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 recent steps he has taken to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged into rivers, inland waterways and the sea.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
This Government is the first Government to set out our expectation that water companies must take steps to significantly reduce storm overflows. We have gone further and made that position law. The amount of sewage discharge by water companies into our rivers is not acceptable. We have made it crystal clear to water companies that they must up their game. If we do not start to see significant improvements, we will not hesitate to take action.
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 he made of the impact on the North East environment & food production of global warming of (a) 1.5 per cent, (b) 1.8 per cent, (c) 2.4 per cent and (d) 4 per cent.
Answered by Jo Churchill
I have assumed the question is asking about warming above pre-industrial levels of 1.5, 1.8, 2.4 and 4 degrees C, rather than percentage change.
The Climate Change Committee's (CCC) Climate Risk Independent Assessment (statutory advice to Government) was published in June 2021. It provides detailed insight into risks and opportunities to the UK, focusing on the impacts of 2 and 4 degrees of global warming. The assessment has identified 61 risks and opportunities, 18 of which are for the natural environment, including domestic food production.
The CCC's assessment does not break down risks to below a national scale. Adaptation action must however be considered at a local scale to account for local differences in climate impacts. This is a research priority and we are working closely with the scientific community to better understand local risks, alongside developing and improving climate services to allow government, businesses, and communities to take the steps necessary for enhancing resilience.
More broadly, the UK Climate Projections provide the most up-to-date assessment of how the UK climate may change in the future. In 2018, the Met Office Hadley Centre released the latest set of Defra commissioned UK Climate Projections (UKCP18). The UKCP18 local climate projections were launched in 2019 and have a horizontal spatial resolution of 2.2km. These projections will be available to inform future UK Climate Change Risk Assessments, providing the most detailed ever local level data for the UK.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
What steps he is taking to reduce the amount of litter in the environment.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Since publishing our 2017 Litter Strategy we have both increased and introduced new penalties for littering, launched an anti-litter campaign with Keep Britain Tidy and provided nearly £1 million to help councils purchase new bins.
More recently, we have brought together chewing gum producers to establish a voluntary producer responsibility scheme through which they will invest up to £10 million over five years to help clean up our streets and facilitate long-term behaviour change.
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 plans his Department has to (a) promote collaboration between land managers with stakeholders from the (i) private sector and (ii) Government and (b) incentivise better land management which balances the trade-off between sustainability and food provision.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
We are working closely with stakeholders to investigate a range of mechanisms that can promote and support collaboration between land managers, government, and the private sector.
For example, our Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund is developing a pipeline of scalable and replicable nature projects the that private sector can invest in. We are also funding tests and trials on how to enable blending of public and private finance in our new environmental land management schemes and ensure that public money does not "crowd out" private investment. We are co-designing services alongside the community including stakeholders and farmers.
Our new environmental land management schemes will pay for sustainable farming practices, improving animal health and welfare, reducing carbon emissions, creating and preserving habitat, and making landscape-scale environmental changes. This is an important step towards achieving our 25 Year Environment Plan ambitions and our carbon net zero goals.
For example, we are currently proposing to open applications for our first Landscape Recovery pilot projects to sites between 500 to 5,000 hectares, which could be provided by collaborative groups of farmers and land managers, individuals, or organisations such as non-government organisations. This will build on the success of the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund, which we announced a new round of funding for in September.
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 he has made of the effectiveness of legislation on second-hand lithium battery sales in reducing fires and explosions.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government is committed to ensuring there is an effective products safety system so that only safe products can be sold in the UK. We have some of the most robust product safety requirements in the world. Manufacturers and importers must ensure that products are safe before they are placed on the market. They must monitor the safety of their products in use and take action if a safety issue is identified. Enforcement authorities have powers to take measures against manufacturers, importers and distributors of unsafe goods.
Earlier this year, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Office for Product Safety and Standards commissioned Newcastle University to conduct research examining the safety of second life batteries used in domestic energy storage systems. The aim of this work is to understand best practice in the design and installation of domestic battery energy storage systems that use second life batteries and to provide policy makers a clear understanding of the safety risks to consumers and typical methods used by manufacturers to reduce these risks. The findings will be summarised in a final report published later this year.
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, how many information gateways there are in operation in his Department; and how those gateways are managed and monitored.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Defra does not hold a consolidated, central register of information gateways although the scope of gateways and their current use is well understood by relevant policy and operational teams.
Although much Defra data is published freely for reuse, more restricted data sharing both within and outside Government is common for regulatory and other reasons. Data sharing requests are typically dealt with on a case by case basis and available gateways are considered as part of an overall evaluation of the purpose, risks and benefits of sharing.
Defra’s arm’s length bodies manage their own use of information gateways.
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 he is taking to reduce the level of sewage spills into the River Tyne.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Specific to the Tyne and its tributaries, there are 35 ongoing investigations to identify the frequency of spills from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) and to deliver a cost beneficial solution to reduce this. Work is scheduled to complete by the end of 2030.
Howdon Sewage Treatment Works, which handles all of Newcastle’s sewage, is being upgraded at a cost of £90 million to handle more sewage and accommodate growth in the area. These upgrades will increase the current storm tank sizes and reduce the amount of spills to the Tyne estuary.
Northumbrian Water Group are also working with the Environment Agency (EA) and local authorities to produce a Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan due to be published by June 2023. This plan will manage the impact of growth and climate change on the wastewater infrastructure to prevent any future environmental impacts.
Across England, the Government has established a new Storm Overflows Taskforce comprising Defra, the EA, Ofwat, CCW, Water UK and Blueprint for Water which is meeting regularly, with the aim of setting out clear proposals to reduce the frequency and volumes of sewage discharged into rivers and other waterways in extreme weather. The Taskforce is also exploring further short-term actions water companies can take to accelerate progress on storm overflows.
We recognise more needs to be done which is why we continue to work closely with Ofwat and water companies to find ways to reduce the need for storm overflow discharges. In 2019, Ofwat introduced a package of allowances and incentives for the next five years, setting water companies the challenge of reducing pollution incidents by a third, also requiring them to invest £4.8 billion in environmental improvements.