Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reason no official minute or departmental read-out was produced following the 2025 meeting between the Defra Minister and the Minister responsible for fire at which proposed burning regulations were discussed.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The relevant Defra Minister did not meet any minister responsible for fire in 2025 to discuss the proposed burning regulations.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with regard to Commitment 86 of the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025, whether the her Department has identified a suitable legislative vehicle to repeal the 2031 cut-off date for recording historic public rights of way.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Repeal of the 2031 cut-off date for recording historic public rights of way will require primary legislation. A specific legislative vehicle has not yet been identified. The Government is keeping this under consideration and will bring forward the necessary provisions when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Government expects to publish the proposed Access to Nature Green Paper.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government committed in the 2025 Environmental Improvement Plan to bringing forward an Access to Nature Green Paper. This will provide an opportunity to explore options for improving and expanding access, test potential approaches, and gather robust evidence before any decisions are taken.
A timetable for publication has not yet been confirmed, but further updates will be provided in due course.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on what date her Department first became aware of written representations from private sector companies alleging procedural irregularities in the BNG metric digitisation procurement; what steps her Department has taken in response to those representations; and whether her Department has sought advice from the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The statutory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) metric is a Government‑owned tool and is currently only available to users in spreadsheet format. The existing tool has well‑recognised issues relating to accessibility, usability, and data integrity, which the Government's digitisation project will address. Contract C24064 is for Application Development Services and provides digital specialist support and programme delivery capability. The Discovery phase of the BNG metric digitisation project explored a wide range of user needs and potential options and does not represent a delivery commitment. Discovery reports are not routinely published but can be made available on request. Defra first became aware of written representations from private sector companies alleging procedural irregularities in the BNG metric digitisation procurement on 4 March 2026. Checks were undertaken to make sure the work is following due process. User research activities conducted during the Discovery phase were reviewed and found to be compliant with Government standards for research, and therefore further advice has not been sought. We are keen to work with private sector BNG technology providers to ensure digitisation of the BNG metric is a success.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which body has overall responsibility for consolidating greenhouse gas emissions data across the central government office estate; and what estimate has been made of the total cost across all departments of measuring, collecting, reporting and validating that data in 2024–25.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra consolidates greenhouse gas emissions. This is published in GGC annual reports. The last published report for 2021 to 2024 published here Greening Government Commitments April 2021 to March 2024 report - GOV.UK estimates in year 3, the Government’s overall emissions were 41% lower than the baseline based on data reported to Defra at that time.
There is no estimate of cost of this work however a small team of c.2FTE produces this report as part of wider responsibilities. Departments are encouraged to provide data that is already collected for other purposes and are not required to put in place specific arrangements to collect this data solely for GGC reporting purposes.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
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 converting productive agricultural land to solar farms on food security.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government does not believe that the accelerated roll-out of solar generation poses a threat to food security. The total area used by solar farms is very small. Even in the most ambitious scenarios, we only expect up to 0.4% of total UK land to be occupied.
The analysis carried out in the Land Use Framework suggests there are opportunities for renewables (including solar) to be built on some agricultural land in England while maintaining food production nationally. This is partly through safeguarding our most productive agricultural land from change, and through introducing multifunctional land use such as agrivoltaic systems, combining food and energy production.
All solar projects are subject to a rigorous planning process, in which the views and interests of the local community and impacts on the environment and land use are considered, including any impact on food production.
Planning guidance makes clear that, wherever possible, developers should utilise brownfield, industrial, contaminated, or previously developed land. Where the development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, lower-quality land should be preferred to higher-quality land.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
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 increase access to nature for people living in urban areas.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to ensuring everyone lives within a 15-minute walk of a green or blue space. Currently 80% of people are within this range, with this figure at 78% in urban areas. We have set out how we will make access more equitable and remove barriers to access in our Environmental Improvement Plan.
This includes progressing plans to deliver nine new National River Walks across England, one in each region, to enhance access to nature. The Mersey Valley Way, which runs from Stockport into Manchester, will be the first of those nine new walks. We will identify locations for the next tranche of river walks through a competition that will be launched before the end of 2026.
The Government is also investing £1 billion in tree planting and support to the forestry sector over this parliament. Access to nature is an important part of our work both within the public forestry estate and more broadly including with the 15 Community Forests which bring trees closer to where people live. Last year (2024/25) the Community Forests created over 2,200 hectares of new woodland, with 70% of woodlands planted having full or partial public access and 8% of schemes being within the most deprived areas of the country.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance is issued to police forces on the investigation of suspicious animal deaths; and what recent assessment has been made of the adequacy of investigative standards in such cases.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Police forces investigate suspicious animal deaths under the statutory powers provided in the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which enables officers to act where there is evidence that an animal has suffered, or is likely to suffer, harm. These powers apply to circumstances involving the unexplained or potentially unlawful death of an animal.
Decisions on how such investigations are carried out are matters for individual Chief Constables, who hold operational independence and are responsible for determining the investigative approach taken by their forces. Police forces may also draw on wider investigative frameworks developed by the College of Policing, which support officers in handling cases that may involve criminal harm to animals.
Defra has not undertaken any recent formal assessment of investigative standards in relation to suspicious animal deaths.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Basic Payment Scheme 2023 claimants have accessed support through the Farming Resilience Fund since October 2021.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We do not hold the information in a form that allows us to identify Basic Payment Scheme 2023 claimants specifically. However, the scale-up phase of the Farming Resilience Fund ran from late 2022 to early 2025. During this phase, over 17,000 beneficiaries received one-to-one support through the Fund. Providers also offered group support, such as webinars and workshops, which reached around a further 12,000 beneficiaries.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when his Department plans to publish the final pricing and billing rates for the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Producers were required to submit their final 2024 data by 1 April 2025. Following this deadline, regulators are conducting regulatory checks. Once checks are conducted to an appropriate level, we will use 2024 data and insight from regulator checks to publish packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) base fees in June 2025.