Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
These initiatives were driven by Baroness Redfern, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
Baroness Redfern has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
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First, and most importantly, the suffering of the victims must be recognised. The Government understands that no measures can fully compensate for the losses and hardships that they have suffered. The priority here must be to ensure that victims get the justice they deserve. We are actively looking at the recommendations of the Inquiry, including the recommendation for more interim payments. The Government will respond to the recommendations of the final report following its publication on 20 May.
We do not have an estimate. Postmasters who paid shortfalls which were recorded in Horizon to the Post Office are paid those amounts back in their compensation claims, as well as any other financial and personal damage which they have suffered as a consequence of the IT system. We have already made payments totalling £160m across all three compensation schemes.
The UK is monitoring developments of the US-EU negotiations on the Global Arrangement for Sustainable Steel and Aluminium and we await the outcome on what may be agreed between the two parties.
In the meantime, we engage regularly with the steel and aluminium sectors to make sure there is a clear voice for industry and we are ready to act in the best interests of the UK.
The Government is aware the sector's transition to electric arc furnaces will mean scrap steel becomes an increasingly vital material source for UK steelmaking. The UK has an abundance of ferrous scrap and a strong scrap sector - there were c.11 million tonnes of scrap arising in 2021, with 2.6 million tonnes (25%) consumed domestically (International Steel Statistics Bureau via UK Steel) and 8.6 million tonnes (75%) exported (HMRC Overseas Trade Data).Steel producers are increasing their engagement with scrap metal dealers to secure future supply. Government officials continue to closely monitor the development of the scrap market and the Government will consider its options if evidence emerges that the market is failing to respond effectively.
Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 04/23 clearly identifies procurements for which Central Government Departments, Executive Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies are expected to provide steel procurement pipelines to the Department of Business and Trade, for publication on GOV.UK. The next publication will include steel procurement pipelines data from these organisations in line with PPN 04/23.
Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) are the backbone of our economy and have a key role to play in driving economic growth.
The Department for Education set a strategy for skills reform in England in the Skills for Jobs white paper, putting employers at the heart of the skills system and the Government is investing an additional £3.8 billion over this Parliament to ensure workers can develop the skills businesses need.
By the end of FY 2022/23 Government will also have invested over £118m for the 38 English Growth Hubs to provide SMEs with free advice, alongside our Business Support Helpline.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is delivering the Floating Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Scheme (FLOWMIS), worth up to £160 million, to support investment in the port infrastructure needed to deploy large-scale floating offshore wind turbines.
The Government is also working closely with representatives of the port industry to develop a shared understanding of the barriers to port investment and identify the most appropriate future levers to overcome them.
Powering Up Britain – Energy Security Plan sets out the steps the Government is taking to ensure the UK is more energy independent, secure and resilient as well as our goal for Britain to have among the cheapest wholesale electricity prices in Europe by 2035.
The Government has also announced new measures to support Britain’s Energy Intensive Industries (EIIs) faced with high electricity prices. The British Industry Supercharger will reduce policy costs by exempting eligible firms from the costs of renewable energy obligations and the GB Capacity Market. It will offer support with network charges and bring an increase in the capacity market exemption, for which we are currently carrying out a public consultation. This is in addition to other ongoing support providing compensation for the indirect costs of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme and the Carbon Price Support mechanism.
Through the Green Jobs Delivery Group, the Government is working with industry to evaluate entry routes into green careers for young people.
Flexible training models mean apprenticeships are accessible for all sectors, with ‘career starter’ standards in place to attract more young people.
Local Skills Improvement Plans will embed greater employer engagement in local skills systems in ways that bring the demand and supply sides more closely together and enable a more coherent “whole system” approach to skills planning including in green industries.
On Monday 19th February, Andrew Griffith MP, Minister of State for Science, Research and Innovation announced that the government will be publishing a plan to accelerate the development, validation, and uptake of technologies and methods to reduce reliance on the use of animals in science. This will be led by a cross-government group that will consult stakeholders in industry, academia, and charities to develop a detailed plan, which will be published in the summer.
The Government has carefully analysed the responses received and is considering how best to ensure the cost relating to energy efficiency improvement are fair and proportionate to landlords and tenants. The Government will publish a response in due course.
The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) has agreed, in principle, to act as a National Regulator for the new regulations on mandatory recycling labelling, which form part of proposed Producer Responsibility Obligations under the Environment Act 2021. No final decision has been made that OPSS shall adopt this enforcement role, but should OPSS become the regulator it will be funded to ensure the necessary resources, including suitably qualified staff, are available.
Trading Standards already have powers to tackle underage sales of products. Where there is evidence of shops selling age restricted products to underage people, this should be reported to Citizens Advice on 0808 223 1133 or through its website in the first instance.
The Government welcomes Centrica taking the necessary steps to seek approvals to re-open the Rough storage facility this winter. Information on the available capacity of the site is a matter for Centrica.
The Government recognises that the electricity network will require substantial investment and technical evolution to deliver a clean, secure and affordable British energy system. The British Energy Security Strategy includes proposals to accelerate the delivery of network infrastructure. Later this year, the Government and Ofgem will set out their approach to transform the network in more detail through the Electricity Network Strategic Framework.
Under the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) to ensure that loans backed by taxpayers’ money are being used in the right way to support businesses and jobs through this difficult time, loans come with restrictions on dividend payments:
For facilities of more than £50 million, until the facility has been repaid in full, borrowers and members of their group cannot:
Under the Future Fund, loans advanced under a Convertible Loan Agreement (CLA) cannot be used to pay dividends, pay bonuses or discretionary payments that are non-contracted or not in the ordinary course of business for 12 months, or pay advisory, placement or similar corporate finance type fees in relation to that CLA.
The Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) has been introduced to help small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between £2,000 and £50,000. Businesses are not required to bank with a lender in order to apply for a Bounce Back Loan with them.
There are now 18 accredited lenders of the scheme and the British Business Bank is working at pace to accredit more lenders to further extend the Scheme’s reach and provide more choice for businesses. A full list of accredited lenders can be found on the British Business Bank website.
The Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) was launched on 4 May to help small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between £2,000 and £50,000.
More than 69,000 Bounce Back Loans worth over £2 billion were approved during the first 24 hours of the scheme. As of 24 May, this has increased to 608,069 loans issued to businesses, worth £18.49 billion.
In order to apply for the scheme, businesses complete a short, simple, online application form, meaning that applications can be submitted and processed rapidly, and loans can be accessed within a matter of days. The Government is providing lenders with a 100% guarantee on each loan to give them the confidence they need to support the smallest businesses in the country.
In order to drive up the quality of apprenticeships, the department has raised the bar on the duration of apprenticeships, the time given to learn off the job, and the quality of assessment. All apprenticeships are now driven by employers and achievement rates are increasing year on year.
There were 162,320 achievements in the 2022/23 academic year, which is an increase of 25,100 on 2021/22. This is encouraging; the department wants to further improve the quality of apprenticeships to ensure that as many apprentices as possible stay on their programme, achieve, and have a high-quality experience.
To support this ambition and drive-up quality, the department is investing £7.5 million in a workforce development programme for teachers and trainers of apprentices, increasing the apprenticeship funding rate for English and mathematics by 54%, and has asked Ofsted to inspect all apprenticeship providers by 2025.
The department is also making sure that apprenticeships continue to meet apprentices’ and employers’ needs in a fast-changing world. Last year, the department reviewed over 125 apprenticeships to reflect technological advancements and employer needs, and approved funding uplifts for 80 apprenticeships, with the average increase being 35%.
Since 2010, the department has put in place a range of policies that have significantly reduced the quantity of young people designated as not in education, employment and training (NEET).
Whilst the government provides the framework to increase participation and reduce the proportion of young people who are NEET, responsibility and accountability for delivery lies with local authorities, who have a statutory duty to identify and support all young people who are NEET.
Statutory guidance directs local authorities to collect information on all young people in their area, including whether they are NEET or have characteristics that put them at risk of becoming NEET, so that local authorities and their delivery service partners can effectively target and support those young people.
The department monitors NEET data and liaises with local authorities regarding their statutory duties to identify and support 16 and 17-year-olds. The department also publishes annual data from local authorities, including NEET comparative scorecards, that supports local authorities and their delivery services to monitor their own performance and benchmark it against that of others to promote improvements. The NEET comparative scorecards include information on local populations according to the Office of the National Statistics that can help local authorities evaluate whether young people are missing from their data and take further action. The NEET comparative scorecards are published at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/young-people-neet-comparative-data-scorecard.
The department also works with local authorities to support the better use of data tools to identify those at an increased risk of becoming NEET, based on characteristics such as having a learning difficulty or disability, or a record of poor school attendance, so they can be monitored and targeted with extra support to help them stay in education.
NEET young people are separate to children missing education, the latter being defined as compulsory school-aged children who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school. From autumn 2022, local authorities have been asked to voluntarily provide aggregate information to the department on children missing education. This information is being analysed, and we expect this data will help to significantly improve our understanding of the national level picture.
Employers have designed over 155 high-quality degree level apprenticeship standards, including in project management, to support the development of the skilled workforces they need. In the 2021/22 academic year, there were 590 starts on the Level 6 Project Manager degree apprenticeship, up from 140 starts in the 2018/19 academic year.
The department would like to see even more people benefit from the high-quality career opportunities that degree level apprenticeships provide and are taking steps to ensure that young people can access these opportunities more easily.
In addition to the department's Find an Apprenticeship service, which allows people to search and apply for apprenticeship vacancies, the department continues to work with employers to produce the biannual higher and degree level apprenticeship vacancy listing. The latest listing, published during National Apprenticeship Week, features over 300 vacancies across the country that are available to apply to in 2023. These vacancies are also being promoted to students through our Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge (ASK) programme.
The ASK programme provides free resources in schools and colleges to ensure that students, parents, and teachers are aware of apprenticeships – including degree apprenticeships. The programme is supported by £3.2 million of funding per year and has worked with 5,000 schools, reaching over 1.7 million students and over 230,000 parents.
UCAS is also expanding its apprenticeships service, so that young people can see relevant apprenticeship vacancies on the UCAS hub, including degree apprenticeships. They are also working with the department to ensure that from 2024, students will be able to apply for apprenticeships alongside an undergraduate degree application. This means thousands more young people will benefit from a wider choice of high-quality options, and employers can benefit from better access to talent on UCAS.
The government’s apprentice incentive payments of up to £3,000 have helped employers of all sizes to build back from the COVID-19 pandemic more successfully, supporting over 195,000 new apprentices into work between 1 August 2020 and 31 January 2022, 77% of which were apprentices under the age of 25.
The apprenticeship incentive payments were introduced as part of the government’s Plan for Jobs in 2020, in recognition of the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on business, and to support employers to recruit the right people and develop the skills they needed to recover and grow. The department has no current plan to reintroduce the incentive scheme, but continues to support employers with the cost of apprenticeship training.
The government is increasing funding for apprenticeships to £2.7 billion by the 2024/25 financial year to support more employers to offer new apprenticeship opportunities. As part of this, the department continues to provide £1,000 payments to both employers and training providers when they take on apprentices aged under 19 or from the ages of 19 to 24, who have an education, health and care plan, or have been in care.
The government contributes 95% of the cost of apprenticeship training for small-to-medium sized enterprises who do not pay the apprenticeship levy for up to 10 apprentices a year, and funds 100% of the training costs for the smallest employers when they take on apprentices aged 16 to 18.
The department continues to monitor the level of apprenticeship starts and completions and publishes this information at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships. Between August and November 2022, there have been 155,900 apprenticeship starts.
The apprenticeship levy is an important part of the government’s reforms to create a high-quality, employer-led apprenticeships system, and it supports employers of all sizes to invest in high-quality apprenticeship training. The government does not currently have any plans to review the apprenticeship levy.
Whilst the department has seen some underspends in the apprenticeships budget in previous years, this will not always be the case. In the 2021/22 financial year the total spend on apprenticeships was £2,455 million against the budget of £2,466 million, meaning that 99.6% of the apprenticeships budget was spent. It is therefore important that the apprenticeships budget remains ring-fenced to support the demand from employers for high-quality apprenticeships training.
The government is increasing apprenticeship funding to £2.7 billion by the 2024/25 financial year and is continuing to improve the apprenticeships system to support more employers and apprentices to benefit from apprenticeships. The department has created flexible training models, like flexi-job and accelerated apprenticeships, to make apprenticeships accessible for all sectors. We have also improved the transfer system to make it easier for levy paying employers to find other employers who wish to take on new apprentices with transferred funds. Additionally, we are working with training providers to simplify the apprenticeship system through our “You said, we did” programme.
Over the course of this Parliament, the government will provide an extra £2.5 billion (£3 billion including indicative Barnett consequentials) for a new National Skills Fund. The Fund is part of a dramatic rebooting of our skills system and will help workers to have the skills they need to flourish and fulfil their potential.
To decide how best to develop the National Skills Fund, the government is planning to consult widely on the National Skills Fund, to ensure the fund provides the best return on investment.
The insights gained will help to build an understanding of how to target the fund and what types of training it should cover, to ensure it best supports people to learn new skills and prepare for future changes to the economy.
Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, it is already an offence in England and Wales to carry out a non-exempted mutilation, including the cropping of a dog’s ears or the docking of their tails. The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 creates tougher penalties for anyone convicted of such an offence face, either being sent to prison for up to five years, or receiving an unlimited fine, or both.
The Government supports the Private Members’ Bill, Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill, introduced by Selaine Saxby MP on restricting the importation and non-commercial movement of pets. The Bill contains powers that will enable future regulations for commercial and non-commercial movements of pets into the United Kingdom including prohibiting the import of dogs with cropped ears and docked tails. This will prevent the import of non-exempted mutilated dogs for onward sale in the United Kingdom.
The Government supports the Private Members’ Bill, Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill, introduced by Selaine Saxby MP on restricting the importation and non-commercial movement of pets. The Bill contains powers that will enable future regulations for commercial and non-commercial movements of pets into the United Kingdom, including prohibiting the import of heavily pregnant dogs over 42 days gestation and puppies under six months old.
In the Action Plan for Animal Welfare, Defra committed to explore potential action in relation to the import of fur from abroad. The Call for Evidence Defra published in 2021 was a key step in delivering that commitment. A summary of replies received should be published in due course.
In the meantime, we are continuing to build our evidence base on the fur sector, which will be used to inform any future action on the fur trade. We have also commissioned a report from our expert Animal Welfare Committee into the issue of what constitutes responsible sourcing in the fur industry. This report will support our understanding of the fur industry and help to inform our next steps.
Water companies are installing new monitors at sewage treatment works that have storm overflows which control the flows of sewage that they treat. These monitors will record when there is an overflow of the incoming sewage into storm tanks and other flow monitors will record the flow that is being passed forward for treatment while the overflow is operating. Around 400 sewage treatment works have had both of these monitors installed so far in AMP7, all such discharges will be fully monitored by the end of 2026.
These monitors are being installed to ensure that when these overflows operate, they only do so when the required flows are being treated by the works.
The export of waste from the UK is subject to strict requirements set out in Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006 on Shipments of Waste (WSR). The objective of the WSR is to facilitate trade in recyclable waste while protecting the environment and human health.
The WSR establishes a control system for shipments of waste based on the level of risk posed by the export to the environment and human health. Waste considered low risk to the environment is called ‘green list’ waste. Steel scrap exports for recovery are considered to pose a low risk and are, therefore, generally subject to ‘green list’ waste controls. If the steel scrap is contaminated, however, then it will be subject to ‘notification controls’ which require the relevant authorities in the countries of dispatch and destination to approve the shipment of waste prior to export.
The Government encourages the highest standards of animal welfare at slaughter, and legislation sets out the main requirements to protect the welfare of animals when being slaughtered.
Following publication in 2021 of the Post Implementation Review of the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015, and as part of the Government’s Action Plan for Animal Welfare, we are considering a number of ways in which the welfare of animals at the time of killing could be further improved. As a first step, last year we introduced The Protection of Animals at the Time of Killing (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022 which made the non-penetrative captive bolt device available as a killing method for neonate piglets, lambs and kids (within certain parameters), providing an effective method for humane culling on-farm.
Stimulating market demand for higher welfare products is a key strand of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. We are continuing to work with industry to explore how we can harness the market to improve food information to consumers and build on our high standards of animal welfare, while aligning with wider food labelling priorities such as eco-labelling.
Alongside this we are investigating where additional regulatory tools may be required to ensure that effective enforcement of our high animal health and welfare standards is maintained.
The annual health and welfare review opened to all eligible keepers of cattle, sheep and pigs in February 2023, giving farmers access to a fully funded visit to their farm by a vet of their choice. In the coming months we will continue to iterate the service by further simplifying the application process. Further iterations will allow more reviews to take place, by opening the offer to livestock keepers who are not Basic Payment Scheme recipients and to those who keep multiple species or multiple herds and flocks of the same species.
As part of the fully funded annual health and welfare review eligible cattle, sheep and pig keepers are able to access bespoke advice from their choice of vet alongside access to diagnostic testing for key endemic diseases and conditions. This advice includes recommended actions to take and signposting to further support available. This will support farmers to continually improve the health and welfare of their livestock and the increases in productivity that comes with this.
We are carefully reviewing the evidence gathered both from our Call for Evidence and wider engagement with the fur trade and stakeholders, and a summary of responses will be published in due course.
We will use the evidence gathered to inform any future action on the fur trade in Great Britain, in line with HM Government’s commitment to improving animal welfare standards.
Food supply is one of the UK's 13 Critical National Infrastructure sectors. Defra and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) are joint Lead Government Departments (LGDs), with Defra leading on supply and the FSA on food safety. As such we work closely with the Cabinet Office and other LGDs ensuring food supply is fully incorporated as part of emergency preparedness, including consideration of dependencies on other sectors.
The Government Food Strategy was published in June 2022 setting out a plan to transform our food system to ensure it is fit for the future. The Food Strategy is a cross-departmental strategy. Therefore, Defra actively collaborated with and engaged with other Government departments in its development.
Responding to recent events, the Food Strategy puts food security at the heart of the government’s vision for the food sector. It included a commitment to broadly maintain the current level of food that we produce domestically and boost production in sectors where there are the biggest opportunities.
Setting this commitment demonstrates that we recognise the critical importance of domestic food production and the role that it plays in our food security. Domestic production figures have been very stable for most of this century. We produce 61% of all the food we need, and 74% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year, and these figures have changed little over the last 20 years.
Food production is the primary purpose of farming and always will be. Our agricultural reforms in England aim to support a highly productive food producing sector, meeting our commitment to broadly maintain food production, alongside environmental improvements that benefit us all such as improving water quality and species abundance.
Balancing and integrating food production with our environmental land management will support an efficient and sustainable land use without offshoring harms associated with lower production standards. We have a legal duty to assess the impact of all environmental land management schemes, such as Sustainable Farming Incentive and Landscape Recovery, on food production.
Defra are aware of the challenges some tenant farmers face when seeking to enter our schemes, such as not having sufficient duration of management control to enter long scheme agreements, being limited by the terms of their tenancy agreement as to what actions they can carry out on the land and struggling to obtain their landlord's consent to enter such schemes.
We are aiming to remove barriers to tenants entering these schemes where possible and have already done so in the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). Tenants can enter SFI without their landlord's explicit consent and tenants with annually renewing tenancy agreements can enter if they expect to have management control for the duration of their 3-year agreement. Furthermore, if a tenant unexpectedly loses management control of the land, such as when the landlord serves them a notice to quit, we do not require the tenant to pay a penalty to Defra for ending their SFI agreement early.
The recently published Rock Review led by Baroness Rock acknowledges that our policy on agreement length and no penalty exits when there is an unexpected loss of management control have made the scheme more open to tenant farmers. We are currently considering the Rock Review's recommendation that Defra must continue to design the future SFI standards so that they are open to tenant farmers and will formally respond to this recommendation in due course.
The prevention measures introduced through the Avian Influenza Prevention Zones, including addition of mandatory housing measures and changes to bird gatherings general licence, are introduced in a phased and escalating manner proportionate to the escalating risk to an area and may be introduced on a regional or national basis depending on the epidemiological situation.
We continue to monitor the current situation both in Europe and globally, as well as the effectiveness of any disease control measures taken. Any future decisions on disease control measures will be based upon the latest scientific, ornithological, and veterinary advice.
Egg Marketing Standards provides a 16-week derogation period during which the free-range description can be retained on eggs even if hens have been housed.
Defra currently has no plans to review this derogation period. However, in recognition of the pressures the egg sector is currently facing, particularly rising input costs alongside the impacts of Avian Influenza, Defra has granted a concession which will apply if the housing orders that are currently in place in England exceed the 16 week derogation period. This concession will allow producers and packers, on a one-off basis, the option to use either direct print to pack or an affixed label on free-range boxes. Accompanying clear and transparent point of sale signage should also be in place to ensure consumers are not misled and to avoid undermining consumer confidence in the free-range industry.
HM Government welcomes the robust regulatory response from Ofwat to incentivise water companies to deliver for their customers, the environment and wider society.
The financial penalties imposed for missing performance commitments will rightly be returned to customers in the next financial year. There is no requirement from HM Government for companies to itemise these reductions on individual customer bills and individual company billing practices will differ.
As the Secretary of State requested, we have received letters from all water companies on how they plan to make improvements, and we are now working with them to establish where they can do more and opportunities to speed up delivery.
We will respond shortly regarding Potential infrastructure projects and opportunities.
I refer to the Written Statement HLWS449 made on 16 December 2022 and Written Statement HCWS456 made on 19 December 2022.
HM Government considers that the interests of both the environment and consumers are best protected with separate bodies for environmental and economic regulation. There are regular discussions between Ofwat and the Environment Agency to facilitate regulation of water companies, as well as with the Drinking Water Inspectorate and Defra.
Ofwat’s price review process incentivises and penalises companies in relation to their performance, resulting in companies having to return money to customers where they fail to meet relevant performance commitments. Ofwat and the Environment Agency work closely to agree those performance commitments related to environmental performance.
Enforcement action against water companies is strengthened because of Ofwat and the Environment Agency having differing routes and tools for sanctions.
Ofwat can take enforcement action where companies either fail to comply with their statutory duties and licence obligations or are likely to do so. Ofwat’s enforcement sanction options include enforcement orders, and it can directly impose financial penalties, secure formal undertakings from companies (that previously included money being returned to their customers in respect of their failings) and fines paid to the Treasury’s Consolidated Fund.
The Environment Agency’s enforcement powers are focused more on individual incidents and sites and include intervention orders, civil sanctions and criminal proceedings, when fines can be imposed as part of the sentencing. Since 2015, the Environment Agency has brought 54 prosecutions against water companies, securing fines of almost £140 million.
In June 2019, Ofwat imposed a penalty package on Southern Water of £126 million for spills of wastewater into the environment from its sewerage plants and for deliberately misreporting its performance, which contravened both statutory obligations and licence conditions. £3 million was paid as a fine, while £123 million will be reimbursed to Southern Water’s customers. They received a £17 rebate in 2020/21 and will receive an £11 rebate in each of the following four years.
In parallel, the Environment Agency brought a criminal case against Southern Water for widespread and long-term breaches of environmental law. The case saw pollution offences from 16 wastewater treatment works and one storm overflow brought together in a single prosecution. The £90 million fine was the largest imposed against a water company, because of a prosecution bought by the Environment Agency.
In November 2021, the two regulators launched the largest ever criminal and civil investigations into water company operation of their sewage treatment works, considering over 2200 treatment works. This followed new data coming to light because of increased monitoring programmes the Environment Agency and Ofwat had required and funded. To date, Ofwat has opened enforcement cases with six companies, whilst all other water and sewerage companies in England and Wales remain subject to its ongoing investigation.
HM Government will always consider the learning and outcomes of reports and inquiries to ensure effective regulation and enforcement in the water sector. This will include the outcomes of the House of Lord’s Industry and Regulators Committee’s current inquiry ‘The Work of Ofwat’, which is considering the regulator’s relationship with HM Government and the other regulators.
We want the Environmental Land Management schemes to be user friendly, and easy to access and engage with, so that advice can focus on where it will really add value.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is a simple, menu-based scheme which is largely self-service, supported by high quality, very accessible technical guidance – freely available to all farmers and land managers whether in schemes or not. This is being tested during pilot and early rollout and we are responding quickly to the feedback.
The Local Nature Recovery and Landscape Recovery schemes are expected to need a greater level of advisory support than SFI. We are exploring through our tests, trials and ongoing detailed policy design work the need for advice in these schemes, how best it could be delivered, and who is best placed to provide it.
We have also been clear that we intend to support collaboration in these schemes. We found in our tests and trials that local facilitators can really help people work together effectively. We plan to work with farmers and other experts to set up a new facilitation offer that builds on the successes and lessons to be learned from the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund, which remains open to anyone eligible for agri-environment schemes.
In addition, through our Landscape Recovery pilots we will test how we can best support groups of land managers to deliver large-scale land use change projects, including through our funded project development phase.
The Future Farming Resilience Fund has been developed to provide free business support to farmers and land managers during the agricultural transition. ALB advisers will also provide targeted support to encourage good engagement and ensure high quality agreements.
We are working with existing providers to support development of environmental skills and accreditation in the commercial advice sector. The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management have developed a competency framework for environmental advisers and BASIS have set up an Environmental Adviser Register which requires a qualification to entry or demonstration of knowledge and experience, coupled with an ongoing continuous professional development requirement.
These various advice and information pathways should result in land managers taking better account for the environment in their business, leading to innovation and improvements in land use and management practices.
The success of Environmental Land Management Schemes will be evaluated using a range of indicators and metrics. Area of land under management is just one of the indicators that we will be using to evaluate the success of the schemes. We have specifically set out a number of size-based goals that we will be monitoring, further details are available in the policy paper Environmental land management schemes: outcomes published on 6 January 2022 (GOV.UK), including the aim that by 2028, at least 70% of farmers, covering at least 70% of farmland, will take up Sustainable Farming Incentive agreements. We have also committed to deliver at least 10 Landscape Recovery projects covering over 20,000 ha between now and 2024.
We have recently seen a greater interest in our Countryside Stewardship schemes with a 40% increase in scheme applications in 2021 compared to 2020. Alongside the new Environmental Land Management schemes these increases should help to contribute to many of our most important key targets and ambitions.
We are building on our experience of delivering, monitoring and evaluating agri-environment schemes over the last few decades, working closely with farmers, land managers and wider industry stakeholders to test, trial and pilot our approach to scheme design and delivery, including monitoring and evaluation.
We are in the process of establishing our monitoring and evaluation plans for each of the Environmental Land Management schemes. To ensure strength in design of our monitoring and evaluation we are using a mixed methods research approach, this includes consideration of how to compare between sites that our participating in schemes and those that are not. This will help us to understand what additionality and impact our schemes are delivering.
More specifically, in the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot, land managers will be supported through monitoring and site visits to track how they are delivering their outcomes. Similar to our approach to monitoring Countryside Stewardship, we are using a combination of physical and virtual site visits, remote monitoring, and desk-based administrative checks. We are still designing our monitoring and evaluation plans for Local Nature Recovery. In the first round of Landscape Recovery, each project will be responsible for developing their monitoring, evaluation, and learning strategy. There will also be scheme-level monitoring, evaluation and learning which will help us learn about how the scheme is working and make improvements for later rounds of Landscape Recovery projects.
We have produced early assessments of the potential impact of all land management actions being considered by the ELM schemes on environmental outcomes (including biodiversity), how these are relevant to our environmental priorities and outcomes (as published in Environmental Land Management: Outcomes, January 2022), as well as what the potential impact on food production may be.
We have a legal duty as per the Agriculture Act 2020 to consider the impact of our schemes on our ability to produce food in a sustainable way. We embed that duty into all elements of our scheme development. In addition, as the design and content of the schemes mature, we will draw upon modelling to refine our understanding and quantify the full impact of the schemes. This modelling will bring together an ongoing commissioned project to understand the environmental, and associated societal, impacts of land management actions across England over space and time with a project exploring the structure of the farming population and agricultural sector.
On 5 October 2021, a sewage discharge was made from Broadstairs Waste Water Treatment Works operated by Southern Water Services through the Short Sea Outfall to the sea at Joss Bay, Broadstairs. The Environment Agency investigation into the incident is ongoing.
The Environment Agency has been working closely with partners including Thanet District Council and Southern Water Services to mitigate the effects from the discharge. Thanet District Council, in consultation with the Environment Agency, issued advice against bathing at ten designated bathing waters and other non-designated bathing waters on the North Kent coast. Southern Water and Thanet District Council have undertaken daily inspections of the Thanet beaches since the spill, and advice against bathing has now been lifted on all bathing water beaches.
It is the responsibility of Southern Water Services to ensure that such releases do not occur and that in the event of any technical failure that they have resilient back up plans in place.
Improving water quality is a Government priority and we are clear that incidents of this kind are unacceptable. The Government is working across a range of measures to crack down on water pollution, including through implementing and enforcing regulation, working closely with Storm Overflows Taskforce - chaired by Defra - and a new package of commitments in the Environment Bill.
We have made it crystal clear to water companies that they must significantly reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows as a priority. The draft Strategic Policy Statement to Ofwat sets out our expectation that companies work to significantly reduce storm overflows for the first time and we expect funding to be approved for water companies to be able to do so. We have announced that we will put that instruction on a statutory footing with a new duty on water companies to progressively reduce impacts of sewage discharges.
The Government has also committed to publish a plan by September 2022 to address the harm caused by sewage discharges from storm overflows and reduce their impact on the environment.
The Environment Agency will work closely with Southern Water Services to both support and regulate their activity and to monitor improvement works to the waste water infrastructure around the North Kent coast. Failure to make improvements or comply with environmental permits in line with Environment Agency procedures may result in enforcement action.