Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 the National Disability Strategy published on 28 July 2021, which of her Department’s commitments in that strategy that have not been paused as a result of legal action have (a) been fully, (b) been partially and (c) not been implemented.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
In January 2022, the High Court declared the National Disability Strategy (NDS) was unlawful because the UK Disability Survey, which informed it, was held to be a voluntary consultation that failed to comply with the legal requirements on public consultations.
The Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs had the following commitments included in the National Disability Strategy:
Work on the King Charles III England Coast Path is progressing with over 850 miles now open to the public. At 2,700 miles, when complete it will be the longest waymarked and maintained coastal walking route in the world. We are making the King Charles III England Coast Path as accessible as possible and have recently approved proposals that have included a brand-new wheelchair-friendly ramp to a popular seawall walkway in Essex, a 600m accessible boardwalk on the Wirral and significant improvements to a well-used stretch of the South West Coast Path which will improve the width, surface quality and gradient of the existing trail.
We are continuing work designating Wainwright’s existing coast to coast path across the North of England as a new National Trail by 2025.
Our Access for All programme has committed £14.5m of funding to make targeted access improvements in our protected landscapes, national trails, forests and the wider countryside, to help bring the benefits of spending time in nature to everyone. More than £3.5m has already been spent on making our protected landscapes more accessible, including on: resurfacing paths; replacement of stiles with accessible gates; new benches and resting stops; accessible viewing platforms and the provision of new all-terrain trampers to support disabled people to access the countryside. The Government has extended its Farming in Protected Landscapes programme to improve accessibility in our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, including installing interpretation panels, replacing gates and stiles to improve access for people who use wheelchairs.
The Green Social Prescribing programme which closed in March 2023 achieved over 7,000 referrals to nature-based activities over the course of the programme, and the evidence suggests that the programme has had a very strong service take-up compared with traditional mental health support services. We are committed to supporting the scale-up of green social prescribing across England, as confirmed in our Environmental Improvement Plan.
We remain fully committed to supporting disabled people in the UK through creating more opportunities, protecting their rights and ensuring they fully benefit from, and can contribute to, every aspect of our society. To support this, the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs will be providing further details of our recent achievements to improve disabled people’s lives in the forthcoming Disability Action Plan consultation due for publication in the summer.
Ahead of this, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will write providing a list of these achievements and will place a copy in the House Library.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of people employed within her Department have recorded that they have a disability.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As of 31st December, 16.1% of Core Defra employees have recorded that they have a disability/lifelong health condition. This representation rate has been calculated by the number of staff reporting they have a disability divided by the number who have reported their disability status, excluding those with an unknown status or prefer not to say/undeclared. This is above the last published Civil Service wide figure of 13.6% (2021) of civil servants having declared a disability Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Dashboard - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Defra is a Disability Confident employer (Level 3) and has many policies in place to ensure the Civil Service is an inclusive workplace for everyone, including those who have disabilities, such as Workplace Adjustments policies, Occupational Health and Employee Assistance Programme and Employee Passports.
Defra are members of the Business Disability Forum and ensure we are always appraised of current best practice. All Defra Colleagues can also participate and receive support via our Employee led Networks, supported by our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champions, this includes our Disability networks and Disability Boards. Defra also engages with the Cross Government Workplace Adjustments forum, to ensure we are learning from and contributing to best practice across government.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has a Ministerial disability champion.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
I was appointed as the Ministerial Disability Champion for Defra.
I will work with the other Ministerial Disability Champions appointed in each Government Department, to represent the interests of disabled people and drive forward progress on disability policy across government.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 made of the potential merits of setting a target of 5 micrograms per cubic metre (μg m-3) to be met across England by 2030 in line with 2021 WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines; and for what reason he did not set that target.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are taking an evidence-led approach to set targets which are stretching, achievable and appropriate for our national circumstances. Our evidence indicates that a level of 5 μgm-3 would be impossible to achieve in many locations due to the level of natural PM2.5 and pollution blown in from outside the country. Even in the absence of all man-made emissions of PM2.5 from within the UK, modelling indicates that concentrations of PM2.5 would still likely exceed 5 μgm-3. The cost-benefit-analysis, which assesses the merits of setting a more ambitious target, will be published with the evidence pack in due course.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 implications for its policies of findings of research presented in the 2019 Air Quality: Assessing progress towards WHO guideline levels of PM2.5 in the UK report and 2022 Pathway to Healthy Air in the UK Report report, that WHO air pollution targets are achievable by 2030; and whether the Department plans to take that modelling into account as part of its consultation on the review of the Local Air Quality Management Policy Guidance.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are using an evidence-based approach to inform our proposed PM2.5 targets. We recently launched the consultation for the targets under the Environment Act, seeking views from key stakeholders and individuals. These include two highly ambitious air quality targets, which will be further supported by stretching interim targets. With the introduction of these new PM2.5 targets, we are considering the role local authorities could play in reducing PM2.5.
We have also launched a consultation on revised Policy Guidance to local authorities under our Local Air Quality Management framework. This reflects changes that were made to the Local Air Quality Management framework through the Environment Act 2021, which enter into force on 1 May 2022.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 Part One of the National Disability Strategy, published July 2021, what recent steps his Department has taken to (a) encourage and support workplace disability networks, (b) achieve and maintain the highest level of Disability Confident accreditation, (c) ensure responsive and timely support to meet workplace adjustment needs and (d) develop and embed flexible working.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Our Defra Group Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy for 2020-24 sets out our vision to be a diverse and inclusive organisation where every individual has equality of opportunity to progress and to apply their unique insights to our vision of making the UK a Great Place for Living. We have identified as a priority area in the strategy the importance of improving outcomes for disabled colleagues.
Defra disability representation in our workforce is in line with the UK working age population figure at 14.2% (December 2021).
Some of our key initiatives are outlined below.
(a) Disability networks
Defra has supported the development of 14 disability-related networks and a carers network available to support Defra employees and line managers (Annex A).
Each of the networks is supported by a Senior Champion, who meet regularly with the executive Disability Champion via a Disability Board. The network leads meet as a Shadow Disability Board to ensure that the voice of disabled employees is heard in the development of policies and practices supporting disabled staff. Defra regularly consults with the network leads in the development of all HR policies.
Defra supports the networks in their comprehensive programme of communications for awareness days as well as workshops, webinars and other events which are promoted via the group intranet.
Defra support networks to share bespoke content across dedicated internal communications channels to maximise colleague reach.
(b) Disability Confident accreditation
Defra achieved Disability Confident Leader (Level 3) accreditation in December 2017. Defra has continued to maintain and improve support for disabled staff such that in June 2021 we successfully renewed this accreditation at Level 3 Leader status.
(c) Workplace adjustments
Defra makes provision for all employees to receive workplace adjustments and information on the process for obtaining these is detailed on the Defra Intranet, with clear links to the process to follow. Throughout the Covid 19 pandemic these processes have been reinforced and adapted to ensure support and provision to colleagues working from home, in line with wider Covid working practice adjustments.
Support is available for line managers through our occupational health provider and workplace solutions provider, ensuring that timely assessment and equipment for workplace adjustments is provided as required.
Arrangements are in place with a dedicated assistive technology team in Digital, Data and Technology Services to manage the timely provision of assistive technology for employees.
Defra in collaboration with the disability networks has developed a ‘Making Defra disability and carer confident’ workshop. This includes information for line managers, on all types of workplace adjustments from changes in working hours/location to physical adjustments such as Assistive technology and furniture.
Defra encourages the use of Workplace Passports for all employees to enable supportive conversations, capturing and recording agreed workplace adjustments, with the passport under regular review to ensure it is representative of the employee’s needs over time.
(d) Flexible working
We have policies and procedures in place to help Defra employees balance their personal and work responsibilities, allowing us to support our people to deliver their best while ensuring business needs are met.
Defra developed and adopted a new flexi-time/working- time tracking approach which incorporates and allows for recording breaks throughout the day.
Defra encourages flexible working and shares information on the Defra Intranet. This ranges from a temporary flexible working hours scheme to considering applications under the formal flexible working policy. All Defra vacancies are advertised by default to specify varied working patterns including full time, part time, flexible working, and job share.
Government guidance to work from home where possible provided opportunities to review Defra ways of working. Defra established a team, Project Horizon, to support working from home (including the provision of specialist equipment where required in line with workplace adjustment arrangements) in the short term and propose new ways of working in the long term, learning from the experiences of employees.
The Project Horizon team consulted with EDI employee networks (including disability networks) to complete the Equality Impact Assessment to ensure that the needs of all employees were met in working from home, returning to workplaces, and in the long term the blended working approach.
To reduce barriers in colleague mobility between workplaces (home and office locations) a desk booking system was adopted including the ability to indicate individual requirements including neurodiverse/ sensory environment needs, therefore ensuring that colleagues with disabilities are able to fully benefit from the blended working approach.
Annex A
Autism Network |
ADHD Network |
Working Through Cancer Network |
Cancer Network |
Chronic Pain Network |
Disability Network (DisNet) |
Dyslexia Plus Network |
Fatigue Network |
Hearing Loss Network |
IBD Network |
Mobilise |
Neuro Diversity Network |
Stammering Network |
Visual Impairment Network |
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 the Government response to the Ella Adoo-Kissi Debrah Coroner’s report published in June 2021, when his Department plans to open its public consultation on new legal targets for PM2.5 and other pollutants.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We will shortly publish a public consultation on the proposed legally-binding targets to be set under the Environment Act 2021 framework, including for air quality. The targets will then be brought forward in secondary legislation by 31 October 2022.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 Part One of the National Disability Strategy published on 28 July 2021, what steps his Department has taken to date to improve access, signage and information on existing national paths and trails.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Establishment works have not yet started on some stretches of the England Coast Path with no legal or planning issues, in part because these had been resolved but the proposals not yet approved. However, to date Natural England has published proposals for more than 99% of the route and 69% to be either open or in the establishment phase.
We are working hard to commence establishment on the remaining stretches and to make the trail as accessible as possible. Examples of recently approved proposals that will improve accessibility include a brand-new wheelchair-friendly ramp to a popular seawall walkway in Essex, a 600m accessible boardwalk on the Wirral and significant improvements to a well-used stretch of the South West Coast Path to improve its width, surface quality and gradient.
The 47-mile Grain to Woolwich stretch opened on 12 January this year, providing high-quality access between London and the outer Thames Estuary. In urban areas, much of this stretch follows existing accessible promenades and walkways. In more rural areas, barriers to access have been reduced wherever practical, such as replacing 18 stiles with gaps or accessible gates and where possible installing signage to show step-free routes.
With regards to the work to improve access, signage and information on existing national paths and trails, National Trails are now working to formalise their commitment to a ‘one family’ approach through the establishment of a National Alliance. A new charity is being formed as a single, strategic body for all National Trails which could also help ensure consistency in signage and information. We are exploring the role that this charity could play as part of the new national landscapes partnership. This could expand our protected landscapes’ collective capacity to plan and promote events, programmes and volunteering opportunities that focus on connecting young people with nature, increasing the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of visitors, and aiding people with disabilities to enjoy our protected landscapes. We are consulting on this new approach as part of the Glover response published earlier this month, which will allow stakeholders to contribute their views.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 Part One of the National Disability Strategy published on 28 July 2021, whether all stretches of the England Coast Path had opened or had establishment works underway by the end of 2021, unless there are ongoing planning or legal issues.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Establishment works have not yet started on some stretches of the England Coast Path with no legal or planning issues, in part because these had been resolved but the proposals not yet approved. However, to date Natural England has published proposals for more than 99% of the route and 69% to be either open or in the establishment phase.
We are working hard to commence establishment on the remaining stretches and to make the trail as accessible as possible. Examples of recently approved proposals that will improve accessibility include a brand-new wheelchair-friendly ramp to a popular seawall walkway in Essex, a 600m accessible boardwalk on the Wirral and significant improvements to a well-used stretch of the South West Coast Path to improve its width, surface quality and gradient.
The 47-mile Grain to Woolwich stretch opened on 12 January this year, providing high-quality access between London and the outer Thames Estuary. In urban areas, much of this stretch follows existing accessible promenades and walkways. In more rural areas, barriers to access have been reduced wherever practical, such as replacing 18 stiles with gaps or accessible gates and where possible installing signage to show step-free routes.
With regards to the work to improve access, signage and information on existing national paths and trails, National Trails are now working to formalise their commitment to a ‘one family’ approach through the establishment of a National Alliance. A new charity is being formed as a single, strategic body for all National Trails which could also help ensure consistency in signage and information. We are exploring the role that this charity could play as part of the new national landscapes partnership. This could expand our protected landscapes’ collective capacity to plan and promote events, programmes and volunteering opportunities that focus on connecting young people with nature, increasing the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of visitors, and aiding people with disabilities to enjoy our protected landscapes. We are consulting on this new approach as part of the Glover response published earlier this month, which will allow stakeholders to contribute their views.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 potential effect on the ability of individuals accompanied by an assistance animal to travel to the EU from 1 January 2021 of the UK being listed in Part 1 of Annex II to EU Regulation (EU) No 577/2013.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Defra is proactively and positively engaging with the assistance dog community and relevant stakeholders on the impacts on dog movements to the EU after the end of the transition period. We will continue to closely work with assistance dog organisations to share the latest advice and guidance (in accessible formats) with their members on pet travel requirements.
The EU Commission has now responded to clarify its decision on listing the UK as a third country under Annex II of the EU Pet Travel Regulations.
On 3 December 2020 the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed of the EU voted in favour of giving the UK Part 2 listed status for the purposes of non-commercial pet travel after the transition period. This listed status will be formally adopted by the EU in due course.
Part 2 listed status means similar health requirements to travel to the EU as now, but new documentation will be required for pets and assistance dogs.
We are disappointed not to become a Part 1 listed third country. We are clear we meet all the requirements for this and have one of the most rigorous pet checking regimes in Europe to protect our biosecurity. Our disease risk will also not change after the transition period and so we will continue to press the EU Commission on securing Part 1 listed status.
There will be no changes to the current pet travel health requirements for entry into Great Britain and we will continue to accept EU pet passports. We intend to publish further guidance shortly on what this development means for travellers, on GOV.UK.