to improve cross-government oversight of the Blue Planet Fund.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Following the recent Independent Commission for Aid Impact rapid review we will issue a full management response in January. Both spending departments will continue to work together under the oversight and strategic direction of the Defra-FCDO Joint Management Board. Aligned Official Development Assistance delivery guidance across Defra and FCDO is applied to existing and new Blue Planet Fund programmes to ensure coherent, effective and relevant delivery.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 estimate of the amount and proportion of funding provided to arms length bodies through the Blue Planet Fund that was spent on management fees.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
By the end of March 2024, approximately £5 million will have been spent on Arms-Length Body (ALB) overhead fees under the Blue Planet Fund’s Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP). This represents 22 percent of their allocated budget to deliver OCPP. The percentage of ALB spend that has been attributed to overhead costs has decreased each year of the programme, and we expect this trend to continue as more in-country partners are onboarded to carry out delivery.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 make an estimate of the number of cucumbers that were imported in February (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Provisional HMRC Overseas Trade Data shows the UK imported 16,600 tonnes of cucumbers in February 2022. Data for February 2023 is not yet available.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 make an estimate of the number of tomatoes that were imported in February (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Provisional HMRC Overseas Trade Data shows the UK imported 32,300 tonnes of fresh tomatoes in February 2022. Data for February 2023 is not yet available.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many times raw sewage has been released into the River Graveney in the last 12 months.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Every April the Environment Agency (EA) publishes a report showing the number and duration of spills over the previous year here:
https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/21e15f12-0df8-4bfc-b763-45226c16a8ac.
The EA will publish the data for 2022 in April 2023.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she plans to answer Questions 72403 and 72402 tabled on 26 October.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Both questions UIN 72403 and UIN 72402 have now been answered.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many times raw sewage has been released into the River Wandle in the past 12 months.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
This government has increased monitoring requirements on water companies to ensure greater transparency, requiring them to have event duration monitors on all Combined Sewer Overflows to enable spill counting. An annual report, which includes the number and duration of spills that occurred on the River Wandle in 2021, is available here: Defra Data Services Platform
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 potential impact of raw sewage discharges on the River Graveney's eco-system.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
This is the first government to take such significant steps to tackle sewage overflows, including those on the river Graveney. We have been clear to water companies that they must tackle sewage overflows urgently, and the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan will deliver the largest infrastructure investment in water company history to clean up our rivers. Under the Environment Act we have improved monitoring and the transparency of data related to sewage overflows. Event Duration Monitors will be fully rolled out by 2023. This will help monitor local sewage impacts and hold water companies to account to deliver rapid improvements.