Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to accelerate plans (1) to improve air quality, and (2) to reduce pollution, in city centres.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Our Clean Air Strategy sets out an ambitious programme of action to reduce air pollution from a wide range of sources in our towns and cities. We have also put in place a £3.8 billion plan to tackle roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations. Our Environment Bill makes a clear commitment to set a legally binding target to reduce fine particulate matter and enables greater local action by ensuring responsibility for tackling air pollution is shared across local government structures and with relevant public authorities. We are also strengthening the ability of local authorities to tackle smoke emissions from domestic solid fuel burning, which is a major source of fine particulate matter.
Under the Local Air Quality Management Framework, local authorities are required to review and assess local air quality and to declare an Air Quality Management Area if monitoring indicates exceedance of local air quality standards and objectives, and are then required to develop an Air Quality Action Plan to address the exceedance.
The UK plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations outlines how councils with the worst air pollution concentrations must take robust action to improve air quality. The plan requires local areas to produce their own plans to accelerate air quality improvement. These plans include Clean Air Zones (CAZs) which will deliver targeted action in air pollution hot spots. Bath & North East Somerset Council will introduce a CAZ on 15 March 2021 with Birmingham City Council following on 1 June 2021. We have committed a further £2.5 billion to support a number of cities improve their local transport systems through the Transforming Cities Fund - a number of these projects will help deliver air quality improvements.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the ability of online suppliers to maintain the delivery of food and other essential products to people self-isolating due to COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Government has well-established ways of working with the food industry during disruption to supply situations. Our retailers already have highly resilient supply chains and they are working around the clock to ensure people have the food and products they need. Industry has adapted quickly to these changes in demands, and we welcome the actions they are taking to support demand for online deliveries, including hiring more staff and prioritising delivery slots for those that need them most.
To help the industry, the Government has already introduced new measures to support online deliveries. We have temporarily relaxed elements of competition law to enable supermarkets to work more closely together to ensure people can access the products they need. Food retailers are now able to share data on their stock levels, cooperate to keep stores open and share staff, distribution depots and delivery vehicles. This is helping keep shops open and staffed and better able to meet high demand. Guidance has been issued to local authorities to show flexibility to allow extended delivery hours to supermarkets to ensure shelves can be replenished more quickly. The Transport Secretary has also announced a temporary and limited relaxation of the drivers’ hours rules so that more goods can be delivered to every store every day.
The Government has begun to deliver food parcels to those identified by the NHS as being extremely clinically vulnerable.
We are working quickly to support people who do not fall into the category of being clinically vulnerable, but still need help getting essential food supplies. We will be launching a communications campaign to signpost vulnerable people to a range of support options. We are working closely with Local Authorities to direct vulnerable people to support available at the local level, as well as working in parallel with supermarkets to prioritise vulnerable individuals. Wherever possible, people should continue to rely on friends, families and wider community support.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the Gulf Stream is slowing; and whether any such slowing is having an effect on (1) the UK's climate, and (2) any increase in extreme weather events, including flooding.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The Gulf Stream is a small part of a large, global-scale ocean ‘conveyor belt’ of circulation, driven by winds and by differences in temperature and salinity, known as the ‘Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation’ (AMOC). The AMOC has been measured since 2004 by an international observation system called RAPID, in which the UK plays a leading role. These measurements have shown a slowing over the last decade, however much of this may be from natural variability.
A recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in the Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, found some evidence to indicate the AMOC has already weakened relative to the pre-industrial period (1850 – 1900), and finds it very likely that the AMOC will continue weakening over the rest of the 21st Century.
A large slowing of the AMOC would be expected to cause more winter storms over northern Europe, a decrease in marine biological productivity in the North Atlantic and changes in sea level. These effects would be superimposed on the effects of climate warming due to greenhouse gases, and they are included in the climate model projections used by the IPCC. At this stage we do not have evidence that the observed weakening of the AMOC has had a detectable impact on the UK climate.
The second Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) published in 2017 identifies risks to flooding and coastal change as one of the UK’s top six risks from climate change. The second National Adaptation Programme (NAP) published in 2018, sets out a plan of actions across Government to address these risks (amongst others identified in the CCRA) over the following 5 years. In addition, updated UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) are a key tool to help the Government, businesses and the public understand the future climate and enable them to make climate-resilient decisions.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what evidence they have that the badger cull in Somerset and Gloucestershire has been effective.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
In September of this year, the Animal and Plant Health Agency published data showing there has been a drop in cattle TB incidence in the first two cull areas, where the number of new confirmed breakdowns has dropped by around 50%. In the Gloucestershire cull area, the incidence of TB has dropped from 10.4% before culling began to 5.6% in the twelve months following the fourth year of culling. In the Somerset cull area, it has dropped from 24% to 12%.
Using the TB incidence measure for this purpose is in line with the reporting of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial and National Statistics. It is the best way to monitor the impact of badger control in these areas. These data provide an encouraging sign that the steps we are taking to control the disease are having a positive impact, and are consistent with the effects seen during the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. Further analysis of the data is underway and will be submitted to a scientific journal for publication in due course.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent flooding in the UK, the slowing of the Gulf Stream, and the COP21 climate talks in Paris, what strategy they have to address increasingly extreme weather patterns affecting the UK’s climate.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Climate Change Act 2008 requires Government to identify, every five years, the risks from a changing climate, including from extreme weather, and to put in place programmes to address them.
The first Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) was published in 2012 and identified over 100 risks to the UK, up to the 2100s. Work is well underway on the second CCRA, which will be published in January 2017. The first National Adaptation Programme, which laid out how risks identified in the CCRA are being addressed, was published in 2013, and the second will be produced around 2018.
In the biennial National Risk Assessment (NRA), the Government assesses the most significant hazards and threats that could affect the UK over the next five years. It considers natural events such as extreme weather and their resulting impacts (for example, flooding, severe storms and gales, low temperatures and heavy snow, heatwaves, drought). The NRA informs the National Resilience Planning Assumptions which support response and recovery planning at both local and national levels.
The Government also works with the owners and operators of the UK’s most critical infrastructure to produce annual Sector Resilience Plans (SRPs), which set out the resilience of the UK’s most important infrastructure to the relevant risks identified in the NRA. Plans identify potential vulnerabilities and set out a programme of measures to improve resilience where necessary.