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Written Question
Animal Products: Imports
Monday 12th February 2024

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what data his Department holds on the number of hunting trophies imported in (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The UK records data on import permits for hunting trophies of certain species. An import permit is required for hunting trophies of all species listed on Annex A of the Wildlife Trade Regulations, and 6 species listed on Annex B.

Data on the international trade in endangered species, including information about UK imports of hunting trophies, is published in the CITES trade database (available online at trade.cites.org. For 2022, 14 instances of hunting trophies imported into GB are recorded. The UK will be submitting data for 2023 imports in due course, which will be publicly available later this year.


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Written Questions
Monday 5th February 2024

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

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 reply to Question 8408 on Offences against Children tabled on 8 January 2024 by the hon. Member for Easington for answer on 11 January 2024.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The answer to question 8408 was published on 19 January 2024.


Written Question
Office for Environmental Protection
Monday 29th January 2024

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the report entitled Progress in improving the natural environment in England 2022 to 2023 published by the Office for Environmental Protection on 17 January 2024.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

This Government is committed to leaving the environment in a better state than we found it. The Office for Environmental Protection’s (OEP) report covers the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. Toward the end of this reporting period, in January 2023, the Government published its revised Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP23) and set its suite of ambitious 13 Environment Act targets. We are now firmly rooted in delivery mode.

Their 200-page report recognises the scale of ambition of EIP23, including our challenging interim targets. The OEP reports some environmental trends are improving, with most progress in reducing air pollutants, greenhouse gases and chemical pollutants.

We will carefully review the OEP’s findings and respond in due course.


Written Question
Offences against Children
Friday 19th January 2024

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

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 United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child adopting General Comment 26, what steps he plans to take to incorporate into UK law Article 19 on the Right to freedom from all forms of violence including protecting children from exposure to violence inflicted on animals.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government recognises the psychological harm that encountering animal cruelty content online can have on children. Content that depicts real or realistic serious violence or injury against an animal has been listed as ‘priority’ content that is harmful to children in the Online Safety Act.


Services will be required to assess the nature and level of risk of children encountering this kind of content on their service, and then take an age-appropriate approach to protect children from encountering it. Companies must also ensure that users, including children and their parents and carers, are able to easily access reporting mechanisms to report content and activity that is harmful to children. Platforms should respond quickly and effectively to protect users and other affected persons, which could include the removal of harmful content and sanctions against offending users.


Written Question
Police: Training
Tuesday 16th January 2024

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what training police staff receive to equip them with the skills to respond to reports of dangerous dog attacks from XL bullies.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The police have a range of powers available to tackle dangerous dogs of all breeds, and Defra officials are working in partnership with police forces across England and Wales to ensure the full range of existing dog control powers are effectively applied. As part of this, we have been collaborating with police to deliver sessions to share best practice in preventive dog control enforcement and encourage multi-agency working to ensure dog control issues are addressed before they escalate.

Regarding the XL Bully ban specifically, Defra will be supporting the police to deliver additional training to officers to make sure the ban is effectively enforced. We are liaising with the four training centres that deliver Dog Legislation Officer training to ensure officers are upskilled and able to consistently apply the breed standard for the XL Bully breed type.


Written Question
Fundão Tailing Dam: Disasters
Monday 11th September 2023

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

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 Cabinet colleagues on the Mariana dam disaster .

Answered by Trudy Harrison

The Secretary of State has regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a wide range of issues, and Cabinet discussions are considered confidential.


Written Question
Water Companies: Debts
Tuesday 18th July 2023

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

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 implications for her policies of high levels of debt in the water industry.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Water companies are allowed to raise debt to fund the delivery of their services. This is normal practice across all parts of the private sector. At sensible levels, debt can be an appropriate way to fund investment for essential infrastructure over the longer term, avoiding sharp increases in customer bills in the immediate term.

However, both Government and Ofwat recognise that levels of debt at some companies in the sector are too high. Ofwat has encouraged water companies to de-gear and the weighted average gearing across the sector fell by 4% from 72.8% in 2021 to 68.5% in 2022.

There are measures in place through ring fenced license conditions to improve the financial resilience of the sector and to protect customers. These were introduced in 2007 and were strengthened this year, following new licence modification powers that this Government gave to Ofwat via the Environment Act 2021.

The industry continues to be financially resilient and capable of raising the required investment to meet Government targets. For example, £2 billion of new equity has been injected across the industry since 2020 and in addition, in the last few weeks, we have seen £500 million of new shareholder equity going into Yorkshire Water, £120 million into Portsmouth Water and a further £750 million into Thames Water.


Written Question
Water Companies: Standards
Wednesday 14th December 2022

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to prohibit dividend payments by water companies that do not meet Ofwat performance delivery targets.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Government and Ofwat have been clear that companies must be transparent about how dividends are linked to services for customers.

Government supports Ofwat’s recent consultation on improving financial resilience in the water sector, including strengthening the current licence condition related to water companies' dividends policies. These proposals would enable Ofwat to take enforcement action against companies that don’t link dividend payments to their environmental performance, or those failing to be transparent about their dividend pay-outs.

The consultation closed on 29 September and Ofwat will publish their decision document in early 2023. We are working closely with Ofwat to understand the findings and next steps.


Written Question
Fly-tipping: Sentencing
Wednesday 23rd February 2022

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will revise sentencing for fly-tipping to include a community service element to all sentences in addition to fines.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Ending the menace of fly-tipping is a priority – and measures such as digital waste tracking and improvements to waste licensing will significantly enhance our ability to prosecute waste criminals. Whilst sentencing is a matter for the independent courts, they already have powers to impose punishments of up to five years imprisonment and an unlimited fine, in the most serious instances, as well as community orders, when they see it as appropriate.


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Working Hours
Monday 17th January 2022

Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

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 compliance of his Department's staff working from home with the Working Time Regulations 1998.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

We have not made a central assessment of the compliance of staff working from home against the Working Time Regulations (WTR) 1998. While we do not centrally monitor or hold records of employees’ working time (whether working from home, a Defra workplace or other location), we do ask managers and employees to ensure compliance and keep local records in accordance with WTR 1998.