Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 highly dense areas of barley grass seeds on the health of dogs; and whether her Department plans to take preventative action to reduce the risk of injury to dogs.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
To support dog owners and handlers, the Government has published a Code of Practice for the Welfare of Dogs which is available here: Code of practice for the welfare of dogs - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The code summarises important information for owners and helps them make decisions about how best to care for their dogs. The code includes information on how to keep dogs healthy and protect them from pain, suffering, injury, and disease, and recommends that owners monitor their dogs carefully and seek the advice of a veterinarian where necessary.
In addition, many of the UK’s animal welfare organisations provide owners and handlers with advice on how to care for their dogs, including the risks posed by grass seeds. For example, the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals has published advice for owners here: Grass seeds in dogs - PDSA.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she is taking steps to help ensure that improvements to sewage treatment are paid for from profits made by the water companies over the last decade.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Water companies must maintain and replace water and sewerage assets and infrastructure with significant ongoing investment. Companies seek funding from financial investors, to smooth the cost of investing and to spread the bill impact over a longer period of time to prevent short term ‘bill-shock’ to consumers.
If a company did not pay dividends, it would struggle to get access to finance to fund investment and this would limit the level of investment and impact on service for future customers. The water sector has invested more than it has paid in dividends every year over the last decade and bills have also remained stable throughout this period.
Water companies are monopoly providers of an essential service. It is therefore important to customers that decisions on dividends reflect service delivery for customers and the environment. Government has been clear that it is unacceptable for companies to profit from environmental damage.
Through the Environment Act 2021, the government has given Ofwat improved powers to modify water company licenses. Ofwat has introduced a new measure that will enable it to take enforcement action against water companies that do not link dividend payments to performance for both customers and the environment. This licence condition came into effect on 17 May 2023.
When water companies pay fines for their poor environmental performance the cost is borne by their shareholders, not by charging customers. In addition, Ofwat’s outcome delivery incentives ensure that where companies do not meet their performance targets, they must reimburse their customers through lower water bills in the next financial year.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she is taking steps with Cabinet colleagues to protect and preserve landscapes with a distinct literary heritage and value.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Many of our most precious literary landscapes are protected in law as National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs). In England, there are 10 National Parks and 34 AONBs. Together, they cover nearly 25% of land in England. These places are designated in statute for their natural beauty which provided the inspiration and the settings for some of our greatest works of literature. There are also some good examples of literary considerations in landscape character assessments, including Natural England’s National Character Areas, which reference these associations across England’s landscapes.
These designated landscapes are all managed to conserve and enhance their important cultural associations, including relevant literature and the sites which inspired it, as key components of the natural beauty of the area. For instance, the Lake District National Park celebrates its close links to and the inspiration it provided for the great British Romantic Movement, including authors such as Wordsworth and the other Lakes Poets, as well as the much loved children’s authors Beatrix Potter and Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons). Exmoor National Park actively promotes its links with Robert Blackmore’s ‘Lorna Doone’. The Dorset, Blackdown Hills and Cranbourne Chase AONBs all rightly celebrate their associations with Thomas Hardy and help conserve and enhance the settings for his novels.
Literary associations are also celebrated and conserved in some of the England’s World Heritage sites. The Lake District World Heritage Site was designated in part due to the fact that it is “A landscape which has inspired artistic and literary movements and generated ideas about landscapes that have had a global influence and left its physical mark” and the Management Plan for this site emphasises the importance of its literary associations.
In addition, nearly 400,000 heritage assets – many of them located within the boundaries of National Parks and AONBs – benefit from statutory protection in their own right as Listed Buildings or Scheduled Monuments. Often such assets have strong literary associations – for instance, Stonehenge (protected as a Scheduled Monument) famously provided the setting for the tragic climax of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, while Max Gate (protected as a Listed Building) survives as the house Hardy designed and had built in Dorchester, and in which he wrote this and several of his other classics. These are but two of several such examples.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to publish feedback on its consultation on changes to rules for the import of dogs.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
We are carefully reviewing the feedback gathered from our consultation and wider engagement with stakeholders, and a summary will be published in due course.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 tackle trends in the level of cropping of dogs’ ears.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The cropping of a dog’s ears is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Now that the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 has come into force, anyone convicted of such an offence, faces being sent to prison for up to five years, or receiving an unlimited fine, or both.
The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill includes powers to introduce restrictions on pet travel and on the commercial import of pets on welfare grounds, via secondary legislation. In August 2021, the Government launched a consultation on how these powers should be used, including proposals to ban the import of dogs with cropped ears and docked tails.
We are carefully reviewing the feedback gathered from our consultation and wider engagement with stakeholders, and a summary will be published in due course.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 help tackle the cropping of dogs’ ears.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The cropping of a dog’s ears is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Now that the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 has come into force, anyone convicted of such an offence, faces being sent to prison for up to five years, or receiving an unlimited fine, or both.
The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill includes powers to introduce restrictions on pet travel and on the commercial import of pets on welfare grounds, via secondary legislation. In August 2021, the Government launched a consultation on how these powers should be used, including proposals to ban the import of dogs with cropped ears and docked tails.
We are carefully reviewing the feedback gathered from our consultation and wider engagement with stakeholders, and a summary will be published in due course.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 banning cages for laying hens.
Answered by Mark Spencer
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 28 March 2023 to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, PQ UIN 173051.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 assessment of the potential merits of reviewing the Hunting Act 2004 to strengthen measures against fox hunting.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Hunting Act 2004 makes it an offence to hunt a wild mammal with dogs except where it is carried out in accordance with the exemptions in the Act. Those found guilty under the Act are subject to the full force of the law.
The Government has made it clear that the Hunting Act will not be amended – that is a manifesto commitment.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to keep fur trade bans in the context of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Government is in the process of analysing all retained EU law. This analysis will enable us to determine what should be preserved as part of domestic law and what should be repealed or amended. Current government policy is to retain existing fur measures.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she will bring forward legislative proposals to ban wet wipes containing plastic.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Government is carefully considering the impact of wet wipes containing plastic and more information will be available in due course.