Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
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 target set in the Autumn Statement 2021 for private finance to support nature’s recovery, what proportion of the £1 billion relates to the marine environment.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to mobilising private finance into nature’s recovery in England against our target, both on land and at sea.
We have not set specific targets for the terrestrial and marine environment respectively.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
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 level of private investment in (a) terrestrial and (b) marine nature recovery in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As set out in Mobilising Green Investment: 2023 Green Finance Strategy, we are committed to monitoring progress against our target to raise £1bn in private finance into nature’s recovery in England every year by 2030.
The government has not produced an official annual estimate of private finance into nature’s recovery, as no reliable measures are yet in place. My department is developing a methodology for tracking this private finance. We will publish our first annual estimate, using this methodology, once data is available.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, pursuant to the Answer of 18 March 2024 to Question 18175 on Nature Conservation: Finance, what estimate he has made of the total budget that is (a) unspent and (b) unallocated as of 12 April 2024.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Between financial years 2021/22 and 2022/23 the UK spent £763 million on climate change interventions that protect and restore nature and biodiversity leaving £2.2 billion to spend between 2023/24 and 2025/26. This figure will be updated when total spend for the financial year for 2023/24 is finalised later this year. There is currently over £3 billion allocated to nature programming between 2021/22 and 2025/26.
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, whether his Department provides support to international game wardens to adapt to new techniques for tackling illegal wildlife activities.
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.
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, what steps he is taking to support international game wardens in protecting vulnerable wildlife populations.
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.
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.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals his Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The following is a combined list of subscriptions that the Defra Library and Communications have paid for over the last three financial years. Some are in print and some are online. Not everything on the list was purchased in all three years – subscriptions change on demand and to reflect usage. Information on any subscriptions from other team budgets is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.
Defra Library purchases magazines and journals for Defra, Animal and Plant Health Agency and Natural England staff to support them in their role. The Communications team purchases newspapers for monitoring the media coverage of issues in Defra’s remit.
Angling Times magazine | Environmental Finance | Lyell Collection |
Animal Health Research Reviews | Estates Gazette | Materials Recycling World |
Argus Fertilizer Europe | Ethical Consumer | Microbiology Society |
Avian Pathology | Executive Support magazine | New Zealand Veterinary |
BioOne | Farmers Guardian | Planning Resource |
Bird Study Pack | Farmers Weekly | Privacy and Data Protection |
Bloomberg | Financial Times | Professional Update |
British Archaeology magazine | Fishing News Weekly | Responsible Investor |
British Poultry Science | Freedom of Information Journal | Royal Forestry Society |
British Wildlife Magazine | Fresh Produce | Sunday Times |
Conservation Land Management | Geoheritage | Telegraph |
Daily Express | Goat Veterinary Journal | The Economist |
Daily Mail | Guardian | The Grocer Magazine |
Daily Mirror | Habitats Regulations Assessment | The Sun |
Daily Telegraph | Harvard Business Review | The Times |
Dairy Industry Newsletter | Horticulture Week | UK Livestock magazine |
Dods People and Monitoring | I | Veterinary Pathology |
Econlit | ICES Journal of Marine Science | Washington Trade Daily |
Elsevier Freedom Collection | iNews | Water Report |
Ends Europe | Inside Housing | Wiley STM Collection |
Ends Report | Insurance Post | Yorkshire Post |
Ends Waste & Bioenergy | Nature.com |
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Environment Complete | Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation |
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Asked by: Baroness Helic (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Benyon on 12 July 2023 (HL9069), which stated that “Introducing a close season for brown hares remains an option”, what indicators they are using to assess the necessity of this option, and how frequently they review it.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The proposal to introduce a close season for the brown hare, referred to in HL9069, was set out in the Government’s Action Plan for Animal Welfare. In terms of the necessity of a close season from a wildlife conservation perspective, the brown hare is one of the indicator species for our legally binding targets in England to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030 and then reverse declines by 2042. We know that in order to meet these targets we will need large-scale habitat creation and restoration and improved connectivity but this will be supplemented where appropriate by intelligence on individual species. While there are no immediate plans to undertake a national mammal population review as was conducted in 2018, we should get an idea of trends in our brown hare population from published surveys, for example from the British Trust for Ornithology’s mammal recording, which it has been conducting since 1995 with a view to helping improve our knowledge of the distribution and population trends of some of our commoner mammals.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - 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 findings of the SHOT-SWITCH research project, published in Conservation Evidence, about the voluntary transition from hunting with lead to non-lead ammunition in Great Britain; and what plans they have to ban the use of lead shot in hunting in England.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The use of lead shot in England and Wales is already prohibited in specific circumstances by existing legislation – including on all foreshores, and in or over specified sites of special scientific interest, predominantly wetlands.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is currently preparing recommendations on further action to restrict the use of lead in ammunition. This work has included looking at information submitted to them with regard to possible options to control the use of lead ammunition. The previous SHOT-SWITCH study has been considered and is referenced in the background document of evidence (attached to this answer) which was put out with the public consultation last year.
HSE expects to issue its final restriction opinions later this year. The decision to apply any UK REACH restrictions as a further regulatory measure, or not to do so, will subsequently be made by the Defra Secretary of State, with the consent of the Scottish and Welsh Ministers.
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, with reference to the Answer of 4 October 2022 to Question 46153 on Parrots: Non-native Species, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of ring-necked parakeets on other native wildlife.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
An assessment carried out in 2021 concluded there was sufficient evidence to warrant the inclusion of ring-necked parakeet as a target species on the General Licence to kill or take wild birds for conservation purposes.
A prior risk assessment for ring-necked parakeets was published by the GB Non-Native Species Secretariat in March 2011 (See risk assessment here: RA_Psittacula_krameri_(Ring-necked_Parakeet) (nonnativespecies.org)). The conclusion of this assessment was that this species posed a medium risk (with low uncertainty), with the potential to negatively impact populations of cavity nesting birds.
These risk assessments may be updated when substantive new scientific evidence is made available that could alter the outcome of the risk assessment. The assessment has already concluded that this species poses a conservation threat. Defra is not aware that there is new evidence currently that would alter the conclusion of the risk assessment. Therefore, there are no immediate plans for a re-assessment of ring-necked parakeets.