Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions her Department has had with representatives of St Helens Council on preparations for leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by George Eustice
We have communicated on a range of topics with local authorities, including in a conference call on 13 August along with other government departments. Each local Authority has established a Brexit lead officer to liaise with government.
Defra has identified areas where our exit preparations impact local authorities. For instance Environmental Health Officers are responsible for issuing Export Health Certificates on fish and we have discussed capacity and the requirements with them.
We regularly contribute to a cross-government working group which coordinates engagement with local authorities.
Information on leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement relevant to a particular local authority can then be accessed by the local authority via shared channels, such as:
Information on a range of Defra’s exit projects if we leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement has been made available to local authorities through these channels. This includes information on:
Local authorities have been invited to attend various meetings, including workshops, training events and roadshows on topics including:
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens 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 she has made of the potential merits of (a) restoring sections of and (b) extending the Sankey Canal to join the main canal system through the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Department has not made any such assessments. Responsibility for canals, including their operation, development or restoration rests with the bodies that own them and for which they are the navigation authority. For the majority of the canal network in England and Wales the navigation authority is the Canal and River Trust (CRT). Responsibility for different sections of the Sankey Canal falls to three Unitary Authorities, the CRT, and a limited company.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his Department's strategy and targets are for the remediation of contaminated land.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
There are no central targets for the remediation of contaminated land. The majority (around 90 per cent) is remediated via the planning system as part of development and redevelopment.
Some of the remaining land is cleaned up voluntarily by landowners. Legislation under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 is used to clean up land contamination where there is no market solution. Local authorities, and in the case of special sites[i], the Environment Agency, are the regulatory authorities under the Act for ensuring that land contamination that is posing an unacceptable risk is identified and cleaned up. The Act requires each local authority to have an inspection strategy in place to identify potentially contaminated land in their areas.
[i] Sites that have undergone a specific use as listed under section (2) of the Contaminated Land (England) Regulations 2006 are designated as special sites, and include sites that are affecting controlled waters or contain radioactive material.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in how many years since 2010 (a) St Helens, (b) Merseyside and (c) the North West have been in breach of EU air pollution levels.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
Defra assesses compliance against EU air quality limit values for 43 regional zones and agglomerations across the UK. This monitoring covers five key pollutants: particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), sulphur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). We do not hold compliance data at a local authority level.
Monitoring data is available up to 2015. Details of compliance in each year since 2010 that data is available for is set out in the table below. The Liverpool Urban Area agglomeration encompasses St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council.
Performance against the EU limit values for PM10 and PM2.5, SO2, O3 and NO2 between 2010 and 2015.
Zone | Year NO2 hourly limit value exceeded | Year NO2 annual mean value exceeded | SO2, PM10, PM2.5 and O3 |
Liverpool Urban Area | No exceedances | 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 | No exceedances |
North West & Merseyside zone | No exceedances | 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 | No exceedances |
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the economic value of agricultural exports to the EU in (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) the North West and (c) the UK in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by George Eustice
According to the latest HMRC trade data, the provisional value of UK exports of food & drink to the EU for the 12 month period December 2015 to November 2016 was £11.8 billion.
Approximately 50% (£5.9 billion) of these exports were raw or lightly-processed goods related to the agricultural sector. The remaining 50% of exports were highly-processed goods related to the food & drink manufacturing sector.
Agricultural trade data is not available for the geographic detail requested in parts (a) and (b).
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding has been allocated to (a) St Helens, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK for flood prevention and remediation in each year since 2010.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
The Government has invested £2.5 billion over six years on improving flood defences to better protect over 300,000 homes. This is a real terms increase in capital investment – up from £1.7 billion in the last Parliament and £1.5 billion between 2005 and 2010.
The table below summarises the total capital investment on flood and coastal risk management for St Helens, Merseyside and England for each year since 2010.
| Total capital investment on flood and coastal risk management (£k) | ||
St Helens (Metropolitan Borough) | Merseyside | England | |
2010/11 | 318 | 4,501 | 363,985 |
2011/12 | 188 | 1,329 | 321,900 |
2012/13 | 377 | 466 | 323,219 |
2013/14 | 10 | 78 | 380,217 |
2014/15 | 0 | 206 | 507,884 |
2015/16 | 0 | 0 | 412,952 |
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding for flood prevention her Department has allocated to each local authority in 2016-17.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
The Department provides funding for flood risk management projects through Grant in Aid to Risk Management Authorities, which include the Environment Agency, local authorities and internal drainage boards. Please see the attached table which shows Grant in Aid funding allocated to Risk Management Authorities in 2016/17. This is a snapshot for the current year and reflects the bids made by authorities for specific projects.
In addition funding for local authorities’ ongoing flood prevention responsibilities is provided through the Local Government Settlement. Local authorities have freedom to determine their own priorities and so there is no specific flood allocation by authority.
Funding for two ongoing flood responsibilities, the Lead Local Flood Authority role and local authorities’ role as statutory consultee on surface water for major developments, was previously provided through Defra and DCLG grants but as of 2016/17 has been fully rolled into the settlement. The visible lines show a notional amount for each authority for these two purposes. The lines indicate the priority central government gives to these two services but do not affect authorities’ freedom to set their own priorities locally.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many applicants for common agricultural policy payments from (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK were awaiting payment by the March 2016 payment deadline.
Answered by George Eustice
As at the end of March 2016, in addition to claims which the Rural Payments Agency cannot pay due to legal reasons such as probate, there were 13,531 English claimants still awaiting a BPS Payment. Of these 54 applicants were in Merseyside and 25 in St Helens North. The RPA does not hold the information for the UK as payments in Scotland and Wales are made by their respective governments.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens 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 her Department is taking to reduce the level of inaccurate Common Agricultural Policy payments.
Answered by George Eustice
The RPA introduced new features to enable farmers and agents to apply for 2016 BPS online, as well as view their land and transfer land and entitlements to others. With over 80% of claims received online, this means the number of cases requiring manual data-entry this year was significantly reduced.