Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much his Department (a) paid in apprenticeship levy fees and (b) spent from its apprenticeship levy funds between September 2021 and August 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The department paid £4,665,652 in apprenticeship levy fees and received £437,478.16 between 1 September 2021 and 31 August 2023. This includes the 10% Government top up.
The department spent £2,644,021.77 of its available apprenticeship levy funds between September 2021 and August 2023.
The data above is for Defra Core, Marine Management Organisation, Natural England, Animal and Plant Health Agency and Joint Nature Conservation Committee, which are collectively included in the Defra Levy Account.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing the Calgary model of dog bite prevention.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have no plans at this time to reintroduce a mandatory dog licence, as required in Calgary. The previous dog licence was repealed by the Local Government Act 1988 because it cost more to administer than the revenue it generated. This licencing system was in effect an ownership registration scheme. Now that microchipping is mandatory, this is no longer necessary.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what (a) schemes and (b) grants their Department administers that are open for (i) individuals, (ii) organisations and (iii) other groups in Feltham and Heston constituency to apply for as of 10 January 2024.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department does not have a complete data set showing which schemes are definitively open for applications as of 10 January 2024. This is because the opening date for applications of grant schemes is a data field that has only recently been added to the Government Grants Information System. However, from the data set that we currently have, we have listed in the attached document live schemes which have recorded a month to be advertised on ‘Find a Grant’, and those that have not recorded a month to be advertised alongside the reason (where it is recorded).
We do not hold centrally data on application criteria so would not be able to answer the second part of the question relating to which grants are available to individuals, organisations and other groups in Feltham and Heston constituency without commissioning further information from delivery teams. This commission would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
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 creating a series of marine national parks to improve marine biodiversity.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
While some countries designate marine parks, domestically, we have created a series of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to protect our marine biodiversity. This is an extensive network of 178 sites covering 40% of English waters. Our MPA network represents the range of species and habitats found in our seas.
We continue to support local initiatives such as the proposed Marine Park in waters around Plymouth, and will consider the contribution of such projects to our environmental goals such as 30by30.
To complement the MPA network, the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) in English waters were designated on 14 June 2023 and will come into force on 5 July 2023. HPMAs will provide the highest levels of protection in our seas, allowing nature to fully recover to a more natural state and helping the ecosystem to thrive.
Internationally, we are also leading global efforts to protect the ocean. We welcome the agreement of the Convention on Biological Diversity Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which sets out a clear mission: to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. As Ocean Co-Chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature & People, and our leadership of the Global Ocean Alliance, we continue to champion the GBF Target 3 to effectively conserve and manage at least 30% of the land and 30% of the ocean globally by 2030 (30by30), including the move to support implementation through facilitating knowledge-sharing and match-making financial and technical assistance.
The adoption of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement on 19 June will also lead to much greater protection for the two-thirds of the global ocean that lies beyond national jurisdiction, therefore playing a key role in achieving the 30by30 target the UK will work to ratify the Agreement as soon as practicable, whilst supporting others to do the same.
The UK’s Blue Planet Fund, a £500 million programme, supports developing countries to protect the marine environment and reduce poverty, by tackling threats to ocean health such as illegal fishing, pollution and climate change; and at the UN Ocean conference in 2022, we committed up to £100 million of Blue Planet Funding to support the implementation, management and enforcement of Marine Protected Areas.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
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 incentivise (a) the rewilding of non-productive agricultural land and (b) nature-friendly farming practices.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
(a)
The Government is supporting a number of initiatives to create wilder landscapes across England, as part of a broader approach to nature recovery through projects such as peatland restoration funding or agri-environment schemes. However, rewilding is not appropriate in all situations, and we must balance priorities including food production.
Landscape Recovery (LR) is an environmental land management (ELM) scheme which seeks to demonstrate the capacity for large-scale nature recovery and sustainable food production to take place in parallel. LR is for landowners and managers who want to take a more large-scale, long-term approach to producing environmental and climate goods on their land. It funds ambitious landscape-scale projects through bespoke, long-term agreements lasting 20 years or more. Initially, projects are awarded a project development grant to gather further information on the outcomes of the projects and financing options. Following this, projects will sign an Implementation Agreement, setting out the details of the project and what will be delivered. The implementation phase will then begin from 2024 onwards, with agreed funding from the Government and the private sector.
(b)
In the Agricultural Transition Plan of November 2020, the Government announced ELM schemes, designed to help England’s farmers enhance their efficiency, productivity and environmental sustainability. This move from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy is the most significant reform of agricultural policy and spending in England in decades.
Sustainable food production and caring for the environment can and must go hand in hand. Our ELM schemes will ensure our long-term food security by investing in the foundations of food production: healthy soil, water and biodiverse ecosystems. They have been developed so that there is an offer for all farm types, including for tenant farmers.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) pays farmers for actions that support food production and can help improve farm productivity and resilience, while protecting and improving the environment. It is being rolled out incrementally, with the full offer available by the end of 2024. It is straightforward for farmers to apply and manage their agreement, and they will receive quarterly payments. We will also pay a new SFI management payment to recognise the administrative costs for farmers entering into and managing an SFI agreement.
Countryside Stewardship (CS) pays farmers and land managers to look after and improve the environment in specific habitats, features and local areas on their land. There will be an extra incentive through CS Plus for land managers to join up across local areas to deliver bigger and better results. We are improving the way CS operates, including expanding and refining the scope of the scheme, simplifying processes and making inspections fairer and more proportionate. We have increased the payment rates of CS in response to rising input costs.
Farmers and land managers can be in the SFI and CS at the same time, so long as we are not paying for the same actions twice on the same land and the actions are compatible.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the implications for its policies of the report entitled Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes on his mission to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published on 5 September 2017.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Since the report was published in 2017 we have published a Resources and Waste Strategy which sets out how we will preserve material resources by minimising waste, promoting resource efficiency and moving towards a circular economy in England. We are also developing a cross-government Chemicals Strategy to frame the work we are doing across chemicals to put us on a path for improved chemicals management. This Strategy will set out our priorities and principles for taking regulatory action to protect human health and the environment. Meanwhile, the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), published earlier this year, sets out how we will tackle pollution in the air, in our waters, and on land, setting ambitious new targets across the board to improve the environment while also improving people’s health and quality of life.
In the development of these strategies and the EIP, and in delivering on the policies they set out, the Government consults widely with stakeholders and considers a wide array of information sources to ensure our policy making is robust and that we are upholding our obligations, including on human rights.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the viability of the dairy industry.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We recognise that the dairy industry has recently faced a range of challenges including the impact of Covid-19 and the increase in input costs arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, we have a resilient and dynamic dairy sector and have acted to support it in a number of ways. This includes the introduction of advance Basic Payment Scheme payments and support for an industry approach on the use of urea fertilisers. We have also recently announced a £1m bespoke export support fund for the dairy sector, with a particular focus on support for SMEs. Following the supply chain fairness review we will shortly be laying regulations on contractual regulation in the dairy sector.
We continue to monitor the dairy market and to work closely with key sector stakeholders.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
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 her Department has made of the levels of microplastics in rivers.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In Defra’s recently published Plan for Water we said that we are increasing our understanding of the level and extent of microplastics in the water environment, and their impact on humans and wildlife, by developing methods to measure the amount and types of microplastics and microfibres in rivers and sediment.
The Environment Agency (EA) does not currently routinely monitor rivers for microplastics. In 2021, Defra, with support from the EA, commissioned a pilot study to develop sampling and analytical protocols for quantifying microplastics in surface waters and sediments. The final report is expected in summer 2023. The findings from the pilot study will inform a microplastics monitoring strategy for river catchments in England.
The EA is currently working with water companies to secure funding through the Water Industry National Environment Programme for the monitoring of microplastics from wastewater treatment processes that contain plastic media. This will help us gain a better understanding of the release of microplastics from wastewater treatment processes to rivers. Additionally, biosolids derived from wastewater treatment will be investigated to understand if microplastics are released when the biosolids are applied to land.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
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 her Department has made of the pilot habitat bank sites.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We are introducing mandatory biodiversity net gain for most new development from November 2023. The policy aims to leave biodiversity in a measurably better state than before the development has commenced. Developers can meet their net gain requirements on-site, off-site or as a last resort by purchasing statutory credits from the Government.
The statutory credit scheme is not seeking to create habitat banks. Habitat banks are where providers in the private sector create or enhance habitat in advance of selling the units to developers. Habitat created or enhanced after 30 January 2020 will be eligible, provided it meets the other requirements for biodiversity net gain units. We want to encourage habitat banking to allow habitat enhancements to be delivered before development takes place.
Revenue from statutory credit sales will be invested by Natural England on behalf of Defra’s Secretary of State in strategic habitat creation and enhancement projects which deliver long-term environmental benefits.
Natural England ran a three-year pilot for credit scheme investment. This ended in March 2023 with five projects being funded through investment readiness. A formal assessment has not been made but initial learnings are being used to design the credit scheme and inform similar schemes within Natural England and Defra.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
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 her Department has made of the potential merits of biodiversity offsetting frameworks.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We are introducing mandatory biodiversity net gain for most new development from November 2023. The policy aims to leave biodiversity in a measurably better state than before the development has commenced. In order for developers to calculate a measurable uplift in biodiversity value, they will need to use the biodiversity metric calculation tool. The tool measures losses and gains in biodiversity by generating 'biodiversity units'. Developments can see whether they will achieve 10% net gain by comparing the baseline biodiversity units to the post-development units.
A metric allows the biodiversity impact of a development to be quantified so that the offset requirement, and the value of the compensatory action, can be clearly defined. The original policy intention in 2012 has moved from offsetting losses in biodiversity, towards delivering measurable gains in biodiversity. This was the key driver towards a standardised single metric which needed to be simple but based on sound ecological principles. Offsetting is only considered after the mitigation hierarchy is followed and does not replace existing policies or protections. Our recently published Nature Market Framework sets out our vision to hardwire integrity and principles into the market framework to build trust and confidence so markets can grow at pace in line with our increased environmental ambition.