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Written Question
Livestock: Animal Housing
Monday 18th September 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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 Action Plan for Animal Welfare, published in May 2021, when her Department plans to publish the consultation on the cage keeping of farm animals.

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

We have delivered an ambitious legislative programme since the publication of the Action Plan, which will deliver significant improvements for animals in the UK and abroad. We are firmly committed to maintaining our strong track record on animal welfare and to delivering continued improvements, both in the course of this Parliament and beyond. We do not, however, consider the time is right to consult on cage reforms, being mindful of the challenges the laying hen and pig sectors are facing. The market is already driving the move away from using cages for laying hen production. The proportion of eggs that come from caged hens has steadily decreased from 47% of total throughput in Q4 2017, to 21% in Q1 2023. The UK is ahead of most other pig producing countries in terms of zero confinement farrowing, in that 40% of the national sow breeding herd farrow freely on outdoor pig units with no option of confinement.

We continue to work with the sectors to maintain and enhance our high standards. The Government’s animal welfare priorities for its Animal Health and Welfare Pathway include supporting producers to transition away from confinement systems.

Written Question
Silk Stream Flood Resilience Innovation Project
Friday 8th September 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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 has taken to communicate the risk of flooding to flood-prone homes along the Silk Stream in Colindale.

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

The Environment Agency is supporting a project led by Barnet and Harrow councils called Action for Silk Stream which has actively been engaging with local communities over the last year. The project aims to reduce the risk of flooding in multiple areas across the catchment and is one of 25 projects across England within our £150 million Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme. Engagement activities have included in person awareness raising events at various local parks through which the Silk Stream flows. The project has also established a website to keep communities updated on progress.

Written Question
Climate Change: Local Government
Friday 8th September 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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 it her policy to ring fence funding for local authorities to manage climate-related incidents.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

Councils are best placed to make decisions about local priorities. To enable this the Government made available £59.7 billion for local government in England in the Local Government Finance Settlement 2023/24. This is an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022/23. In addition to overall local government funding there are other support mechanisms for climate resilience that the Government offers. These include devolution deals, forthcoming strengthening of Local Resilience Forums’ powers, and the Community Resilience Development Framework.

Written Question
Companies: Air Pollution
Friday 8th September 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which organisations completed air quality modelling to inform the air quality targets set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The Environmental Improvement Plan was informed by a range of air quality modelling undertaken by key Defra contractors, as well as in-house assessment undertaken for the purpose of policy development. More information on the target development process is available here: Development of the Environment Act Targets - Defra, UK

Written Question
Air Pollution: Pollution Control
Friday 8th September 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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 publish the revised National Air Quality Strategy.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The revised National Air Quality Strategy was published on 28 April 2023 and can be found here.

Written Question
Climate Change: Weather
Friday 8th September 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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 financial risk to local authorities from climate change-related weather and temperature incidents.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The Government’s Third Climate Change Risk Assessment, published in January 2022, includes an assessment of the potential cost of a wide range of climate risks to the UK. Councils are best placed to make decisions about local priorities and to support local resilience to climate change we are piloting a dedicated Local Authority Climate Service. This will provide easy access to localised climate data, while generating reports and infographics for easy use. This Met Office tool will help local authorities plan adaptation by informing them about hazards such as rainfall and extreme heat.

Written Question
Air Quality Grant Scheme
Friday 8th September 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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 it her policy to increase the air quality grant for local authorities in the next budget.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

This year’s Local Air Quality Grant is open for new applications for the 2023/24 year, with a pot of £6 million to help local authorities improve air quality in their areas.

Funding for future years will remain under review.

Written Question
Local Resilience Forums
Friday 8th September 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential implications for its polices of the Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee recommendation to place Local Resilience Forums on a statutory footing.

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

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 31 March 2023 to the hon. Member for Newport West, PQ 170740.

Written Question
Marine Environment
Friday 21st July 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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 is taking to (a) protect and (b) restore marine (i) habitats and (ii) wildlife.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

  • The recently published EIP sets out our focus on enhancing nature in marine and coastal environments, including the steps we are taking to restore and protect marine habitats and marine wildlife.
  • These include delivering the UK Marine Strategy, which sets our ambition for Good Environmental Status (GES) across our seas.
  • To help achieve GES we have created a series of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to protect and restore our marine biodiversity. We are focused on strengthening the protection of this extensive network of 178 sites covering 40% of English waters, which represents the range of species and habitats found in our seas.
  • To complement the MPA network, the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) in English waters came into force on 5 July 2023. HPMAs will provide the highest levels of protection in our seas, allowing nature to fully recover to a more natural state and helping the ecosystem to thrive.
  • A number of estuarine and coastal habitat restoration initiatives are also underway including the Environment Agency’s Restoring Meadow, Marsh and Reef (ReMeMaRe) initiative which aims to reverse centuries of coastal habitat decline by restoring seagrass meadows, saltmarsh and native oyster reefs to bring benefits to people and nature.
  • In addition, the government’s £80m Green Recovery Challenge Fund has supported a range of nature recovery projects across England, some which have included saltmarsh and seagrass restoration.
  • We also protect marine wildlife in a number of other ways in our domestic waters. This includes being fully committed to tackling accidental bycatch in fisheries, which is one of the greatest threats faced by sensitive marine species such as cetaceans.
  • In 2021, we introduced new rules making it a mandatory requirement under fishing vessel licence conditions for fishers to report any marine mammal bycatch to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). The Marine Wildlife Bycatch Mitigation Initiative sets out how the UK will achieve its ambitions to minimise and, where possible, eliminate the bycatch (accidental capture) and entanglement of sensitive marine species in UK fisheries.
  • To help reduce disturbance to marine wildlife we published the Marine and Coastal Wildlife Code on 24 May.
  • We are also working to reduce the harmful impacts on marine wildlife and habitats arising from plastic pollution. We have taken measures to target some of the most commonly littered plastic items, such as our carrier bag charge and our bans on a range of single-use plastic items. Our restrictions on straws, stirrers and cotton buds have had a big impact – these items used to appear in ‘top 10 littered items’ lists, but this is no longer the case. We have also taken action on microbeads in rinse off cosmetics, plastic pellets and ghost gear.
  • Internationally, we are also leading global efforts to protect the ocean and champion the GBF Target 3 to effectively conserve and manage at least 30% of the land and 30% of the ocean globally by 2030 (30by30). This includes through our role as Ocean Co-Chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature & People, and our leadership of the Global Ocean Alliance.
  • The adoption of the Marine Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement on 19 June will also lead to much greater protection for the two-thirds of the global ocean that lies beyond national jurisdiction, playing a key role in achieving the 30by30 target. The UK will sign the Agreement early and work to ratify as soon as practicable, whilst supporting others to do the same.
  • The UK’s Blue Planet Fund, a £500 million programme, supports developing countries to protect the marine environment and reduce poverty, by tackling threats to ocean health such as illegal fishing, pollution and climate change; and at the UN Ocean conference in 2022, we committed up to £100 million of Blue Planet Funding to support the implementation, management and enforcement of Marine Protected Areas.
Written Question
Material Focus: Finance
Thursday 29th June 2023

Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding her Department has provided to Material Focus in each of the last three years; and if she will provide a breakdown of how this money has been spent.

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

Material Focus is an organisation – independent of government – which manages money raised by the WEEE compliance fee, established by the 2013 Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations. This is a fee paid by Producer Compliance Schemes who miss their collection targets for waste electricals in any given year. The government does not give any money to Material Focus.