Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have worked under the poultry Seasonal Worker visa scheme in each year since 2021.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on the number of grants of Seasonal Worker visas is published in table Vis_D02 of the Entry clearance detailed dataset. Data on visa grants by occupation can be found in table Occ_D02, of the Sponsored work visas by occupation and industry dataset. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook.
The latest data relates up to the end of December 2023.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of applicants have secured a Seasonal Worker visa in each year since 2019.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on the number of grants of Seasonal Worker visas is published in table Vis_D02 of the Entry clearance detailed dataset. Data on visa grants by occupation can be found in table Occ_D02, of the Sponsored work visas by occupation and industry dataset. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook.
The latest data relates up to the end of December 2023.
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 hectares of trees have been planted in each year since 2015.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Chesterfield on 2 April 2024 to Question 19841.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many applications were (a) made and (b) rejected to access funding under schemes within the flood recovery framework in the last two years; what total amount was that has been paid out through the flood recovery framework; and how many and what proportion of applicants received the maximum pay out of £25,000 under the flood recovery framework.
Answered by Simon Hoare
In the last two years the Flood Recovery Framework has been activated twice – following Storm Babet in October 2023 and Storm Henk in January 2024. The decision to accept or reject applications for flood recovery funding is made by local authorities who are responsible for administrating all schemes, apart from the Farming Recovery Fund. To date, eligible local authorities have made payments of over £7.8 million to 8,510 impacted households and businesses. We expect this figure to rise substantially as further payments are made over the next 18 months.
With regards to the specific question on the £25,000 available under the Farming Recovery Fund scheme. DEFRA have only opened this once within the last two years on 9 April 2024 to provide farmers support to recover from uninsurable damage. The scheme provides grants of between £500 and £25,000 to return land to the condition it was before exceptional flooding of Storm Henk. The fund was initially opened in nine English local authority areas, however, DEFRA committed actively to review the areas to be included in the fund. Those farmers who were initially identified as eligible farmers have been contacted directly by Rural Payments Agency. DEFRA will be contacting all eligible farmers following completion of our 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, how many applications to have beavers introduced under the wildlife licensing scheme, CL50, have been (a) made and (b) accepted.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Class Licence CL50 allows for re-release of captured or rescued beavers back into existing wild-living beaver populations, and is intended to enable conflict management, rescue for welfare reasons, and research. CL50 cannot be used for introduction of beavers to river catchments where they do not already exist. There have been 12 applications made to Natural England to re-release beavers under CL50, all into the same river catchments that they were captured or rescued from. Of these, 9 were granted, and 3 were withdrawn or not granted.
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 estimate he has made of his Department's spending on agricultural payment schemes in the financial year 2022-2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer
In September 2023, the Farming and Countryside Programme (FCP) published an annual report for financial year 2022 to 2023. This set out that the FCP spent a total of £2.230 billion on our existing, and new farming schemes.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on potential insurance claims and damages as a result of wildfires in Surrey.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Home Office are the lead Government Department for Wildfire Response and own the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) wildfire risk. Government departments including Home Office, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities and key stakeholders work closely to mitigate the risk of wildfire.
The published Wildfire Framework outlines the work being undertaken to improve the UK’s preparedness for wildfires in England. The Home Office maintains regular engagement with National Bodies including the National Fire Chiefs Council and England and Wales Wildfire Forum to monitor and review sector led improvements to wildfire response and mitigation.
The Home Office have committed to scoping a wildfire strategy and action plan by mid-2024, with support from Defra and its agencies. This commitment is outlined in the third National Adaptation Plan and includes considering prevention, response and recovery actions.
In 24/25, the Home Office is funding a new National Resilience Wildfire Advisor who will assess what additional wildfire national capabilities might be needed to increase resilience to the wildfire risk and to ensure coordination of approaches across the sector.
Surrey County Council has overall responsibility for fire and rescue services in Surrey. The county council will receive an un-ringfenced grant for all of their services including fire, through the Local Government Finance Settlement and they will allocate funding according to their priorities.
All Fire and Rescue Authority’s including Surrey, are required to plan for the foreseeable risks in their area (including wildfires) through their Integrated Risk Management Plan. This will include plans to prevent and respond to incidents.
Individuals should contact their own insurance providers with regard to any potential claims for damage as a result of wildfire.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to mitigate potential wildfires in Surrey.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Home Office are the lead Government Department for Wildfire Response and own the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) wildfire risk. Government departments including Home Office, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities and key stakeholders work closely to mitigate the risk of wildfire.
The published Wildfire Framework outlines the work being undertaken to improve the UK’s preparedness for wildfires in England. The Home Office maintains regular engagement with National Bodies including the National Fire Chiefs Council and England and Wales Wildfire Forum to monitor and review sector led improvements to wildfire response and mitigation.
The Home Office have committed to scoping a wildfire strategy and action plan by mid-2024, with support from Defra and its agencies. This commitment is outlined in the third National Adaptation Plan and includes considering prevention, response and recovery actions.
In 24/25, the Home Office is funding a new National Resilience Wildfire Advisor who will assess what additional wildfire national capabilities might be needed to increase resilience to the wildfire risk and to ensure coordination of approaches across the sector.
Surrey County Council has overall responsibility for fire and rescue services in Surrey. The county council will receive an un-ringfenced grant for all of their services including fire, through the Local Government Finance Settlement and they will allocate funding according to their priorities.
All Fire and Rescue Authority’s including Surrey, are required to plan for the foreseeable risks in their area (including wildfires) through their Integrated Risk Management Plan. This will include plans to prevent and respond to incidents.
Individuals should contact their own insurance providers with regard to any potential claims for damage as a result of wildfire.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the risk of potential wildfires in Surrey.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Home Office are the lead Government Department for Wildfire Response and own the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) wildfire risk. Government departments including Home Office, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities and key stakeholders work closely to mitigate the risk of wildfire.
The published Wildfire Framework outlines the work being undertaken to improve the UK’s preparedness for wildfires in England. The Home Office maintains regular engagement with National Bodies including the National Fire Chiefs Council and England and Wales Wildfire Forum to monitor and review sector led improvements to wildfire response and mitigation.
The Home Office have committed to scoping a wildfire strategy and action plan by mid-2024, with support from Defra and its agencies. This commitment is outlined in the third National Adaptation Plan and includes considering prevention, response and recovery actions.
In 24/25, the Home Office is funding a new National Resilience Wildfire Advisor who will assess what additional wildfire national capabilities might be needed to increase resilience to the wildfire risk and to ensure coordination of approaches across the sector.
Surrey County Council has overall responsibility for fire and rescue services in Surrey. The county council will receive an un-ringfenced grant for all of their services including fire, through the Local Government Finance Settlement and they will allocate funding according to their priorities.
All Fire and Rescue Authority’s including Surrey, are required to plan for the foreseeable risks in their area (including wildfires) through their Integrated Risk Management Plan. This will include plans to prevent and respond to incidents.
Individuals should contact their own insurance providers with regard to any potential claims for damage as a result of wildfire.
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 is the the salary of the River Champion for the Wye.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The River Wye Champion role will not be remunerated in line with the expectation that Direct Ministerial Appointments are typically unpaid. However, appointees are entitled to claim reasonable expenses in accordance with the Civil Service expenses policy. This means that while the position itself does not offer financial compensation, reimbursement for expenses incurred during the course of duty may be claimed in accordance with the Civil Service expenses policy.