Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether any enforcement action has been commenced by (1) DEFRA, (2) the Environment Agency, or (3) other authorities responsible for waste shipping in the UK, in relation to the export of 'end of life' tyres to India to ensure that the waste is treated in an environmentally sound manner.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
(1) The four UK regulators, the Environment Agency in England, Natural Resources Wales, The Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency enforce legislation on shipments of waste.
(2) The Environment Agency is currently undertaking an internal review into its regulation of waste tyres and their export, particularly to India. This review will be finalised by the end of June and the outcomes made publicly available. The Environment Agency is not able to provide details of ongoing enforcement investigations.
(3) The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has stopped the export of eight containers of waste tyres since January 2024. Six of these were destined for India.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of 'end of life' tyres exported to India in the past 12 months have been exported with a T8 waste exemption.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This information is not available as T8 exemption holders are not currently obligated to provide this information under the conditions of the exemption.
Exporters of waste tyres to India are also not currently required to provide information of their exports routinely.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what checks are carried out by DEFRA or the Environment Agency in relation to 'end of life' tyres exported to India to ascertain whether operators involved in the shipment of tyres have taken all necessary steps to ensure waste is managed in an environmentally sound manner.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
To assess if ‘end of life tyres’ will be managed in an environmentally sound manner, the Environment Agency operates on a risk-based basis to carry out checks on destination sites, to ensure that they operate to broadly equivalent UK standards.
Checks may include internet based open-source data, requesting the GPS co-ordinates of the site location, verification from the overseas competent authority responsible for issuing the environmental permit, the contractual details of the shipment and a copy of the permit from the exporter.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 20 February (HL4788), whether they will publish the referenced independent studies exploring the sustainability of biomass electricity generation.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
The referenced independent studies refer to work exploring the sustainability of biomass, including electricity generation. Several reports commissioned on behalf of the public sector are already in the public domain, including:
Publicly funded research will continue to be published in line with the Research Concordat.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks of Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 3 December 2024 (col 1089) and his Written Answer on 6 February (HL4363), whether they have commissioned any independent research into the long-term sustainability of biomass electricity generation.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
The Government works closely with a range of stakeholders including academia and independent experts to assist policy development around sustainability of biomass, ensuring that evidence informs long-term decision making. This has included commissioning several independent studies exploring the sustainability of biomass.
It has also included working with Ofgem and independent experts, alongside research gathered from engagement with industry and academia, to support development of strengthened assurance around the compliance of generators with sustainability criteria.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the compatibility of the sustainability criteria for the biomass electricity generation industry with the UK's domestic and international commitments on reaching net zero and restoring biodiversity, and whether they plan to change the criteria for generators to increase the proportion of woody biomass that must meet the sustainability criteria from 70 to 100 per cent.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
The Government only supports the use of sustainable biomass and generators only receive subsidies for biomass that meets our strict sustainability criteria.
This Government is committed to enhancing sustainability, and the low carbon dispatchable CfD, announced earlier this month, increases the proportion of woody biomass that must meet the sustainability criteria from 70 to 100 per cent.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stating that they “do not automatically consider or assume biomass used for energy as ‘carbon neutral’, even in cases where the biomass is thought to be produced sustainably”.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
This IPCC reference relates to guidelines on reporting biomass as ‘zero’ emissions at the point of combustion. Under the IPCC Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reporting framework, removals and emissions associated with growing bioenergy crops, land-use change, fertilization, transportation, etc are recorded against the relevant sectors.
As with any energy source, biomass is not carbon neutral when considering the full supply chain, but it can be low carbon. The UK only considers biomass to be low carbon if it meets sustainability criteria, which includes requirements around sustainable harvesting and maintaining forest productivity, as well as a GHG criteria to minimise supply chain emissions. We plan to consult later this year on the development of a common sustainability framework which aims to enable greater consistency across different biomass end use sectors and to strengthen criteria in line with latest evidence.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 3 December (HL Deb col 1089), what is the evidence that sustainably sourced biomass can provide a low-carbon and renewable energy source; whether that evidence has been produced by an independent organisation that does not have financial links to the biomass industry; and whether they will publish it.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Global institutions such as the IPCC, and the UK’s CCC recognise that bioenergy and BECCS can play a significant role in decarbonising economies and meeting net zero provided that appropriate policies are put in place to mitigate the use of unsustainable biomass.
The Government only supports the use of sustainable biomass and generators only receive subsidies for biomass that meets our sustainability criteria. We also plan to consult later this year on the development of a common sustainability framework which aims to enable greater consistency across sectors and to strengthen criteria in line with latest evidence.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Hayman of Ullock on 19 December 2024 (HL3060), what remedy the public currently has against a failure by a water company to proactively publish the operational sewage treatment and discharge datasets, the publication of which is not otherwise provided for in law.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIRs) require public authorities – including water companies - to disclose environmental information proactively. This includes data or summaries of data derived from the monitoring of activities affecting, or likely to affect, the environment.
The Information Commissioner, as the regulatory authority for information rights, promotes good practice by public authorities and may issue a “practice recommendation” to a public authority if it appears to him that the practice of the authority does not conform with that proposed in the Code of Practice. In July 2024, the Information Commissioner wrote to 12 water companies to remind them of their transparency obligations and followed this up in December 2024 by publishing a case study demonstrating both how challenges in publishing data can be overcome and the benefits of publishing frequently requested information.
If a member of the public seeks environmental information that a public authority has not proactively made available, they may request it, using Regulation 5 of the EIRs Where an exception does not apply to the information, the public authority must supply the information within 20 working days of receiving the request. If the requestor is dissatisfied with the way the request was handled, they may request a review from the public authority and if they continue to be dissatisfied, may request a decision from the Information Commissioner.
Alternatively, a member of the public may seek a judicial review of a public authorities’ failure to discharge its duties to disclose information proactively under the EIRs.
Asked by: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government, for each of the most recent five years for which data are available, what was the total amount of public expenditure that has been allocated to companies or charities for the purposes of (1) anaerobic digestion and (2) redistributing surplus food for human consumption.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Over the last 7 years, the department has spent approximately £13 million of funding on supported redistribution organisations across the country.
This year, under the new Government, Defra announced £15 million to ensure that farm produce that would often go to waste or be eaten by animals is provided to a network of food banks. This helps the department reach its zero waste targets and ensures that the country's most vulnerable people have a ready supply of healthy food that is grown by British farmers.