Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 7 March 2024 to Question 16898 on Landfill Tax, whether he has had recent discussions with the (a) Environment Agency and (b) Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the alignment of landfill tax reforms with environmental policy.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Documents relating to the ongoing review of Landfill Tax in England and Wales are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/landfill-tax-review-call-for-evidence. These confirm the government is considering a range of options to future-proof, simplify and improve environmental outcomes from the tax.
To this end, HM Treasury officials continue to work closely with departments including HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency – as well as with external interested parties, before confirming further next steps.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
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 13 March 2024 to Question 15154 Flood Control: Finance, in which local authority areas the completed flood defences are located; what type of flood defences they are; and how many homes are protected by those flood defences in each local authority area.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are in the third year of the current six-year £5.2 billion Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) investment programme. This investment programme will better protect hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding and coastal erosion. At the end of March 2023, approximately £1.5 billion of this funding has been invested with 60,000 properties better protected from flooding and coastal erosion. This was delivered through over 200 completed schemes.
Below is a table which shows properties better protected by Local Authority boundary between April 2021 and March 2023. The figures include Environment Agency, Local Authority, and Internal Drainage Board flood and coastal risk management projects that fall within that boundary. We are unable to provide a breakdown of the type of flood defences for each authority. However, the Environment Agency’s Programme of flood and coastal erosion risk management shows completed FCERM schemes within the previous six-year investment programme (2015-2021), and the first year of the current capital investment programme (2021-2027) which are now better protecting homes.
Each year the Environment Agency also produced a summary of flood and coastal erosion risk management work carried out by risk management authorities in England. This is required under Section 18 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. When the current FCERM investment programme ends, after March 2027, the Environment Agency will publish a report with a breakdown of spending, similar to the report published in 2022 after the 2015-2021 investment programme.
Please see the table attached. Notes for the table:
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of setting a target for all towns and cities at risk from flooding to improve water retention on public land by 10%.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Our Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Policy Statement sets out our long-term ambition to create a nation more resilient to flood and coastal erosion risk. This includes a holistic approach to managing water throughout catchments that considers the full range of actions which could be taken in an area, upstream and downstream by a variety of bodies. This includes natural flood management measures such as small scale storage or tree planting, using water infrastructure such as reservoirs to create space for water and manage flows, and blue green infrastructure such as sustainable drainage systems. This helps to ensure water availability in times of drought and slow and store water in times of excess.
On 13 March 2024 the Government published its response to the NIC’s study into ‘Reducing the risk of surface water flooding’ in England. In it, Government commits to work with the Environment Agency, National Infrastructure Commission, Climate Change Committee and other experts during 2025 to assess the merits of setting a long-term target and the most appropriate measure for flood risk reduction from all sources of risk. This work will be informed by the new National Flood Risk Assessment (due end of 2024) which will identify priority areas of flood risk and enable improved monitoring of progress.
The work to consider a long-term target will also contribute towards our reforms to local flood risk management planning. We plan to consult on these reforms in 2024 and this will include considering how local areas can best set measurable outcomes for flood risk in their areas and catchments, for all sources of flood risk to drive local action and progress. Future plans will support an integrated approach which promotes joined up action across the whole of an area or catchment, including upstream and downstream, and taking into account the impacts to surrounding areas.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has had discussions with the (a) Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and (b) Environment Agency on changes to Landfill Tax (i)rates, (ii) allowances, (iii) liable activities and (iv) exemptions.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is undertaking a review of landfill tax in England and Northern Ireland with the aim of ensuring the tax continues to support the government’s ambitious environmental objectives, including zero avoidable waste by 2050. Since 2000, the tax has contributed to a 90% reduction in local authority waste sent to landfill in England.
The Government keeps all tax policy under review, any potential changes are considered in the round at fiscal events
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his correspondence of 28 February 2024 to Kath Sansom and Ruth MacLeod of the Sling the Mesh Group, if he will publish (a) the patient groups that contributed to, (b) the distribution lists used to inform (i) patient groups and (ii) stakeholders about and (c) a summary of the contributions of patient groups to the consultation.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is in the process of drafting the response to the consultation on Disclosure of industry payments to the healthcare sector, which will be published in due course. As the consultation response is in policy development, the information requested is not available.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Farming Recovery Fund opened in response to Storm Henk will be available to farmers in (a) Yorkshire, (b) Norfolk and (c) Derbyshire.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has triggered the Flood Recovery Framework in Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Northamptonshire, Wiltshire, and Worcestershire, to provide funding for affected households and businesses as a result of severe flooding caused by Storm Henk. Farmers in these areas are likely to be eligible for a number of these funds, including the Business Recovery Grant (for up to £2,500 per SME business), the Property Flood Resilience grant (up to £5,000 per flooded property) and Business Rate relief.
We are currently assessing the impact of the flooding caused by Storm Henk on farmland to enable us to confirm eligible areas for the Farming Recovery Fund. Eligible areas will be within the same areas announced for the wider Flood Recovery Framework, which does not currently include areas in Yorkshire, Norfolk and Derbyshire.
We are monitoring the situation closely and further guidance on support for farmers affected by the flooding will be published on gov.uk in early March.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much of the flood and coastal erosion risk management funding (a) has been allocated and (b) is available.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are in the third year of the current six-year £5.2 billion Flood and coastal erosion risk management investment programme. The funding can be spent on projects that better protect properties in England as well as the development of future projects.
At the end of March 2023, the Environment Agency estimated that approximately £1.5 billion of this funding has been invested with over 200 flood risk schemes completed. Over £800 million will be invested in the current financial year until March 2024 and the remaining money is indicatively allocated to projects until the end of March 2027.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the cost is of (a) purchase of and (b) construction works on Sevington Internal Border Facility.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Sevington BCP is operated from a site owned by DFT.
The Department considers that this information is commercially sensitive and should be withheld.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to help reduce (a) advance fee fraud and (b) other consumer retail scams.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
As part of implementation of the Government’s Fraud Strategy ‘Advance fee fraud’ has decreased by 33% since the year ending September 2022 from 546,000 to 367,000 offences (CSEW data). We have introduced a series of sector charters with industry to agree voluntary actions to protect consumers. Last year, the Government published the Online Fraud Charter which seeks to block fraud at source, making reporting fraud easier for users and decreasing the time it takes to remove content and advertisements found to be fraudulent.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the operating hours each (a) day and (b) week for the products of animal origin border control point in the Sevington Internal Border Facility.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The responsibility for the operation of the Sevington Border Control Post, if and when it is designated, will fall to Ashford Borough Council as the statutory enforcing authority.
The planned hours of operation are being finalised but it is expected that the facility will accept animal products for inspection 24 hours, seven days a week.