Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to ensure the (a) quality and (b) transparency of information provided by companies under the Environment Act 2021 due diligence legislation on forest risk commodities.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We consulted on the implementation of our due diligence regulations under the Environment Act and published a summary of responses and a government response to the consultation in June 2022.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what level of sourcing information will be required of companies under the due diligence requirements on forest risk commodities of the Environment Act 2021.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We consulted on the implementation of our due diligence regulations under the Environment Act and published a summary of responses and a government response to the consultation in June 2022.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which priority forest risk commodities the Environment Act 2021 due diligence secondary legislation will include.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We consulted on the implementation of our due diligence regulations under the Environment Act and published a summary of responses and a government response to the consultation in June 2022.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether cocoa will be included in the deforestation due diligence regulations from initial implementation.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We consulted on the implementation of our due diligence regulations under the Environment Act and published a summary of responses and a government response to the consultation in June 2022.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of using volume thresholds rather than turnover in ensuring companies handling a high volume of forest risk commodities are in scope of the Environment Act 2021 due diligence regulations.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We consulted on the implementation of our due diligence regulations under the Environment Act and published a summary of responses and a government response to the consultation in June 2022.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how long after the Environment Act 2021 due diligence secondary legislation is passed she plans to bring tit into force.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We consulted on the implementation of our due diligence regulations under the Environment Act and published a summary of responses and a government response to the consultation in June 2022.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether all companies will be in scope of the Environment Act 2021 due diligence regulations..
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We consulted on the implementation of our due diligence regulations under the Environment Act and published a summary of responses and a government response to the consultation in June 2022.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on what basis penalties for non-compliance under the Environment Act 2021 due diligence regulations will be calculated.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We consulted on the implementation of our due diligence regulations under the Environment Act and published a summary of responses and a government response to the consultation in June 2022.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department is taking steps to help prevent animals being (a) killed on roads or (b) left by the roadside following being killed or injured on agricultural land.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local authorities are responsible for managing their road networks and have a range of duties and responsibilities to meet in doing so. However, there is no specific requirement on them to prevent or reduce animal deaths on roads. Where wildlife poses a risk to drivers, for example where large animals may be in the road ahead, local authorities can erect traffic signs to warn them.
A focus for this Government is to make roads safer for all users, which will in turn reduce the risk to all animals.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of (a) special areas of conservation, (b) special protected areas and (c) sites of special scientific interest in England did not meet the favourable condition status because of air pollution in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Our recently published Environmental Improvement Plan recognises that air pollution, in particular ammonia, harms biodiversity through nitrogen deposition. The Plan sets out action that Defra has taken including publication of guidance, delivery of advice through Catchment Sensitive Farming and funding for low emissions farm equipment. It also includes ambitious further measures to drive down emissions of ammonia from farming, including new rules to reduce emissions from organic manures and extension of environmental permitting to dairy and intensive beef farms.
The Trends report published by Defra indicates the proportion of SACs, SPAs and SSSIs that are in exceedance of critical loads and levels for atmospheric nitrogen pollution and can be found here: Trends Report 2022: Trends in critical load and critical level exceedances in the UK.
According to the 2022 report, over 90% of sensitive SACs, SPAs and SSSIs are predicted to exceed their site-relevant critical loads for nutrient nitrogen deposition for at least one of their features:
a) 90.9% of sensitive SACs or approx. 78% of all SACs
b) 91.7% of sensitive SPAs or approx. 85% of all SPAs
c) 91.1% of sensitive SSSIs or approx. 65% of all SSSIs
Exceedance of acidity critical loads is predicted for 73.3% of sensitive SACs, 85.7% SPAs and 55.7% of sensitive SSSIs
Information on air quality for individual protected sites can be found on the Air Pollution Information System (www.apis.ac.uk).