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
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 ensure water companies reduce the number of pollution incidents.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
Since 1995 over £25 billion has been invested in improving sewage treatment and sewerage collection systems. This has achieved a 61% reduction in the amount of phosphorus and a 72% reduction in the amount of ammonia discharged to rivers. Bathing waters and rivers are cleaner than ever but there is still more to do. The recent deterioration in the environmental performance of the water industry, particularly in respect of pollution incidents is unacceptable. The Environment Agency (EA) expect the industry to minimise serious pollution incidents and approach a zero target by 2020.
The EA has begun a new Improving Water Company Performance programme which will toughen regulation to encourage the companies to meet their environmental targets. The programme will include:
Enhancing the EA’s regulatory tools and approaches, including more inspections, increasing the number of in-depth audits and greater use of technology to remotely monitor operations twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Maximising the use of enforcement and sanctions powers so they act as a powerful deterrent.
Updating the Environmental Performance Assessment targets for the 2021-2025 period to include a broader range of measures with tightened standards where appropriate.
Working with Ofwat to develop greater links between environmental performance and financial penalties and incentives.
Requiring water companies to produce root cause analysis reports for serious pollution incidents and to learn from them.
Requiring water companies to produce a pollution reduction plan signed off at CEO level which they will be accountable for.
Requesting that they proactively share good practice as an industry wide response to the problems we are facing
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 enhance biodiversity.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
Domestic biodiversity policy is a devolved matter and the information provided relates to England only, except in relation to our international activity.
The 25 Year Environment Plan marks a step-change in ambition for wildlife and the natural environment internationally and in England. It sets out over two hundred actions to enhance the environment and has long-term goals for recovering nature.
We are already delivering the 25 Year Plan commitments. We are bringing forward the first Environment Bill in over 20 years with ambitious measures to address the biggest environmental priorities of our age: air quality, thriving plants and wildlife, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, and clean and plentiful water.
Agri-environment schemes provide financial incentives for farmers and land managers to look after the environment. We are developing a new Environmental Land Management scheme that will reward farmers and land managers for delivering environmental outcomes such as conserving and restoring habitats which will support our biodiversity goals.
We work with partners to support the recovery of threatened species and their habitats. For example, Natural England are working with landowners and conservation organisations on the Back from the Brink programme, which aims to put over 100 threatened species on the road to recovery by 2020.
At sea, we are expanding our protected areas. An ambitious third tranche of 41 Marine Conservation Zones were designated in May 2019.
Nature matters, but the ongoing decline in nature is a global problem that requires leadership and global action. Our Darwin Initiative programme funds projects to protect biodiversity and the natural environment in developing countries, with £10.3 million awarded in 2018/19. The UK Government is investing more than £36 million between 2014 and 2021 to counter the illegal wildlife trade and we are introducing one of the world’s toughest ivory bans.
The UK has committed to continuing its leading role in global biodiversity conservation, including calling for at least 30 per cent of the ocean to be in Marine Protected Areas by 2030 and negotiating hard to agree a global post-2020 framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity that is both ambitious and transformational.
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 assessment he has made of the potential benefits to air quality of introducing fire toxicity assessments to fire safety tests of upholstered goods and construction materials.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is the lead Government department on fire safety regulations and has responsibility for product safety.
Defra’s Air Quality division has not made any assessment of the potential benefits to air quality of introducing fire toxicity assessments to fire safety tests of upholstered goods and construction materials.
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 assessment he has made of the potential merits of a return scheme for plastic bottles of all sizes for the economy.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
We are currently analysing the responses and evidence submitted to the consultation on introducing a deposit return scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
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 assessment he has made of the merits of increasing green spaces in the UK to reduce the effect of flash flooding.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
As set out in our 25 Year Environment Plan, this Government recognises the importance of green spaces for health and happiness as well as for environmental benefits such as sequestering carbon, absorbing noise, cleansing pollutants, absorbing surface water and reducing high temperatures. In the right place, using green spaces in towns and cities to help divert or store flood water can be beneficial, including using sustainable drainage systems such as permeable surfaces and ponds or natural flood management techniques in towns and cities as well as upstream.
As we build more homes, preserving and creating green spaces in towns is more important than ever. We want to encourage local authorities to consider all flood management opportunities and developers to take into account all the benefits when deciding how much land to allocate as green space.
To support this we have worked with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to revise the National Planning Policy Framework to further encourage sustainable drainage systems, and published our Surface Water Management Action Plan which includes actions that will join up planning for surface water management and build local authority capacity. In addition, Natural England is developing a framework of national standards for green infrastructure in close consultation with stakeholders.
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 support research on alternatives to plastics.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
Our Resources and Waste Strategy, published in December last year, sets out approach to eliminating avoidable plastic waste. We recognise, however, that plastics will continue to play an important role, for example by helping to prevent food waste when used in food packaging for certain foods. One reason plastics are useful is that they are lightweight, which can have benefits in terms of the carbon emissions associated with getting them to market. So we want to better understand the environmental trade-offs associated with alternative materials. We set this out as an area of research in interest in the Resources and Waste Strategy, and we welcome collaborations with industry and academia in order to further explore it.
We are also taking steps to ensure new, innovative types of plastic really are more sustainable. As part of this, the Government has confirmed, subject to matched funding from industry, that it is prepared to invest up to £60 million through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund towards the development of smart, sustainable plastic packaging, which will aim to make the UK a world-leader in sustainable packaging for consumer products.
We will also publish a call for evidence on standards for bio-based and biodegradable plastics. The Government is concerned that, in the absence of accepted standards, claims about the biodegradability of plastic-based products cannot be verified, possibly leading to increased levels of consumption and greater environmental harm, in comparison to conventional fossil-based plastics. The call for evidence will be published later this year, and we welcome responses from the research community.