Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
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 British farming machinery has been (a) built domestically and (b) imported from overseas since 2010.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra does not hold the requested information.
The Office for National Statistics publishes data on UK manufacturers’ sales by product: UK manufacturers' sales by product - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). This dataset can be used to find specific types of farm machinery. Data for 2022 will be released on 24 July.
HM Revenue and Customs publishes information on Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics, which is available via its dedicated website (www.uktradeinfo.com). From this website, it is possible to build data tables based on bespoke search criteria. All goods imported are given a classification code. These are available from the UK Trade Tariff.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff in her Department have been tasked with reviewing departmental archival holdings identifying EU regulation that had been identified by previous audits.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has the largest amount of Retained EU Law (REUL) of any Government Department, with 1,696 entries included on the REUL dashboard following its most recent update. Reviewing REUL is a priority for Defra and this requires input from all policy areas. This is a cross-Defra effort led by a central co-ordinating team supported by teams from across the department’s five directorates including the department’s specialist policy leads, analysts and lawyers covering all of Defra's policy areas. In addition to Defra’s internal efforts, external lawyers have now been appointed to support cross-Government on delivery of the REUL programme.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many dangerous dog attacks on (a) other dogs and (b) cats there have been in each year since 2013.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Defra does not hold this information. Information regarding dangerous dogs offences will be held by individual local authorities and police forces. More widely, we are working in partnership with the police, local authorities and animal welfare organisations to ensure that the full range of existing dog control powers are effectively applied to encourage responsible dog ownership and reduce the risk of dog attacks. As part of this, we are considering ways in which the collection and reporting of data relating to dog control incidents could be improved to inform prevention strategies. Conclusions from this work are expected later this year.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many dangerous dog attacks there were in each region in each year since 2013.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Defra does not hold this information. Information regarding dangerous dogs offences will be held by individual local authorities and police forces. More widely, we are working in partnership with the police, local authorities and animal welfare organisations to ensure that the full range of existing dog control powers are effectively applied to encourage responsible dog ownership and reduce the risk of dog attacks. As part of this, we are considering ways in which the collection and reporting of data relating to dog control incidents could be improved to inform prevention strategies. Conclusions from this work are expected later this year.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many American Bully XL dogs were seized in 2022.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Defra does not hold this information. Information regarding dangerous dogs offences will be held by individual local authorities and police forces. More widely, we are working in partnership with the police, local authorities and animal welfare organisations to ensure that the full range of existing dog control powers are effectively applied to encourage responsible dog ownership and reduce the risk of dog attacks. As part of this, we are considering ways in which the collection and reporting of data relating to dog control incidents could be improved to inform prevention strategies. Conclusions from this work are expected later this year.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to publish an assessment of the effectiveness of public space protection orders for preventing dangerous dog attacks.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We are working in partnership with the police, local authorities and animal welfare organisations to ensure that the full range of existing dog control powers are effectively applied to encourage responsible dog ownership and reduce the risk of dog attacks. Conclusions from this work are expected later this year. We currently have no plans to publish a formal assessment of the effectiveness of public space protection orders for preventing dangerous dog attacks.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department holds searchable IT archives (a) on Regulatory Impact Analysis estimates for EU-sourced regulation and (b) employing the search term out of scope relating to changes to regulatory burdens that could not be reviewed due to its EU origin.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Regulatory Impact Assessments are the responsibility of the Better Regulation Executive (BRE) in the Department for Business and Trade. However, BRE does not hold information relating to the impacts of EU-sourced regulations.
Retained EU law is currently being reviewed by each Department to consider whether it should be removed, kept or reformed. Defra contributed information to the BRE on the cumulative impacts of the analysis of Impact Assessments for Defra regulations, for the purposes of the Business Impact Target. However, this information is not held centrally on a searchable IT platform or archive.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
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 improve food security in the UK.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, as demonstrated throughout the Covid-19 response. It is well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption.
Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources; strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes. We produce 61% of all the food we need, and 74% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year, and these figures have changed little over the last 20 years.
UK consumers have access through international trade to food products that cannot be produced here, or at least not on a year-round basis. This supplements domestic production, and also ensures that any disruption from risks such as adverse weather or disease does not affect the UK's overall security of supply.
Defra has well established ways of working with the industry and across Government to monitor risks that may arise. This includes extensive, regular and ongoing engagement in preparedness for, and response to, issues with the potential to cause disruption to food supply chains.
Recognising the importance of food security, in the Agriculture Act 2020, the Government made a commitment to produce an assessment of our food security at least once every three years. The first UK Food Security Report was published in December 2021. The next Food Security Report will be published by the end of 2024.
The Farm to Fork Summit also took place on 16 May 2023. Discussions focused on bringing great British food to the world; building resilience and transparency; strengthening sustainability and productivity across the supply chain; and growing an innovative, skilled food and farming sector. Engagement with the entire supply chain will continue as we deliver the commitments from the summit.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) Public Space Protection Orders and (b) Dog Control Orders have been issued in relation to the American Bully XL dog since 2019.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Defra does not hold this information. Instead, this information may be held by those who issue such notices and orders, i.e. local authorities and the courts.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department's Responsible Dog Ownership working group has discussed the American Bully XL breed.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Responsible Dog Ownership working group is considering controls and measures applying to all breeds of dog.