Asked by: Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the average amount of unused food thrown away by households in the last 12 months.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Through the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), the Government continues to work with the grocery sector to reduce household food waste. The Love Food Hate Waste programme helps UK households to reduce food waste and save money through awareness raising and consumer advice. There has been a 15% (1.3 million tonnes) reduction in household food waste between 2007 and 2012.
WRAP launched Courtauld 2025 on 15 March, which builds on the progress we have already made. This new agreement includes a target to reduce food and drink waste arising in the UK by 20% by 2025 (calculated as a relative reduction per head of population).
For the average household, the price of avoidable food and drink waste is £470 per year. For the average household with children, the cost of avoidable food and drink waste is £700 per year.
The total amount of food thrown away by the average household is 260 kg per year. 160 kg of this is avoidable waste. For the average household with children, this figure rises to 390 kg per year, including 240 kg of avoidable food waste.
These are the latest available figures, applying to 2012. WRAP aims to publish updated figures for household food waste later this year.
Asked by: Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat - Leeds North West)
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 bring forward proposals to require supermarkets to donate unsold food to charities.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The Government welcomes the redistribution of good quality surplus food to charities that can make sure it goes to people rather than going to waste.
Based on our experience, a simple law would not fix the barriers to redistribution. We need to look at the bigger picture. The retail sector is responsible for 210,000 tonnes of the total 4.1m tonnes of food waste in the food and drink supply chain, so we need the whole chain to work together.
Instead, we favour a voluntary approach. Signatories to the voluntary Courtauld Commitment with industry have reported a 74% increase between 2012 and end 2014, and we expect it to increase further.
We expect the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to launch a new agreement, Courtauld 2025, later this month. The new agreement will take a whole food supply chain approach, and will build on the progress we have already made.
Asked by: Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat - Leeds North West)
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 8 February 2016 to Question 25811, if she will list the (a) total funding, (b) total population and (c) funding per person for the (i) North and (ii) East region.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The Environment Agency has a management structure based on three regions; North and East; West; and South East, with Operations Directors overseeing each one of the three.
The Table below shows the population per Environment Agency Area. The data has been sourced from the Office for National Statistics from the 2011 Census for England and Wales. The data has been downloaded at local authority level and the Environment Agency (public facing) Area boundaries have been used to select those local authorities within each of the Area boundaries. The figures for the selected local authorities in each Area have been added up to produce a population total for each Area. The total for each Area has been rounded to the nearest 100,000 and these rounded figures have been added together to provide the regional totals.
6 year programme capital figures split by region (2015/16 - 2020/21) | Total 6-Year GiA | Total Population | Total GiA per person |
EA Region | £m | No. | £ |
North and East | 789.4 | 14,700,000 | 53.7 |
West | 312.1 | 15,700,000 | 19.9 |
South East | 970.4 | 22,900,00 | 42.4 |
National | 273.2 |
|
|
Total | 2345.1 | 53,300,000 | 44 |
To note – 1 local authority district 'Central Bedfordshire' falls within multiple Environment Agency areas - Hertfordshire & North London and Cambridgeshire & Bedfordshire, so based on the approximate visual area, 40% of the population has been placed in Hertfordshire & North London Area and 60% in Cambridgeshire & Bedfordshire.
Asked by: Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat - Leeds North West)
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 18 January 2016 to Question 24677, if she will publish the population estimates for each of the Environment Agency regions used by her Department as sourced from the Office for National Statistics.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The Table below shows the population per Environment Agency Area. The data has been sourced from the Office for National Statistics from the 2011 Census for England and Wales. The data has been downloaded at local authority level and the Environment Agency (public facing) Area boundaries have been used to select those local authorities within each of the Area boundaries. The figures for the selected local authorities in each Area have been added up to produce a population total for each Area. The total for each Area has been rounded to the nearest 100,000 and these rounded figures have been added together to provide the regional totals.
6 year programme capital figures split by region (2015/16 - 2020/21) | Total 6-Year GiA | Total Population | Total GiA per person |
EA Region | £m |
| £ |
North and East | 789.4 | 14,700,000 | 53.7 |
West | 312.1 | 15,700,000 | 19.9 |
South East | 970.4 | 22,900,00 | 42.4 |
National | 273.2 |
|
|
Total | 2345.1 | 53,300,000 | 44 |
To note – 1 local authority district 'Central Bedfordshire' falls within multiple Environment Agency areas - Hertfordshire & North London and Cambridgeshire & Bedfordshire, so based on the approximate visual area, 40% of the population has been placed in Hertfordshire & North London Area and 60% in Cambridgeshire & Bedfordshire.
Asked by: Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the reduction in single-use plastic carrier bag usage in England since the carrier bag charge was introduced.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Retailers are required to provide data for the first reporting period ending 6 April 2016 by 31 May 2016. Any assessment the department makes on the reduction of single use carrier bags will be after that point.
In December, Tesco reported a 78% reduction in the number of single-use carrier bags distributed since the introduction of the charge. They also reported an increase of nearly 50% in the number of online shoppers selecting ‘bagless’ deliveries.
Asked by: Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat - Leeds North West)
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 respond to the letter from the hon. Member for Leeds North West of 12 January 2016 on meeting hon. Members with constituencies along the River Wharfe.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The Secretary of State received five letters in January from the hon. Member for Leeds North West about the recent flooding in Leeds. The Secretary of State met him and all Members for Leeds constituencies on 20 January to discuss the flooding in Leeds, as well as flood defences on the nearby River Aire (to which the River Wharfe is a tributary). The Secretary of State will be responding to the specific points raised by the hon. Member for Leeds North West within the next week. In the meantime, I can confirm that I am happy to meet MPs with constituencies along the River Wharfe
Asked by: Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat - Leeds North West)
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 18 January 2016 to Question 21375, what information her Department holds on the population estimates for each of the Environment Agency regions.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Population figures are sourced from the Office for National Statistics from the 2011 Census for England and Wales.