Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much money has been spent on improving flood defences in Somerset since 2014.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Since the flooding of 2013/14, over £200 million of Flood and Coastal Risk Management Grant-in-Aid (FCRM GiA) and local levy has been spent on improving the standard of flood protection in the local authority areas of Somerset, North Somerset, and Bath and North East Somerset. This is in addition to the annual budget of over £3 million for the Somerset Rivers Authority and the annual budget the Environment Agency has for repairing existing assets and individual property-level resilience programmes.
Improvements have included dredging, building new flood defences, raising river banks and roads and upgrading existing flood defences. The Environment Agency has also spent additional money on providing a local stock of Ultra High Volume Pumps so they are guaranteed to be available in the event of a major incident.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much maintenance activity has been carried out on Somerset’s Main Rivers in the last a) year, b) 5 years and c) 10 years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Since the flooding of 2013/14, over £47 million has been spent on operating flood defences and maintaining rivers in Somerset. This includes £4.7 million this financial year and over £24 million in the last five years.
This includes the daily operation and maintenance of hundreds of flood defence assets across the Somerset Levels and Moors and on the coast, the clearing of vegetation from river channels, the management of flood storage reservoirs and the deployment of additional pumps after heavy rainfall. In addition to this, the Environment Agency also provides a flood warning service and incident response 365 days of the year.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much of the Small Abattoir Fund was spent by her Department prior to it's closure in 2024.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Rural Payments Agency have offered agreements for the Smaller Abattoir Fund worth a total of £1,119,347.59.
Smaller Abattoir Fund grants are claimed in arrears and as of 04 November 2025, £593,018.55 has been paid out under the scheme.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
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 eradicate the Yellow-legged Asian hornet.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is continuing to follow an eradication strategy against Yellow Legged Hornet (also known as Asian Hornet) to prevent this invasive non-native species from establishing in GB. Contingency action is delivered by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). As of 23 October 2025, the APHA have found and destroyed a total of 155 Yellow Legged Hornet nests.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans she has to expand the use of new (a) tracking and (b) monitoring technologies to improve the effectiveness of the National Bee Unit’s work to (i) locate and (ii) eradicate yellow-legged Asian hornet nests.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Since 2016 the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s National Bee Unit (NBU) have responded to incursions of Yellow Legged Hornet (YLH) into Great Britain. The NBU has developed a fine-tuned and effective response which allows them to find and destroy nests to prevent YLH establishing. During 2025 the NBU has drawn on support from other members of staff within APHA and used new technology to deliver the response. For tracking, the inspectors have been trialling Robor Nature Units which use a handheld device to add tiny trackers to hornets. The tracker is then used to follow the hornet and find the nest so it can be destroyed and removed. For monitoring, field tests have been carried out using VespAI, a visual monitoring system developed by the University of Exeter which uses artificial intelligence to carry out surveillance for YLH. As of 23 October 2025, the NBU have found and destroyed a total of 155 Yellow Legged Hornet nests.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
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 ensure the availability of seasonal labour for the apple and pear industry.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Seasonal Worker visa route is hugely important for the horticulture sector, including the apple and pear industry. Government made a total of 43,000 seasonal worker visas available for horticulture in 2025. The Government has also announced a 5-year extension to the Seasonal Worker visa route to provide stability and certainty to the horticulture sector, and we can confirm that 41,000 visas will be available for 2026 for the horticulture sector.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
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 for the future of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is working closely with farmers and industry stakeholders to design a future Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer that will better target the SFI in an orderly way towards our priorities for food, farming and nature. Information and plans for the next iteration of the scheme will be published in due course.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department has issued on the treatment of historic (a) glass and (b) plastic bottles distributed prior to the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Deposit Return Scheme in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland will include single-use drinks containers from 150ml to 3 litres. Materials included are polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, steel, and aluminium drink containers. Glass drinks containers across the UK are included in the scope of the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging scheme, to make sure it is appropriately and efficiently recycled.
Only DRS containers placed on the market after 1 October 2027 will carry a deposit on them. Containers placed on the market before 1 October 2027 can still be recycled via kerbside collections.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
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 provide additional support to (a) the Somerset Eel Recovery Project and (b) other local recovery projects to enable the (i) delivery of eel passes, (ii) habitat improvements, (iii) increased Assisted migration and (iv) local community engagement work.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In England, the Environment Agency is responsible for eel management and working with local delivery partners.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
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 adequacy of funding for the (a) Environment Agency and (b) other relevant bodies to (i) monitor and regulate pollution, (ii) assess habitat degradation, (iii) measure silver eel escapement, (iv) ensure that pumps friendly and (v) ensure that barriers are eel friendly.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This is a devolved matter and therefore the information provided relates to England only.
The Environment Agency (EA) are responsible for eel management in England. As a non-departmental public body, the EA determine how to allocate their funding from Defra across their activities. Defra has recently committed £350,000 for research and development projects to drive improvements in eel management and conservation.