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, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential risks to animals of exposure to 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 potential risks to animals from exposure to 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.
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: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which those taking the economic risk will be rewarded under the Environmental Land Management Schemes.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We are designing our Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes with this in mind, many of the actions we will pay for through the ELM schemes will help farmers and land managers reduce their costs, improve their efficiency and improve the natural environment. For example, the nutrient and integrated pest management standards will help optimise use of inputs, helping to reduce costs whilst also potentially maintaining or even improving yields. Other actions in our schemes can enable farmers to generate an income from unproductive corners and edges of fields, using hedgerows to improve productivity (for example as windbreaks or shelterbelts), and improving soil health. The payments are also intended to support and de-risk the transition for farmers wanting to adopt more sustainable farming approaches. We use ‘income foregone plus costs’ to calculate payment rates and we have recently reviewed and updated them to ensure they fairly reflect changes in costs.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
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: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff worked in her Department's communications department in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra Group Communications is the first single employer shared service communications team in Whitehall, working for six organisations. We have merged six geographically dispersed communications teams from the core department and Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs) and now have a single team operating as an integrated communications function that reduces duplication, improves performance and saved money.
Alongside the core department, the team provides communications support for five of the department’s largest ALBs including the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Forestry Commission and the Rural Payments Agency. The teams work across all communications disciplines in support of the policy and operational priorities within each of these organisations. This includes media, planning, stakeholder engagement, digital communications and internal communications across the six parts of the Defra group.
As Defra Group Communications staff work in an agile way in multiple organisations, it is not possible to provide granular full-time equivalent figures for each part of the group, including the core department.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make it his policy for all Departments to publish a list of all their associated public bodies that have been delegated power to (a)make amend or revoke, (b) enforce and (c) monitor compliance with regulations.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Cabinet Office publishes a list of public bodies classified as arm’s length bodies, the public bodies directory, which includes whether an organisation performs a regulatory function.
The arm’s length bodies which departments have flagged as performing a regulatory function through the most recent public bodies directory data collection are:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will provide a list of all public bodies that have been delegated powers to (a) make amend or revoke, (b) enforce and (c) monitor compliance with regulations.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Cabinet Office publishes a list of public bodies classified as arm’s length bodies, the public bodies directory, which includes whether an organisation performs a regulatory function.
The arm’s length bodies which departments have flagged as performing a regulatory function through the most recent public bodies directory data collection are:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Asked by: Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the Government of Wales on the need to establish a permanent environmental governance body to enable compliance with legal obligations under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and the Aarhus Convention.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
My Department is in regular contact with the Welsh Government (alongside other Devolved Governments) regarding environmental governance. The Welsh Government has set out its intention to establish a Commission for the environment and has appointed an interim complaints assessor.
The UK/EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (which reflects within it certain obligations under the Aarhus Convention to which the UK is also a signatory) places obligations on the parties to ensure that their competent authorities (which enforce relevant law with regard to environment and climate) give due consideration to alleged breaches of law, and that there are sufficient remedies available, dissuasive sanctions and judicial proceedings accessible to natural and legal persons.
The UK has a well-established environment regulatory and enforcement regime. Regulators such as the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Health and Safety Executive, local authorities and their equivalents across the Devolved Administrations have the powers to regulate or take enforcement action against third parties such as business.
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, how many people were employed by her Department to work on matters relating to equality, diversity and inclusivity in (a) 2021 and (b) 2022.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra, alongside the wider Civil Service, is committed to a truly diverse workforce and culture of openness and inclusivity - not as ends in themselves but as means of delivering better outcomes to the citizens we serve.
Defra employs a team of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) experts to realise this commitment, ensuring we employ and retain talented staff, while meeting our statutory obligations and delivering value for the taxpayer.
The proportion has been calculated based on full-time roles as employed at the end of each calendar year, where the individual is formally employed to support delivery of the Defra group and Civil Service EDI strategy: Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
These roles are employed within Defra. However, they support and enable EDI delivery into the following executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies: Rural Payments Agency, Veterinary Medicines Directorate, Animal and Plant Health Agency, Natural England and Environment Agency.
| In post | Additional on payroll | |
Roles in post as of 31st December 2021 | 8 |
|
|
Roles in post as of 31st December 2022 | 7 | 1 Maternity Leave | 2 Career Break |
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the health of the bee population in the UK.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The bee population is comprised of wild bees, of which there are more than 250 species in the UK, and honey bee colonies managed by beekeepers and bee farmers.
Defra’s indicator of the status of pollinating insects was last published in December 2022. Within this wider indicator, the wild bee index fluctuates around its initial value over much of the time series, and in 2019 (the latest year for which we have published data) it was estimated to be 2% higher than in 1980. However, a larger proportion of bee species have declined than increased over the long term (33% declined and 22% increased), as well as over the short term, (37% declined and 28% increased).
The wider pollinating insect indicator identifies changes in the distribution of wild bees and hoverflies in the UK and shows an overall decrease from 1987 onwards. In 2019 the indicator had declined by 21% compared to its value in 1980 and 6% compared to its value in 2014.
Protecting pollinators such as bees, and halting their decline, is a priority, and we are taking action to support them and the wider natural environment of which they are a vital component. Our legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030 underlines our ambition. The Government is working alongside many partners to implement the provisions in the National Pollinator Strategy. The Strategy sets out how Government, conservation groups, farmers, beekeepers and researchers can work together to improve the status of wild and managed pollinating insect species in England on farmland, in urban areas and in gardens. Additionally, our Pollinator Action Plan for 2021-2024 sets out more specifically how we will continue to act to fulfil the vision, aims and objectives of the strategy.
Our annual Hive Count exercise indicates that numbers of managed honey bees have increased in recent years, from around 252,000 UK colonies in 2017 to 288,000 in 2022. Defra supports the honey bee population through the work of the National Bee Unit inspectorate, which operates our bee pest surveillance programmes and provides free training and advice to beekeepers, including on pest and disease recognition. Bee health is a devolved matter. However, Defra and the Welsh Government work together on bee health and, in 2020, we jointly published the Healthy Bees Plan 2030. The Welsh Government also funds the National Bee Unit to deliver a bee health programme in Wales.