Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of trends in the the numbers of hen harriers over the last 5 years.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The number of breeding hen harriers is assessed annually by Natural England in partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). Summaries of these figures are published as blogs via Natural England’s .gov blog page.
Assessments of the number of breeding hen harriers from the last four years can be seen below:
Nesting attempts per upland area of England
Area | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
Bowland | 18 | 11 | 11 | 15 |
North Pennines | 7 | 11 | 4 | 2 |
Northumberland | 9 | 17 | 15 | 18 |
Peak District | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Yorkshire Dales and Nidderdale | 10 | 15 | 4 | 2 |
Total | 49 | 54 | 34 | 39 |
In 2025, a peer-reviewed paper was published assessing the population trends in hen harriers in the UK and Isle of Man between 2016 and 2023. This included data and co-authorship from Natural England’s hen harrier programme: https://doi.org/10.1080/00063657.2024.2446373.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help preserve hen harrier numbers.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Hen harriers are monitored year-round by Natural England (NE) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. NE staff engage closely with land managers of hen harrier habitat, and in the breeding season support the licenced use of Diversionary Feeding which enables nesting hen harriers to provide sufficient food to their chicks, improving the survival of young harriers while reducing the pressure from hunting on gamebird stock.
Field-based monitoring is underpinned by fitting satellite ‘tags’ to some hen harriers. This provides invaluable insights into their movements and habitat use and flags when and where they might have died, enabling their recovery for postmortem analysis and an enforcement response where illegal persecution may have played a role in the harrier’s death.
Bird of prey persecution is a national wildlife crime priority. Defra supports the work of a Tactical Delivery Group which brings stakeholders together to tackle such criminality. Defra is also a principal funder of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU). In 2024, the NWCU launched the Hen Harrier Task Force – a partnership designed to help tackle illegal persecution of the species. It uses innovative technology such as drones and specialised detection dogs to enhance evidence collection in remote areas.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of water bills in Fylde constituency since July 2024.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
It is important that customers get value for money from their water bills and that support is available for those who need it. I meet water companies frequently to discuss a range of issues, including customer bills.
As the independent economic regulator, it is Ofwat’s responsibility to scrutinise water company business plans and ensure the prices water companies charge their customers are fair and proportionate. It does this through its Price Review, every five years. Ofwat published the results of the 2024 Price Review in December 2024, this sets out company expenditure and customer bills for the next five years, up to 2030. These price controls came into effect on 01 April 2025.
Price Review 2024 will deliver substantial improvements for customers and the environment through a £104 billion upgrade for the water sector - the highest level of investment in the water sector since privatisation. The average annual bill rise over the next 5 years will be £31 (or 36%). This will vary across households depending on their circumstances. Information on bills for each water company is available on Ofwat’s website.
All water companies have measures in place for customers who struggle to pay for their water and wastewater services, such as WaterSure, social tariffs, payment breaks and holidays, and debt management support. Moreover, Government expects industry to keep the current support schemes under review to ensure that vulnerable customers are supported.
The Government has committed to reforming the WaterSure support scheme which supports low-income households with high essential water use due to having a medical condition or three or more children living at home and has consulted on extending the list of qualifying benefits to include non-means tested disability benefits. This proposal is designed to provide better support for low-income households where a medical condition leads to high essential water use.
The proposed reforms would also increase support for existing households and update the regulations to reflect best practice adopted across the water sector. The department will publish the response to the consultation in the coming months.
Bill increases are necessary to make up for years of under-investment and make sure water companies can deliver a good service to customers and protect the environment.
The Government is also bringing forward root and branch reform to secure better outcomes for billpayers and restore trust and accountability. This includes the creation of a powerful new consolidated regulator, which will work to ensure water company bills are fair and affordable for customers. These reforms are detailed in the Government’s Water White Paper.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
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 adequacy of the Canal and River Trust’s grant settlement for maintaining the safety and integrity of inland waterways in England.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Canal maintenance, and ensuring funding for it, is the responsibility of navigation authorities. The Government provides the largest navigation authority, the Canal and River Trust, with an annual grant of £52.6 million to support the Trust’s network maintenance programme. This represented 22% of the Trust’s total income of £232 million last year.
Following a comprehensive review of its funding in 2022, the Government agreed a further 10-year grant for the Trust from 2027 of £401 million. The new grant reflects the importance of inland waterways and provides a stable funding stream, gradually tapering each year, to support CRT as it delivers its long-standing objective of reducing reliance on public funding through developing alternative funding sources.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department issues dog walkers in periods of extreme cold.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Anyone who walks dogs is required to comply with the Animal Welfare Act 2006 which requires individuals in control of animals to protect them from unnecessary suffering, and to provide for their welfare needs.
Welfare groups such as the RSCPA and Dogs Trust publish advice on their websites for dog walkers on how to keep dogs healthy and active during periods of cold weather.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has considered the potential merits of introducing mandatory labelling of meat products to indicate the method of slaughter.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 17 December 2025 to PQ UIN 99375.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that consumers are provided with sufficient information to make informed choices regarding the method of slaughter used in producing meat sold in UK supermarkets.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government expects industry to provide consumers with information on which to make an informed choice about their food. Any information provided on the method of slaughter must be accurate and not misleading to the consumer.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the total reservoir storage capacity in England (a) is in 2025 and (b) was in (i) 2020 and (ii) 2015.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The total capacity of reservoirs for all purposes in England, as per the public register of large raised reservoirs of over 25,000m3, which is managed by the Environment Agency.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of water infrastructure.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A record £104 billion of investment is planned for the water sector in the next investment cycle. This will provide the water supply and wastewater capacity to secure future water supplies, including nine new reservoirs and several large-scale water transfer schemes.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of local authorities currently use digital waste tracking services.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Digital Waste Tracking Service goes live from April 2026 for waste receivers, with requirements to digitally track waste received becoming mandatory in October 2026.
Waste operators currently use multiple systems – some paper based and others digital - to collect certain elements of waste tracking data. By introducing digital waste tracking, data will be collected centrally in near real time, making it much more difficult for rogue operators to compete in the industry and commit waste crime.
As part of our user research, it has been shown that the large majority of local authority waste disposal and waste collection authorities use third party contractors to manage waste in their areas, even if they are the holder of the environmental permit. As such it is difficult to quantify the number of local authorities that currently run their services in-house.
From April 2027, subject to funding, Digital Waste Tracking will onboard other waste operators including carriers which will provide an end to end view of how waste moves through the system.