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Written Question
Land Use
Monday 24th April 2023

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the new land use framework will be published.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

As stated in Government’s response to the House of Lords Land Use Committee’s report ‘Making the most out of England’s land’, we are currently preparing a Land Use Framework for England. We announced in the Food Strategy that we would publish the Framework in 2023.


Written Question
Agriculture: Government Assistance
Friday 25th March 2022

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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 support farmers in the context of increases in the cost of fuel, fertiliser and feed.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

We are very aware of the significant turbulence in international commodity markets following Russian’s invasion of Ukraine and are closely monitoring the market situation.

Agricultural commodity prices have always been strongly correlated to the price of energy. Farmers face the challenge of rising inputs costs, particularly fertiliser costs, due to the sharp increase in the price of gas. The solution will require us to pioneer new technologies to manufacture more organic based fertiliser products, and to rediscover more older, more established techniques such as using nitrogen fixing legumes and clovers as an alternative to fertiliser.

We are also seeing high costs for inputs including red diesel and animal feed. We are working with the industry to identify where mitigations are available and continue to keep the situation under review.


Written Question
Agriculture and Land Use: Sustainable Development
Thursday 3rd March 2022

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reason landowners and farmers are no longer compensated for allowing permissive access to their land under the sustainable farming initiative; and whether he has plans to offer payments under a different initiative.

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

As set out in the 25 Year Environment Plan, the Government is a great supporter of the health and wellbeing benefits that access to the countryside can bring.

Support for increasing access into the countryside will be made through existing schemes and support mechanisms already in place, such as Countryside Stewardship which saw a 40% increase in uptake last year. We are still considering our approach to support for increasing and maintaining access to the countryside in our future schemes, including our environmental land management schemes.

To boost investment in the meantime, we have launched a new Farming in Protected Landscapes programme in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty - this includes funding for farmers and land managers to provide more opportunities for people to explore, enjoy and understand the countryside.


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Location
Friday 10th September 2021

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many of his Department's offices and offices of related agencies are located outside of London; and how many and what proportion of those are located in settlements that are classified as (a) D1, (b) D2, (c) E1, (d) E2, (f) F1 and (g) F2 according to the Rural Urban Classification system.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

The number of offices located outside London is 126.

The proportion of those located in settlements D1, D2, E1, E2, F1 and F2 are as follows:

Classification

%

D1

5.6%

D2

2.4%

E1

7.1%

E2

0.0%

F1

6.3%

F2

0.0%


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Location
Monday 6th September 2021

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what internal criteria his Department is using to assess locations for relocations of his Department under the Places for Growth programme.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

The Government has committed to ensuring that the administration of Government is less London-centric through the relocation of 22,000 civil service roles to locations across the United Kingdom.

Defra is taking into account a range of factors including our operating model, workforce and location analysis to assess possible locations for our roles. The department will select places that we judge to have the skills, transport links and capacity to meet our needs and flourish in our chosen locations as well as ensuring locations are suitable for the long term success and sustainability of the civil service.

Relocations under Places for Growth represent better value for money due to the lower costs of estates and salaries outside of London. The majority of moves will involve roles becoming available through natural turnover or churn rather than moving people.


Written Question
Food: Waste
Monday 26th July 2021

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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 introduce mandatory business food waste reporting by 2022 in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.

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

We will consult this year on introducing regulations to make the public reporting of food waste volumes mandatory for certain businesses of an appropriate size. By ensuring businesses are measuring and publicly reporting their food waste, we expect to drive action to reduce it.

Due to the ongoing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on food and drink businesses, we postponed the launch of this consultation. Some businesses will require time to embed measurement techniques and build confidence in their data. This needs to be balanced alongside the need to continue reducing our food waste, increasing redistribution of surplus and measuring more accurately to understand the scale of the problem. We therefore propose that reporting starts at least one year after regulations are passed. This will offer businesses time to seek guidance and implement measurement techniques within their operations.

Subject to the consultation responses we therefore would be requiring businesses to report food waste in 2024, for food waste measured in the 2023/2024 financial year. This will ensure data is readily available which in turn will allow for comparison and assessment against our national and international targets.


Written Question
Waste: Recycling
Friday 23rd July 2021

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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 commit to setting a target for a 68 per cent recycling rate by 2030 covering all wastes in England in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.

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

The Government has committed to recycle 65% of municipal waste by 2035, with less than 10% municipal waste going to landfill. We set out measures to achieve this target in our 2019 Resources and Waste Strategy and the Environment Bill.

From the combined impacts of consistent recycling collection, Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers, we estimate that we will meet this commitment. These three reforms are estimated to deliver over 30 million tonnes of CO2 emissions savings between 2023-2035.

We have also published plans for monitoring and evaluating progress on the Resources and Waste Strategy and will publish annual statistics of recycling as now.


Written Question
Waste: Landfill
Friday 23rd July 2021

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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 bring forward to 2025 the ban on biodegradable waste being sent to landfill in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.

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

As set out in our Resources and Waste Strategy, we will continue to explore policies to work towards eliminating all biodegradable waste to landfill by 2030. Climate Change Committee advice is taken into account in policy development. We are also continuing to analyse expected future levels of municipal residual waste and infrastructure needs.

Our measures to introduce consistency in household and business recycling collections includes a requirement to collect separately food and garden waste from households that will, once implemented, help to achieve a reduction in the amount of biodegradable waste that is sent for disposal in landfill.


Written Question
Waste: Exports
Friday 23rd July 2021

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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 phase out exports of waste by 2030 in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.

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

Defra is working with the Department for International Trade on supporting the development of more recycling infrastructure within the UK to reduce the need to export wastes to other countries.

Our Environment Bill will enable us to significantly change the way that we manage our waste. We have recently concluded consultations on using powers in the Bill such as for a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers, an Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme for packaging, and proposals for greater consistency in household and business recycling. These measures will increase the quality and quantity of wastes collected for recycling, drive up demand for recycled materials and provide an incentive for industry to invest in UK reprocessing infrastructure.

We are also taking action to reduce the volume of waste generated in the first place. Our approach is focused on encouraging greater uptake of reusable alternatives and increasing supply and demand for secondary materials to be recycled in the UK. The Resources and Waste Strategy also sets out the Government's plans to reduce, reuse, and recycle more than we do now.

Where the UK cannot currently recycle materials economically, exports can help ensure those materials are recycled rather than landfilled. Recycling one tonne of plastics reduces emissions by 1.1 - 3.0 tonnes of CO2e, compared to producing the same tonne of plastics from virgin fossil feedstock.

The UK Government is committed to banning the export of plastic waste for recycling or disposal to countries that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). We currently plan to consult before the end of 2022 on options to deliver the proposed ban.


Written Question
Nature Conservation: Finance
Wednesday 7th July 2021

Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Melton)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding is available for local groups or organisations to develop ecology centres or wildlife preserves that serve the local community and meet the broader policies of his Department.

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

The National Lottery Heritage Fund provides grants through its National Lottery Grants for Heritage, which can support communities to protect, share and enjoy their local natural environment. Since 1994, the Fund has invested more than £1.5bn into projects focused on England’s natural heritage.

Defra’s Countryside Stewardship scheme provides financial incentives for farmers, woodland owners, foresters and land managers to look after and improve the environment through agricultural or woodland land management. It also provides funding for educational access, allowing groups such as school pupils to visit farms to learn, understand and engage with farming and the environment. Among agreement holders in the scheme are a number of charities and organisations who own and manage nature reserves for wildlife.

Defra’s £80m Green Recovery Challenge Fund has kick-started a pipeline of nature-based projects to restore nature, tackle climate change and connect people with the natural environment. For example, a project led by Gasworks Dock Partnership will deliver extensive habitat creation and restoration while establishing Cody Dock, in Newham, as a flagship centre for community led citizen science and academic ecology studies.