Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many single farm payments with a value of (a) £500,000-£1,000,000 and (b) over £1,000,000 were delivered via the Common Agricultural Policy in each of the last ten years in each (i) constituent part and (ii) region of the UK.
Answered by George Eustice
The Rural Payments Agency make payments under CAP within England. Payments to those who claim in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for the devolved administrations. A list of UK CAP beneficiaries in the last two years is available on the Defra website.
The data below is for the last full ten scheme years and provides the totals for England, and by NUTS region. Constituency level data can be found on the attached document.
Table 1. Total number of claims >£500k for England
Year | (a) £500k-£1m | (b) >£1m |
2016 | 28 | 11 |
2015 | 24 | 3 |
2014 | 29 | 5 |
2013 | 35 | 7 |
2012 | 33 | 6 |
2011 | 33 | 11 |
2010 | 31 | 9 |
2009 | 35 | 10 |
2008 | 18 | 8 |
2007 | 13 | 6 |
Table 2. Payments by region (NUTS)
NUTS Regions | Year | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 |
East Midlands | £500k-£1m | 2 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 3 |
>£1m | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |
East of England | £500k-£1 | 13 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 14 | 12 | 12 | 14 | 9 | 5 |
>£1m | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | |
London | £500k-£1m | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
>£1m | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
North East England | £500k-£1m | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
>£1m | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
North West England | £500k-£1m | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
>£1m | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
South East England | £500k-£1m | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
>£1m | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
South West England | £500k-£1m | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
>£1m | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
West Midlands | £500k-£1m | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
>£1m | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
Yorkshire & Humber | £500k-£1m | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
>£1m | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of (a) the Welsh Government and (b) other devolved administrations on the farming industry after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Eustice
Ministers and officials are in regular contact with ministers and officials from all of the Devolved Administrations. The Secretary of State last met Ministers from the Scottish and Welsh governments and senior officials from Northern Ireland on 14 May 2018.
I have also met stakeholder representatives from the Devolved Administrations on 21 March, at one of a series of roundtable meetings held during our agriculture consultation, “Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit” which ended on 8 May.
Agriculture is a devolved responsibility, and it is the government’s intention that each administration has the freedom to design policies that support the individual characteristics of their agricultural sector and their environment. The government has committed to work closely with the Devolved Administrations to deliver an approach that works for the whole of the UK and reflects the needs and individual circumstances of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) powered rescue boats, (b) non-powered rescue boats, (c) wading teams, (d) water incident managers, and (e) high volume pumps have been purchased by fire services in England through Government grants in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by George Eustice
We do not hold centrally the asset registers of individual Fire and Rescue Authorities. 46 High Volume Pumps were provided by 2016 to FRAs in England under the Home Office New Dimension Programme. Annual grants to support the national resilience HVP capability are paid to 38 authorities under the New Burdens arrangements. Some fire and rescue services have procured their own HVP to facilitate a local response.
The government maintains a national register of over 130 specialist flood rescue teams with associated equipment on standby to be deployed across the country to aid rescue efforts during a flood incident. This includes the voluntary sector and FRAs
When the register was set up in response to the Pitt Review (2008), Defra launched a one-off grant scheme of £2.5m to purchase new flood rescue boats, support the establishment of flood rescue teams and train tactical advisors.
In 2017/18, a total grant of £750,000 was provided to help maintain the assets on the register and for training.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of funding available to the Welsh agricultural sector came from (a) the UK Government (b) the European Union and (c) other sources in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra does not hold information on funding made available to the Welsh agricultural sector as this is a devolved issue. This information is held by the Welsh Government.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
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 on the potential merits of data visualisation training to improve his Departmental's analysis of complex statistical data.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra recognises the merits of data visualisation tools and techniques in the analysis of the range of complex statistical data that informs the department’s work and its formal published statistics.
A range of training courses are currently available to staff, including ‘An introduction to data visualisation’ and ‘Communicating statistics’, which are both offered by the Government Statistical Service Learning Academy. The Royal Statistical Society offers a ‘Foundation level course on data visualisation’.
In addition, the Data Science Accelerator offers the opportunity to develop data science skills including advanced visualisation (like R Shiny, Leaflet and D3).
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the percentage of funding for the agricultural sector in Wales that was derived from the common agricultural policy in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by George Eustice
Information on farming statistics and CAP payments in Wales is a devolved issue and Defra does not hold this data. This information is held by the Welsh Government.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the proportion of UK Common Agricultural Policy funds which was allocated to Wales in each year for which data is available.
Answered by George Eustice
The proportion of funds allocated to Wales from the UK’s 2014 to 2020 Common Agricultural Policy budget for Direct Payments is 9% and for the Rural Development Programme is 14%.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
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 staff in her Department worked in (a) departmental accommodation, (b) from home and (c) in any other location in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by George Eustice
The proportion of where staff are located in the department is shown in the table below:
Financial Year (31 March) | Departmental Accommodation | From Home | Other Locations |
2014/15 | 96.7% | 2.4% | 1.0% |
2015/16 | 96.2% | 3.4% | 0.4% |
2016/17 | 95.8% | 3.6% | 0.6% |
2017/18 (31 Jan 2018) | 97.4% | 2.3% | 0.3% |
Data has only been collected centrally since the 2014/15 financial year and is based on those payroll staff receiving the Home-Based allowance.
The department supports flexible working and work-life balance allowing employees to fulfil their roles and responsibilities while working remotely. These flexible working arrangements are agreed locally and would likely result in some employees working from home at times but their main location of work would be recorded as “Departmental Accommodation”. These arrangements are not factored into the data provided in the above table.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of his Department's spend on day-to-day goods has comprised fair trade products in each of the last eight years.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra’s finance system does not record whether a supplier provides fair trade products. To ascertain whether such products have been provided would require the manual examination of thousands of transactions. This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) full-time staff, (b) part-time staff, (c) temporary staff and (d) any other staff on zero hour contracts were employed directly by their Department in each of the last eight years.
Answered by George Eustice
The breakdown of staff employed in the department in each of the last eight years is shown below. Data is shown as at 31 March each year, except for the 2017/18 financial year which is shown as at 31 January 2018.
Headcount
| 2017/18 | 2016/17 | 2015/16 | 2014/15 | 2013/14 | 2012/13 | 20/1112 | 2010/11 |
Full-Time Payroll staff | 3015 | 1678 | 1460 | 1818 | 1804 | 1899 | 1902 | 2238 |
Part-Time Payroll staff | 548 | 272 | 238 | 268 | 264 | 272 | 262 | 315 |
Total Payroll Staff | 3563 | 1950 | 1968 | 2086 | 2068 | 2171 | 2164 | 2553 |
Temporary staff (non-payroll) | 339 | 121 | 75 | 98 | 91 | 73 | 73 | 119 |
Zero-Hours | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total All Staff | 3902 | 2071 | 2043 | 2184 | 2159 | 2244 | 2237 | 2672 |
Increases in payroll staff and temporary (non-payroll) numbers between 2016/17 and 2017/18 are due to recruitment to support EU Exit, corporate services transformation and prioritisation of work between the Arm’s Length Bodies / Executive Agencies and the department to support work on EU Exit.
It is not Defra Policy to employ staff on “Zero-Hours” contracts.