Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 had recent discussions with the Climate Change Committee on the use of wood burning stoves over the next (a) 10 and (b) 20 years.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra officials and the Air Quality Expert Group worked with the Climate Change Committee in 2020 to identify the opportunities and potential tensions from policies and interventions to achieve net zero and other environmental outcomes such as air quality. We set out our proposals to reduce air pollution from wood burning in our Environmental Improvement Plan. We are not considering a ban on domestic burning in England. Defra officials regularly engage with the Climate Change Committee on a wide range of issues.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 Answer of 17 January 2022 to Question 102527 on Wood-burning Stoves: Smoke Control Areas, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of (a) mechanisms for and (b) the performance of the external contractor for ensuring high standards in the (i) approval and (ii) testing processes for (A) individual and (B) ranges of appliances for receiving exemptions to burn unauthorised fuel in smoke control areas.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department has regular quarterly performance review meetings with the current contractor that delivers the Defra stove exemption certification scheme. These governance meetings focus on performance and delivery of the scheme and are also taken as an opportunity to drive efficiencies.
The testing of stoves is carried out by an independent third party. Stoves are tested against the standard set out in BSI published document 6434 and BS 3841. The independent third party provides test reports to the Department’s contractor who reviews them to ensure that the smoke emissions limits of less than 5g of smoke per hour are not exceeded with the tested fuels.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 Answers of 17 January 2022 to Questions 102528 on Wood-burning Stoves: Regulation and 102529 on Wood-burning Stoves: Ecolabelling, what steps his Department has taken to ensure high standards in (a) approval processes and (b) testing for individual wood burning appliances or ranges of appliances before they are certified as complying with the requirements of the Ecodesign Regulations.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra does not own Ecolabelling or Ecodesign but does have an interest. Since January 2022 emissions to air have become part of the testing regime.
Prior to placing a product on the market, manufacturers must demonstrate conformity with the implementing measures as set out in the product specific regulations. This includes a declaration of conformity and technical documentation and can include relevant standards used to demonstrate compliance. This technical documentation must be kept by the manufacturer for a period of 10 years after production and made available to the market surveillance authority, who can conduct independent testing after the product has launched on the market.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 to respond to e-petition 639320 entitled Find time to take the Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill through the House of Commons.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A Government response is being prepared and will be published in due course.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 his oral statement of 4 December 2023 on Legal Migration, Official Report, columns 41-43, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the proposals announced in that Statement on the food supply chain.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain. Alongside strong domestic production, our high degree of food security is built from imports through stable trade routes. We produce 60% of all the food we need, and 73% 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.
The recent changes announced by the Home Secretary will encourage businesses to look to British talent first and invest in their workforce, helping us to deter employers from over-relying on migration. To support this, the government has committed over £123 million of funding to industry-led research and development for agricultural and horticulture. And on 30 November the government announced a further £45 million of funding for the latest rounds of competitions and grants. This includes £30 million to help farmers invest in robotics and automation to make processes like harvesting and milking more efficient, and near £9m for the next two competitions as part of the Farming Innovation Programme. The Farming Innovation Programme has so far supported 156 Research & Development projects across all agricultural and horticultural sectors. This includes a dedicated funding round of £12.5 million in early 2023 focused on automation and robotics, with 17 such projects worth £20 million funded to date.
Alongside this, the Seasonal Worker visa route will allocate 45,000 visas for the horticulture sector in 2024, with a further 2000 for seasonal poultry workers, ensuring these sectors can plan ahead for 2024 with confidence. Defra will continue to work closely with our food and farming sectors and across government, to make sure that the workforce requirements for the food supply chain are understood.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 missed any statutory deadlines to respond to information requests submitted under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 in (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Yes, in 2022 and 2023 to date, 4 out of 956 requests that were handled under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 missed the statutory deadline to respond to the information request.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent progress his Department has made on the Air Quality Information System Review.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Air Quality Information System Review is ongoing and recommendations from the steering group will be published in 2024.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 Answer of 30 November 2021 to Question 81865 on Air Pollution, whether he plans to update the Daily Air Quality Index.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Reviewing the Daily Air Quality Index is one component of the broader Air Quality Information System review scope. We are in the process of awarding a contract to a supplier to complete an evaluation assessing the appropriateness and effectiveness of the index.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 potential impact of domestic wood burning on the environment.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) is published annually and contains an assessment of domestic wood burning emissions. The current data was published in February 2023 and shows emissions data for 2021.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
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 Answer of 2 November 2022 to Question 63894 on Air Pollution, what progress his Department has made on delivering the Government's commitments made in the Clean Air Strategy 2019.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Delivery of our Clean Air Strategy continues through Defra’s Air Quality and Industrial Emissions Programme and the Environment Improvement Plan Clean Air commitments (published 31 January 2023). Recent achievements include: