Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
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 discussions with the Welsh Government on how much land Natural Resources Wales has purchased in the UK in the last 5 years.
Answered by Jenny Riddell-Carpenter - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Officials regularly engage with their devolved Government counterparts on land use and land management issues as necessary.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
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 discussions with the Scottish Government on the amount of land in the UK that NatureScot has purchased in the last 5 years.
Answered by Jenny Riddell-Carpenter - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Officials regularly engage with their devolved Government counterparts on land use and land management issues as necessary.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much land in the UK has Natural England purchased in the last 5 years.
Answered by Jenny Riddell-Carpenter - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Noting that Natural England (NE) only covers England, not the UK, NE purchased the freehold of approximately 1,500 hectares of land in England during the five completed financial years from 2021/22 to 2025/26
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure public authorities are aware of and comply with Section 245 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.
Answered by Mary Creagh
The Government has published guidance on the Protected Landscapes duty to ensure public bodies operating in these areas deliver better environmental outcomes working together with Protected Landscape organisations, and will consider what further support this Government can offer to ensure the duty is appropriately applied.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information his Department holds on the number of brown hares shot in England between February and October each year.
Answered by Mary Creagh
Defra holds no official statistics on the number of brown hares shot in England between February and October each year. We are however aware of a number of estimates made by stakeholder groups which range markedly from the low tens of thousands to the low hundreds of thousands.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the recommendations of the review entitled The review for implementation of Schedule 3 to The Flood and Water Management Act 2010, published in January 2023, what steps his Department is taking to implement Schedule 3 to The Flood and Water Management Act 2010, published by Defra in January 2023; and what his Department's timetable is for the full implementation of that Schedule.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is strongly committed to requiring standardised Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) in new developments. These should be to designs that cope with changing climatic conditions as well as delivering wider water infrastructure benefits, reduce run off and help to improve water quality, amenity and biodiversity. It is also important to ensure appropriate adoption and maintenance arrangements are in place.
We believe that these outcomes can be achieved through either improving the current planning led approach using powers now available or commencing Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. A final decision on the way forward will be made in the coming months.
We have made some immediate changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to support increasing SuDS. The NPPF now requires all development to utilize SuDS where they could have drainage impacts. These systems should be appropriate to the nature and scale of the proposed development.
We will review the planning system holistically and consider whether further changes are required to address SuDS when we consult on further planning reform, including national policy related to decision making, in 2025.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to research by the University of Sydney, published in the Natural scientific journal on 20 June 2022, if he will take steps in response to that research that found a fifth of all food-related greenhouse gas emissions come from transporting edible products.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Government’s recently published Net Zero Strategy sets out our plans to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions. This includes a range of policies and actions to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions (including methane) from within the food system from farm to fork.
For example, ruminant livestock are the leading cause of food methane emissions, but feed additives with methane inhibiting properties have the potential to reduce emissions, especially from housed cattle. Whilst this is an emerging technology, the Government is actively investigating the promising role these products may have in delivering emissions savings in the medium term.
More broadly the Government will support the agricultural sector to decarbonise through the schemes set out in the Agricultural Transition Plan, which aims to support farmers to adopt low greenhouse gas emission farming practices and increase the carbon stored on their farms, helping to improve business productivity and profitability gains.
The Government also supports the work of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), whose Courtauld 2030 voluntary agreement includes a target to reduce GHG emissions across the food supply chain. Periodic estimates of UK household food waste levels are undertaken by WRAP with government funding with the next estimate reporting year being 2022/23.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to research by the University of Sydney, published in the Natural scientific journal on 20 June 2022, what assessment his Department has made of the validity of the finding that a fifth of all food-related greenhouse gas emissions come from transporting edible products.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Government’s recently published Net Zero Strategy sets out our plans to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions. This includes a range of policies and actions to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions (including methane) from within the food system from farm to fork.
For example, ruminant livestock are the leading cause of food methane emissions, but feed additives with methane inhibiting properties have the potential to reduce emissions, especially from housed cattle. Whilst this is an emerging technology, the Government is actively investigating the promising role these products may have in delivering emissions savings in the medium term.
More broadly the Government will support the agricultural sector to decarbonise through the schemes set out in the Agricultural Transition Plan, which aims to support farmers to adopt low greenhouse gas emission farming practices and increase the carbon stored on their farms, helping to improve business productivity and profitability gains.
The Government also supports the work of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), whose Courtauld 2030 voluntary agreement includes a target to reduce GHG emissions across the food supply chain. Periodic estimates of UK household food waste levels are undertaken by WRAP with government funding with the next estimate reporting year being 2022/23.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his timeframe is for implementing secondary legislation to reform rights of way.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government has decided to take forward a streamlined package of measures to implement rights of way reform including repealing the 2026 cut-off date to record historic rights of way, as well as giving landowners the right to apply to divert or remove rights of ways in specific circumstances. These measures, along with accompanying guidance, will be implemented as soon as reasonably practicable.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the preparedness of Border Control Posts for the import inspection of horticulture products.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Since 1 January, high-risk plants have been inspected at their places of destination. Defra is confident that the Border Control Posts (BCPs) will be ready to start physical inspections of high-risk plants and plant products when the new regime of checks commences on 1 January 2022. The BCPs will be ready to start physical inspections of low-risk plants and plant product checks from March 2022.
Defra continues to work directly with ports and airports to prepare the necessary infrastructure, staff and IT systems for SPS checks to be completed. We continue to monitor port BCP delivery and will support ports to achieve an initial operating capability as import controls are phased in.
The phased implementation reduces risk of BCP infrastructure not being ready and provides Port Health Authorities, importers, hauliers, exporters and their agents, sufficient time to prepare and familiarise themselves with these new requirements.