Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make it his policy to issue a condition on all fishing licences to prevent vessels from using bottom-towed gear to fish within marine protected areas.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The designation and management of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is a devolved competency and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
Nearly 60% of the 181 English MPAs are already protected from damaging fishing activity by byelaws including those announced on 31 January this year. Byelaws are preferred rather than licence conditions in MPAs because they can be introduced on a site-by-site basis to ensure that measures can be tailored to meet the conservation objectives of each site and without unnecessarily restricting fishing activity. Providing the fishing industry and other stakeholders with the opportunity to work closely with management authorities to shape these byelaws is crucial to their long-term success.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to monitor the environmental impact of the use of the product Cruiser SB on sugar beet crops.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
If Cruiser SB is used on the 2024 sugar beet crop, the sugar beet industry will be required to carry out a range of environmental monitoring activities as a condition of the emergency authorisation. This will be supplemented by several government-funded monitoring projects.
The overall programme will include the monitoring of residues of thiamethoxam (the active ingredient in Cruiser SB) and its metabolite, clothianidin, in the environment, to gain a better understanding of potential exposure to non-target organisms. This will include monitoring the soil of treated fields; the soil, vegetation, and pollen from field margins; and rivers in sugar beet catchments. Detail of similar monitoring programmes carried out after an emergency authorisation for Cruiser SB was granted in 2023 can be found within the HSE’s emergency registration report on Cruiser SB, published on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he considered the prevention principle when making his decision on the emergency authorisation of Cruiser SB on sugar beet crops in 2024.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The environmental principles policy statement requires the government to apply the prevention principle in the development of policy. It is not applied when decisions are taken under existing policy/legal frameworks, as was the case for the consideration of the emergency authorisation for Cruiser SB.
A full statement of reasons for the decision on the application for emergency authorisation for the use of Cruiser SB on sugar beet crops in 2024 can be found here.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to emergency authorisation of Cruiser SB on sugar beet crops in 2024, what discussions his Department has had with British Sugar on support for farmers who choose not to use Cruiser SB on their crops, including about (a) processing and (b) marketing of neonicotinoid-free sugar.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
On 1st November 2023, Defra hosted a roundtable with members of the British sugar industry and environmental NGOs to discuss British Sugar’s action plan, the Virus Yellows Pathway to find alternative methods to neonicotinoids in controlling Virus Yellows in the British sugar crop. The roundtable allowed British Sugar to present their work to date, as well as allowing the opportunity for Defra and our external partners to encourage further work in this area.
Of particular emphasis was the need for British Sugar to encourage peer-to-peer learning between sugar beet farmers. This would allow farmers who opt not to use neonicotinoids to share knowledge and help expedite the transition to neonicotinoid free farming, which I encourage British Sugar to take forward at pace.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timetable is for meetings between the European Commission and the supervisory bodies of the United Kingdom as required by Article 395 of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement; and how these bodies will be defined.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Article 395 of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) states that the European Commission and supervisory bodies of the UK shall meet regularly. The date of the first meeting is to be agreed with the European Commission.
The Article concerns cooperation on the effective monitoring and enforcement of environment and climate laws, and therefore meetings may include a range of public bodies in the UK that have this remit including the UK Government, the Devolved Governments and the Office for Environmental Protection and its equivalents across the UK. The UK is committed to effective implementation of the TCA and to implementing our world-leading environmental protection laws.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Answer of 10 July 2023 to Question 191768 on Pesticides, what his revised timetable is for publishing the updated National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We will publish the National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides shortly. It will set out Defra’s ambition to minimise the risks and impacts of pesticides to human health and the environment, including how we intend to increase the uptake of Integrated Pest Management across all sectors.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the environmental impact of the end of cross-compliance regulations for rural payments on (a) hedgerows, (b) soil cover and (c) watercourse buffer strips.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
An assessment of the environmental and economic impacts of the removal of direct payments and cross compliance was published in September 2018, during the passage of the Agriculture Bill.
We will seek to regulate to maintain hedgerow protections when parliamentary time allows. The gaps between cross compliance rules and regulatory requirements in regard to water buffer strips and soil cover are either mitigated by regulation such as through generalised provisions in Farming Rules for Water and the Water Resources Act, guidance like the Code of Practice of the use of Plant Protection Products, and standards in the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to replace the cross-compliance regulations for rural payments which ceased to have effect on 31 December 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Farm standards following the end of cross compliance are being maintained through existing and ongoing domestic regulations that protect the environment, public, animal and plant health and animal welfare. These regulations cover most of the cross-compliance rules. Almost all of the rules that are not in underlying legislation have cover through existing and forthcoming guidance, regulation or incentives. We will seek to regulate to maintain hedgerow protections when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the press release entitled Sale of horticultural peat to be banned in move to protect England’s precious peatlands, published on 17 August 2022, on what date the commitment to ban the sale of peat for use in the amateur gardening sector will come into effect.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In August 2022 we announced that we would ban the sale of peat for use in amateur gardening; we remain committed to this and plan to legislate when Parliamentary time allows. It remains our policy that we intend to legislate to restrict, and ultimately ban, the sale of peat and peat containing products. We have seen a significant reduction in peat use, due to the demand for peat-free growing media from an increasingly environmentally aware public.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 29 November 2023 to Question 3178, for what reason he has not been able to provide a date for when his Department plans to publish the summary of the business case for the Office for Environmental Protection.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra intends to publish the Office for Environment Protection summary business case by end of 2023.