Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
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 made an assessment of the effectiveness of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers pilot scheme; and when he plans to publish evaluation information on the (a) first-year pilot and (b) extended pilot.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
On 22 December 2020, the Government extended the Seasonal Workers Pilot for one year and expanded the number of visas from 10,000 to 30,000.
The extension and expansion of the Pilot for 2021 will allow for further review of the Pilot, including how growers will reduce their reliance on migrant labour now we have left the EU, whilst also easing some of the pressure experienced on farms when they are at their busiest. We intend to publish the first-year review later this year.
Defra is working closely with industry and the Home Office – who engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations, when designing and implementing immigration policy – to understand better the effectiveness of interventions and to ensure there is a long-term strategy for the food and farming workforce beyond 2021.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to support hop growers affected by the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government recognises the UK's proud hops growing tradition. We recognise the challenges that the sector has faced and continues to face due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
To support businesses impacted by Covid-19, the Government made available financial support under several schemes during 2020. In April 2021, the Government also launched the Recovery Loan Scheme. This is intended to help give UK businesses ongoing access to finance as they recover from the economic impact of the Covid-19. In addition to this, Defra officials have also engaged with the relevant local authorities to assist the hops sector in accessing financial support under the discretionary Additional Restrictions Grant Fund.
Defra officials continue to meet regularly with the British Hop Association to discuss the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hops industry and are working closely with them to help preserve the long-term future of the sector.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to include provision within Environmental Land Management scheme proposals to pay farmers and landowners to create active travel routes, including on old disused rail lines.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Beauty, heritage and engagement with the environment is an important part of our new environmental schemes.
These could support the creation of active travel routes through providing funding for access to infrastructure or for educational visits, for example. We will engage with a range of stakeholders as we develop the scheme. This includes through our tests and trials programme. Several tests and trials are considering how access can be incorporated in the new schemes.
We are working with stakeholders and end users to determine the specific land management actions that will be paid for under the Environmental Land Management scheme. We will set out more details on this later this year. 'The Path to Sustainable Farming: An Agricultural Transition Plan 2021 to 2024' set out examples of the types of actions that we envisage paying for under the scheme.
We'll also be testing and piloting key aspects of the new schemes in real situations with farmers and land managers beginning in 2021. This aims to learn and innovate prior to the start of an early prototype of the Sustainable Farming Incentive Scheme in 2022.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to bring forward legislative proposals to make ecocide a crime.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to improving the environment in the UK and internationally. Environmental laws and other safeguards are in place and monitored by effective regulators and tiers of Government.
The Environment Bill will create a new, independent statutory body (the Office for Environmental Protection) with the principal objective of contributing to environmental protection and the improvement of the natural environment.
The Government is also consulting on a new law designed to prevent forests and other important natural areas from being converted illegally into agricultural land. If approved, this will require a relatively small number of larger businesses to ensure that the ‘forest risk’ commodities they use – commodities that can cause wide-scale deforestation – have been produced legally.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what payments have been made from the Flood Recovery Fund to farmers in (a) West Worcestershire and (b) Worcestershire.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The window for applications to the Farming Recovery Fund closed on 1 September 2020 and claims under successful applications can be submitted by farmers into spring 2021. Payments are made once the recovery work has been completed and claimed. All applications from the Worcestershire area have been from farmers in West Worcestershire.
To date, one agreement has been paid in full, totalling around £750. There are 35 successful applications, from which we expect to pay around £217,000. We have a further 19 applications, valued at around £300,000, in appraisal.
These figures will continue to change as projects move through their lifecycle.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what type of applications to the Farming Recovery Fund he has received from farmers whose crops were affected by flood damage in Worcestershire in 2019-20.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Farming Recovery Fund offers funding for the repair of infrastructure and land recovery, which may include crop damage, and agreements can include a range of recovery work. Sixty applications to the fund have been received from farmers in Worcestershire, of which twenty-six cited land recovery as the principle work area.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions she has had with the Environment Agency on the (a) status and (b) future plans for flood alleviation schemes in Severn Stoke and Tenbury Wells in West Worcestershire.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) is continuing to work with partners and the local community to reduce the impacts of flooding in Severn Stoke and is reviewing all delivery options for a full flood defence scheme in Tenbury Wells, including engaging with Local Enterprise Partnerships, businesses and the local authority.
The Government is investing £2.6 billion between 2015 and 2021, delivering over 1,000 schemes to better protect 300,000 homes.
Funding decisions are made on the basis of a rigorous assessment of local needs and the value for money of proposed schemes. Funding for all projects is allocated according to the rules that govern Defra’s existing six-year capital programme.
We will continue to work with the EA and HM Treasury to consider future investment needs and the Government’s role in supporting the resilience of communities.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
What the Government's policy is on seasonal migrant workers after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Eustice
As they do now, EU citizens can continue to for work in the UK in 2019 and 2020. The Government launched the Seasonal Workers Pilot in April and all 2,500 non-EEA migrant workers have now been recruited for 2019. This pilot will continue to run in 2020 and is being evaluated for its ability to assist in alleviating labour shortages during peak production periods. This will help inform future immigration policy.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans the Environment Agency has to build flood protection schemes in Severn Stoke and Tenbury Wells.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) is continuing to work with partners and the local community to reduce the impacts of flooding in Severn Stoke. The EA is undertaking further modelling and assessments of a proposed design for a flood alleviation scheme. Given the small rural community, this project is an economically challenging scheme and the EA is working with wider professional parties to identify a suitable delivery route and viable way for the scheme to be built. Subject to planning approval and adequate funds being in place it is anticipated that work can commence on site in 2020 to ensure completion during 2021. The EA anticipate the local community will be able to submit an outline planning application this winter.
Tenbury has suffered from extensive flooding on a number of occasions with direct impacts affecting homes and businesses. An economic appraisal of the feasibility design completed in 2007 estimated that delivery of a full flood defence scheme would cost around £5.5 million. However, the scheme as it stands is unlikely to attract more than £1 million of Flood Defence Grant in Aid, leaving a substantial partnership funding gap.
The EA are currently updating this appraisal to re-assess the scale of defences required but do not anticipate the revised potential costs to have changed significantly, they may have potentially increased. Because of the funding deficit, the scheme will not be able to progress until significant contributions have been secured. The EA are reviewing all delivery options for the scheme, including engaging with Local Enterprise Partnerships, businesses and the local authority and continues to look at strategic options.
The EA continues to actively work with local flood action groups in both locations. In the meantime property level flood resilience measures were installed to a limited number of properties between 2010 and 2012 and these were in operation last weekend.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
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 adequacy of flood protection measures in Severn Stoke, Worcestershire.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Severn Stoke has currently been assessed as benefiting from a 20% annual probability flood level of protection (1 in 5 years) through a low-level agricultural defence.
The Environment Agency (EA) is working in partnership with the community to reduce the impacts of flooding. The EA anticipates submitting for an outline planning application this winter for the construction of an earth embankment bund with ancillary structures to provide protection against a 1% annual flood (1 in 100 years).