Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton 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 outlaw the use of farrowing crates.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK already has a significant outdoor pig sector with 40% of the national sow breeding herd farrowing freely on outdoor units with no option for confinement.
We continue to work with the farming industry to maintain and enhance our high standards of animal welfare. The Animal Health and Welfare Pathway, part of our domestic agricultural policy, supports farmers to produce healthier, higher welfare animals. The Government’s welfare priorities for the Pathway include supporting producers to transition away from confinement systems.
We want our farming sectors to continue to be viable and competitive. There are several economic challenges currently being faced by the pig sector, not least costs of feed and energy, which is why we have made the decision that the time is not right to consult on phasing out farrowing crates.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the impact of household food insecurity on households across the UK.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The United Kingdom Food Security Report 2021 includes analysis of food security at household level. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has recently published new data from the Family Resources Survey on household food security, giving a better understanding of who is most at risk. DWP has also included new questions in the family resources survey for 2021/22 which will be published in March 2023 and will further expand evidence in this area.
DWP is responsible for wider poverty policy, of which household food insecurity is one element.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
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 will make an assessment of the impact of the increase in cost of food on (a) low income households, (b) students, (c) ethnic minorities and (d) those people earning the national average wage in the UK.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We recognise the impact of rising food prices, which are occurring as a result of global shocks, including the spike in oil and gas prices and the conflict in Ukraine. We are keeping the market situation under review through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors all key agricultural commodities.
DEFRA has also increased our engagement with industry to supplement our analysis with real time intelligence. Defra will continue to work with food retailers and producers to explore the range of measures they can take to ensure the availability of affordable food. For example, by maintaining value ranges, price matching and price freezing measures.
Annual food price inflation, reported by ONS, was estimated at 16.8% in January 2023, which represented a very slight fall of 0.1 percentage points on the December 2022 rate and the first fall recorded in 18 months. Although this very small decline in food price inflation was reported for January 2023, more data will be needed before we can know if this is the start of a sustained fall.
Defra analysis, based on ONS data, shows that every one percent increase in food price inflation increases the average annual United Kingdom household food bill by £34. Defra analysis, based on the 2020 1ONS Family Spending survey, highlights that 11% of the total expenditure of the average United Kingdom household is on food. This varies from 14% for lowest income households to 8% for highest income households.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which organisations he has met that are (a) in favour and (b) opposed to the Government’s proposed ban on trophy hunting imports to the UK in the last five years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Ministers and officials have engaged with a wide range of stakeholders with differing views on trophy hunting over the last 5 years. This has included NGOs, industry representatives, scientists, and foreign government representatives.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he will bring forward legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies into the UK.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We will be bringing forward ambitious legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies from thousands of species as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton 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 value to the UK economy of the trade of trophy hunting imports in the last (a) 12 months, (b) five years and (c) 10 years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK recorded 26 imports of hunting trophies under CITES in 2020, 327 imports in the five years from 2016 to 2020, and 731 imports in the ten years from 2011 to 2020.
As hunting trophies are considered personal effects, the commercial value of the items themselves is limited. Responses to the call for evidence, which ran from 2 November 2019 to 25 February 2020, suggested that the value to the UK economy of the trade of hunting trophy imports is likely to be low.
Further information will be published when legislation is brought forward in due course.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to promote alternatives to plastic packaging.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Plastic food packaging serves important purposes such as protecting food, providing important storage information, extending the shelf life and decreasing food waste.
The Government is working with retailers and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to encourage their efforts to reduce waste and to explore the introduction of plastic-free supermarket initiatives in which fresh food is sold loose, giving consumers the choice. WRAP has published a technical report on the evidence for providing fresh produce loose and we are working with Morrisons to evaluate its current trial of selling produce loose, to assess the impact on food waste.
The WRAP Evidence Review: Plastic Packaging and Fresh Produce, pulled together evidence on a variety of fresh produce and summarised the current evidence available on whether it is suitable to be sold loose. Some items, for example cucumbers, have a significantly longer shelf life when shrink wrapped.
Our priority is to prevent or reduce waste in the first place. The Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations already require all retailers to ensure that all their packaging does not exceed what is needed to make sure that the products are safe, hygienic and acceptable for both the packed product and for the consumer. As part of the Resources and Waste Strategy, we have committed to review the effectiveness of these Regulations by the end of next year.
We have also consulted on reforms to the way we manage packaging waste. The reforms to the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations will require producers to fund the full net-cost of managing the packaging they place on the market, once it becomes waste. This creates an incentive for companies to use less packaging and to ensure that their packaging can be recycled at end of life as it will reduce their costs in complying with the Regulations.
In our consultation we have set out options for how we want to enhance the incentive for producers to make better packaging design choices. The options are for a modulated fee system or a deposit fee system. These options provide a financial incentive for producers, in addition to the full-net cost fees, to move towards using more easily recycled packaging materials and formats.
In April last year, WRAP and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched their world leading UK Plastics Pact, with support from the Government, and all the major supermarkets have signed up to it. The Pact brings these organisations together with four key targets for 2025 that aim to reduce the amount of plastic waste generated, which includes actions to eliminate problematic or unnecessary single-use plastic packaging items. Our proposed reforms will support supermarkets in achieving those targets.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress the Government has made in incentivising greater reuse or recyclability in plastic packaging.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
This is a devolved matter. The answer applies to England only, though the government works with the Scottish Government on such regulations.
Following on from the Resources and Waste strategy, the Government launched several consultations on reforming packaging waste regulations, introducing a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, and increasing consistency in recycling collections for both households and business. These consultations closed on 13 May. The aim of reforming the packaging producer responsibility system is to ensure that packaging producers fund the full net cost of managing the packaging they place on the market once it becomes waste. This provides a strong financial incentive for packaging producers to make better, more sustainable decisions at the design stage and during manufacture, and to take greater responsibility for the environmental impacts of their products.
We also consulted on introducing a tax on plastic packaging containing less than 30% recycled content, announced by the Chancellor at the last Budget – this consultation closed on 12 May and the responses are currently being analysed. A Government response will be published in due course. More information on the consultation can be found at: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/environmental-quality/resource-and-waste-and-plastic-packaging-tax-consu-1/
In April last year, Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched their world-leading UK Plastics Pact, with support from the Government, and all the major supermarkets have signed up to it. The Pact brings these organisations together with four key targets for 2025 that aim to reduce the amount of plastic waste generated. Which include action to eliminate problematic or unnecessary single-use plastic packaging items. Our proposed reforms will support supermarkets in achieving those targets.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to tackle coastal littering.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
The Government published the Litter Strategy for England in April 2017, setting out our aim to clean up the country and deliver a substantial reduction in litter and littering within a generation. The common aim of all the actions set out in the Strategy is to change the behaviour of people who currently feel that it is acceptable to drop litter, whether at the coast or anywhere else. Evidence shows that people drop less litter in a clean environment, and we therefore particularly support efforts to remove litter from coastal environments.
Last year saw the largest ever Great British Beach Clean, organised by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), during which nearly 15,000 volunteers removed 8,550kg of litter from their local beaches. The Government funds the MCS to carry out regular beach litter monitoring studies and cleans. This data helps inform future policies, such as our commitment to a ban on plastic straws, drinks stirrers, and plastic stemmed cotton buds in England from April next year.
Earlier this year the Prime Minister also recognised three “points of light” for their outstanding voluntary efforts to tackle marine litter:
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has for changes to sheep ageing methods to control transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
We are currently considering whether there are options for implementing a change to the method for ageing sheep in relation to control of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
However, under EU rules, legal advice is that alternative methods to the accepted method of ageing by dentition may not be available to the UK as a third country if we leave the EU without a deal and wish to continue to export sheep meat to the EU.
We are aware of the concerns from the sheep sector about this and will keep the sector updated on our plans, taking account of developments with regard to our departure from the EU.