Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps their Department is taking to support the Disability Confident scheme; how many officials in their Department work directly on supporting that scheme; what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of that work in supporting the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of disabled people in their Department; and what further steps they are taking to support their Department’s recruitment and retention of disabled people.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra has achieved Level 3 (Leader) of the Disability Confident scheme, this achievement is renewed every 3 years and we are currently working towards the renewal for 2024.
Although not working directly on the scheme, our Director General for Strategy leads as a senior Disability Champion, along with 2 Deputy Directors as Deputy Disability Champions, and they support and champion the requirements of the Disability Confident scheme within Defra.
These appointments are as recommended by the Disability Confident scheme provisions and additionally there is a Defra group Disability Board, chaired by the Executive Champion. This Board’s role is to ensure that actions and plans are in place and regularly reviewed to meet the provisions of the Disability Confident scheme and wider action to support employees with disabilities, impairments and long term medical conditions across the department.
Over the last 3 years disability representation across Defra group has increased from 14.3% to a representation rate of 17.2%. Within core Defra the current representation rate is 16.8% which is in line with the current disability target representation of the UK working age population.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
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 National Disability Strategy published on 28 July 2021, which of her Department’s commitments in that strategy that have not been paused as a result of legal action have (a) been fully, (b) been partially and (c) not been implemented.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
In January 2022, the High Court declared the National Disability Strategy (NDS) was unlawful because the UK Disability Survey, which informed it, was held to be a voluntary consultation that failed to comply with the legal requirements on public consultations.
The Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs had the following commitments included in the National Disability Strategy:
Work on the King Charles III England Coast Path is progressing with over 850 miles now open to the public. At 2,700 miles, when complete it will be the longest waymarked and maintained coastal walking route in the world. We are making the King Charles III England Coast Path as accessible as possible and have recently approved proposals that have included a brand-new wheelchair-friendly ramp to a popular seawall walkway in Essex, a 600m accessible boardwalk on the Wirral and significant improvements to a well-used stretch of the South West Coast Path which will improve the width, surface quality and gradient of the existing trail.
We are continuing work designating Wainwright’s existing coast to coast path across the North of England as a new National Trail by 2025.
Our Access for All programme has committed £14.5m of funding to make targeted access improvements in our protected landscapes, national trails, forests and the wider countryside, to help bring the benefits of spending time in nature to everyone. More than £3.5m has already been spent on making our protected landscapes more accessible, including on: resurfacing paths; replacement of stiles with accessible gates; new benches and resting stops; accessible viewing platforms and the provision of new all-terrain trampers to support disabled people to access the countryside. The Government has extended its Farming in Protected Landscapes programme to improve accessibility in our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, including installing interpretation panels, replacing gates and stiles to improve access for people who use wheelchairs.
The Green Social Prescribing programme which closed in March 2023 achieved over 7,000 referrals to nature-based activities over the course of the programme, and the evidence suggests that the programme has had a very strong service take-up compared with traditional mental health support services. We are committed to supporting the scale-up of green social prescribing across England, as confirmed in our Environmental Improvement Plan.
We remain fully committed to supporting disabled people in the UK through creating more opportunities, protecting their rights and ensuring they fully benefit from, and can contribute to, every aspect of our society. To support this, the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs will be providing further details of our recent achievements to improve disabled people’s lives in the forthcoming Disability Action Plan consultation due for publication in the summer.
Ahead of this, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will write providing a list of these achievements and will place a copy in the House Library.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to take steps to help prevent excessive water abstraction in areas with high water stress.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Environment Agency regulates the abstraction of water from rivers, lakes and groundwater across England on behalf of the government. Defra and the Environment Agency launched the Abstraction Plan in December 2017 setting out how the Environment Agency will deliver abstraction reform to protect the environment from unsustainable abstraction. The Abstraction plan is now being implemented. In addition, the Environment Agency is updating its local Abstraction Licensing Strategies for all catchments by 2027, to set out how much water is available for abstraction whilst taking account of local environmental needs.
Furthermore, Water Resources Management Plans, produced by water companies, set out how water supply needs are met from sustainable sources over a 25 year period. New Water Resources Management Plans will be consulted on at the end of 2022.
The Environment Agency's Restoring Sustainable Abstraction programme has already returned 49 billion litres of water to the environment, including 37 billion litres of water to chalk streams since it started in 2008. During this time the Environment Agency has removed the risk of approximately 900 billion litres of water being abstracted from unused or underused abstraction licences.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
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 progress made by Natural England in implementing the reforms outlined in its 2021-22 action plan.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Natural England will be publishing its annual report in the autumn which will detail its operational and financial performance, including progress made on the ambitions identified in the 21-11 action plan. In line with governance guidelines, Defra assesses Natural England’s performance at quarterly reviews and an annual Ministerial Performance Review. Recent reviews with Natural England have indicated good performance across its ambitious targets, building its capacity and capability to help tackle the critical challenge of nature recovery, climate change and improving people’s wellbeing.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
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 his Department's proposals for air quality targets published on 16 March 2022, what assessment his Department made of the health impacts of air pollution during pregnancy while devising those proposals.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Defra has undertaken and published an impact assessment as part of the PM2.5 target development process. This took into account current guidance and evidence as well as specifically commissioned health advice from the Committee of the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) where health experts considered that pregnancy is a vulnerable stage of life with respect to exposure to air pollution. More information can be found at: