Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many times the Responsible Dog Ownership working group have met since its inception.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Responsible Dog Ownership working group and its subgroups have met 26 times since it was established in February 2022.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Government plans to review (a) the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and (b) breed-specific legislation.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We currently have no plans to review the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 or breed-specific legislation. We have established a Responsible Dog Ownership working group involving the police, local authorities, and other key stakeholders to consider all aspects of tackling irresponsible dog ownership. The working group is considering improved data collection and reporting, dog training, consistency of enforcement practices and education and communications to encourage responsible dog ownership. Recommendations are expected later this year.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans that the Responsible Dog Ownership working group will report on its progress.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We expect the Responsible Dog Ownership working group to report its findings later this year.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
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 she has held with trade union representatives of food workers on the impact of the increase in grocery prices on employment and remuneration of workers in that sector.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra meets regularly with trade association groups such as the National Farmers Union. It is not for HM Government to comment on wages of private businesses nor to comment on day-to-day commercial decisions.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
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 21 March 2023 to Question 167213 on Water Companies: Standards, whether her Department makes a distinction between internal and external dividends when formulating policies on enforcement action against water companies that do not link dividend payments to performance.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Government has been clear that companies must be transparent about aligning dividend payments to delivery of services for customers and performance, including environmental performance.
We support Ofwat’s new measures to increase financial resilience in the sector that improves transparency and customer protection. When analysing dividends paid out by water companies, Ofwat looks at all dividend payments both internally within the company corporate structure as well those paid to external shareholders.
Further information on Ofwat’s new measures can be found here Decision_document_financial_resilience_proposals.pdf (ofwat.gov.uk)
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
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 she has made of the effectiveness of Ofwat.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government has established a robust system of independent economic regulation for the purpose of ensuring the public receive excellent service and value for money from their water companies.
Ofwat, as the independent economic regulator, protects the interests of consumers by making sure water companies carry out their statutory functions and are financially resilient, as well as holding them to account on performance and the delivery of essential services for customers.
Where companies fail to meet their obligations, regulators have not hesitated to act. Ofwat’s annual performance assessment process, and the automatic penalties that apply to companies who underperform, represents an excellent example of strong economic and environmental regulation. In November 2022, Ofwat announced financial penalties of £132 million applying to 11 water companies, in response to underperformance in areas such as water supply interruptions, pollution incidents and internal sewer flooding. Money from Ofwat’s penalties will rightly be returned to customers through water bills in 2023-24.
Regulators are going further to improve water company performance. The Government supports Ofwat’s recent decision in December 2022 to strengthen its powers on executive pay awards by setting out that shareholders, and not customers, will fund pay awards where companies do not demonstrate their decisions on pay awards reflects overall performance. Ofwat also recently strengthened the existing dividend licence condition so that it can take enforcement action against water companies that do not make an explicit link between dividend payments and their performance for customers and the environment. This measure on dividends was made possible by new licence modification powers that this Government gave to Ofwat via the Environment Act 2021.
The Government will continue to work with water sector regulators to hold water companies to account on poor performance and drive improvements which benefit customers and the environment.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
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 an assessment of the adequacy of the (a) capacity and (b) resources of local authorities to carry out their duties regarding clean air.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Local authorities receive grant in aid to fund their statutory duties. In addition, our Air Quality Grant provides funds for specific air quality projects. Since 2010 the Air Quality Grant has awarded around £53 million across almost 500 projects, and an additional £883 million is dedicated to help local authorities to reduce nitrogen dioxide exceedances to within legal limit.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to invest in green infrastructure to enable local authorities to achieve the (a) net zero and (b) air quality goals set by the Government.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Government recognises the value of multifunctional green infrastructure to deliver benefits including carbon storage and, if carefully designed, to help manage the impacts of air quality. Natural England launched the Green Infrastructure Framework: Principles and Standards for England in January 2023. This will help local planning authorities and planning developers to create or improve green and blue infrastructure, particularly where provision is poorest. As set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023, we will support local authorities to improve access to green infrastructure. We will build more parks and incorporate green infrastructure in towns and cities, and encourage more urban street trees.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
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 make a comparative assessment of the impact of air quality targets in the (a) Environment Improvement Plan 2023 and (b) World Health Organisations guidelines on the environment.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
We have published reports and an impact assessment as part of the process of setting air quality targets on our UK Air website: Air Quality Targets in the Environment Act - Defra, UK. The Environmental Improvement Plan establishes our first interim targets and outlines the actions that we will take to meet them.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
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 use (a) scientific research and (b) global air quality standards to inform decisions on air quality targets.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
We have published reports and an impact assessment as part of the process of setting air quality targets on our UK Air website: Air Quality Targets in the Environment Act - Defra, UK. The Environmental Improvement Plan establishes our first interim targets and outlines the actions that we will take to meet them.