Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to prevent the potential extinction of red squirrels in the UK.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
This is devolved matter and the below information relates to England only.
The Government is committed to protecting and expanding red squirrel populations and tackling the threats that grey squirrels pose to them. The Forestry Commission works with Natural England and other conservation organisations and projects to help protect red squirrel enclaves and to allow the populations to expand.
The Forestry Commission also undertakes a number of actions to protect red squirrels from the impact of grey squirrels as outlined in the grey squirrel action plan for England. These actions include Countryside Stewardship funding for landowners who choose to help protect red squirrels within designated reserves.
Defra, in partnership with the United Kingdom Squirrel Accord, has also provided funding for work by the Animal and Plant Health Agency for the development of a fertility control method for grey squirrels. This research continues to show promise as one potentially effective and humane method to control grey squirrel numbers in the longer term.
Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
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 prospects of UK farmers as a result of the UK's withdrawal from the EU.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
As part of our preparations to leave the EU, we have carried out a rigorous programme of analytical work that has assessed the impact of various EU withdrawal scenarios on the UK farming sector.
Part of that programme has included modelling work co-funded between the four UK agricultural departments. In August 2017 FAPRI-UK published this analysis in the report “Impacts of Alternative post-brexit trade agreements on UK agriculture: sector analyses using the FAPRI-UK model”. It considers the impact of different trading scenarios on many farming commodity sectors. The full report is available on Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute website –
In addition, the Evidence and Analysis Paper, which accompanied the publication of the Agriculture Bill, provides analysis of the various ways farmers are likely to be affected by the movement from the area-based payments of the Common Agricultural Policy to being rewarded for the public goods they produce under Environmental Land Management (ELM). Further information can be found here –
This analysis only applies to England, as agricultural policy in the UK is devolved, and it is for each administration to decide its approach and what measures it should adopt according to its evaluation of the situation which pertains to its area. For details relating to the rest of the UK, please contact the relevant devolved administration.