Asked by: Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what live PFI contracts his Department has; and for each of those contracts (a) what service is provided, (b) when the contract became live, (c) what the remaining term of the contract is and (d) what the annual repayments are.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Defra group Property has one commercial letting structured as a PFI contract: Eastbrook, Cambridge.
Responding in the order raised for the Eastbrook contract:
Asked by: Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how his Department plans to fund universal food waste collections; and what steps he is taking to ensure that those collections are effectively rolled out by 2023.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
Following support at consultation, we are legislating through the Environment Bill to introduce a statutory duty for waste collection authorities in England to arrange for at least weekly separate collection of food waste from households. Businesses and other organisations generating food waste will also be required to arrange for the separate collection of food waste. This must be collected for recycling or composting, including Anaerobic Digestion (AD). AD represents the best waste treatment method for unavoidable food waste due to the generation of biofuel and digestate and local authorities would be free to decide on the recycling route as a result of locally available infrastructure. We are preparing to consult on further details on this policy early in 2021.
The Government has committed to covering the costs of any additional burdens that local authorities face as a result of new statutory duties requiring them to collect food waste separately for recycling. This is in keeping with the New Burdens Doctrine which requires new burdens on local authorities to be properly assessed and fully funded, so that there will be no increase in council tax as a result of the policy.
Asked by: Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to ensure that food waste is diverted to anaerobic digestion technologies; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
Following support at consultation, we are legislating through the Environment Bill to introduce a statutory duty for waste collection authorities in England to arrange for at least weekly separate collection of food waste from households. Businesses and other organisations generating food waste will also be required to arrange for the separate collection of food waste. This must be collected for recycling or composting, including Anaerobic Digestion (AD). AD represents the best waste treatment method for unavoidable food waste due to the generation of biofuel and digestate and local authorities would be free to decide on the recycling route as a result of locally available infrastructure. We are preparing to consult on further details on this policy early in 2021.
The Government has committed to covering the costs of any additional burdens that local authorities face as a result of new statutory duties requiring them to collect food waste separately for recycling. This is in keeping with the New Burdens Doctrine which requires new burdens on local authorities to be properly assessed and fully funded, so that there will be no increase in council tax as a result of the policy.
Asked by: Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to encourage the integration of bioenergy crops into agricultural and soil management strategies.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Government supports the generation of heat and power from low carbon technologies, including those using crops and forestry biomass, helping to deliver the Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions target for 2050. The Government recently consulted on the future support for low carbon heat, which includes proposals for a Green Gas Support Scheme and a Clean Heat Grant with support for heat pumps and in some instances, biomass. Government also consulted on the introduction of E10 bioethanol transport petrol this year, where domestic production can utilise energy crops.
The Agriculture Bill contains provisions for financial assistance in England to manage land in a way that mitigates the effects of climate change, and for starting or improving the productivity of agricultural and forestry activity.
The Government recognises soil is one of our greatest natural assets and is essential for underpinning a range of benefits such as flood mitigation, food production and carbon storage. The 25 Year Environment Plan (25YEP) sets out Governments ambition to replenish depleted soil and restore its fertility so that soils are sustainably managed by 2030. In order to meet this ambition, we are developing a healthy soils indicator for England as part of 25YEP. The future monitoring scheme through the soil indicator will be able to inform us on the impact of changes in land management practices, including the wider take-up of bioenergy crops in rotations.
Asked by: Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to work with the agricultural sector to develop the market for digestate as an alternative to artificial fertilisers and encourage digestate upgrading.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The definition of fertiliser in current regulation is being updated in the Agriculture Bill to include alternatives to traditional mineral based fertilisers, as the current definition does not allow for the effective regulation of non-traditional fertilisers.
The UK-wide powers we are taking in the Agriculture Bill, currently before Parliament, will enable us to update current fertilisers legislation to enable new and innovative fertilisers to be marketed and provide farmers with a wider choice of more sustainable fertilisers (such as those from recycled wastes), as part of wider work to increase nutrient use efficiency, nutrient recycling and minimise pollution from fertilisers. The use of digestate needs to be considered alongside these other alternatives to traditional fertilisers.
Stakeholder engagement, public consultation and a full impact assessment will be essential to inform a wider legislative review and subsequent secondary legislation. The use of digestate will naturally form part of this discussion.
Defra has supported research into Anaerobic Digestion (AD) for over 20 years, first becoming involved in agricultural AD at the Silsoe agricultural technology institute and continuing this at a number of operational AD plants across the country.
In addition, following support at consultation, we are legislating through the Environment Bill to introduce a statutory duty for waste collection authorities to arrange for the separate collection of food waste from households in England, at least weekly. Businesses and other organisations generating food waste will also be required to arrange for the separate collection of food waste. This material must be collected for recycling or composting. AD represents the best waste treatment method for unavoidable food waste due to the generation of biofuel and digestate. Local Authorities would be free to decide on the recycling route resulting from locally available infrastructure.
AD can reduce greenhouse gas emissions (such as methane) from on-farm waste when best practice is used, though there is a risk of increased ammonia emissions, an environmental pollutant. AD represents the best environmental outcome for the treatment of unavoidable food waste, due to the generation of bio-fuel and digestate.
Asked by: Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
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 establish (a) a baseline for existing carbon dioxide emissions from agriculture (b) an agreed methodology for measuring emissions and (c) a pathway for zero emissions by 2050 and a methodology for assessing progress towards that target; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by George Eustice
a) In the UK, agricultural Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions statistics are calculated and updated annually, with the data forming part of the UK’s National GHG Inventory. The UK’s reporting methodology is built on scientific understanding developed through the joint Defra-Devolved Administration funded £12.6m Agricultural GHG Research Platform. As such it accurately reflects and captures UK agricultural conditions and practices.
Government also publishes emissions data online, the most recent update from April this year is available here:
b) The methodology used to estimate emissions from agriculture is compliant with guidelines set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This ensures transparency, accuracy, completeness and allows comparisons between countries. Along with 193 other signatories to the Paris Agreement, the UK has committed to using a common approach on emissions reporting, which is vital for robust and consistent reporting of global GHG emissions reductions.
c) On 27 June, the UK became the first major economy in the world to set a legally binding target to achieve net zero [100% reductions] GHG emissions from across the UK economy by 2050, bound by the Climate Change Act. The Act also introduced carbon budgets which cap emissions over successive 5-year periods and must be set 12 years in advance.
The Committee on Climate Change, our independent advisors, assesses emissions data to judge whether the UK is on course to meet its carbon budgets, and reports this progress to Parliament and the Devolved Administrations annually. The Government then has a statutory obligation to respond to this advice, laying out the progress and policies underway to meet our targets.
This week the Government announced that a new independent Office for Environmental Protection will be established to scrutinise environmental policy and law. The office’s powers will cover all climate change legislation and hold the Government to account on its commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The Government recognises the importance of reducing emissions further in the food, farming and land use sectors. The Clean Growth Strategy and the 25 Year Environment Plan set out the Government’s ambition for how this will be achieved, including through environmental land management, strengthening biosecurity and control of endemic diseases in livestock, and encouraging use of low emissions fertilisers.
This year we have started developing a new emissions reduction plan for agriculture, in which we will set out our long-term vision for a more productive, low-carbon farming sector in England.
Our new Environmental Land Management Scheme will be underpinned by payment of public money for the provision of environmental public goods. Trees and woodland can contribute to numerous environmental goods and services. Activities to be paid for may include tree planting and woodland creation, and woodland management, including through natural regeneration. Trees and woodlands have multiple benefits and can contribute to many of the environmental outcomes we want to achieve, including mitigation of and adaption to climate change.
Asked by: Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
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 Prime Minister's oral contribution of 25 July 2019, Official Report, column 1497, what the timescale is for the allocation of £160 million funding for farming to the Scottish Government .
Answered by George Eustice
As the Chancellor announced at the Spending Round on 4 September, the Scottish Government will receive £160 million to support farmers and land managers. This funding will be provided over two years, with £80 million in 2019-20 and £80 million in 2020-21. The additional funding will be provided through the normal estimates process and it will be ring-fenced to ensure that it reaches farmers and land managers in Scotland.