Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to increase the financial penalty for the crime of livestock worrying by dogs to ensure there is a serious deterrent for dog owners.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government takes the issue of livestock worrying very seriously, recognising the distress this can cause animals and their keepers. The Government is supporting a Private Members’ Bill to amend the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953. The Bill will improve police powers to enable the police to respond to livestock worrying incidents more effectively and to act as a deterrent.
Livestock worrying is principally a crime of negligence, not of intent. Those found guilty of committing an offence face a penalty of a maximum fine of £1,000. The Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill will maintain this maximum penalty.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to increasing the fixed-penalty fine for fly-tipping to a maximum of £2,000.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Under the Prime Minister’s Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan, the Government recently raised the upper limit on the fixed penalty notices councils can issue to £1,000 for fly-tipping and £600 for householders who pass their waste to an unlicensed waste carrier. This reflects the increased severity with which the Government views these crimes and allows councils to take tougher action against fly-tippers.
We will continue to work with local authorities to assess the impacts of these changes. There are no plans to increase the fixed penalty levels further at this time.
Local authorities also have powers to stop, search and seize vehicles of suspected fly-tippers and to prosecute offenders, which can lead to an unlimited fine or imprisonment if convicted in court.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of ash trees infected with the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus in the year 2023.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government does not collect data on the number of individual ash trees that have become infected with ash dieback, but the disease is now present in all counties and is predicted to kill over 100 million trees in the UK. Hymenoscyphus fraxineus is spread via spores which can spread for considerable distances in the wind before infecting another ash tree. This means it is not possible to limit the spread of the disease. Some local authorities conduct annual surveys of ash trees to track local spread and decline and inform their management strategies.
In most areas, a majority of ash trees are now expected to be infected, but the response of individual ash trees to infection is highly variable. The most susceptible trees often die within a few years and the most resistant trees may show little damage and sometimes signs of recovery between years. The severity and impact of the disease at a local level also varies by tree age and condition, climate, the presence of secondary pathogens and other environmental factors.
From observations in Europe and the UK, we expect a minimum of 1-5% of ash trees to be naturally resistant to the disease. Resistance is heritable which offers hope for a future breeding programme and Defra is investing in R&D to support this.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to encourage local councils to replicate the 'mega skip' days run by Wandsworth Council to reduce incidences of fly-tipping.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Across two rounds of our fly-tipping grant scheme we have awarded nearly £1.2m to help councils across the country introduce interventions to tackle fly-tipping hotspots. Successful projects have included community or ‘waste amnesty’ days. A selection of case studies from completed projects are available online so that others can learn about those interventions which were most successful. These can be found at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/fly-tipping-intervention-grant-scheme.
We are currently reviewing applications for a further round of grants, which could see an additional £1m handed out in the spring to help even more councils tackle the issue.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many household waste and recycling centres have closed since January 2023 because of budgetary constraints of local authorities.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government does not have detailed information on decisions behind local authority service implementation. Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) are an important service to help ensure residents can dispose of waste in a responsible manner and we encourage local authorities to ensure appropriate provisions are made.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of household waste and recycling centre closures on incidences of fly-tipping.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have previously commissioned research into the drivers, deterrents and impacts of fly-tipping that suggested any friction in the system relating to the use of Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs), which have negative impacts on cost or convenience, can act as provocations for normally law-abiding people or businesses to fly-tip or give their waste to someone who goes on to fly-tip. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires waste disposal authorities to provide places for residents to deposit household waste. It is a Local Authority responsibility to manage suitable availability.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to provide education and outreach programmes to consumers to reduce food waste and promote sustainable food choices.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra funds the Waste and Resources Action Programme’s citizen campaigns such as Food Waste Action Week (18-24 March 2024) and Love Food Hate Waste, which aim to raise public awareness of food waste and the ways in which we can all reduce it. We support retailers and food businesses with the development of best practice advice and guidance to make sure their products help consumers to waste less, for instance, through storage advice.
To support consumers who wish to make more sustainable food choices, Defra is developing a mandatory methodology for the voluntary labelling of food and drink products.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to manage grocery inflation in light of disruption to the Red Sea and the potential delay in shipping times.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, which is well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption.
Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources: strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes. The proportion of UK food imports using the Red Sea routes is extremely small and we do not expect the disruption to have a significant impact on UK consumer food prices in the short term.
We produce 60% of all the food we need, and 73% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year. These figures have changed little over the last 20 years, and the Government is committed to maintaining the amount of food produced domestically to support our farmers.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the need to invest in infrastructure and technology to support food waste valorisation to reduce (1) greenhouse gas emissions, and (2) the amount of waste sent to landfill.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
New provisions in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (as amended by the Environment Act 2021) will require all local authorities and relevant non-domestic premises in England to arrange for the collection of food waste for recycling. Our preference is for food waste to be separately collected for treatment by anaerobic digestion which produces biogas and significant carbon savings over sending food waste to landfill.
This will help achieve our commitment for at least 65% of municipal waste by weight to be recycled by 2035, with no more than 10% ending up in landfill. It will also support our commitment to explore options for the near elimination of biodegradable municipal waste to landfill from 2028.
Government currently supports anaerobic digestion (AD) through the Green Gas Support Scheme (GGSS), which provides tariff-support for AD-produced biomethane injected into the gas grid.
Through a minimum waste feedstock threshold, and lifecycle greenhouse gas criteria, the GGSS encourages the use of waste feedstocks for biomethane production due to their significantly greater upstream carbon savings compared to sending those wastes to landfill.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to promote the adoption of cold chain methods globally to reduce food loss and waste in supply chains.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is supporting action to reduce food loss internationally through the Official Development Assistance funded Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain Solutions programme. This programme promotes the adoption of sustainable cold chain solutions by providing policy and technical assistance to improve cold chain availability, and through capacity building to reduce food waste resulting from lack of efficient cold chain in countries predominantly across Africa and Asia. This programme has funded the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain (ACES) – a first-of-kind Centre dedicated to sustainable cooling, cold-chain and post-harvest management, launching from March this year.