Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) adequacy and (b) effectiveness of systems for recycling plastics.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The UK continues to be a global leader in tackling plastic waste, and our ambition is to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste. Our landmark Resources and Waste Strategy sets out how we want to achieve this and move towards a more circular economy.
Following support in our 2019 consultation on ‘Consistency in household and business recycling collections in England,’ we will introduce legislation through the Environment Bill that will require a core set of recyclable materials, including plastics, to be collected from households and businesses by all waste collectors in England.
We will also introduce measures to encourage producers to use plastic packaging that can be recycled through reforms of Extended Producer Responsibility and the introduction of a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, including plastic bottles.
We encourage the development of infrastructure for plastic reprocessing to ensure the UK meets its recycling targets as well as supporting the major waste reforms. The plastic packaging tax is expected to increase demand for secondary material plastic and increasing reprocessing infrastructure will help meet this demand. Reprocessing infrastructure enables the value of resource use to be maximised as well as waste arisings and its impact on the environment to be minimised.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the effect of poor air quality on the level of demand on the NHS.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Air pollution poses the biggest environmental threat to public health. Improving air quality remains a top priority for the government, with Defra and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) working closely together on this issue. The scientific evidence base continues to evolve, and our understanding of the range and scale of health effects associated with air pollution is constantly improving. Public Health England has assessed in a 2018 report[1] that the cumulative costs to the health and social care service from air pollution will be £5.3 billion by 2035, and their evidence shows that a reduction of 1 µg/m3 of PM2.5 in England in a single year would prevent 9,000 cases of asthma, 50,000 cases of coronary heart disease, 4000 lung cancers and 15,000 strokes till 2035.
The two departments regularly engage at all levels. Earlier in the year the Chief Medical Officer and Government Chief Scientist held a roundtable on indoor air quality with various government departments, including DHSC and Defra. During this productive meeting there was acknowledgment of the evidence gaps and recognition of the need for a cross-government approach to address the issue. More recently Minister Pow attended a Health Summit organised as part of Clean Air Day, which brought together air quality experts, NHS and WHO representatives. Defra will continue to have regular and extensive discussions with DHSC, the research community and the NHS, on the relationship between air quality and health.
We are committed to tackling air pollution in order to improve public health and the environment. This is stated in Clean Air Strategy of 2019, which the WHO lauded as world leading. We are also introducing the first Environment Bill in 20 years, and in it we are committing to ambitious new air quality targets on PM2.5, the pollutant of greatest harm to human health.
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/836720/Estimation_of_costs_to_the_NHS_and_social_care_due_to_the_health_impacts_of_air_pollution.pdf
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 potential effect of increasing green public spaces in urban areas on (a)(i) physical and (ii) mental health and (b) the environment.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
There is good and growing evidence that connecting people with green space can deliver positive health outcomes through the prevention of mental ill-health, as an alternative option for managing mild to moderate mental health conditions and in some cases supporting the management of more severe conditions. It can also deliver important benefits for recreation, physical health, social well-being and employment.
Green social prescribing links people to nature-based interventions and activities. We have recently been awarded £4.27 million from HM Treasury’s Shared Outcomes Fund to deliver a joint project with the Department of Health and Social Care, Natural England, NHS England, Public Health England and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to test green social prescribing in four pilot locations, run national experimental work to understand its scalability and deliver a robust project evaluation. The project will test how to increase use and connectivity to green social prescribing services in order to improve mental health outcomes, reduce health inequalities, reduce demand on the health and social care system, and develop best practice in making local systems more resilient and accessible.
Natural England and Public Health England have published a Rapid Scoping Review of Health and Wellbeing Evidence for the National Framework of Green Infrastructure Standards, which was undertaken by the University of Exeter.
Green Infrastructure includes greenspace such as parks and woodlands but also other environmental features such as street trees, hedgerows and green walls and roofs. It also includes blue infrastructure, such as canals, rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and their borders. Natural England is working with Defra and other partners and stakeholders to develop a National Framework of Green Infrastructure Standards. This will show what good green infrastructure looks like and help all local authorities, developers and communities to improve provision in their area.
Well-designed and managed green public spaces and other green infrastructure provide multiple benefits at a range of scales. They can contribute to biodiversity recovery, sequester carbon, absorb surface water, cleanse pollutants, absorb noise and reduce high temperatures.
Defra and Natural England have made use of a wide body of evidence to understand the potential environmental effects of increasing green infrastructure in urban areas.
The Office for National Statistics has produced the UK Natural Capital: Urban Accounts in partnership with Defra, which quantify the value of cooling, removal of air pollution, carbon removal, noise mitigation and recreation from urban green space.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of the UK's waste that has gone to landfill in each of the last five years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Statistics for the amount of UK waste sent to landfill are calculated by Defra at two-yearly intervals. The latest figures that are available are for 2018 and published by Eurostat – see below.
UK Waste sent to Landfill - Thousand tonnes unless otherwise indicated | |||
Calendar Year | Landfill (Waste deposited into or onto Land) | Total waste sent to final treatment | Landfill as a Percentage of Total waste treated |
2014 | 48,178 | 205,436 | 23.5% |
2016 | 52,271 | 214,287 | 24.4% |
2018 | 50,789 | 214,653 | 23.7% |
Source; Eurostat:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/env_wastrt/default/table?lang=en
By implementing measures in our Resources and Waste Strategy the Government will continue to reduce waste to landfill.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the amount of food wasted by (a) consumers, (b) supermarkets and (c) restaurants.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
In December 2018, the Government launched its Resources and Waste Strategy which sets out our approach to address food waste from farm to fork.
Through Government grant funding of over £3 million this year, the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) aims to reduce food waste across the supply chain and in the home.
We are also fully committed to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target, which seeks to halve global food waste at consumer and retail levels by 2030.
Consumer campaign initiatives including the lovefoodhatewaste programme and campaign moments such as Crushing it aim to help consumers tackle waste in the home. This is supported by the Courtauld 2025 Commitment, a collaboration across the supply chain which aims to reduce UK food waste by 20% per capita by 2025 through for example supply chain efficiency initiatives and consumer behaviour change prompts such as storage advice. We also work closely with WRAP on its work with the hospitality industry and the provision of resources such as ‘Guardians of Grub: Becoming a Champion’ (http://www.guardiansofgrub.com/becoming-a-champion) and ‘Target Measure Act’ (https://www.wrap.org.uk/content/target-measure-act-case-studies-hospitality-and-food-service), embedding food waste management at the center of business operations.
Through the £15 million Food Waste Fund we are also making grants available to prevent food waste, including helping food surplus redistributors to get more surplus from the supply chain to those who have a need.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to prevent the stockpiling of food and other essentials in the context of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The UK has a highly-resilient food supply chain and a food industry which is experienced in dealing with disruptions to food supply. The expertise, capability and levers to plan for, and respond to, food supply disruption lie predominantly with the industry, but the Government has a supportive role.
This includes extensive and ongoing engagement to support industry in preparedness for, and response to, potential food supply chain disruptions, as well coordinating a joined-up approach to communications and messaging with industry leads based on learnings from the response earlier in the year. The Government response can include relaxation of key regulations to support food supply on driver hours, delivery times, advice on food labelling and on competition law for key sectors.
Whilst we saw an increase in consumer demand at the outset of the pandemic, things have largely stabilised. We remain in regular contact with the supermarkets and industry representatives, who report no overall supply issues.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to protect wildlife from death or injury caused by discarded face masks.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government has published guidance on the proper disposal of face coverings and other PPE during the coronavirus pandemic. This is available at:
www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-disposing-of-waste.
Littering of PPE is a criminal offence, and councils have legal powers to take enforcement action against offenders. Anyone caught littering may be prosecuted in a magistrates’ court, which can lead to a criminal record and a fine of up to £2,500 on conviction. Instead of prosecuting, councils may decide to issue a fixed penalty (on-the-spot fine) of between £65 and £150. If a council has not set a local fixed penalty level, it must charge the default penalty, which is £100.
Defra is raising awareness via social media of what individuals can do to protect others and the environment, including in relation to litter. We have recently published a video highlighting the issue of improperly discarded face coverings at: twitter.com/DefraGovUK/status/1309045391724351489.
Defra has launched a 'Respect the Outdoors' campaign this summer. This has been promoted both online and in locations near to urban parks, beaches and national parks to highlight the impacts of littering, as well as unauthorised barbeques and campfires, and breaches of the countryside code.
Defra has also supported, and provided funding for, Keep Britain Tidy's Love Parks campaign, which encourages people to treat our parks with respect this summer. Further information about the campaign is available at:
www.keepbritaintidy.org/news/new-campaign-launched-face-littering-epidemic-parks.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 protect endangered UK wildlife from extinction.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
In England, the 25 Year Environment Plan (YEP) marked a step-change in ambition for wildlife and the natural environment. We are already taking action to fulfil this ambition. We have brought forward the first Environment Bill in over 20 years with ambitious measures to address the biggest environmental priorities of our age, including restoring and enhancing nature. The Bill will set the framework for at least one legally binding target for biodiversity. We have announced new funding for nature through our Nature Recovery, Nature for Climate and Green Recovery Challenge Funds; and we will be launching a new Environmental Land Management scheme that will reward farmers and land managers for delivering environmental public goods, including thriving plants and wildlife.
Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme supports the recovery of threatened and declining species in partnership with a number of stakeholder organisations. Natural England is also working with conservation organisations on the Back from the Brink programme. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and partners, it aims to save 20 of England’s most threatened animals and plants from extinction, and benefit over 200 other species.