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Written Question
Donkeys and Horses: Exports
Tuesday 16th January 2024

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made a recent assessment of the adequacy of the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s welfare arrangements regime for the live export of (a) horses, (b) donkeys and (c) ponies.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

No such recent assessment has been made. The Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill, currently progressing through Parliament, will ban the live export of horses, donkeys and ponies for slaughter from Great Britain, stopping unnecessary stress, exhaustion and injury caused by this trade.


Written Question
Recycling: Standards
Monday 23rd October 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

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 24 November 2022 to Question 86609 on Recycling: Standards, when she plans to publish the results of the consultation on Consistency in Household and Business Recycling Collections in England.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

We published our response to the 2021 consultation Consistency in Household and Business Recycling in England on 21st October 2023. It is now available on GOV.UK.


Written Question
Tree Felling
Friday 21st July 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of (a) enabling local authorities to set tariffs for the unnecessary felling of trees and (b) using the monies raised for (i) replacement tree planting and (ii) other relevant schemes.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The felling of trees in England is a legally controlled activity regulated by the FC, which, with some exceptions, requires a Felling licence. If a licence is not acquired the felling is an offence and the individual can be subject to a fine. The amount individuals can be fined for illegal felling recently increased, and Forestry Commission can now issue an unlimited fine for felling they deem in breech of regulations.

In many instances it is also possible for the Forestry Commission to serve a Restocking Notice, which compels the offender to restock the land with trees. Recent changes ensured restocking notices are now considered land charges, which means replanting trees will be required on land where trees were wrongly felled, even if the land is sold or new planning permissions are applied for on the land.

Local planning authorities also already have the power to serve Tree Preservation Orders which protect individual trees or areas of trees, even where they are exempt from the need for a felling licence.

Anyone who contravenes an Order by damaging or carrying out work on a tree protected by an Order without getting permission from the local planning authority is guilty of illegal felling and subject to the fine described. No assessment has been made in regard to adding any additional tariffing system, however, we committed to reforming our felling licence system and controls in the England Trees Action Plan; and indeed, strengthened the enforcement provisions of the felling licence regime through the Environment Act 2021.

Further work has begun investigating potential future legislative reforms to the system that would primarily involve the introduction of greater flexibility to licence conditions, improved clarity around felling controls and UK Forestry Standard requirements.


Written Question
Agriculture: Water Supply
Thursday 29th June 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department routinely undertakes assessments of the potential impacts of restrictions to water for the (a) agriculture and (b) horticulture sectors by water companies on the availability of food.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Restriction of water by water companies are primely targeted at households and reducing demand to help conserve supplies. Water companies will impose restrictions on a tiered approach, starting with a temporary use ban and if the drought continues then apply for a drought order to ban non-essential use of water (such as window cleaning). Neither will impact the availability of food production. Only in the most severe droughts, where water supplies are threatened, would this become an issue. To impose this level of restrictions would require an emergency drought order from the Secretary of State.

Farmers involved in food production will usually take water direct from the environment. This is regulated by the Environment Agency using its abstraction licensing regime. The NFU are part of the National Drought Group, who monitor droughts and work collaboratively to manage water.’

During periods of exceptional drought, the Environment Agency has the power to apply restrictions on spray irrigation users through S57 of the Water Resources Act 1991. This is done to protect the environment. The Agency needs to have “regard to costs and benefits in exercising powers” before implementing them as outlined in Section 39 of the Environment Act 1995.

Food is produced and grown across the country. The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, as demonstrated throughout the Covid-19 response and is well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption.

Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources; strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes. We produce 61% of all the food we need, and 74% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year, and these figures have changed little over the last 20 years.

UK consumers have access through international trade to food products that cannot be produced here, or at least not on a year-round basis. This supplements domestic production, and also ensures that any disruption from risks such as adverse weather or disease does not affect the UK's overall security of supply.

We continue to keep weather situations and any impact on our agri-food sectors under close review, including through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group (UKAMMG). This was set up by Defra and the Devolved Administrations to monitor the UK market situation across all key agricultural commodities whilst also considering that the situation will vary by region, area, crop and soil type. We have also increased engagement with our valued industry colleagues to supplement Government analysis with real-time intelligence.


Written Question
Agriculture: Water
Tuesday 27th June 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

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 implications for her policies on a fully integrated, multi-sector, catchment based approach to water systems planning of the conclusions of the report by the National Farmers Union Integrated Water Management published in January 2021.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

In April we published our Plan for Water, which sets out the importance of ensuring a clean and plentiful water supply. The Plan set out how we will take a systematic, local, catchment-based approach, in a coordinated and collaborative way to improve water management.

The Environment Agency and Defra are working closely with the agricultural sector on water resource management, water quality and flooding issues via multi-sector groups. For example, we are also supporting the creation of water resources management plans for agriculture, that will inform local catchment and wider regional water resources plans on our future water needs and help farmers improve drought resilience. We will also support farmer-led groups to identify local water resource schemes building on the success of projects like Felixstowe Hydrocycle.


Written Question
Drugs: Packaging
Tuesday 27th June 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,if she will (a) make it his policy to require local authorities to provide blister pack recycling services and (b) issue guidance to local authorities on blister pack recycling.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Following support at public consultation, the Environment Act 2021 introduced new requirements for all local authorities in England to make arrangements for a core set of materials to be collected for recycling from all households: paper and card; plastic; glass; metal; food waste and garden waste. In 2021 we consulted on the detail of this policy, including implementation dates and materials in scope of collection – we will publish a consultation response shortly.

Regarding blister packs, these are difficult to recycle due to the mix of different materials they are made from and, as such, tend not to be collected through kerbside recycling services. Take-back recycling schemes, such as the Terracycle scheme, can accept more complex packaging materials at dedicated recycling facilities.

The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme for packaging will provide a strong financial incentive for businesses to make better, more sustainable decisions in their design and use of packaging, and to take greater responsibility for the environmental impacts of the packaging they use. As part of this policy producers of hard to recycle packaging, such as medical blister packs, who take back this packaging and have it recycled, will be eligible for a discount on their EPR disposal cost fees.


Written Question
Water Abstraction: Licensing
Friday 23rd June 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if her Department will work with the Environment Agency to develop a service level agreement with water abstraction licence holders on time for adaption when licences are changed.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

In April we published our Plan for Water, which sets out the importance of ensuring a clean and plentiful water supply, including environmentally sustainable water abstraction. I expect the Environment Agency to take what action is needed to reduce the environmental damage caused by abstraction – this will include changing abstraction licences.

The Environment Agency has indicated that it will consider giving abstractors time to adapt to licence changes on a case-by-case basis. Management options could include, for example, building a storage reservoir to replace a summer spray irrigation licence to abstract from a river. The Environment Agency is currently developing its approach, but current thinking is that it will be up to abstractors to justify why they need time to adapt. There will not be any fixed adaptation time but instead the period of time will be consistent with the environmental risks, the proposed adaptation and how much notice an abstractor has already had of the changes. Where an abstraction is already damaging the environment then it may not be possible for the Environment Agency to allow any time to adapt, especially where an abstraction is damaging a designated site or species. The Government also supports the agricultural sector with its Farming Transformation Fund grants for the construction of new on-farm reservoirs. We are also supporting the creation of national and regional Water Resource Management Plans for agriculture, which will help farmers plan their water resources and ensure better resilience to drought.


Written Question
Dogs: Electronic Training Aids
Tuesday 13th June 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

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 introducing a licensing or regulatory scheme for trainers to use electric dog collars in specific settings.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

A regulatory scheme would fail to offer adequate protection for cats and dogs, given the scope of these devices to cause harm. Additionally, implementing such a scheme would create a significant burden on any body charged with overseeing the use of such devices and ensuring compliance.


Written Question
Agriculture: Seasonal Workers
Tuesday 23rd May 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has had recent discussions with (a) growers and (b) growers associations on the potential merits of extending the length of the seasonal workers visa for the harvesting of crops which have a longer growing season than six months.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra holds regular discussions and roundtable events with growers and growers associations.

Ministers met with industry stakeholders, including growers, at the Farm to Fork Summit on 16 May at which the Government confirmed that the number of Seasonal Worker visas available in 2024 for horticulture will again be 45,000 (plus 2,000 for poultry), with the potential for a further 10,000 visas if necessary, contingent on sponsors and growers improving and abiding by worker welfare standards as previously agreed.

The Seasonal Worker visa route was designed to support horticulture growers in the UK during peak production periods, whilst maintaining robust immigration control. It allows horticultural businesses to recruit foreign workers for up to six months to work in both the edible and ornamental sectors. It was not designed to meet the full labour needs of the horticulture sector nor to be a source of permanent labour.

Furthermore, the Seasonal Worker visa, which is applied for outside the UK and lasts for six months or less, incurs no NHS surcharge of £624 per year, unlike a nine month or longer visa which would incur this cost to seasonal workers.


Written Question
Convention on Biological Diversity
Wednesday 5th April 2023

Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

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 16 March 2023 to Question 164001 on the Convention on Biological Diversity, when her Department plans to publish the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan to bring it into line with the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed at COP16.

Answered by Trudy Harrison

At COP15 all Parties committed to reviewing and updating their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans to bring them into line with the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by COP16 in 2024. The UK will honour this commitment and will publish the relevant documentation ahead of the next meeting of the COP.