Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
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 help increase tree planting along riverbanks.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra recognises the role tree planting has to support the management of England’s rivers. Defra works with the Forestry Commission, Natural England and the Environment Agency to ensure tree planting is appropriately targeted. Defra supports a number of projects and grants in this area. These include:
- The England Woodland Creation Offer supports riparian tree planting, flood management and improved water quality;
- The Woodlands for Water project works with the Riverscapes Partnership to facilitate the creation of riparian woodland corridors in six river catchment areas;
- The Environment Agency’s Water Environment Improvement Fund supports the planting of thousands of riparian trees across England;
- The introduction of a Sustainable Farming Incentive action for the management of habitat strips next to watercourses to support the planting of trees and scrub for biodiversity, flooding and water quality benefits.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department had made of the potential merits of producing an animal protection strategy.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government was elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans to improve animal welfare in a generation. We will be outlining more detail in due course.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
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 end the sale of live decapod crustaceans.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to an evidence-based approach to improve welfare standards for decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs. My department is continuing to engage with stakeholders and seeking to address evidence gaps to inform future policy decisions in this area.
Animal welfare legislation protects all animals from being transported in a way likely to cause injury or suffering. Live decapod crustaceans are protected from injury or unnecessary suffering during transportation by a general duty of care provision in Article 4 of The Welfare of Animals (Transport) (England) Order 2006 (WATEO) and equivalent national legislation in Wales.
There are no plans to publish best practice guidance for the transport of live decapod crustaceans.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
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 publish best practice guidance for the transport of live decapod crustaceans.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to an evidence-based approach to improve welfare standards for decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs. My department is continuing to engage with stakeholders and seeking to address evidence gaps to inform future policy decisions in this area.
Animal welfare legislation protects all animals from being transported in a way likely to cause injury or suffering. Live decapod crustaceans are protected from injury or unnecessary suffering during transportation by a general duty of care provision in Article 4 of The Welfare of Animals (Transport) (England) Order 2006 (WATEO) and equivalent national legislation in Wales.
There are no plans to publish best practice guidance for the transport of live decapod crustaceans.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the damage caused by the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle to trees in (a) Central Bedfordshire and (b) the UK.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The eight-toothed spruce bark beetle is a quarantine pest of spruce tree species and is not native to the UK. The Forestry Commission have a nationwide surveillance programme in place to monitor for incursions of this pest, which spreads naturally from Europe. A demarcated area is in place over south-east England which implements robust measures to detect and eradicate outbreaks and prevent potential spread.
The demarcated area does extend to a small part of Bedfordshire, but there have been no outbreaks in this region. All outbreaks to date have been detected on stressed, dying and dead spruce trees, which are more vulnerable to the pest.
There is an estimated 725,000 hectares of spruce in Great Britain, but less than 1% of this is within the demarcated area.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
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 help people adapt their homes to mitigate against the risk of flooding.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Property flood resilience measures, such as airbrick covers and flood resilient materials, can ensure that new and existing homes are resilient to risks from flooding.
The Environment Agency’s Property Flood Resilience (PFR) Framework provides consultancy and contracting services for the survey, supply, and installation of property flood resilience to homes and is in place for up to four years. Lead Local Flood Authorities can also use the framework to secure these services for local projects. In the current flood's investment programme, there are over 150 property flood resilience schemes planned, which will better protect over 4,000 homes.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with the Faroese Minister for Fisheries on cetacean hunts.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK strongly opposes the hunting of all cetaceans other than some limited activities by indigenous people for clearly defined subsistence needs. The UK reaffirmed its strong support for the global moratorium on commercial whaling at the September International Whaling Commission meeting with Danish Government in attendance, where we co-sponsored a resolution on International Legal Obligations in Commercial Whaling. We also raised the UK opposition to cetacean hunting at official level in September as part of the UK-Faroe Islands fisheries intersessional. Ministers and senior officials will continue to raise the issue with the Faroese at every appropriate opportunity.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
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 hold discussions with Ofwat on the potential merits of (a) employees and (b) bill payers being made members of the Boards of water companies.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
On 11 July 2024, the Secretary of State announced consumers will gain new powers to hold water company bosses to account through new customer panels. For the first time in history, customers will have the power to summon board members and hold water executives to account.
The Water (Special Measures) Bill will therefore give Ofwat the power to set rules requiring water companies to have arrangements in place for involving consumers in decision-making. The rules may include a requirement for persons representing the views of consumers to be members of a board, committee or panel of a relevant undertaker.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timetable is for the next reviews of the (a) National Adaptation Programme and (b) strategy for climate change adaptation reporting.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Climate Change Act 2008 requires the Secretary of State to produce a National Adaptation Programme in response to the Government’s most recent Climate Change Risk Assessment, on a five-yearly cycle. The third National Adaptation Programme was published in July 2023. The fourth National Adaptation Programme will be published in 2028. The strategy for the fourth round of climate adaptation reporting under the Adaptation Reporting Power was published in July 2023. The fourth round of reporting is currently underway and due to close on 31st December 2024. The review of the use of power will take place in 2025, ahead of a fifth round of reporting.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
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 make an assessment of the potential merits of mandating country-of-origin labelling for fish products originating from the Faroe Islands.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A public consultation on fairer food labelling was undertaken between March and May 2024. This sought views on proposals to improve and extend current mandatory methods of production labelling and looked at country of origin for a range of products including fish. The new Government is now carefully considering all responses before deciding on next steps and will publish a response to this consultation in due course.