Asked by: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the cost to UK agriculture of the reduction in cadmium within phosphate fertiliser set out in the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council COM(2016)157/F1.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra officials have involved UK farmers, fertiliser manufacturers, and sedimentary phosphate rock exporters on the proposal to set limits on the cadmium content of EC fertilisers. The process of removing cadmium from phosphate rock on an industrial scale is still in development and therefore the precise impact on phosphate costs is not yet known.
Asked by: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)
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 is taking to calculate the cost to (a) consumers and (b) the environment of planned obsolescence of electronic products manufactured in the UK.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
The Government is not trying to calculate the cost of planned obsolescence of electronic products in the UK. However, the UK supports work on this issue under the European Commission’s Circular Economy Action Plan, which includes a commitment to prepare an independent testing programme under Horizon 2020 to help identify the issues relating to planned obsolescence and to find ways to address them.
Asked by: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on what dates she has met representatives from the milk industry to discuss raising dairy prices.
Answered by George Eustice
I meet representatives of the UK dairy industry regularly. The most recent meeting was on 2 November in the form of the Dairy Quad, with representatives of the NFU, DairyUK and the AHDB, where we discussed a range of issues affecting this important industry which has been experiencing a difficult market situation for the last two years.
Asked by: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on what dates Ministers and officials in her Department met with (a) representatives from the British pork industry and (b) her EU counterparts to discuss the MRSA superbug strain.
Answered by George Eustice
Government regularly meets with representatives from the British pork industry and EU counterparts to discuss a wide range of topics which can include MRSA.
Officials from the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, who are responsible for antibiotic resistance policy, have met twice this year with the British pork industry to specifically discuss the topic of Livestock Associated MRSA. The last meeting was on 11 October 2016.