Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) increased instances of extreme weather events across Europe and North Africa, (2) the impact of such events on the importing of fresh produce into the UK, and (3) the need to increase domestic food security.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We remain in close contact with suppliers, who are clear that current issues relating to the availability of certain fruits and vegetables are predominately caused by poor weather in Spain and North Africa where they are produced. These issues have been caused by unseasonal weather hampering production and harvest during December and January.
While short term supplies might be tight, overall, the supply chain is robust, and we are keeping the market under review through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group.
The capability, levers, and expertise to respond to disruption lie with industry. Government's role is to support and enable an industry-led response.
The Government has taken steps to address these global pressures on farmers through to support for energy costs, cutting tariffs to reduce feed costs, improving avian influenza compensation schemes and taking a range of measures on fertilisers.
We work with industry bodies across the farming and horticulture sectors to monitor and assess the current market situation.
Minister Spencer held an industry roundtable with supermarkets on Monday 27 February to explore their plans for a return to normal supplies and contingencies for dealing with these supply chain problems.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of declining levels of confidence among farmers in England, as reported by the October 2022 release of the Farmer Opinion Tracker for England; and what steps they are taking to address this falling confidence.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Listening to farmers is a crucial part of how we shape our future farming policy. The Farmer Opinion Tracker provides a snapshot of views and opinion provided over a five week period between 28th October and 5th December 2022. As a sample based survey, responses can vary due to changes in sample as well as due to real changes on the ground. Broadly speaking, confidence measures in the most recent survey have remained similar to the previous survey results. While there were some declines in some measures, the changes observed were not typically statistically significant – this means that the changes were consistent with usual statistical variation.
Since the last survey was undertaken, we have provided more certainty to allow farmers to plan ahead by reiterating our commitment to the transition and pressing ahead with rolling out our Environmental Land Management schemes, fine-tuning them to make sure they help to deliver our ambitious outcomes on the environment and support a thriving farming sector. The Sustainable Farming Incentive is now live with thousands of farmers applying and we announced six new standards available this year, which will allow more farmers to take advantage of the scheme. Alongside that, Countryside Stewardship continues to offer payment for environmental actions, and will be enhanced to deliver our high environmental ambition, and we are getting ready to open up the second phase of Landscape Recovery scheme. In parallel, we have launched a number of grants for one-off funding to support productivity, such as money for new equipment and technology, slurry storage and water management.
We think this information gives farmers the certainty they need to plan effectively for the years ahead and urge all farmers to look at our schemes and grants and to decide what works for their farm business.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to further international collaboration relating to research on avian flu.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra continues to invest in avian influenza research and monitors the situation in Europe and globally. Defra funds research directly or by leveraging funding through UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)-funded non-governmental public body of which the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is a research council partner. In the last five years, £4.3 million has been invested in research, funded through BBSRC, either solely focussed on avian influenza, or as part of wider projects for poultry disease control.
In addition to supporting international collaboration through specific research projects, such as DeltaFlu, international collaboration and knowledge exchange is facilitated through discussions between the UK Chief Veterinary Officer and representatives from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) avian influenza national and international reference laboratories, and their counterparts in the EU and globally through the World Organisation for Animal Health and allied projects. Including through the joint WOAH-FOA Scientific Network on animal influenza OFFLU.
Collaborations include those through the STAR-IDAZ International Research Consortium on Animal Health which is run by a partnership including Defra, BBSRC, WOAH, CAB International and Kreavet BV. STAR-IDAZ is a global initiative aiming to coordinate research programmes at the international level and to contribute to the development of new and improved animal health strategies for priority diseases, infections and issues, including avian influenza.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether water companies are required to collect and submit data on (1) the number of storm overflow monitors that are offline at any time, (2) the duration of these outages, and (3) the reasons for the outages; and if not, whether they intend to introduce such requirements.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Data is provided by Water and Sewerage Companies to the Environment Agency each year as part of their regulatory Annual Return. As a result of additional duties introduced through the Environment Act, water companies will report in near real time, and where a monitor is offline, water companies are required to bring monitors back into service as soon as reasonably practical.
As part of the Annual Return, Water and Sewerage Companies are asked to provide:
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that their forthcoming chemicals strategy takes steps to protect the oceans; and whether that strategy will include a ban on the use of non-essential per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs).
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Chemicals Strategy will frame the work we are doing across chemicals and put us on a path for improved chemicals management. It will address our approach to managing Per- and Poly-fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), along with other emerging chemicals of concern.
Work is underway across government to assess levels of PFAS occurring in the environment, their sources and potential risks to inform future policy and regulatory approaches. In the UK REACH Work Programme for 2021-22, Defra asked the EA and HSE to examine the risks posed by PFAS and develop a 'Regulatory Management Options Analysis' (RMOA). The RMOA will be published in Spring 2023 and will make recommendations for risk management measures. Defra and the Devolved Administrations will carefully consider these recommendations as we take forward our broader approach to PFAS management.
We are already committed to leading efforts to protect the marine environment and counter marine pollution. The UK Marine Strategy Programme of Measures sets out a comprehensive list of actions that HM Government is taking to reduce pollution in the marine environment and move us towards Good Environmental Status in our seas.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure the deposit return scheme for England, Wales and Northern Ireland operates in a manner that avoids contamination with other forms of packaging.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
One of the objectives of the DRS is to offer a greater opportunity to collect higher quality, uncontaminated materials in greater quantities. By creating a separate waste stream for the materials in scope of the DRS (as opposed to them being collected at kerbside co-mingled with other recycled waste), we will be able to collect them to a high quality for reprocessing.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect to publish a response to their 2021 deposit return scheme consultation; and why that response was not published in early 2022 as planned.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We want to ensure we have an ambitious yet realistic timeframe for delivery of the scheme and sought views on what a feasible implementation timeline looked like in the 2021 consultation. Further details on when a DRS will be introduced will be in the government response to that consultation, which will be published early in the New Year. DRS presents a number of complex policy, delivery and design decisions which required additional time in 2022 to work through before we could finalise our response. Waste is a devolved policy area, and we are working closely with the devolved administrations and industry to support the successful delivery of the scheme across the UK, including mitigating the impacts that arise from differences in scheme implementation.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether it remains their intention for a deposit return scheme to be operational in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland from 2024; and what assessment they have made of the potential impact on (1) producers, (2) retailers, and (3) consumers, of a different implementation date in Scotland.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We want to ensure we have an ambitious yet realistic timeframe for delivery of the scheme and sought views on what a feasible implementation timeline looked like in the 2021 consultation. Further details on when a DRS will be introduced will be in the government response to that consultation, which will be published early in the New Year. DRS presents a number of complex policy, delivery and design decisions which required additional time in 2022 to work through before we could finalise our response. Waste is a devolved policy area, and we are working closely with the devolved administrations and industry to support the successful delivery of the scheme across the UK, including mitigating the impacts that arise from differences in scheme implementation.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to monitor the welfare of farmed fish that are slaughtered on wellboats.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Legislation on the protection of animals at the time of killing requires that farmed fish are spared avoidable pain, distress or suffering during their killing and related operations. The Animal and Plant Health Agency is responsible for carrying out any investigations concerning the welfare of farmed fish, including at slaughter.
As part of our Action Plan for Animal Welfare, we are currently considering improvements that could be made to the welfare of farmed fish at the time of killing. To inform this work, we have asked the Animal Welfare Committee for advice on the killing of farmed fish, including the use of wellboats.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of UK holidaymakers who take more than two dogs when travelling abroad.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill proposes reducing the number of pet dogs, cats and ferrets that can travel to Great Britain in one non-commercial movement to five pets per vehicle. This was informed by research and engagement with various stakeholders, including authorised pet checkers, carriers, animal welfare organisations and veterinary bodies, to determine a suitable limit that would disrupt the illegal trade abusing the non-commercial pet travel rules while minimising the impact of genuine owners travelling with their pets. While we have information on the number of pets owned by families, we do not hold detailed data on how many pets people actually choose to take with them when going abroad.