Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what (a) his Department's budget for and (b) the amount spent on the planting of trees was in each year since 2010.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Data on tree-specific funding is only available from 2020, when the Nature for Climate Tree Programme was established. Since then, Defra has had a capital spend (CDEL) of £232 million on planting trees in England.
The planting of trees has also been funded by Countryside Stewardship payments. Since 2016, £120 million has been claimed planting and managing trees and for managing and enhancing woodlands.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
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 applicants to the Landscape Recovery scheme were entering land on which they are (a) tenants and (b) owners.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Landscape Recovery offers farmers and land managers the opportunity to co-design a bespoke, long-term agreement to produce environmental and climate goods whilst supporting environmentally sustainable domestic food production across landscape-scale projects.
Landscape Recovery Round 1 supports 22 projects. Project areas range between 500 and 5,000 hectares, covering a total of over 40,000 hectares. Round 2 is expected to support 34 projects, covering a total of over 200,000 hectares. Rounds 1 and 2 include over 250 and over 700 land managers, respectively. The majority of projects currently in Round 1 involve at least one tenant, and it is expected that over three quarters of Round 2 projects will include tenants. We want to make Landscape Recovery work in a range of contexts, especially where there is a diversity of land managers. We are closely monitoring how the scheme works for tenants in light of the findings and recommendations of the Rock Review.
We have a legal duty to assess the impact of all our Environmental Land Management schemes, including Landscape Recovery, on food production. All Landscape Recovery projects are required to assess their impact on food production in detail during the project development phase. We also introduced a food production criterion at the application phase in Round 2, through which we assessed how bidders were taking into consideration food production in their plans, mitigating any negative impact where possible and supporting sustainable food production.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
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 the number of hectares of land managed by each applicant to the Landscape Recovery scheme.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Landscape Recovery offers farmers and land managers the opportunity to co-design a bespoke, long-term agreement to produce environmental and climate goods whilst supporting environmentally sustainable domestic food production across landscape-scale projects.
Landscape Recovery Round 1 supports 22 projects. Project areas range between 500 and 5,000 hectares, covering a total of over 40,000 hectares. Round 2 is expected to support 34 projects, covering a total of over 200,000 hectares. Rounds 1 and 2 include over 250 and over 700 land managers, respectively. The majority of projects currently in Round 1 involve at least one tenant, and it is expected that over three quarters of Round 2 projects will include tenants. We want to make Landscape Recovery work in a range of contexts, especially where there is a diversity of land managers. We are closely monitoring how the scheme works for tenants in light of the findings and recommendations of the Rock Review.
We have a legal duty to assess the impact of all our Environmental Land Management schemes, including Landscape Recovery, on food production. All Landscape Recovery projects are required to assess their impact on food production in detail during the project development phase. We also introduced a food production criterion at the application phase in Round 2, through which we assessed how bidders were taking into consideration food production in their plans, mitigating any negative impact where possible and supporting sustainable food production.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
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 2005.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Forestry Commission produces a time series of statistics on all new planting of woodland for the UK. These can be found in Forestry Statistics on the Forest Research website. These statistics are reported for each financial year in thousands of hectares. The latest available figures are for 2022-23 published in September 2023.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which local authorities (a) charged for collection of garden waste and b) provided a free garden waste service in 2023/24.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does not hold this data.
Under section 45(3) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 waste collection authorities are permitted to charge a reasonable amount for the collection of garden waste.
Local Authorities are best placed to determine the effective delivery of local services.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information his Department holds on the number of local authorities that charged an annual fee of (a) less than £30, (b) £30.01- £40, (c) £40.01- £50, (d) £50.01- £75, (e) £75.01- £100.00 and (f) £100.01 or more for the collection of garden waste in the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does not hold this data.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
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 publish the business case considered by the trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for moving the herbarium to the Thames Valley Science Park.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No final funding decision has been made in relation to the new herbarium.
Business cases are not routinely published.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
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 made an assessment of the level of (a) damage and (b) loss posed to the contents of the herbarium at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew by a relocation.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No final funding decision has been made in relation to the new herbarium.
Kew have advised that they have an active programme of safely and professionally shipping specimens all over the world; moving the specimens will be in line with the established and ongoing practice.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate (a) his Department has and (b) the Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew have made of the energy costs of moving the herbarium to the Thames Valley Science Park.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No final funding decision has been made in relation to the new herbarium.
The energy costs of the new herbarium building will continue to be considered with high environmental standards built into the project brief.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
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 publish the Equality Impact Assessment relating to the move of the herbarium at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to the Thames Valley Science Park.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No final funding decision has been made in relation to the new herbarium.
An equality impact assessment will be undertaken.