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 Global Resources Initiative Final Recommendations Report, published in March 2020, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the recommendation in that Report that the Government urgently introduces a mandatory due diligence obligation on companies that place commodities and derived products that contribute to deforestation on the UK market; if she will make it her policy to introduce this in the deforestation due diligence schedule under the Environment Act 2021; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Following consultation in August 2020 and building on recommendations from the GRI, the UK Government introduced world-leading legislation through the Environment Act to tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains. This is one part of a wider package of measures to improve the sustainability of our supply chains and will contribute to global efforts to protect forests and other ecosystems. The Environment Act provisions will make it illegal for larger businesses operating in the UK to use key forest risk commodities produced on land illegally occupied or used. Businesses in scope will also be required to undertake a due diligence exercise on their supply chains, to assess and mitigate the risk of regulated commodities having been produced on land illegally owned and used, and to report on this exercise annually. To ensure transparency, information about businesses' due diligence exercises will be published. Businesses in scope that do not comply with these requirements may be subject to fines and other civil sanctions. This law will help us to ensure there is no place on our supermarket shelves for commodities that have been grown on land illegally occupied or used and to support other countries to strengthen and enforce their forest protection measures.
The Government ran a second consultation from 3 December 2021 to 11 March 2022 to seek views on the details of regulations that will implement the Environment Act provisions, to ensure that these are designed effectively. We published a summary of responses to this consultation on 1 June 2022 and are committed to implementing due diligence provisions at the earliest opportunity through secondary legislation.
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 her department has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending public rights of access as a means to deliver on the commitment in the Environmental Improvement Plan that everyone should live within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We announced in our Environmental Improvement Plan in January our intention to work across government to ensure that everyone lives within a 15-minute walk of a blue or green space and committed to work in parallel to reduce barriers to access.
We are currently focused on developing the right modelling tools and indicators to allow us to accurately measure the baseline, identify where to target efforts and to track future progress, engaging closely with stakeholders as we do so. As part of this we will consider the role of Rights on Way in helping to deliver this commitment.
The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 provides for a right to roam across open access land, giving the public a right of access to most areas of mountain, moor, heath, down, registered common land and coastal margin. This means that public already has the ‘right to roam’ over many areas of wild, open countryside. We have no plans to change this.
England also has a fantastic network of footpaths with over 120,000 miles of public rights of way as well as many permissive access routes, including over 200,000 hectares of Forestry Commission freehold land.
We are also working to complete the King Charles III England Coast Path (KCIIIECP) which will create 250,000 hectares of new open access land within the coastal margin. At around 2,700 miles, KCIIIECP will be the longest waymarked and maintained coast walking route in the world and over 850 miles of the path are now open to the 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, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Environmental Quality and Resilience of 28 June 2023, Official Report, column 282, and to the Consultation on change of ownership for Southern Water Services Limited, published by Ofwat in August 2022, what steps Ofwat is taking to work with Southern Water on its financial resilience; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Ofwat monitors and assesses the financial resilience of each company on an individual and ongoing basis and challenges companies where they identify the need. Each year, in its Monitoring Financial Resilience Report, Ofwat sets out its key messages and observations on financial resilience across the sector.
Ofwat has used intervention and regulatory guidance to encourage Southern Water to improve financial resilience and outcomes for customers and the environment.
In 2021, Southern Water’s investors injected around £530 million to improve operational performance and support its financial position. Southern Water was also required to prepare a turnaround plan, which sets out how it will improve its overall performance. Progress against the delivery of its plan is being closely monitored by Ofwat.
The Environment Act 2021 gave Ofwat improved powers to modify water company licenses without consent from water companies. This has enabled Ofwat to strengthen its existing ring-fence framework and to intervene at an earlier stage where companies are experiencing financial resilience challenges. This allows greater engagement between Ofwat and water companies so that they can seek timely improvements and/or mitigating actions, to better protect water customers.
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 she has made of the success of her Department’s policy on voluntary access arrangements on inland waterways as a means to increase access on unregulated waters; and how many kilometres of new access has been secured for recreation in this Parliament.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Given the wide range of local circumstances, the Government does not have a role in making voluntary access agreement arrangements, nor do we monitor or hold information on them, since they are tailored to local situations enabling the needs of different users to be balanced both with each other and with the property rights of landowners.
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 paragraph 6 of Annex 1 of the Full Minutes of the meeting of the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides on 18 April 2023, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the conclusion that the Committee does not support an emergency authorisation under Article 53 of Regulation 1107/2009 for the aerial or land-based application of Asulox to control bracken due to risks that cannot be mitigated; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Bracken can overwhelm sensitive habitats and threaten grazing land and the establishment of new tree plantings. This is why, after very careful consideration, an emergency authorisation has been granted for the limited and strictly controlled use of Asulox to control bracken in England in 2023.
The application for emergency authorisation was considered according to the legal tests and it was concluded that authorisation was necessary because of a danger that could not be controlled by other reasonable means, there were special circumstances, and the use of the product would be limited and controlled, with strict conditions in place to minimise the impacts to the environment and wildlife.
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, when her Department plans to publish the 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 updated National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides this year.
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 her Department are taking to ensure that all people live within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space; and what steps she plans to take to measure progress towards that target.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We know that there are significant health and wellbeing benefits to spending time in nature. That is why we announced in our Environmental Improvement Plan in January our intention to work across government to ensure that everyone lives within a 15 minute walk of a blue or green space. We also committed to work in parallel to reduce barriers to access.
Achieving delivery of these cross-government commitments, to bring nature closer to people and reduce barriers to accessing it, is a long-term goal. We are currently focused on developing the right modelling tools and indicators to allow us to accurately measure the baseline, identify where to target efforts and to track future progress, engaging closely with stakeholders as we do so. At the same time, we continue to deliver existing work across Government in this area, such as the Access for All programme, Farming in Protected Landscapes, the Green Infrastructure Framework, the Levelling Up Parks Fund and the Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Strategy.
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 commitment in the Environmental Improvement Plan that everyone should live within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space, what assessment she has made of the implications for that policy of the proportion of (a) waterways and (b) inland blue space in England that has a statutory right of public access.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We know that there are significant health and wellbeing benefits to spending time in nature. That is why we announced in our Environmental Improvement Plan in January our intention to work across Government to ensure that everyone lives within a 15 minute walk of a blue or green space. We also committed to work in parallel to reduce barriers to access.
Achieving delivery of these cross government commitments, to bring nature closer to people and reduce barriers to accessing it, is a long term goal. We are currently focused on developing the right modelling tools and indicators to allow us to accurately measure the baseline, identify where to target efforts and to track future progress, engaging closely with stakeholders as we do so. At the same time we continue to deliver existing work across Government in this area, such as the Access for All programme, the Green Infrastructure Framework, the Levelling Up Parks Fund and the Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Strategy.
Access on waterways, and other inland blue spaces such as lakes, where there is no established public right of navigation should be arranged with the relevant landowners through local voluntary access agreements, to ensure the interests of all parties concerned are taken into account.
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 she has made of the implications for her policies on the regeneration of woodland of the number of hectares of natural colonisation that have been established in England through the woodland creation offer.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Natural colonisation has the potential to be a useful approach for woodland creation when utilised on appropriate sites, as an alternative to or complementing conventional planting. Through careful planning and management, allowing and helping natural processes to colonise land with trees can create woodlands with a structurally diverse range of habitats, while appearing natural in the landscape. That is why we are providing innovative grant finance and guidance to support natural colonisation through the England Woodland Creation Offer, as well as other grants.
So far, the England Woodland Creation Offer has had 77 applications and agreements that include natural colonisation with a total area of 214 hectares. We are exploring ways to increase the uptake natural colonisation grants, and in support of this we are investing £1.1m to better understand the mechanics of natural colonisation.
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 she will make an estimate of shareholder dividends as a proportion of customer water bills for each water company in each of the past five years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State does not intend to make an estimate of shareholder dividends as a proportion of customer water bills. This would not be an accurate method to compare dividends between water companies. All water companies publish their water charges as well as their dividends payments on their websites, and therefore the information requested is already publicly available.