Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham 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 number of miles of hedgerow that has been (a) created and (b) restored since January 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have made no such assessment regarding the total number of hedgerows created or restored since 2023, however, there are now approximately 56,000 miles of hedgerows being managed through 16,000 agreements in the Government’s Countryside Stewardship and Sustainable Farming Incentive schemes. Under Countryside Stewardship approximately 20,680 Miles of Hedgerow have been created and restored since January 2023.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many applications to the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2023 have been (a) made and (b) approved in Suffolk Coastal constituency.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Sustainable Farming Incentive has a rolling application window and as of 16 April the RPA has received 94 applications of which 91 agreements have been offered and 75 accepted for the Suffolk Coastal Constituency.
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, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) issuing a moratorium on intensive poultry-farming units and (b) lowering the population threshold at which an environmental permit to operate is required.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The British poultry industry is resilient and operates in an open market. Environmental permits require intensive poultry farms with more than 40 000 bird places to mitigate the environmental risks of their operations. Over 80% of poultry birds and nationally are raised on farms which require an environmental permit to operate. Impacts on habitats are also considered when planning consents are issued to both permitted farms and to smaller poultry units.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he last met representatives of the (a) National Farmers Union and (b) National Pig Association UK; and what the results of those discussions were.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State regularly meets with the National Farmers’ Union (NFU). In the last month he has met with the NFU President, Tom Bradshaw, during a visit to Dartmoor to discuss the Government’s response to the Fursdon Review. He also met with the NFU’s Deputy President, David Exwood, during a Farm Tenancy Forum in March to discuss the implementation of Kate Rock’s tenant farming review.
As the Minister of State for Food, Farming and Fisheries, I also have frequent engagement with the pig sector and officials meet with representatives of the National Pig Association on a regular basis.
Asked by: Douglas Ross (Conservative - Moray)
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 help protect farmers against new strains of potato blight.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a holistic approach that carefully considers all available plant protection methods and keeps the use of pesticides to levels that are ecologically and economically justified. IPM lies at the heart of our approach to minimise the environmental impact of pesticides and is a key tool for businesses facing the challenges of pesticide resistance, removal of pesticides from the market, and changing pest pressures due to climate change. Within the National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (NAP) we will set out our policies to increase the uptake of IPM by farmers, growers, amenity managers and amateur gardeners.
Having an IPM approach can reduce the risks associated with pesticides, combat pesticide resistance, and support sustainable agricultural productivity. IPM aims to diversify crop protection and reduce reliance on the use of chemical pesticides by making use of lower risk alternatives and promoting natural processes. For example, creating habitats for natural predators of plant pests, or using crop rotations to break pest, weed and disease cycles. When alternative methods are ineffective or unavailable, IPM also aims to optimise and minimise the use of chemical pesticides through targeted and precise application.
We have recently commissioned a package of research projects that will bring together scientific evidence underpinning IPM and to look at ways of further encouraging its uptake. This work will support farmers’ access to the most effective IPM tools available and ensure that we understand changing trends in pest threats across the UK.
Defra is also a partner in the European Research Area Network (ERA-Net) Co-Fund on Sustainable Crop Production (SusCrop). This research network aims to enhance cooperation and coordination of different national and regional research programmes focussing on agriculture and climate change, sustainable farming systems and biodiversity, sustainable water management, resource efficiency and resilience in the food chain. It also seeks to increase productivity through technological innovation.
Projects within SusCrop ERA-Net include: ‘Eco-friendly solutions for the integrated management of late and early blight of potatoes (ECOSOL)’ which aims to Identify Effective Biological Control Agents and Plant Resistance Inducers for the Control of Potato Late Blight in the field.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 18 March 2024 to Question 19037 on Climate Change: Investment, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing an additional £3 billion per year for nature restoration for adaptation as set out in the report by the Climate Change Committee entitled Investment for a well-adapted UK, published on 1 February 2023; and how much funding his Department plans to provide for nature restoration and adaptation in each of the next ten years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Through the Environment Act 2021, the Government committed to the legally binding target of creating or restoring more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside of protected site by 2042. Taking actions for nature, including protecting our land and species, is also a core part of our third National Adaptation Programme.
This Government is not currently planning to make an additional assessment around providing £3bn per year on nature restoration for adaptation and cannot commit to funding beyond the life of this parliament, but regularly reviews budgets as part of business planning and spending review decisions.
Defra has guaranteed an average £2.4bn annual budget for the farming sector for the life of this Parliament. This includes paying farmers to restore valuable habitats such as lowland peat and to engage in sustainable agroforestry and wetland management, which will support adaptation to climate change. A range of bespoke funding also exists to support nature restoration. Our recently awarded Species Survival Fund is supporting 20 projects with £25m for habitat creation and restoration, while Natural England has launched 12 Nature Recovery Projects spanning over 300,000 hectares since 2022, with 13 more to come by 2025.
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: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
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 improve the collection of data in agricultural water use.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency regulates water abstraction in England. The information provided therefore relates to England only.
The Environment Agency’s ‘Managing Water Abstraction Service’ enables abstraction licence holders to submit records of how much water they had taken electronically rather than on paper. The Environment Agency estimates quicker, and easier submission of returns data digitally saves abstractors £247k each year. Some 95% of returns now come into the Environment Agency digitally.
Defra is working on rolling out a Water Farm Practices Water Survey involving crop types and volumes of water used. This will be an extension of the annual farming practices survey, which provides a snapshot of the farming landscape across England. It will give an opportunity to update data last collected in 2010 on agricultural water management.
Natural England is this week due to report on its latest phase of Catchment Sensitive Farming water advisory visits in the Southwest of England.
As part of the Prime Minister’s commitment at last year’s Farm to Fork Summit Defra has funded an agriculture project on supply demand balances which have been piloted in Cambridgeshire and will be rolled out to wider parts of England. The water data from this work will be used to update the next round of Regional Water Resource Plans on agriculture water requirements (together with the Environment Agency’s Water Resources National Framework which will be published next spring). A sister project funded by Defra will also include agriculture water use data to assess and screen local resource options (such as reservoirs and rainwater harvesting) to help groups of farmers improve their water resilience.
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 whether they will undertake an assessment of the impact of the agricultural transition on food production and farm business viability.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We very recently published a detailed impact assessment of a long list of actions considered for inclusion in the Environmental Land Management schemes. Actions were rated against a large number of ecosystem services and their impact on food production. An executive summary is attached.
We have provided information on the potential impact of our farming reforms. For example, the farming evidence compendium was most recently updated in September 2022 and the Agriculture in the UK Dashboard was published in November 2023. These set out the contribution of Direct Payments to Farm Business Income, including analysis by sector, location in England and type of land tenure.’
We also publish regular statistics on farm profitability, agricultural productivity and food production, including a recent statistical publication (attached) looking at how Farm Business Income has changed since the start of the agricultural transition. This publication also provides an overview of changes to the Basic Payment Scheme and agri-environment payments.
As part of the agricultural transition, we monitor baskets of relevant metrics to maintain insights into general sector trends. The Government has recently committed to producing an annual Food Security Index to capture and present the key data to monitor food security.
We will of course continue to carry out appropriate timely assessments of our interventions to inform policy development.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question
To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, whether a recent assessment has been made of the environmental improvements being advanced through the church's holding of agricultural land.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The Church Commissioners undertake rolling assessments of environmental improvements being made to the farmland portfolio by tenants, which is used to update the baseline study undertaken five years ago. Data has so far been provided on over 25,000 acres of Commissioners’ land holdings and contains details of environmental changes, such as transitioning to regenerative agricultural practices. The Commissioners are pleased to announce a partnership with the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG), which will further develop this work.
The Church Commissioners’ rural estates team continues to engage with our new and existing agricultural tenants through regular individual farm visits, the sharing of ground-sourced data, including carbon audits, and the gathering of information from third parties. On recent assessment revealed that on a single Commissioners’ farm in Kent, over 45 species of bird were recorded during a single visit in December 2023.