To match an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the search term. eg. "Parliamentary Estate". Use "OR" or "AND" as link words to form more complex queries.

View sample alert

Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments by exploring our subscription options to receive notifications direct to your inbox

Written Question
Urban Areas: Environment Protection
Thursday 14th September 2023

Asked by: Ian Liddell-Grainger (Conservative - Bridgwater and West Somerset)

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 has made of the potential role of regreening urban areas in achieving the UK’s environmental targets.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The Secretary of State is committed to regreening urban areas in achieving the UK’s environmental targets. In January this year Natural England launched a Green Infrastructure (GI) Framework, which it developed in partnership with Defra and other key stakeholders.

The Environmental Improvement Plan 2023 sets out how the GI Framework will be used to track progress in our commitment for everyone to have access to green or blue space within 15 minutes from their front door. Well-designed green infrastructure has an important role to play in urban areas in improving health and wellbeing, air quality, nature recovery and resilience to and mitigation of climate change, as well as growing the natural capital of city-regions. The use of green infrastructure can help to reduce the risk and impact of extreme heat and surface water flooding through street trees and Sustainable Drainage Systems, contributing to our goal of reducing the risk of harm from environmental hazards.

Written Question
Recreation Spaces: Greater London
Tuesday 12th September 2023

Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure the preservation of green spaces within (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The Government recognises the importance of providing access to the outdoors for people’s health and wellbeing and is working to ensure this is safe and appropriate. We committed in our Environmental Improvement Plan to work across government to help ensure that everyone lives within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space.

The Government is delivering a number of policies to protect access to green spaces including in urban areas. Examples of these include:

  • Delivering the £9m Levelling Up Parks Fund to improve green space in over 100 disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the UK.
  • The launch of the Green Infrastructure Framework: Principles and Standards for England in January 2023 which shows what good green infrastructure looks like and will help local authorities, developers and communities to improve provision in their area.
  • Local Nature Recovery Strategies will identify locations where action for nature recovery would be particularly beneficial, encouraging the creation of more green spaces, including in urban areas.

In Enfield, Natural England is working with the Council in developing its local plan to create high quality places that tackle climate change, the nature emergency, inequalities, and promote health and well-being. This will also help Enfield to embed Natural England’s Green Infrastructure Standards into the plan and supporting documents.

In addition Enfield has been awarded £500,000 from the Landscape Recovery Scheme to support schemes to restore nature, reduce flood risks and boost biodiversity include creating hundreds of hectares of woodlands and grassland, wetlands and restore rivers and expanding the Enfield Chase Restoration Project. Natural England are also working with the London Borough of Enfield on a new Countryside Stewardship scheme.

Written Question
Public Footpaths
Monday 11th September 2023

Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)

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 Government grants statistics 2020 to 2021, published on 31 March 2022, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the Preparation works to develop a sustainable funding model for National Trails Grant.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The grant helped establish National Trails UK, a registered charity, whose purpose is to promote and protect our inspirational network of national trails that connects people, landscapes and nature. Defra provides additional funding to help National Trails UK champion our national trails and improve their long-term management and sustainability which will have benefits for people’s health and wellbeing and local economies.

Natural England is working with National Trails to investigate sustainable funding opportunities.

Written Question
Recreation Spaces: Havering
Monday 11th September 2023

Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure the preservation of green spaces within (a) Romford constituency and (b) the London Borough of Havering.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The Government recognises the importance of providing access to the outdoors for people’s health and wellbeing and is working to ensure this is safe and appropriate. We committed in our Environmental Improvement Plan to work across government to help ensure that everyone lives within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space.

The Government is delivering a number of policies to protect access to green spaces including in urban areas. Examples of these include:

  • Delivering the £9 million Levelling Up Parks Fund to improve green space in more than 100 disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the UK.
  • The launch of the Green Infrastructure Framework: Principles and Standards for England in January 2023 which shows what good green infrastructure looks like and will help local authorities, developers and communities to improve provision in their area
  • Local Nature Recovery Strategies will identify locations where action for nature recovery would be particularly beneficial, encouraging the creation of more green spaces, including in urban areas
  • Implementing a number of rights of way reforms which will streamline the process for adding new or lost footpaths to the rights of way network.

Three Sites of Special Scientific Interest are situated within the London Borough of Havering supporting some of the largest areas of wetland across greater London. Two of the three sites are managed under agri-environment schemes with Natural England working closely with landowners in managing these sites with another eight agri-environment schemes protecting important grassland, wetland and woodland edge habitat across the borough.

Written Question
Farms: Carbon Capture and Storage
Monday 24th July 2023

Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what support exists for farmers who are not claimants of the Basic Payment Scheme and who want to plant hedges and trees for the purpose of carbon sequestration.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

There are several options available for farmers who are not claimants of the Basic Payment Scheme. Under the Countryside Stewardship (CS) Scheme, we pay for the management of hedgerows by rotational cutting and leaving some hedgerows uncut (BE3) and capital grants to plant and restore hedgerows. This includes hedgerow laying, hedgerow cropping and hedgerow gapping up.

We pay for actions to create woodland under CS and the England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO). This includes capital grants which are required to create woodland, such as planting trees and allowing natural colonisation of trees. Producing woodland creation plans ensure all proposals for new woodland consider any impacts on existing biodiversity, landscape character, water, soil and the historic environment, and that local stakeholders have been consulted. Maintenance payments are also essential to support the establishment of young trees.

Woodland creation maintenance payments currently exist across multiple schemes including CS, EWCO and the Tree Health Pilot. We plan to bring these together into a single offer when EWCO transitions into the Environmental Land Management schemes. For Woodland management, under CS, we pay for producing a woodland management plan, woodland improvement and restoring plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites.

Farmers and land managers can also apply to get money for projects that support carbon sequestration via our Landscape Recovery Scheme.

Written Question
Marine Environment
Friday 21st July 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to (a) protect and (b) restore marine (i) habitats and (ii) wildlife.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

  • The recently published EIP sets out our focus on enhancing nature in marine and coastal environments, including the steps we are taking to restore and protect marine habitats and marine wildlife.
  • These include delivering the UK Marine Strategy, which sets our ambition for Good Environmental Status (GES) across our seas.
  • To help achieve GES we have created a series of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to protect and restore our marine biodiversity. We are focused on strengthening the protection of this extensive network of 178 sites covering 40% of English waters, which represents the range of species and habitats found in our seas.
  • To complement the MPA network, the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) in English waters came into force on 5 July 2023. HPMAs will provide the highest levels of protection in our seas, allowing nature to fully recover to a more natural state and helping the ecosystem to thrive.
  • A number of estuarine and coastal habitat restoration initiatives are also underway including the Environment Agency’s Restoring Meadow, Marsh and Reef (ReMeMaRe) initiative which aims to reverse centuries of coastal habitat decline by restoring seagrass meadows, saltmarsh and native oyster reefs to bring benefits to people and nature.
  • In addition, the government’s £80m Green Recovery Challenge Fund has supported a range of nature recovery projects across England, some which have included saltmarsh and seagrass restoration.
  • We also protect marine wildlife in a number of other ways in our domestic waters. This includes being fully committed to tackling accidental bycatch in fisheries, which is one of the greatest threats faced by sensitive marine species such as cetaceans.
  • In 2021, we introduced new rules making it a mandatory requirement under fishing vessel licence conditions for fishers to report any marine mammal bycatch to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). The Marine Wildlife Bycatch Mitigation Initiative sets out how the UK will achieve its ambitions to minimise and, where possible, eliminate the bycatch (accidental capture) and entanglement of sensitive marine species in UK fisheries.
  • To help reduce disturbance to marine wildlife we published the Marine and Coastal Wildlife Code on 24 May.
  • We are also working to reduce the harmful impacts on marine wildlife and habitats arising from plastic pollution. We have taken measures to target some of the most commonly littered plastic items, such as our carrier bag charge and our bans on a range of single-use plastic items. Our restrictions on straws, stirrers and cotton buds have had a big impact – these items used to appear in ‘top 10 littered items’ lists, but this is no longer the case. We have also taken action on microbeads in rinse off cosmetics, plastic pellets and ghost gear.
  • Internationally, we are also leading global efforts to protect the ocean and champion the GBF Target 3 to effectively conserve and manage at least 30% of the land and 30% of the ocean globally by 2030 (30by30). This includes through our role as Ocean Co-Chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature & People, and our leadership of the Global Ocean Alliance.
  • The adoption of the Marine Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement on 19 June will also lead to much greater protection for the two-thirds of the global ocean that lies beyond national jurisdiction, playing a key role in achieving the 30by30 target. The UK will sign the Agreement early and work to ratify as soon as practicable, whilst supporting others to do the same.
  • The UK’s Blue Planet Fund, a £500 million programme, supports developing countries to protect the marine environment and reduce poverty, by tackling threats to ocean health such as illegal fishing, pollution and climate change; and at the UN Ocean conference in 2022, we committed up to £100 million of Blue Planet Funding to support the implementation, management and enforcement of Marine Protected Areas.
Written Question
Electronic Cigarettes: Waste Disposal
Thursday 13th July 2023

Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)

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 3 July to Question 191412 on Electronic Cigarettes: Waste Disposal, if her Department will collect information on the number of wildfires potentially caused by disposable vapes.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

My officials are working closely with those in the Department for Health and Social Care, who have published a call for evidence on the impacts of vaping, including on the natural environment. We will publish the findings in due course.

Written Question
Electronic Cigarettes: Waste Disposal
Thursday 13th July 2023

Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)

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 3 July 2023 to Question 191411 on Electronic Cigarettes: Waste Disposal, whether she plans to collect data on the potential harms of disposable vapes to animals.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

My officials are working closely with those in the Department for Health and Social Care, who have published a call for evidence on the impacts of vaping, including on the natural environment. We will publish the findings in due course.

Written Question
Marine Animals: Nature Reserves
Wednesday 5th July 2023

Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of creating a series of marine national parks to improve marine biodiversity.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

While some countries designate marine parks, domestically, we have created a series of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to protect our marine biodiversity. This is an extensive network of 178 sites covering 40% of English waters. Our MPA network represents the range of species and habitats found in our seas.

We continue to support local initiatives such as the proposed Marine Park in waters around Plymouth, and will consider the contribution of such projects to our environmental goals such as 30by30.

To complement the MPA network, the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) in English waters were designated on 14 June 2023 and will come into force on 5 July 2023. HPMAs will provide the highest levels of protection in our seas, allowing nature to fully recover to a more natural state and helping the ecosystem to thrive.

Internationally, we are also leading global efforts to protect the ocean. We welcome the agreement of the Convention on Biological Diversity Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which sets out a clear mission: to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. As Ocean Co-Chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature & People, and our leadership of the Global Ocean Alliance, we continue to champion the GBF Target 3 to effectively conserve and manage at least 30% of the land and 30% of the ocean globally by 2030 (30by30), including the move to support implementation through facilitating knowledge-sharing and match-making financial and technical assistance.

The adoption of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement on 19 June will also lead to much greater protection for the two-thirds of the global ocean that lies beyond national jurisdiction, therefore playing a key role in achieving the 30by30 target the UK will work to ratify the Agreement as soon as practicable, whilst supporting others to do the same.

The UK’s Blue Planet Fund, a £500 million programme, supports developing countries to protect the marine environment and reduce poverty, by tackling threats to ocean health such as illegal fishing, pollution and climate change; and at the UN Ocean conference in 2022, we committed up to £100 million of Blue Planet Funding to support the implementation, management and enforcement of Marine Protected Areas.

Written Question
Electronic Cigarettes: Waste Disposal
Monday 3rd July 2023

Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information the Government holds on the number of wildfires potentially caused by disposable vapes.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

We are aware that the use of disposable vaping products has increased substantially in recent years and are considering the implications of this trend for the environment. While we do not currently hold information on the number of wildfires caused by disposable vapes, my officials are working closely with those in the Department for Health and Social Care, who have recently launched a call for evidence on the impacts of vaping, including on the natural environment. We will use the responses to this to help gather our evidence base, which will in turn inform any future policy interventions to mitigate these impacts.