Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the CPRE report Building on our Food Security, published on 22 July, which identified a hundredfold increase in house and infrastructure construction on prime agricultural land since 2010.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We welcome the CPRE report and analysis on development on prime agricultural land. This report highlights some of the ongoing and emerging challenges of use of land to achieve food security, housing need and energy security.
The Government recognises the importance of food security, which is why we published the Food Strategy earlier this year. The Food Strategy puts food security at the heart of the government's vision for the food sector. It aims to broadly maintain the current level of food that we produce domestically and boost production in sectors where there are the biggest opportunities. We are seeking to deliver as much as we can on our limited supply of land, to meet the whole range of Government commitments on food, housing, climate, and the environment. To help achieve this, we will publish a Land Use Framework in 2023 which will set out land-use change principles to balance these outcomes.
The National Planning Policy Framework sets out clearly that local planning authorities should consider all the benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land when making plans or taking decisions on new development proposals. Where significant development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, planning authorities should seek to use poorer quality land in preference to that of a higher quality.
We work closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ensure that planning policy continues to support agriculture and food production as well as delivering other goals for housing, infrastructure and the environment.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will review the effectiveness of the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021 given evidence from the RSPB and Unearthed suggesting widespread breaches.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Reports of suspected unlawful burning received by Defra are being assessed and reviewed. Early indications are that only a small number of those presented to us may represent a potential breach of the regulations.
Suspected breaches will be investigated, with the outcomes forming part of our ongoing review of the effectiveness of the Regulations.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to investigate the data from the monitoring reports by the RSPB and Unearthed which suggest that over 50 burns in protected areas have taken place that may be in breach of the Heather and Grass Etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Reports of suspected unlawful burning received by Defra are being assessed and reviewed. Early indications are that only a small number of those presented to us may represent a potential breach of the regulations.
Suspected breaches will be investigated, with the outcomes forming part of our ongoing review of the effectiveness of the Regulations.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Benyon on 8 June (HL Deb col 1151), what steps they are taking to ensure that private sector investment in the natural environment is carried out with "the proper social underpinning".
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government has an ambitious target to raise at least £500m a year of private finance for nature’s recovery by 2027 and £1 billion by 2030. We are developing a number of tools to support that target, including standards and frameworks to ensure investments are robust and credible, as well as taking appropriate account of factors such as local community impacts. We intend to set out more detail on this work shortly, however in the interim there are several policies that aim to address this for current investments.
For example, the UK Woodland Carbon Code provides a robust, internationally recognised standard for investment in new woodland creation. The Woodland Carbon Code includes a requirement to adhere throughout the lifetime of projects to the social aspects of sustainable forest management set out in the UK Forestry Standard. This includes taking action to safeguard against negative social outcomes, as well as to manage for positive social outcomes. Furthermore, any large or commercial woodland creation projects would require an Environmental Impact Assessment which requires a public consultation.
Under our COP26 Presidency, the Government has supported action to raise standards for voluntary carbon markets. This includes the international Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, which published its draft Code of Conduct on 7 June.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent marine protected areas from being (1) bottom trawled, and (2) dredged.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
We have designated over 100 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) since 2010, so that now 40% of English waters are within the protected area network. We have already committed that the next step is to ensure all of our MPAs are properly managed and supported by our proposed legally binding target under the Environment Act which we are consulting on at present. 98 MPAs in English inshore waters are already protected from damaging fishing activity and we have introduced byelaws in the first four offshore sites, which ban bottom towed gear over sensitive habitats. We have also published a call for evidence relating to the next 13 offshore sites. We are aiming to have all MPAs in English offshore waters protected from damaging fishing activity by 2024.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to implement the recommendations of the Landscapes review: National Parks and AONBs led by Julian Glover.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government published its response to the Landscapes Review on 15 January. We have received over 15,000 responses to our consultation and are currently analysing the consultation responses.
Since the review was published, we have launched the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme to provide funding for farmers and land managers to work in partnership with National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Beauty (AONB) teams to deliver projects on climate, nature, people and place. In the first year of the programme, more than 1,000 projects have been supported.
The Government is supporting more diverse and inclusive engagement in our protected landscapes, through programmes such as Generation Green programme, which has been funded through our Green Recovery Challenge Fund. The Government is also running green social prescribing pilots at several sites in or near protected landscapes, which will test how connecting people with nature can improve mental wellbeing.
Natural England is implementing an ambitious new landscape designation programme, which includes considering the creation of two new AONBs in the Yorkshire Wolds and Cheshire Sandstone Ridge, and extensions to the Surrey Hills and Chilterns AONBs. The new programme is also exploring new approaches to improve landscapes for people and nature, particularly in and around towns and cities.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made with the roll-out of Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The Government is working to put in place the key measures necessary for preparation of Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) to begin across England. We are developing regulations which will set out the process that must be followed in preparing a LNRS and guidance on what each Strategy should contain. Development of these two documents is being informed by over 400 responses we received to our consultation which closed in November as well as lessons learnt during our five LNRS pilots (report published here and attached).
We are working to identify the geographies that each LNRS will cover and appropriate "responsible authorities" to lead the preparation of each one. We have had very positive initial engagement with potential responsible authorities across the country, building towards agreeing LNRS areas and securing formal appointments later this year.
To enable these formal appointments, we are developing our financial offer for responsible authorities to ensure that they have sufficient resource to deliver their new role. We are also compiling the nationally-held data and information that we will provide to each responsible authority to help them prepare their LNRS.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, if any, to discourage food producers from using palm oil following disruptions to the supply of sunflower oil as a result of the war in Ukraine.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain – which has coped well in responding to unprecedented challenges. The world’s leading vegetable oil is palm oil, however, several other oils are often used by the food manufacturing industry. Many UK manufacturers use sunflower, rapeseed and olive oil in their products. It is important to note that both supermarkets and food producers are private businesses that each have their own approaches and it is not the role of the Government to direct their operations.
We are working closely with the food and feed industry to understand the impacts of the situation in Ukraine on sunflower seed, oil or sunseed meal supplies, whilst the Food Standards Agency have informed consumers that rapeseed oil may start to replace sunflower oil in some products
We remain in regular contact with major grain traders, manufacturers and food retailers to understand the impacts of global events on supply chains, monitor availability of key ingredients and to ensure the highest possible standards for our food products.
At the moment domestic edible oil refiners are reporting that the UK has adequate stocks of many different oils and food industry figures remain confident in the supply chain to adjust to any changes in ingredients which may be necessary.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to adopt the EU’s ‘rolling list’ of potentially toxic chemicals as part of the UK's REACH register.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra continues to work closely with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Environment Agency (EA), Welsh and Scottish Governments to identify our priorities under UK REACH. To do this, we consider information from a range of sources, including reviewing action initiated under the EU.
Once we have identified priority chemical risks for GB we consider the most appropriate approach for managing them. This could include action under REACH, or action through other means, such as through the occupational health and safety regulations or the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) regulations.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, if any, to ensure that slight variations of existing banned chemicals are not allowed onto the UK market.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We recognise that when assessing the risk of hazardous chemicals, it is important to consider whether they might be substituted with others with similar hazards (known as regrettable substitution). We are aiming to tackle this issue by considering whole groups of chemicals, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), during our analysis of the various risk management options available under UK REACH, and at the same time considering the availability and suitability of alternatives.