Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
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 take steps to ban industrial fishing vessels from Marine Protected Areas on a whole-site basis.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Crawley, on 16 January 2023, PQ UIN 110660.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to support sustainable fashion and textiles businesses who export to the EU with meeting the EU's Extended Producer Responsibility commitments.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Commission announced their intention to propose harmonised EU Extended Producer Responsibility rules for textiles as part of the revision of the Waste Framework Directive and we look forward to seeing these final proposals and will consider how they might fit with our own independent regulatory framework.
The Government’s 2018 Resources & Waste Strategy for England identified textiles as a priority sector for action. A key part of this strategy is working with the textiles industry to reduce their environmental impact. We have brought major retailers together to commit to reducing carbon and water footprints through our Textiles 2030 programme and we are currently looking into both near and longer-term policies to reduce textiles waste.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
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 is taking to increase the (a) transparency and (b) standardisation of incumbent water companies’ bulk supply and discharge tariffs.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to ensuring that the water industry offers a stable, predictable and transparent charging regime for bulk supply and discharge.
We updated our charging guidance to Ofwat in 2016 and provided further supplementary guidance to the regulator in 2018. It can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-industry-charging-guidance-to-ofwat
Ofwat, the independent economic regulator for the water industry in England and Wales, must have regard to our guidance in their regulation of water companies in England. They set out how they regulate bulk supply and discharge charges in their charging rules. Ofwat's charging rules were updated last year, taking effect in April 2022. These updates simplified the publishing deadlines for charges and introduced a new requirement on English water companies to use standardised terms and worked examples in their charging arrangements for developer services.
Bulk supply and discharge charging guidance is a devolved matter in Wales and Scotland. Welsh government’s charging guidance to Ofwat can be found at Water charging guidance | GOV.WALES
Scottish government’s charging guidance is issued directly by Scottish Water, and can be found at Microsoft Word - Part 1 Wholesale Charges Scheme 2022-23 - Non TC - Jan 4.2% (scottishwater.co.uk)
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to hold incumbent water companies accountable for failures to address storm overflows and leakages.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has made it clear that water companies must urgently tackle sewage overflows. This is set out in the Storm Overflows Reduction Plan, which represents the largest investment programme in water company history. Through increased monitoring and reporting requirements introduced in the Environment Act 2021, and priorities set through Ofwat as part of the Strategic Policy Statement to Ofwat, regulators and government will hold water companies to account. The Environment Agency and Ofwat have recently launched the largest criminal and civil investigations into water company sewage discharges ever, at over 2200 treatment works, following new data coming to light as a result of increased monitoring. Since 2015, the Environment Agency and Ofwat have brought 59 prosecutions against water companies, securing fines of over £144 million.
Water companies have performance commitments set by Ofwat that they need to meet. These include leakage and wastewater treatment work compliance. They face automatic financial penalties when these are missed. In November, Ofwat announced that almost £135 million would be returned to customers as a result of companies underperforming against their performance commitments.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
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 help climate finance reach low-income communities vulnerable to climate change; and whether she has held discussions with her counterparts in high-income countries on this matter.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The UK's International Climate Finance delivered by BEIS, FCDO, and Defra, supports developing nations to adapt and build resilience to the effects of climate change including through improved protecting and restoring nature, improving food security, water management and preparedness against climate-related disasters. At COP27 the Prime Minister announced the UK will triple our funding on adaptation from £500 million in 2019 to £1.5 billion in 2025. In addition, in partnership with the Champions Group of Adaptation Finance, the UK and other climate finance providers are collaborating with low income climate vulnerable countries, to address barriers to increasing flows, quality, effectiveness and accessibility of adaptation finance, including to the poorest people and communities who are already suffering the most from climate change.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
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 make an assessment of the potential impact on recycling rates of excluding glass from the scope of the forthcoming deposit return scheme for drinks containers.
Answered by Steve Double
We will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a UK recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her Answer of 21 June 2022 to Question 17967 on Package Holidays: Animal Welfare, what discussions she has had with (a) the travel industry and (b) other stakeholder organisations on introducing a ban on the domestic (i) advertising and (ii) sale of wild animal experiences abroad.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Ministers and officials have been engaging with industry groups and interested stakeholders - and continue to do so - on many of the measures set out in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare, including reforms relating to not advertising or offering for sale, here, activities involving unacceptable practices abroad.
The Government considers that reputable and responsible tour operators here should not be advertising or offering attractions, activities, or experiences abroad that involve the unacceptable treatment of animals. The Association of British Travel Agents has published guidelines and lists activities which have been classified as unacceptable.
In addition, the Advertising Standards Association regulates online advertising in the UK and has issued advice about featuring animals in marketing communications.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
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 introduce a ban on the domestic (a) advertising and (b) sale of wild animal experiences, including elephant rides overseas.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Government takes the welfare of all animals seriously and the Government has been made aware that animals including Asian elephants, that are part of tourist attractions, can be subjected to cruel and brutal training practices to ensure their compliance.
As set out in our Action Plan for Animal Welfare, we are committed to promoting high animal welfare standards, both at home and abroad. We have engaged with the travel industry and other stakeholder organisations, and we support measures which ensure that money from tourists from this country is not channelled towards animal experiences abroad that involve the unacceptable treatment of animals.
The Government is committed to exploring available options to deliver the action plan, including to limit the advertising and offering for sale of these experiences.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the views of stakeholders in respect of the Marine Stewardship Council’s certification of unsustainable fisheries.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label is a voluntary initiative and operates independently of the Government. Defra has no plans to take forward an assessment of the accessibility of the MSC label to small-scale fisheries.
Further to the Government's response to the Environmental Audit Committee's 'Sustainable Seas' report of 2019, Defra continues to encourage non-governmental organisations and individuals to participate in the frequent stakeholder consultations that MSC holds. The MSC standard has evolved positively over time and constructive comments will help ensure this continues to happen.
The Government is fully committed to sustainable fishing. Fisheries Management Plans will be a key tool through which we will work with industry to improve the sustainability and management of our fisheries, making it easier for the fishing sector then to secure independent accreditation if they wish to do so. We are actively discussing this issue with stakeholders across the seafood sector as part of the public consultation on the draft Joint Fisheries Statement.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the accessibility of the Marine Stewardship Council ecolabel to small-scale fisheries.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label is a voluntary initiative and operates independently of the Government. Defra has no plans to take forward an assessment of the accessibility of the MSC label to small-scale fisheries.
Further to the Government's response to the Environmental Audit Committee's 'Sustainable Seas' report of 2019, Defra continues to encourage non-governmental organisations and individuals to participate in the frequent stakeholder consultations that MSC holds. The MSC standard has evolved positively over time and constructive comments will help ensure this continues to happen.
The Government is fully committed to sustainable fishing. Fisheries Management Plans will be a key tool through which we will work with industry to improve the sustainability and management of our fisheries, making it easier for the fishing sector then to secure independent accreditation if they wish to do so. We are actively discussing this issue with stakeholders across the seafood sector as part of the public consultation on the draft Joint Fisheries Statement.