Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
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 potential merits of introducing mandatory codes of practice for businesses to reduce litter.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is not, at this time, planning to make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing mandatory codes of practice for businesses to reduce litter.
We want to see businesses recognising what they can do to discourage the littering of their products and packaging, and the potential benefits to their brand of being associated with tackling, rather than causing, litter. Local councils do, however, have powers to intervene where needed. These include Community Protection Notices which can be used to require the owner of premises to take certain actions to tackle litter created by their activities. Planning guidance also clarifies the powers available to councils to ensure new hot food takeaways do not increase the impact of litter on local communities.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
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 it his policy to repeal the 2031 deadline for registering public rights of way.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Ministers are considering the further implementation of the rights of way reform programme.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
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 had discussions with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade on introducing mandatory reporting for food businesses on (a) health and (b) environmental metrics.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to tackling the challenges faced by our health system with the shift to prevention central to this ambition. Under the Government’s Health Mission we are considering what preventative action is needed to support people live longer, healthier lives, to reduce the amount of time spent in ill health, tackle health inequalities and drive economic growth. We face an obesity crisis and will explore the most impactful interventions to shift food business sales to healthier food.
Defra is not planning to introduce a sector-specific legislative requirement for food and drink companies to report metrics related to the environment such as greenhouse gas emissions. This is because the Department for Business and Trade are currently considering the endorsement of the International Sustainability Disclosure Standards, to create UK Sustainability Reporting Standards that may include reporting against some environmental metrics. The Government and Financial Conduct Authority will consider whether to mandate these Standards for certain economically significant entities across all sectors.
Through the Food Data Transparency Partnership, Defra is supporting food and drink businesses with greenhouse gas emissions reporting by standardising the data and methods used by the industry. The initial focus has been on GHG emissions, where the science and the reporting requirements are most mature. Moving forwards, the ambition is to consider a broad range of environmental metrics beyond carbon.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
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 it his policy to move the regulation of sludge used on agricultural land from the Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations 1989 into the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016, as outlined in the Environment Agency strategy for safe and sustainable sludge use.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is working with the Environment Agency to assess the regulatory framework for sludge. We recognise the importance of improving the regulatory framework, however, further work is required before any proposal for change may be progressed.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to issue new badger cull licences.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
On 30 August, the new Government announced the start of work to refresh the Bovine TB strategy for England, to end the badger cull by the end of this parliament and drive down disease to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods. This will be undertaken in co-design with farmers, vets, scientists and conservationists, ensuring a refreshed strategy continues to be led by the best scientific and epidemiological evidence and advice.
As part of this announcement, existing cull processes will be honoured to ensure clarity for farmers involved in these culls whilst new measures can be rolled out and take effect.
Further details can be found on GOV.UK at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-end-badger-cull-with-new-tb-eradication-strategy.
Under the previous Government, an application for a badger disease control licence was received in respect of a TB hotspot in Cumbria in the Low Risk Area, which was established over 18 months ago following an increase in cattle TB cases in 2021 and 2022. This application was processed by Natural England, as the delegated licensing authority, in accordance with the published policy guidance for this licence type, as introduced by the previous Government in 2018.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
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 it his policy to ban the use of neonicotinoids.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This government recognises that nature is at a crisis point across Britain. We will therefore change existing policies to prevent the use of those neonicotinoid pesticides that threaten our vital pollinators.
A Defra spokesperson said: “We are at a crisis point – nature is dying across Britain. This government will change existing policies to ban the use of bee-killing pesticides to protect our vital pollinators.”