Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 encourage people to adopt rescue dogs rather than buy from breeders.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Rescue and rehoming centres carry out important work to ensure that unwanted and abandoned animals in the UK are offered the opportunity of a forever home. We advise those seeking to acquire a new dog to first consider adopting from a reputable dog rescue and rehoming centre. However, we appreciate that a number of prospective owners would like a puppy and may have a specific breed in mind. That is why in 2018 the Government updated and improved the regulations on dog breeding in England. This included introducing strict statutory welfare standards that all licensed dog breeders must meet. In addition, from 6 April 2020 it will be an offence for commercial third party sellers to sell puppies or kittens, which are defined as under the age of 6 months. These steps aim to improve the welfare of dogs.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to protect wildlife from public and private firework displays.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The Government takes the matter of fireworks seriously. We understand the concerns that many people have about the potential for distress to be caused by fireworks to animals, including pets, livestock and wildlife. This is one of the reasons why there are existing laws in place to control firework availability and use by both the general public and professional display operators. Measures including age related restrictions, a curfew and a noise limit help to reduce disturbance to animals.
It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to cause any unnecessary suffering to an animal that is under a person’s control. The maximum penalty for such an offence is 6 months’ imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to reduce levels of fine particulate matter in the air.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Our Clean Air Strategy, published in January 2019, proposes a comprehensive suite of actions required across all parts of Government to improve air quality and maximise public health benefits. This includes national regulations to reduce emissions from domestic burning, industry and farming, alongside an improved framework for local Government to tackle more localised issues. By implementing the policies in the strategy, we aim to reduce fine particulate matter concentrations and halve the number of people living in areas above the World Health Organisation guideline level for fine particulate matter by 2025.
The measures in the Environment Bill take forward key aspects of this strategy, and give local authorities more effective tools for tackling domestic burning in smoke control areas, which will help reduce harmful particulate matter pollution. Through the Bill, we will also introduce a framework for setting legally binding environmental targets, along with a specific duty on Government to set a target for fine particulate matter, which will deliver significant public health benefits.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 proportion of UK (a) mammals and (b) birds at risk of extinction.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to protect UK wildlife from extinction.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure that eggs infected with salmonella do not reach consumers.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
We have national programmes to control salmonella in poultry and protect public health, which require regular sampling of laying flocks. Where laying flock samples test positive for regulated strains of salmonella, the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) will alert the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Public Health England (PHE) and restrictions on the eggs will be put in place to protect public health which will apply for the life of the affected flock. Eggs from such flocks cannot be sold as fresh table eggs, but must be either processed by heat treatment to eliminate salmonella before entering the food chain, or disposed of outside the food chain as Animal by Products.
The General Food Law EU Regulation 178/2002 will be transferred into UK law at the point of exit by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. Inoperabilities in 178/2002 have been addressed by The General Food Law (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. EU Regulation 178/2002 lays down that food placed on the market must be safe to eat - it must not be ‘injurious to health’ or ‘unfit for human consumption’. Food businesses are required to notify the competent authorities, such as the local authority or the FSA, if they suspect that a product placed on the market does not comply with safety requirements. When Salmonella infection is confirmed in a laying flock the FSA works with industry, APHA and local authorities to ensure appropriate action is taken to safeguard public health.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 number of scheduled tests for salmonella in eggs that were (a) carried out behind schedule and (b) not carried out.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
National Control Plan official sampling is done annually as per legislative requirements. The British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) are an approved Industry Control Body for their own assurance scheme members and their annual official sampling is carried out by their auditors NSF International. Non-BEIC producers are sampled by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA).
In 2018, APHA completed all official sampling on non-BEIC laying farms in the timescales required. 2019 sampling for non-BEIC laying farms is also on track for completion within the timescales required.
As part of routine regulatory inspections APHA inspectors audit each egg producer’s salmonella sampling records in order to review operator sampling. Where late or missed sampling is identified a penalty notice will be issued. In addition, where there is no clear current test present at the time of the inspection, the inspector will immediately take the appropriate samples for testing and will serve a notice applying restrictions to the eggs pending a clear test result.
The number of penalty notices that have been raised against producers in England are:
01/06/16-31/05/17 - 30.
01/06/17-31/05/18 - 44.
01/06/18-31/05/19 - 35.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure that (a) farms, (b) packing stations and (c) wholesalers in the egg sector do not breach standards regulations.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Egg producers, packing centres and wholesalers are subject to rigorous and regular regulatory inspections by the Animal and Plant Health Agency to protect public and animal health. Compliance breaches under egg marketing legislation and failures to carry out salmonella testing are taken very seriously. Where any significant non-compliances are found, contravention notices are served requiring the non-compliance to be corrected by a set deadline. A fixed penalty may be applied where salmonella sampling breaches have occurred.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to prevent the export of (a) hazardous and (b) medical UK waste to Sri Lanka as recycling.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
It is prohibited to export hazardous waste from the UK to countries, such as Sri Lanka, which are not members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The export of non-hazardous healthcare wastes for recycling to countries outside the OECD is permissible when following a prior written notification and consent procedure, and would require the consent of the competent authorities in the countries of import and export prior to shipment. No such consent has been issued in respect of exports of healthcare wastes to Sri Lanka.
The UK environmental regulators take a proactive, intelligence led approach to checking compliance with the legislation, targeting exports which pose a high risk and intervening to stop illegal exports. In 2017/18, the Environment Agency issued 158 stop notices, prohibiting the export of unsuitable waste. It stopped 367 containers of waste destined for illegal export at ports and intervened further upstream to prevent 8,974 tonnes of waste from reaching our ports. Any UK operators found to be illegally exporting waste can be fined and/or imprisoned for up to two years.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 effectiveness of the badger culling programme.
Answered by George Eustice
During 2018, badger culling operations in 32 areas of England were all successful in meeting their targets. According to Natural England’s chief scientist, the results show that industry-led badger culling continues to deliver the level of effectiveness required by the policy to be confident of achieving disease control benefits.
Assessments of the effectiveness of badger culling are published annually on gov.uk at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bovine-tb-controlling-the-risk-of-bovine-tb-from-badgers