Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many allegations of bullying have been made against Ministers by staff in his Department in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No formal complaints of bullying have been raised through Defra’s dispute resolution process.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
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 with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to reduce exports of plastic waste.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We want to deal with more of our plastic waste at home. The Government’s collection and packaging reforms will help to stimulate investment in the UK reprocessing infrastructure so we can reduce our dependency on plastic waste exports. In addition, the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto made a commitment to ban the export of plastic waste to countries which are not members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate he has made of the number of payments made to farmers by the Rural Payments Agency in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) South Holland and the Deepings constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The RPA has made over 21,094 payments in Lincolnshire and 2,205 in the South Holland and the Deepings constituency, over the last 5 years across the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS), Environmental Stewardship (ES) schemes and Grants.
To Note: Both tables include the number claims paid in the scheme year for BPS, CS Revenue, CS Capital, ES, SFI and Grants. This is not at unique customer level and therefore a customer may have received a payment from multiple schemes – which answers the “number of payments to customers” ask.
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Lincolnshire | South Holland and the Deepings | ||||||
Scheme Year | Total | Scheme Year | Total | ||||
Volume | Volume | ||||||
2019 | 3,929 | 2019 | 423 | ||||
2020 | 3,969 | 2020 | 421 | ||||
2021 | 4,221 | 2021 | 442 | ||||
2022 | 4,565 | 2022 | 463 | ||||
2023 | 4,410 | 2023 | 456 | ||||
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Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to help tackle fly tipping in rural areas.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We appreciate the difficulty that fly-tipping poses to landowners. We are working with stakeholders, such as the National Farmers Union and local authorities, through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to share good practice, including how to prevent fly-tipping on private land.
As part of the government’s commitment to unleash rural opportunity, we are currently funding a post within the new National Rural Crime Unit to explore how the police’s role in tacking fly-tipping can be optimised, with a focus on rural areas.
Across two rounds of our fly-tipping grant scheme, we have awarded nearly £1.2m to help more than 30 councils tackle fly-tipping at known hot-spots, including in rural areas, such as by installing CCTV. Round three is currently in progress and should see a further £1 million handed out in the spring to help even more councils tackle fly-tipping.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
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 effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants in removing microplastics from waste water.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A recent UK water industry project investigated the quantities and types of microplastics entering a range of wastewater treatment works. The Department reviewed the findings from the work and agrees with the conclusion that conventional wastewater treatment is effective in removing microplastics from wastewater. The evidenced showed treatment processes can take out an average of 99% of microplastics (by-number of microplastics) and 99.5% by-mass from wastewater arriving at the works.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
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 reduce levels of incineration of plastic.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are clear that we want to see less residual waste being generated in the first instance. To this end, in addition to our Collection and Packaging Reforms, we have set a statutory target under The Environmental Targets (Residual Waste) (England) Regulations 2023 to ensure that the total mass of residual waste (excluding major mineral wastes) for 2042 does not exceed 287 kg per person. This is the equivalent of a 50% reduction from 2019 levels. This is supported by an interim, non-statutory target set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan to ensure that residual municipal plastic waste for 2027 does not exceed 42 kg per person.
We are also working closely with DESNZ on the expansion of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme to cover fossil carbon emissions from waste incineration and EfW from 2028. This will provide an incentive for the development and uptake of decarbonisation technologies or waste management practices to reduce emissions from incineration of residual waste plastic.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
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 introduce a moratorium on new incineration capacity in the UK.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra officials are currently assessing planned Energy from Waste capacity against expected future residual waste arisings so we can understand what future capacity may be required following implementation of key commitments in the Resources and Waste Strategy. This further assessment of residual waste treatment capacity needs will be published in due course. We are clear that Government does not support overcapacity of residual waste treatment infrastructure at either a local or national level.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to improve air quality around schools.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Government provides support to local authorities to deliver School Streets and funds a range of school interventions including the Walk to School Outreach Programme, which give children and their families safe active travel choices and reduce congestion around schools.
To tackle air pollution around schools, local councils have powers to issue Fixed Penalty Notices for vehicle idling.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 20 April 2023 to Question 181086 on Housing: Sewers, on what date the Department will launch its public consultation on its proposals to implement Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A public consultation on the implementation proposals for Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) in new developments is expected to take place in Spring 2024.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
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 steps to increase aid to organisations that employ game wardens.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT), including by investing £30 million between 2022 and 2025 to support global efforts.
Our IWT Challenge Fund continues to support projects that benefit park rangers and drive innovative ways to tackle poaching. Projects have included expanding aerial surveillance to support ranger deployments in the Rungwa, Kizigo and Muhesi Game Reserves in central Tanzania, and enhanced use of innovative techniques to combat poaching and wildlife trafficking at the Ngulia rhino sanctuary in Kenya. More information on these projects and others is available here.
We have also funded the training of rangers (Op CORDED) in partnership with the British Army, helping wildlife parks work together to strengthen law enforcement and share information to disrupt smuggling and poaching across Africa.