Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment has she made of the implications for UK waste disposal and consumer product policy of the levels of unwanted electrical items discarded annually by households which could be reused or repaired.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have not undertaken this assessment. The WEEE Regulations 2013 are designed to minimise the amount of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) incinerated or sent to landfill sites. The regulations require producers of electrical equipment to take financial responsibility for products they place on the market when they become waste and to ensure they are properly collected and treated. The Government is committed to move towards a Circular Economy where we keep products in use for longer and waste is designed out. In the new year, we will publish the Circular Economy Growth Plan that sets out how the Government will deliver this transition in sectors right across the economy, including electricals.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to align the UK with EU Directives 2024/1781/EU, 2024/1799/EU and 2024/825/EU.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to transitioning to a circular economy and is actively looking for opportunities to learn from and build on international best practices to explore what levers and interventions could work domestically.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 12 December 2024 to Question 19688 on Food Supply, if he will take steps to include alternative proteins in the proposed food strategy.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 20 December 2024, UIN 19689.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the National Food Strategy will include the role of (a) alternative proteins and (b) engineering biology in the food supply.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
Our ambitious food strategy will set and deliver clear long-term outcomes that create a healthier, fairer, and more resilient food system, and in doing so will consider elements of the food system that can contribute towards those outcomes.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 have discussions with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on the potential for joint working on the proposed food strategy.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
The issues the food sector faces cut across the work of many Departments, and also of Devolved Governments. Development of the strategy will be led by Defra, but this work will require a whole-of-government effort with involvement from several other Government departments, including the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 ensure water resilience is considered when building new housing.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Water companies are statutory consultees on local authority local plans. We have set out in our guidance for water resource management plans and our drainage and wastewater management plans that we expect early discussions between local authorities and water companies to help ensure that proposed growth and environmental objectives are reflected in the company plans and can be delivered. It is a duty on water companies to maintain, improve and extend their water supply networks to take account of future water needs, such as those for new homes. Defra continues to work with the Department for Levelling Up Communities and Housing to ensure water supply remains resilient where new housing is being planned, including a new Water Scarcity Working Group with regulators and the recent announcement of £3 million of funding for offsetting of water demand in Cambridge.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 support research and development in the ornamental horticulture sector.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Government recognises the importance of the ornamental horticultural sector, with domestic production of ornamentals being worth £1.5 billion at farm-gate in 2022.
Industry-led research and development is key to enabling the development of real-world solutions to the challenges being faced by farmers and growers and also to exploiting new opportunities open to them. We have recognised strengths in bio-science, cutting-edge technology and research, with world leading institutes and pioneering farmers, and our £270 million Farming Innovation Programme is supporting industry-led research and development in agriculture and horticulture in England. The ornamental sector is in scope of this programme.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 support research into crop protection for crops of national and international importance.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra has invested over £8.2 million between 2018 and 2024 on Genetic Improvement Networks on nationally and internationally important crops including wheat, oilseed rape, pulses and vegetable crops in research identifying genetic traits to improve their productivity, sustainability, resilience and nutritional quality. We are working with breeders to incorporate these traits into elite UK crop varieties. In May the Government announced additional investment in genetic improvement of up to £30 million to unlock the potential of precision breeding technologies.
We have also committed over £104 million to date through the £270 million Farming Innovation Programme for industry-led research and development in agriculture and horticulture in England. This investment is enabling more farmers, growers and agri-food businesses to become involved in agricultural R&D. This will maximise the impact of R&D investment in innovation and improve the take up of novel approaches on farms.
UK Research and Innovation also has a longstanding strategic priority on Sustainable Agriculture and Food (averaging £139 million per year), supporting critical ‘underpinning’ research and capability/skills development in plant science, pest and pathogen biology. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s recently announced Institute Strategic Programme includes ‘Building Robustness in Crops’, ‘Advancing Plant Health’, and ‘Delivering Sustainable Wheat’, which are all seeking to tackle strategic challenges in agriculture over the next five-year period.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 ONS dataset on Business enterprise research and development UK: 2021, published on 22 November 2022, what assessment she has made of the reasons for trends in R&D expenditure on (a) agriculture, hunting and forestry and (b) fishing between 2018 to 2021.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra has not conducted specific analysis on the latest R&D statistics from the ONS, which include updated figures for business, higher education sector, and economy-wide R&D investment. These are the result of ongoing efforts to improve data accuracy and ensure decisions are based on robust and reliable information. Defra’s own investment in R&D is increasing over the spending review period and includes programmes like the Farming Innovation Programme which began in 2021 and is designed to encourage innovation in the sector.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 importance of investment in chemical recycling for delivering a circular economy in the plastics sector.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
In the Resources and Waste Strategy, we have committed to taking actions which will help to stimulate private investment in recycling infrastructure. Chemical recycling offers a potential complementary route for plastic recycling where mechanical recycling is impractical or uneconomic and we continue to consider how chemical recycling could play a role in ensuring more of our plastic waste is recycled domestically to meet our ambition of a 65% recycling rate by 2035. WRAP recently published an updated plastic waste hierarchy which references chemical recycling and its potential for offering a complementary recycling route to mechanical recycling for certain plastics. The Government has also funded innovative demonstrator projects, including on chemical recycling, through UKRI’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging programme.