Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 16 October 2020 to Question 100935 on Housing: East Hampshire, if he will undertake an assessment of affordability ratios for homes inside (a) South Downs National Park and (b) other National Park boundaries relative to neighbouring areas.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether treatments for community acquired pneumonia have been used to treat patients with covid-19 on the NHS; and whether he plans to stockpile those treatments to prepare for a rise in cases of covid-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Guidance published by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence advises that antibiotic treatments for community acquired pneumonia are ineffective for COVID-19 related viral pneumonia unless there is a bacterial co-infection though the guidance allows for antibiotic prescription in certain circumstances, accommodating local antimicrobial prescribing preferences.
The Government continues to hold stockpiles of medicines, including those used in the treatment of community acquired pneumonia, to cope in a range of scenarios, and robust contingency planning continues to ensure that the country is prepared for a possible second peak of COVID-19 infections.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what impact assessment he has undertaken on the introduction of the ban on neonicotinoids.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Restrictions prohibiting the outdoor use of three neonicotinoids were put in place from late 2018. The Government supported these restrictions because, based on the scientific evidence, we were not prepared to put our pollinator populations at risk. The evidence on the toxicity of these chemicals to bees and their persistence in the environment means that the clear advice of scientific advisers is that these restrictions are justified.
The Government recognises that the loss of neonicotinoids has made it harder for farmers to control certain pests in emerging crops. Some growers of crops including oilseed rape and sugar beet aphids have faced significant yield losses because of these difficulties.
The Government considered these impacts in deciding its approach, but did not carry out a formal impact assessment. This was because neither the benefits nor the costs of restrictions on neonicotinoids are amenable to precise quantification.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what information his Department holds on the (a) residence-based and (b) workplace-based house price to income ratios for (i) East Hampshire parliamentary constituency and (ii) East Hampshire district local authority area disaggregated by the area (A) inside and (B) outside the South Downs National Park in all years where data is available.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
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 trends in the levels of (a) honey production, (b) the total bee population and (c) the wild bee population in the last 10 years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
UK honey production has recovered over the past few years to around 6,500 tonnes in 2019, following a significant drop earlier in the decade. A range of factors affect production, predominantly weather, levels of pests and disease and numbers of large-scale commercial bee farmers. No formal assessment is made of honey production trends but the National Bee Unit has a key role in supporting the sector by ensuring that levels of pests and disease are kept to a minimum. This is achieved through delivery of our apiary inspection programme and the provision of education and training for beekeepers.
Honey bee numbers are dependent upon the numbers of colonies managed by beekeepers and bee farmers. In the last ten years, numbers of colonies recorded on the National Bee Unit’s BeeBase website have doubled from around 110,000 to around 220,000. It should be recognised, however, that this increase is due in part to new registrations of existing beekeepers, and not entirely to additional colonies or beekeepers.
Each year, the Government publishes an indicator of trends in populations of wild bees and other pollinators in the UK, measuring changes in the distribution of almost 400 pollinating insect species since 1980, including 137 species of bees. The indicator shows an overall decline since 1980. However, there are encouraging, but not yet definitive signs of improvement for some species. For example, from 2013 onwards, there is evidence of an overall increase in the distribution of the 137 wild bee species, although other insect pollinators have continued to decline. The annual update of the indicator was published on 15 October 2020.
Defra works with a range of partners to implement a National Pollinator Strategy to address declines in wild pollinators and concerns about bee health, alongside more specific action to support honey bees and beekeeping in the Healthy Bees Plan. This has included establishing a UK-wide pollinator monitoring and research partnership in collaboration with research institutes and volunteer organisations to gather further data on the status of UK pollinators.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
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 trends in (a) acreage of oilseed rape, (b) imports of oilseed rape and (c) imports of oilseed rape substitutes in the last 10 years.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Oilseed rape area increased from 269 thousand hectares in 1984, reaching a peak of 756 thousand hectares in 2012. Since then the area has decreased each year (apart from 2018 when an increase to 583 thousand hectares was seen). The provisional figure for 2020 shows a further decrease to 388 thousand hectares.
Total area planted for Oilseed rape in hectares for the last ten years
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
Thousand hectares | 705 | 756 | 715 | 675 | 652 | 579 | 562 | 583 | 530 | 388* |
*2020 figure is current estimate based on Defra survey
Total Oilseed rape imports over the same period are shown below
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
Thousand tonnes | 64 | 18 | 177 | 87 | 87 | 63 | 345 | 206 | 354 |
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Total other Oilseed (excl Rape but including Soya, Nut, Sunflower, Linseed) imports over the same period are shown below
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
Thousand tonnes | 1,016 | 991 | 842 | 1,013 | 998 | 903 | 954 | 1,012 | 851 |
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Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his timescale is for responding to the Glover Landscapes Review published in September 2019.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to ensuring our Protected Landscapes flourish as havens for nature and are places that everyone can visit and enjoy.
The Glover Landscapes Review set out a compelling vision for more beautiful, more biodiverse and more accessible National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. We welcome this ambition and consider it important that we actively engage with stakeholders to inform and develop our response.
We are working on our response to the Review, with a focus on those recommendations requiring collective action and new ways of working nationally. The Government will come forward with firm proposals for implementing the Glover Landscapes Review in due course.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
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 effectiveness of the operation of the Seasonal Workers Pilot.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Defra and the Home Office have been working closely to ensure the successful operation of the Seasonal Workers Pilot, and to undertake an effective assessment. The evaluation of the Seasonal Workers Pilot is ongoing and the results will be published in due course. The expansion of the Pilot in 2020 will enable the Government to carry out a more extensive evaluation of the systems and process in place to access labour from non-EEA countries, ahead of any decisions being taken of how the future needs of the sector may be addressed.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to make a decision on whether to continue the Seasonal Workers Pilot scheme under the new points-based immigration system.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We are working with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Work and Pensions to evaluate and consider the findings of the Pilot, including balancing measures to recruit in the UK Labour Market with any access to overseas labour.
We will publish further details in due course.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 1 July 2020 to Question 63308 on roads: noise, what plans his Department has for the further development and testing of noise camera technology.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Department’s initial trials of a prototype acoustic camera have concluded, and the results will be published shortly. The outcome of the trial is currently being considered, including what further development would be required to enable the technology to be used for more targeted and efficient enforcement.
Some of the challenges include blending of noise from other vehicles and the surrounding environment, and the effect of changing ambient conditions.