Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department is taking to help maintain (a) Bournemouth's coastline and (b) the cleanliness of bathing water.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is taking a range of steps to maintain Bournemouth’s coastline. The Environment Agency (EA) has developed and maintains a strong professional partnership with the local authority, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, through which the EA has jointly secured an investment of £36 million between 2020 and 2027 for a flood management scheme to better protect 3,361 homes from coastal erosion and deliver over £1 billion of benefit to the local community. £17.5 million was invested between 2015 and 2020 in beach management to renourish the beach and replace timber groynes. Additionally, there are currently works on site at Hengistbury Head to the eastern end of Poole Bay to repair and upgrade the vital coastal asset known as ‘Long Groyne’ with new rock, at a cost of £12 million. In addition, there are numerous ongoing studies into flood and erosion risk, such as investigating more locally sustainable sources of beach nourishment for Bournemouth, and the delivery of a cliff management strategy for the whole of Poole Bay to better manage historic poor drainage and land instability of the cliff top.
The Government is committed to improving the quality of our bathing waters. Almost 90% of bathing waters in England met the highest standards of ‘good' or ‘excellent’ in 2023, up from just 76% in 2010 and despite the classification standards becoming stricter in 2015. Bournemouth has eight designated bathing waters; last season one was classified as ‘good’ and seven as ‘excellent’.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department is taking to support Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council with (a) recycling and (b) rubbish collections.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is introducing Simpler Recycling to ensure that across England, people will be able to recycle the same materials, no longer needing to check what their council will accept for recycling. The costs to deliver the new duties on local authorities for this reform will be funded by a combination of Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility payments provided to local authorities for the cost of collecting and managing household packaging waste through efficient and effective services, and reasonable new burdens funding from the Government to provide weekly food waste collections. We have brought forward up to £295 million in capital funding to roll out weekly food waste collections across England. This will cover the cost of additional bins and vehicles. Initial grants have now been issued to local authorities, including Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, for their transitional capital funding allocation for financial year 2023/24. Transitional resource costs will be paid from the 2024/25 financial year and ongoing resource costs paid from 1 April 2026.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department is taking to support Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council in tackling fly-tipping.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The PM’s Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan sets out how we will help councils across the country take tougher action against those who fly-tip. Last year we raised the upper limit on the fixed penalty notices councils can issue for fly-tipping to £1,000 and from 1 April 2024 income from these penalties will be ringfenced for enforcement and clean-up specifically.
With the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, we are also developing a toolkit to help councils and others tackle fly-tipping. This includes guides on raising awareness of the household and business waste duty of care, presenting robust cases to court and setting up effective local partnerships. The toolkit, and other resources, are available at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/national-fly-tipping-prevention-group.
We have also published a selection of case studies from projects which have received funding through our fly-tipping intervention grant scheme so that others can learn about those interventions which were most successful. These can be found at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/fly-tipping-intervention-grant-scheme.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department is taking to improve the quality of coastal water in Bournemouth.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Dorset/Hampshire coastal waterbody extends from Portland Bill to the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. Its Water Framework regulations status overall is Good. It is considered ‘Probably At Risk’ due to alien species. The Environment Agency (EA) are taking no direct local action in this regard as global warming and shipping are the main risk factors.
Most bathing waters in the vicinity are classified as Excellent. Boscombe Pier bathing water is classified as Good. It was subject to an investigation by Wessex Water in the 2020 - 2025 investment round. This has been completed and no water company interventions were identified that would improve bathing water quality to a robust Excellent status.
There are a handful of storm overflows that discharge to Poole Bay. As a minimum, Wessex Water will be required to reduce spill frequencies to ensure at least Good bathing water quality at local beaches by 2035 under the requirements of the Environment Act. The EA have significantly driven up monitoring and transparency from water companies in recent years, so that everyone can see how often and for how long storm overflows are used. All the data is published online. The operation of local storm overflows are included in the Surfers Against Sewage “Safer Seas Service”. This site includes the Environment Agency Pollution Risk Forecast warnings. Further details of this service can be found at http://www.sas.org.uk/safer-seas-service/.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what flood defence measures his Department is putting in place to help protect agriculture.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Farmers and land managers have an increasingly important role to play in reducing the risk of flooding and coastal erosion as we adapt to climate change, through measures such as natural flood management.
In addition to protecting homes, the flood investment programme also protects agricultural land. In our six-year record £5.2 billion floods investment programme, the amount of funding a project can attract will depend on the damage it will avoid and the benefits it will deliver. A project's impact on agricultural land is included as part of the funding calculator and attracts funding. Since 2015 we have protected over 900,000 acres of agricultural land. Approximately 40% of schemes, and 45% of investment, better protects properties in rural communities. Government assistance is sometimes provided in particularly exceptional circumstances. For example, on Saturday 6th January the Government announced farmers who have suffered uninsurable damage to their land as a result of Storm Henk will be able to apply grants of up to £25,000 through the Farming Recovery Fund towards reinstatement costs for farmers adversely affected by exceptional flooding.
There are also measures that benefit flood risk mitigation under all three components of the Environmental Land Management schemes. As announced on 4th January, farmers and other land managers will be paid for a variety of land management actions that support flood risk mitigation, including new actions to manage grasslands and arable land for flood resilience and updated actions to store flood water on agricultural land. These actions will be available from later this year, through a streamlined single application process. The first round of Landscape Recovery included a focus on restoring England’s streams and rivers: the selected projects will restore water bodies, rivers, and floodplains to a more natural state, reduce of nutrient pollution, benefit aquatic species, and improve flood mitigation and resilience to climate change. Many of the Landscape Recovery Round 2 projects that are centred around rivers are also aiming to deliver similar environmental outcomes, including flood mitigation.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department has made of the adequacy of the progress of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Over 8,500 farmers have applied to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and more than 6,000 agreement offers have been issued.
On 4 January updated payment rates were announced, with the average value of an SFI agreement increasing by 10%. Around 50 new paid-for actions will be added to the SFI and Countryside Stewardship schemes from summer 2024, giving farmers more choice and an offer for all farm types and locations.
From this summer, farmers will be able to apply for Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier and SFI actions through a single application process, making it easier for farmers and land managers to see what is available to them and access the funding in a more straightforward way.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department is taking to support farmers with rising input costs.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Government is supporting farmers through a range of measures. We are updating prices in our environmental land management schemes with an average 10% uplift. We are making Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) simpler, with more choice about what farmers can do and more actions made available, to better reflect the full spectrum of farming interests. What is more, 50 new actions are being added to our environmental land management schemes, many of which support food production, making it easier for the Government’s support to fit into farmers’ business plans. And specific actions in the SFI, such as different cropping systems, better plant management methods and other Nutrient Management and Integrated Pest Management actions, will support farmers in improving soil health, reducing their reliance on costly inputs.
We are also keen to support farmers through technology. Later this month, Defra will be inviting farmers to apply for share of an initial £15 million for innovations, like robotic mechanical weeding technology, that can be implemented right away. More grants will be launched this year to help farmers grow more, sell more and make their businesses more sustainable and resilient for the future. We will also look at ways to make grants and schemes even easier to access, including the potential to streamline the application process for schemes. Farmers can now apply for SFI and the Countryside Stewardship Mid-Tier through one single application, meaning they’ll have the same actions and get the same support with less paperwork.
More broadly, we are supporting British farmers in the marketplace. British farmers are rightly proud of producing food that meets and often exceeds our world leading animal welfare and environmental standards. And British consumers want to buy this top-quality food. This is why we will rapidly consult on clearer labelling, to protect farmers and consumers. We also want the public sector to procure more high quality, sustainable food produced by farmers, and Parliament has in fact recently passed legislation following our exit from the European Union which enables a greater emphasis on the public benefits of this public sector procurement. We will also update the government buying standards for food and catering to emphasise the importance of buying food with high environmental and welfare standards, which will further support British farmers and food producers.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department is taking to hold water service providers accountable for sewage spillages.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is clear that the amount of sewage discharged into our waters is unacceptable. That is why our Plan for Water sets out more investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement to tackle widespread sources of pollution.
We are making the water industry accountable on a scale never seen before. To achieve this, we have ensured that 100 per cent of storm overflows in England are now monitored, dramatically increasing the information we have on storm overflow activity.
We have also legislated to introduce unlimited penalties on water companies which breach their environmental permits and expand the range of offences to which penalties can be applied, giving the Environment Agency the tools, they need to hold water companies accountable. Furthermore, using new powers granted to Ofwat by the Government, Ofwat is ensuring company dividends are linked to company performance, for customers and the environment.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department is taking to help flood affected areas in (a) Bournemouth East constituency and (b) the South West.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
a) Bournemouth East is at risk of flooding from the sea, Christchurch Harbour, the River Stour and Surface Water. The Environment Agency and Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch Council are working in partnership to ensure plans are in place to reduce the flood and coastal erosion risk both now and into the future taking account of climate change. Work is underway on the Lower Stour and Christchurch Bay Flood Risk Management Strategies. These strategies will inform future investment needed to both reduce flood risk and adapt to climate change. The Environment Agency and Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council are capturing information from recent flood events and will build this into their Strategies and future investment plans. Both organisations are also engaging with affected communities.
As part of the Government’s 6- year £5.2 billion (2021/22-2026/27) capital investment programme £22.7m of Flood Defence Grant in Aid (FDGiA) is being invested in Bournemouth East. This will better protect 3003 properties from flooding or coastal erosion. On the coast we are investing in the Bournemouth Beach Management Programme to reduce the risk of coastal erosion. Work is underway and includes groyne replacement, beach recharge, and redevelopment of the long groyne at Hengistbury Head.
Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole Council are developing surface water management plans that will identify high risk locations and measures necessary to reduce the risk of surface water flooding, these plans will take account of recent flooding.
b) Across the South West the Environment Agency and Local Authorities are similarly working with local communities to help them recover from flooding over the last few months.
The Flood and Coastal Risk Management capital programme (2021/22 – 2026/27) has planned FDGIA capital investment of £696m for the South West ONS region*. This investment is forecast to better protect around 21,300 properties from flooding and coastal erosion.
*Please note that allocations are reviewed each year and are subject to change, and numbers for properties better protected are forecasts which are also subject to change. Totals may not include projects that are cross-boundary across multiple ONS regions.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth 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 his Department is taking to help rural communities prepare for the impact of adverse weather.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs works closely with departments and agencies across government, including partner agencies such as the Met Office and the Environment Agency (EA), to monitor the risk from flooding. The government funds a Flood Forecasting Centre which provides a daily five-day flood forecast and informs National and Local operational flood preparedness.
The Environment Agency (EA) provides operational response to flooding across England and is prepared to act wherever and whenever it is needed with 5,000 trained staff across the country ready to respond to flooding. The EA launched its annual Flood Action Campaign on 20 November 2023 to encourage people to prepare for flooding. This promotes the steps that people can take to protect themselves, their family and homes. Members of the public can sign up to receive free flood warnings from the EA to keep them aware of expected or ongoing flood risks to their local area.