Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many meetings Ministers in his Department have held on Asian hornets in the last 12 months.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Asian hornet is an invasive non-native species, and a current GB alert species, which means that systems are in place to detect and then implement contingency plans to rapidly eradicate them in order to prevent establishment.
It is regularly discussed as an item on the agenda of monthly Minister-led meetings reviewing biosecurity priorities. In addition, officials have provided one briefing meeting specifically on Asian hornets in the last 12 months.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many inspections of shellfish waters his Department has conducted in each year since 2015.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is responsible for designating shellfish water protected areas. Investigations are carried out by other organisations that have a role in water quality in shellfish waters, such as the Environment Agency and water companies (if directed to do so by the Environment Agency). Defra does not oversee these investigations to provide a figure.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much his Department has spent on tree planting in each year since 2015.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Data on tree-specific funding is only available from 2020, when the Nature for Climate Tree Programme was established. Since then, Defra has had a capital spend (CDEL) of £232 million on planting trees in England. The spending on tree planting in each year since 2020 is shown below:
| 20/21 | 21/22 | 22/23 | 23/24 | Total |
Total Spend (£m) | 17.215 | 33.569 | 59.446 | 122.045 | 232.275 |
Additionally, the planting of trees has also been funded by the Countryside Stewardship Scheme. Since 2016, £120 million has been claimed under the scheme for planting and managing trees and for managing and enhancing woodlands.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many hectares of trees have been planted in each year since 2015.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Chesterfield on 2 April 2024 to Question 19841.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many applications to have beavers introduced under the wildlife licensing scheme, CL50, have been (a) made and (b) accepted.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Class Licence CL50 allows for re-release of captured or rescued beavers back into existing wild-living beaver populations, and is intended to enable conflict management, rescue for welfare reasons, and research. CL50 cannot be used for introduction of beavers to river catchments where they do not already exist. There have been 12 applications made to Natural England to re-release beavers under CL50, all into the same river catchments that they were captured or rescued from. Of these, 9 were granted, and 3 were withdrawn or not granted.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of his Department's spending on agricultural payment schemes in the financial year 2022-2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In September 2023, the Farming and Countryside Programme (FCP) published an annual report for financial year 2022 to 2023. This set out that the FCP spent a total of £2.230 billion on our existing, and new farming schemes.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what is the the salary of the River Champion for the Wye.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The River Wye Champion role will not be remunerated in line with the expectation that Direct Ministerial Appointments are typically unpaid. However, appointees are entitled to claim reasonable expenses in accordance with the Civil Service expenses policy. This means that while the position itself does not offer financial compensation, reimbursement for expenses incurred during the course of duty may be claimed in accordance with the Civil Service expenses policy.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 publish the list of successful new bathing water sites following the consultation which closed on 10 March.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra plans to publish the outcomes of the consultation on the designation of 27 proposed bathing sites by the start of the 2024 bathing season, which begins on 15 May.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many times the Marine Management Organisation has held a public inquiry to consider an application for a marine licence; and what the reason was in each case.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Once, since the establishment of the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) in 2010. On 26 May 2011, the MMO called a public inquiry to be held for two marine licences related to the construction and dredging associated with a temporary jetty to support the development of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. The inquiry focussed on several matters including procedural matters related to marine licences and development consent orders, removal of the jetty, and environmental matters.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Environment Agency staff have left that organisation in each year since 2015.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The number of Environment Agency staff who left and joined the organisation in each financial year since 2016/17 is detailed below. We are unable to provide data from 2014/15 or 2015/16 as this information is not readily available.
| (April 2016 - March 2017) | (April 2017 - March 2018) | (April 2018 - March 2019) | (April 2019 - March 2020) | (April 2020 - March 2021) | (April 2021 - March 2022) | (April 2022 - March 2023) | (April 2023 - Jan 2024) |
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Number of EA staff who left the organisation within a financial year | 999 | 1988 | 836 | 966 | 754 | 1149 | 1315 | 829 |
Number of EA staff who joined the organisation within a financial year | 977 | 912 | 888 | 1008 | 364 | 890 | 2297 | 1640 |