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Written Question
Darwin Initiative: Finance
Tuesday 13th February 2024

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

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 19 December 2023 to Question 5477 on Darwin Initiative: Finance, how much grant funding has been provided to organisations with representatives on the Darwin Extra panel in the last three years; and what proportion of total grant funding this figure represents.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Darwin Extra applications are assessed by the Darwin Expert Committee which then makes recommendations to Defra on which grants to fund. The Answer of 19 December 2023 to Question 5477 noted that Darwin Expert Committee members have declared an interest in 13 of the 107 organisations awarded Darwin Initiative grants in the past 3 years. These 13 organisations were awarded Darwin Initiative grants with a combined value of £37.9m, which represents 49% of the £77m awarded under Rounds 27-29; these 13 organisations also unsuccessfully bid for a further £76.3m of grant funding in Rounds 27-29.

The Darwin Initiative requires an Expert Committee with up-to-date, practical knowledge of how to implement successful international development and conservation projects. Under its last three funding rounds, the Darwin Initiative received applications from 915 organisations. To not permit anyone with links to these organisations to serve on the Darwin Initiative’s Expert Committee could limit Defra’s ability to determine which proposed investments are most likely to succeed.

To ensure the independence of any advice provided by the Committee, Defra has in place a robust conflicts of interest policy, where members are required to declare their interests and recuse themselves from the assessment of any application in which they have an interest. Decisions on which Darwin Initiative grants to award are taken by Defra.


Written Question
Darwin Initiative: Finance
Monday 12th February 2024

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

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 6 December 2023 to Question 5477 on Darwin Initiative: Finance, if he will appoint independent experts to the Darwin Expert Committee to decide grant applications.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Decisions on which Darwin Initiative grants to award are taken by Defra.

The Darwin Expert Committee technically assesses proposals and provides its' recommendations to Defra for consideration. Defra appoints new members to the Committee following an open and competitive recruitment process, based on their capabilities and technical expertise and not to represent the organisation for which they work.

To ensure the independence of the advice provided by the Committee, Defra has in place a robust conflicts of interest policy, where members are required to declare their interests and recuse themselves from the assessment of any application in which they have an interest. Under its last three funding rounds, the Darwin Initiative received applications from 915 organisations.


Written Question
Darwin Initiative
Monday 12th February 2024

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

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 potential merits of not permitting representatives of organisations which apply for Darwin funding from serving on (a) Darwin Initiative Extra and (b) the Darwin Expert Committee.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Under its last three funding rounds, the Darwin Initiative received applications from 915 organisations.

To robustly assess applications against published criteria, Defra requires technical experts with relevant experience and knowledge. If we were to prevent experts with links to these 915 organisations from joining the Darwin Expert Committee, we would significantly compromise the Committee's capability to technically assess and make recommendations to Defra.

This is why Defra put in place a robust conflicts of interest policy, where members are required to declare their interests and recuse themselves from the assessment of any application in which they have an interest.


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Written Questions
Thursday 18th January 2024

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to respond to Question (a) 5477 and (b) 5478 tabled by the Rt hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell on 6 December 2023.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Responses were published on 19 December 2023.


Written Question
Darwin Initiative: Finance
Tuesday 19th December 2023

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

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 list the organisations that received (a) Darwin and (b) Darwin Extra funding and are also represented on the Darwin expert panel in each of the last three years.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Darwin Initiative website details successful grants applications and names its Expert Committee members, alongside their associated organisations.

Darwin Expert Committee members have declared an interest in 13 of the 107 organisations awarded Darwin Initiative grants in the past 3 years. Committee members must recuse themselves from the assessment of any application in which they have declared an interest.

The 13 organisations are: Bangor University, Botanic Gardens Conservation International, C3 Philippines, Fauna and Flora International, International Institute for Environment and Development, Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh, Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, The Nature Conservancy, United Nations Environment Programme, University of Oxford, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wide Fund for Nature UK and the Zoological Society of London.


Written Question
Darwin Initiative: Finance
Tuesday 19th December 2023

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

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 list the applicants for the current round of Darwin Extra funding which are also represented on the Darwin expert panel.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra publishes the names of Darwin Expert Committee members and organisations they are associated on the Darwin Initiative website. Successful Darwin Initiative grant applications are also detailed on the same website. Defra does not reveal the identities of unsuccessful applicants as it considers this information to be sensitive. The current round of bidding for Darwin Extra grants is ongoing. Defra will publish details of successful applications when the process is complete.

The Darwin Initiative prevents Conflicts of Interest from influencing funding decisions by requiring its Expert Committee members to declare interests and recuse themselves from the assessment and discussion of any application in which they have an interest. This is monitored by Defra and in line with the Nolan Committee’s Seven Principles of Public Life.


Written Question
Marine Protected Areas: Fisheries
Tuesday 25th April 2023

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to extend the ban on bottom trawling in more highly protected marine areas.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Highly Protected Marine Areas are areas of the sea which will prohibit all destructive, extractive, and depositional activities, including bottom trawling. The Government announced it will explore additional Highly Protected Marine Areas this year.

We will also continue to ban bottom trawling in our Marine Protected Areas wherever that is needed to protect the designated species and habitats. The Marine Management Organisation recently consulted on a byelaw to manage fishing using bottom towed gear in a further 13 sites and is now analysing the responses received.


Written Question
Food: Labelling
Tuesday 25th April 2023

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress she has made on developing a system of food labelling to indicate the sustainability of the supply chain of food products.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government Food Strategy set out our commitment to deliver a sustainable and nature positive food system. Improving sustainability information is one of the ways we can support consumers who want to buy more sustainable food, tackle greenwashing and the proliferation of different labels on products to help to meet our climate and environmental goals. We have launched a Food Data Transparency Partnership which will develop a mandatory methodology that must be followed by those who want to use eco-labels or make sustainability claims about their products. We are working closely with industry and other technical experts, and will build on existing initiatives and schemes to develop our proposal, and will consult publicly on our plans in due course.


Written Question
Environment Act 2021
Monday 24th April 2023

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she plans to introduce secondary legislation to implement in full the commitments made by the Government on due diligence of forest risk products in the Environment Act 2021.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The UK Government has introduced world-leading due diligence legislation through the Environment Act to help tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains.

We ran a 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.

The Government published a summary of responses to this consultation on 1 June 2022 and is committed to implementing due diligence provisions at the earliest opportunity through secondary legislation.


Written Question
Highly Protected Marine Areas
Friday 20th January 2023

Asked by: Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell)

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 take steps to accelerate the designation of Highly Protected Marine Areas in UK waters.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

Defra recently consulted on five candidate pilot Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs). The consultation closed on 28 September. The responses are currently being analysed and will inform the Secretary of State's decision on whether pilot sites should be designated and if so, what their final site boundaries should be. Any pilot HPMAs would be designated through the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 by 6 July 2023. This would be a year from the start of the consultation as required by the Act.