Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 value for money provided by the flock depopulation measures carried out by the Animal and Plant Health Agency during the 2022-23 outbreak of avian influenza.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Avian influenza, once introduced into a premises, spreads rapidly through birds present. As set out in the Notifiable Avian Disease Control Strategy for Great Britain swift and humane culling of poultry and other captive birds on infected premises coupled with good biosecurity is used to prevent the amplification of avian influenza and subsequent environmental contamination, reduce the risk of disease spread from infected premises and mitigate any public health risk these infected birds may pose. Defra’s disease control measures seek to contain the number of animals that need to be culled, either for disease control purposes or to safeguard animal welfare. Current policy reflects our experience of responding to past outbreaks of exotic animal disease and is in line with international standards of best practice for disease control.
During the 2022/23 outbreak 5.4 million birds have died or been culled and disposed for disease control purposes, a small proportion of overall poultry production (c.20m birds slaughtered for human consumption per week).
At each infected premises the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) carry out veterinary investigations to identify, as far as possible the likely source of infection, and establish how long the disease may have been present on the infected premises together with identifying and investigating potential routes of spread from the premises. We have recently published the 2021/22 highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak which provides a summary of the outcomes of these investigations. The report for 2022/23 will be published in due course.
Epidemiological investigations to date show that the introduction of infection to poultry premises is almost entirely by direct or indirect spread from wild birds and that there has been no transmission between poultry premises apart from where they are located close together and are part of the same integrated company or business, and share staff and equipment. Key findings from these investigations help drive assessment and improvements in biosecurity best practice on poultry and other captive bird premises.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 impact of the decision to end cross-compliance and the accompanying Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition 7b on public rights of way and local highway authority teams.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) 7b in cross compliance sets out rules to keep public rights of way accessible and open. These rules must be met by all recipients of former Common Agriculture Policy schemes (Basic Payment Scheme, Countryside Stewardship, Environmental Stewardship and Woodland Schemes). The rules within this GAEC are also in the Highways Act 1980 and therefore apply to all farmers and land managers. The Highways Act 1980 legislation will continue following the end of cross compliance and will be enforced by local highway authorities as it is currently. This means that the rules that protect public rights of way will remain in place after the end of cross compliance and all farmers and land managers will need to continue to adhere to them. The loss of GAEC 7b does not change the role or remit of local highway authority teams.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether (a) landowners and (b) land managers that participate in environmental land management schemes are required to fulfil public rights of way obligations.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
There is a regulatory baseline for farming within domestic legislation, which safeguards our environment and protects the health of animals, plants and people. As part of this, landowners have a statutory duty to keep public rights of way in good working order. Our Environmental Land Management schemes require farmers and land managers to meet the regulatory requirements and pay for actions that go beyond these requirements.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 20 February 2023 to Question 148613 on Public Sector: Food, whether her predecessors had discussions with food and drink wholesalers on the creation of a single buyer framework for public sector food in the period between 2019 and September 2022.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has engaged with Crown Commercial Services during the development of their framework. This includes ensuring the updated Government Buying Standards for Food and Catering (GBSF), once published, are incorporated into the framework. The GBSF has been widely consulted on by the Government, including a public consultation last summer.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 the badger vaccination programme; and whether her Department plans to continue the Badger Edge Vaccination Scheme beyond February 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra monitors and evaluates the effectiveness of the bTB eradication strategy in England through a range of methods, including the publication of national and regional bTB statistics, compilation of epidemiology reports, the use of mathematical models, economic cost-benefit and regulatory impact assessments of new policies, value-for-money analyses of existing policies and user surveys.
Until recently, vaccination was only carried out in small disparate areas, making it difficult to monitor the effect of badger vaccination on cattle incidence. We are working on a herd-level analysis which will help assess the effectiveness of badger vaccination on herd incidence levels. However, we are confident that badger vaccination will reduce the incidence of TB in cattle as we accept that badgers cause a proportion of breakdowns and vaccination has been shown to reduce disease in badgers. Therefore, badger vaccination should reduce TB incidence in cattle.
The Badger Edge Vaccination Scheme (BEVS2) provides funding towards the cost of vaccinating badgers in the Edge Area of England. We are currently exploring the potential to extend the grant for an additional year until February 2024, for partners that have demonstrated clear progress towards the continued vaccination of badgers. We will continue to work with partners on potential ways of deploying widespread cost-effective vaccination schemes across England.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 redirected from the Basic Payment Scheme to new schemes as part of the Government’s Agricultural Transition Plan has been spent on additional staff and contractors for her Department.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The farming budget in England is an average £2.4bn per year to 2024/25. We are now two years into our 7-year transition period where we are phasing out farm subsidies and instead investing the money in farming and the environment. The budget available for the sector is the same. We are committed to being transparent about the budget and how it is spent. We included in the Agriculture Act a requirement for government to publish an annual report about the budget, and we did this for the first time in 2022. Future Farming and Countryside Programme annual report, 2021 to 2022 (HTML version) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
That report set out that during 2021/22 a total of £2.294bn was spent, including £2.274bn being paid to farmers and land managers. £20m was spent on Technical Assistance to support the design, implementation and delivery of schemes within the programme, including staff and contractors, representing less than 1% of the total spend. That amount aligns with the levels spent under CAP.
There is not a like for like comparison of the reductions applied to Direct Payments being invested in new schemes in a given year since the original composition of the £2.4bn included RDPE schemes as well as Direct Payments and the budget is an average across this Parliament.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 redirected from the Basic Payment Scheme to Agricultural Transition Plan schemes has been disbursed to farmers.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The farming budget in England is an average £2.4bn per year to 2024/25. We are now two years into our 7-year transition period where we are phasing out farm subsidies and instead investing the money in farming and the environment. The budget available for the sector is the same. We are committed to being transparent about the budget and how it is spent. We included in the Agriculture Act a requirement for government to publish an annual report about the budget, and we did this for the first time in 2022. Future Farming and Countryside Programme annual report, 2021 to 2022 (HTML version) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
That report set out that during 2021/22 a total of £2.294bn was spent, including £2.274bn being paid to farmers and land managers. £20m was spent on Technical Assistance to support the design, implementation and delivery of schemes within the programme, including staff and contractors, representing less than 1% of the total spend. That amount aligns with the levels spent under CAP.
There is not a like for like comparison of the reductions applied to Direct Payments being invested in new schemes in a given year since the original composition of the £2.4bn included RDPE schemes as well as Direct Payments and the budget is an average across this Parliament.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she plans to publish the next UK Food Security Report.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Recognising the importance of food security, in the Agriculture Act 2020 the Government made a commitment to produce an assessment of our food security and will do so every three years. The next United Kingdom Food Security Report will be published by December 2024.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 an assessment of the implications for her policies of the UK Baking Industry Code of Practice for the Labelling of Sourdough Bread and Rolls, published by the Association of Bakery Ingredient Manufacturers on 31 January 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government welcomes the development of a code of practice by the UK baking industry to help with consistency and best practice in relation to the labelling of sourdough bread and rolls. We encourage all those involved in the production and marketing of sourdough to work together to ensure the code represents the best interests of all involved.
Industry codes of practice can provide a useful resource to support a level playing field for businesses. It should be noted that these are not authoritative statements of law, existing food labelling legislation ensures that the labelling and marketing of food does not mislead consumers. The Government has no plans to introduce new regulations on the use of the term sourdough.
The Government is committed to optimising the information that is available to consumers, and the Government Food Strategy sets out work that we will be taking forward on consumer information and transparency.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 publish an assessment of the potential (a) economic, (b) business, (c) environmental and (d) export impacts of the UK horticulture industry transitioning to peat-free growing mediums.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Our proposals to prohibit the sale of peat and peat containing products will deliver benefits in terms of carbon storage, protect habitats and biodiversity.
Defra consulted on its proposals on 18 December 2021 and published an Economic Impact Assessment at that time. The link to this updated assessment is provided below.