Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to support farmers with the phase-out of the direct payments under the Basic Payment Scheme.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has committed to support farmers through a farming budget of £5 billion over two years, including £2.4 billion in 2025/26. This will include the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history.
We are continuing to phase out delinked payments. Instead, we are targeting additional investments away from direct payments towards the farms least able to adapt, with Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes remaining at the centre of our offer for farmers. Phasing out delinked payments will allow us to focus investment on ELM schemes, which will be funded with £1.8 billion in 2025/26. This funding will deliver improvements to food security, biodiversity, carbon emissions, water quality, air quality and flood resilience. It will enable farmers to make their businesses more sustainable and resilient, including those who have been often ignored such as small, grassland, upland and tenant farmers.
We are providing advice via the Resilience Scheme, which can help adaptation by those farms most affected by reducing delinked payments. We will work with the sector to continue to roll out, improve and evolve our ELM schemes, to make them work for farming and nature.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 issue a revised strategic policy statement to OFWAT on its regulation of water companies.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government and regulators work together to drive improvements that benefit both customers and the environment and hold water companies to account where necessary through strong enforcement action. We have set clear expectations of the sector, including regulators, and will not hesitate to take further action if we do not see the necessary action.
The measures that will be implemented through the Water (Special Measures) Bill are a down payment on the comprehensive reforms needed to restore our rivers, lakes, and seas to good health, meet the challenges of the future, and drive economic growth
The Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Welsh government, has launched an Independent Commission into the water sector and its regulation. The latest step in the Government’s programme to transform how our water system works. The Commission will adopt a broad scope. That will include considering the role of the regulators, ensuring they are effective for holding companies accountable, as well as establishing clear outcomes and a long-term vision for the future.
The Commission will report to the Secretary of State for Environment, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs with recommendations, in Q2 2025. The UK Government and Welsh Government will then respond and consult on proposals, including potential further legislation. The Government does not intend to issue a revised statement until after the outcomes of the independent commission.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of officials in his Department have worked on teams covering (a) water companies and (b) sewage in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 take legislative steps to end the practice of operator self-monitoring, in the context of recent trends in the level of river pollution discharges.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Water (Special Measures) Bill will introduce a requirement for water companies to publish information on discharges from emergency overflows in near real-time (within an hour of a discharge occurring). This requirement will be in addition to the duty coming into force for companies to publish discharges from storm overflows in near real-time.
The increased availability of near real-time data will be independently scrutinised by the regulators and will fulfil the Government’s commitment to ensure independent monitoring of every outlet.
The Environment Agency (EA) are already recruiting up to 500 additional staff for inspections, enforcement and stronger regulation, increasing compliance checks, and quadrupling the number of water company inspections by March next year. The increase in inspections will allow the EA to conduct more in-depth and independent audits to get to the root-cause of incidents, reducing the reliance on operator self-monitoring.
On 23 October the Government launched an Independent Commission into the water sector regulatory system. The Commission includes specific objectives around ensuring water industry regulators are effective, have a clear purpose, and are empowered to hold water companies to account.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 establish a Tenant Farming Commissioner.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to a resilient and thriving farming sector in which all farmers, including tenant farmers, are supported to deliver our food security and environmental goals. The Government is considering the role of a Commissioner for the Tenant Farming sector and will provide an update in due course.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the animal welfare provision and conditions within the Animal and Plant Health Agency licensed quarantine kennel and cattery facilities.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to preserving high animal welfare and biosecurity standards.
Authorised quarantine premises are approved and regularly inspected by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to ensure they meet the standards specified in the conditions of their authorisation, which includes welfare standards.
We keep the adequacy of the animal welfare provision and conditions within authorised quarantine premises under regular review.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to his Department's statutory guidance entitled Dog kennel boarding licensing: statutory guidance for local authorities, updated on 1 June 2024, how many licensed kennels and catteries inspected by local authorities did not meet minimum requirements in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 there are no statutory requirements for local authorities to provide Defra with information on the number of licensed businesses who do not meet minimum requirements.
Local authorities are required to provide an annual return detailing the number of licences in force on 1st April each year, and the average fees associated with the grant or renewal of each licence in the preceding year. Some local authorities have provided additional information about suspended, refused or revoked licences. Data from the annual return is published by Defra and can be found here: Local Authority Licensing of Activities involving Animals returns - data.gov.uk.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the inspection regime is for premises licensed by the Animal and Plant Health Agency to operate as quarantine facilities.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Quarantine kennels are subject to annual authorisation by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) for the first two years of establishment approval and authorisation every two years thereafter.
Before granting a quarantine kennel licence, APHA inspects the premises. The premises must meet standard requirements for the design, construction, operation and management of a quarantine facility to ensure that full rabies security is maintained and must also meet specific welfare requirements.
Every premises is overseen by a veterinary superintendent (VS) who oversees the health and welfare of the animals in the establishment’s care. The VS must visit the premises every week and submit a monthly report on the facility to APHA.
APHA field vets also inspect the quarantine kennel every three months to ensure the health and welfare of the occupants is satisfactory.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 he has made of the adequacy of the number of places available for dogs and cats at Animal and Plant Health Agency licensed quarantine kennel and cattery facilities.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The number of quarantine kennels and cattery facilities is kept under constant review to ensure there is sufficient quarantine provision to preserve our high animal health and biosecurity standards.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) dog and (b) cat places were licensed by the Animal and Plant Health Agency for quarantine in each year since 2014.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Animal and Plant Health Agency only holds information on the number of quarantine kennels (QKs) that have been approved from 2017. The table below details the number of approved premises for each year:
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
Number of QKs approved - dogs | 9 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
Number of QKs approved - cats | 9 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 |
The numbers provided only cover quarantine kennels that are for public use as pet quarantine kennels. We have not included rabies quarantine facilities which includes zoo quarantine premises, research quarantine premises and 48 hours temporary holdings at ports/airports.