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 has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of banning the (a) sale and (b) breeding of American bully XL dogs.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Defra’s Responsible Dog Ownership taskforce group involving the police, local authorities and NGOs is currently considering how best to manage public safety risks relating to dogs. We currently have no plans to ban the sale or breeding of American bully XL dogs.
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 people were employed by her Department to work on matters relating to equality, diversity and inclusivity in (a) 2021 and (b) 2022.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra, alongside the wider Civil Service, is committed to a truly diverse workforce and culture of openness and inclusivity - not as ends in themselves but as means of delivering better outcomes to the citizens we serve.
Defra employs a team of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) experts to realise this commitment, ensuring we employ and retain talented staff, while meeting our statutory obligations and delivering value for the taxpayer.
The proportion has been calculated based on full-time roles as employed at the end of each calendar year, where the individual is formally employed to support delivery of the Defra group and Civil Service EDI strategy: Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
These roles are employed within Defra. However, they support and enable EDI delivery into the following executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies: Rural Payments Agency, Veterinary Medicines Directorate, Animal and Plant Health Agency, Natural England and Environment Agency.
| In post | Additional on payroll | |
Roles in post as of 31st December 2021 | 8 |
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Roles in post as of 31st December 2022 | 7 | 1 Maternity Leave | 2 Career Break |
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 much her Department spent on staff training related to diversity and inclusion in 2022.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The financial information held by the department is limited to customer or supplier. The department spent £1,233,170 with the Civil Service Framework supplier which provides a range of learning and development opportunities. The department is not able to identify how much the department has spent specifically on diversity and inclusion training because our financial reports do not provide course titles.
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, if she will place in the House of Commons Library the latest version of the document previously produced by her Department that included the bar chart entitled Current assessment of business burdens from Defra/EU regulations, showing estimates of red tape burdens including identifying (a) percentages of EU costs and (b) direct costs to business per annum; what the title of that document is; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of using (i) this document and (ii) parallel audits undertaken across Whitehall in order to support Government deregulation policies.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Defra conducts analysis of how regulations impact business to prevent unjustifiable regulatory burden. Defra is currently analysing its retained EU law (REUL) stock and determining what should be preserved as part of domestic law, as well as REUL that should be repealed, or amended. Defra will not ignore areas where deregulation is difficult. We will still be looking at opportunities to reform and streamline regulatory requirements, while reducing unnecessary burdens where we can. The REUL Bill provides a unique opportunity to reform policies that could not be amended while a member of the EU.
The title of the document to which the Rt Hon Member refers is potentially 'The Costs and Benefits of Defra's Regulatory Stock: Emerging Findings From Defra's Regulation Assessment' which is available on gov.uk. The data for this wider analysis of Defra regulations is no longer collated.
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, with reference to the Answer of 1 November 2022 to Question 75766, if she will list those occasions where the Department has been tasked with delivering an audit of regulatory burdens identifying both UK and EU origins and has generated a document for central Whitehall collation and review between 2001 and 2015.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Where regulations are creating unjustifiable burdens on business, Defra is committed to reform them to ensure we support our environment and our economy alike. A public list of all Defra regulations is collated on the Defralex website.
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, with reference to the Answer of 1 November 2022 to Question 75766, which section within her Department was responsible for supplying on request from the Cabinet Office an estimate of the cost of EU regulatory burdens; and when those requests were made between 2001 and 2015.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Better Regulation Principles are always at the heart of Defra regulation and ensuring business and civil society are free from unnecessarily burdens and that regulation is proportionate are core priorities for Defra.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 11 November 2022 to Question 75766 on Regulation, whether (a) director generals and (b) directors in his Department conducted regulatory impact assessments of new EU legislative between 2001 and 2015.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not held centrally and would incur disproportionate cost to obtain. The EU conducts impact assessments on legislation it produces. During the UK’s membership of the EU, Defra produced appropriate proportionate analysis in relevant cases in line with Better Regulation Principles. Where legislation impacted on businesses, Defra was committed to the principles of better regulation and conducting proportionate analysis to prevent unjustifiable regulatory burden.
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, if he will list those departmental documents predating the Brexit referendum that contained an assessment of business burdens arising from DEFRA regulations and showing the percentile estimate of source of origin, whether domestic or EU.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Prior to EU Exit, roughly 80% of Defra's policy areas were governed by EU law. We have already reformed REUL in key areas through flagship legislation such as the Environment Act, Fisheries Act and Agriculture Act. Defra's confirmed REUL is available on the public dashboard, owned by the Brexit Opportunities Unit. This will be updated quarterly. Effective regulation strengthens our economy through enabling the operation of Defra sectors and preventing costly impacts on our nature, environment, and public health. Where regulations are creating unjustifiable burdens on business, Defra is committed to reform them to ensure we support our environment and our economy alike.
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, if she will place in the House of Commons Library an analysis of the breakdown of regulatory burdens relevant to her Department including (a) listing items identified as out of scope due to EU membership and (b) their estimated red tape costs.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Effective regulation strengthens our economy through enabling the operation of Defra sectors and preventing costly impacts on our nature, environment and public health. Where regulations are creating unjustifiable burdens on business, Defra is committed to reform them to ensure we support our environment and our economy alike. Defra has already brought forward ambitious reform in the Fisheries Act, Agriculture Act and the Environment Act and has already repealed numerous pieces of EU-legacy regulation. Further use of the powers in these acts and the core powers within the REUL Bill mean we can continue to deliver on the department’s innovative REUL reform ambitions to support businesses and take an approach tailored to the United Kingdom.
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, with reference to his Department's consultation on Ending the retail sale of peat in horticulture in England and Wales, what steps he is taking to ensure tree and plant growers (a) can remain competitive globally and (b) are able to meet the demand of the domestic horticulture industry.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has always been clear about the need to end the use of peat and peat-containing products in horticulture in England. A voluntary approach was first introduced in 2011, but has not succeeded. The Government therefore published a full consultation on banning the sale of peat and peat-containing products in the amateur sector by the end of this Parliament in England and Wales. The Government also asked for any evidence stakeholders can provide on the impacts of ending the use of peat and peat-containing products. We will publish our response to this consultation in due course.
We have worked with the horticulture industry to develop a Responsible Sourcing Scheme for Growing Media, which allows manufacturers and retailers to make informed choices of growing media inputs to peat free products, based on environmental and social impacts. We continue to support industry in their efforts to go peat free, including providing over £1 million for a project to provide the necessary applied science to help underpin the development and management of alternative growing media.