Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester 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 domestic overnight visits Ministers within his Department have taken in each of the last three financial years; and what the cost to the public purse was of these visits.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Government publishes on GOV.UK details of the cost of overseas Ministerial travel, including costs of travel, and on other costs (vias, accommodation, meals).
But as has been the case under successive administrations, the Government does not publish granular detail on Ministers’ travel at home or abroad.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding his Department (a) allocated for and (b) spent on magazine subscriptions in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Budgets are not allocated to this level of detail. The annual Library budget allocation does not provide specific allocation to magazine subscription. The overall budget allocation covers magazines, (e-)books, print and online journals, document delivery, memberships, news coverage, analytical/economic tools and reference/full text databases.
The allocated library budget and spend on magazines and journals over the last three years since 2021/22 is outlined below.
Financial Year | Total Library budget | Spend on magazine and journals |
2021/22 | £780,000 | £487,281.54 |
2022/23 | £1,043,000 | £412,074.32 |
2023/24 | £1,247,000 | £538,098.20 |
Defra Library purchases magazines and journals for Defra, Animal and Plant Health Agency and Natural England staff to support them in their role.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding his Department (a) budgeted for and (b) spent on advertising in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The attached table outlines how much spending has been budgeted for and spent on advertising by the department in each of the last three financial years. Like all areas of government spending, costs are reviewed regularly to ensure value for money.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much his Department spent on external recruitment consultants in the (a) 2020-21, (b) 2021-22 and (c) 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The department’s spend on consultancy is published each year in the Annual Report and Accounts.
A breakdown of this expenditure to show just recruitment consultants could only be provided by incurring disproportionate costs.
External recruitment agencies and search firms are an important resource which support the Civil Service's ability to recruit - to find talented people, in the right places, with the right capabilities to deliver for the people of the United Kingdom. The Civil Service has developed a number of commercial frameworks which provide transparency, high quality services and value for money.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on the teaching of (a) environmental protection and (b) climate change in schools.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
The Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, published in January 2018, sets out the ambition to improve the environment within a generation. As part of the plan the Department for Education (DfE) has worked with Defra and Natural England on the Children and Nature Programme, a £10 million programme which aims to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds to have better access to the natural environment. The programme has been designed to make it possible for schools to undertake a range of activities in natural spaces, such as learning about nature and how to care for the natural environment. This programme complements the scope that already exists to study environmental issues throughout the curriculum, in particular in science and geography lessons.
Defra and the DfE regularly work together on ways to make children aware of issues that impact on the environment and how they can help tackle them. There is scope to study environmental issues throughout the curriculum. For example, in primary school science, pupils are taught that environments can change and this can pose a danger to living things. In geography at key stage 3, pupils will look at how human and physical processes interact to influence and change landscapes, environments and the climate. In GCSE, science pupils will consider the evidence and uncertainties in evidence, for additional anthropogenic causes of climate change. In 2017, we introduced new environmental science A level for those students who want to study this area of science in more detail.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of officials of her Department resigned in each of the last six years.
Answered by George Eustice
The table below shows the number of resignations and the proportion of staff who had resigned in the last six years.
Year | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 |
Number of staff resigned | 59 | 44 | 37 | 52 | 61 | 53 |
% of staff resigned | 2.3% | 1.9% | 1.7% | 2.4% | 2.8% | 2.6% |
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester 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 officials of her Department took sick leave for reasons relating to stress in each of the last five years; and what proportion of total sick leave that leave was in each such year.
Answered by George Eustice
The table below provides details of the number and proportion of officials that took sick leave relating to Mental Health Disorders in the core-Department as at 31st December in each of the last five years.
| Number of Staff | Proportion of All Core Defra Staff |
31-Dec-11 | 69 | 2.9% |
31-Dec-12 | 70 | 3.3% |
31-Dec-13 | 76 | 3.5% |
31-Dec-14 | 52 | 2.5% |
31-Dec-15 | 70 | 3.6% |
We are unable to disaggregate stress from the category mental disorders. This category includes personality and behavioural disorders and lists 24 descriptors of which stress is one.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
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 from the public purse on industrial tribunals in the last 12 months.
Answered by George Eustice
The Govt Legal Dept have represented Defra at Employment Tribunals since Oct 2011. The costs of any such litigation are covered by an annual block fee arrangement which covers all aspects of legal services provided to Defra.
The cost of Employment Tribunals can be found within the HMCTS annual accounts published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/433948/hmcts-annual-report-accounts-2014-15.pdf.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester 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 (a) publications, (b) consultation documents and (c) circulars her Department has issued since August 2012; and what the title was of each such publication, consultation document or circular.
Answered by George Eustice
This Department’s publications and consultations issued since August 2012 are available, indexed in date order, on the GOV.UK website. The indexes enable users to search by date and by type of publication. Approximately 2540 publications have been issued by, or jointly with, this Department since August 2012, including 210 consultations. We cannot identify any circulars published since August 2012.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester 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 civil law suits have been brought against her Department based either wholly or partially on grounds provided by the Human Rights Act 1998; how many such suits were settled out of court before a court judgment was delivered; and how much such settlements have cost the public purse since 2010.
Answered by George Eustice
The Human Rights Act 1998 has been in force since October 2000. There is no central record of civil cases brought against Defra where a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998 was alleged.
There have not been any cases since 2010 settled by payment of damages which alleged a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998.