Asked by: Kirstene Hair (Conservative - Angus)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has had discussions with the Scottish Government on the Scottish Government's targets relating to the ending of biodegradable municipal waste being sent to landfill by 2021.
Answered by George Eustice
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Kirstene Hair (Conservative - Angus)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with devolved Administrations on the consultation on proposed amendments to the domestic Food Information Regulations 2014 (FIR) (England) and parallel FIR regulations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales relating to allergen information for foods that are prepacked for direct sale to the consumer on the same premises from which they are sold.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The consultation on allergen information provisions, which closed on Friday 29 March, was a joint UK wide consultation between Defra, the Foods Standards Agency in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and Food Standards Scotland. As food labelling is a devolved issue, the decision to run the consultation across the whole of the United Kingdom was dependent upon the support and involvement of the devolved administrations. Throughout the process, Defra officials have been working closely with officials from Food Standards Scotland and the Food Standards Agency.
Looking to the future, we will continue to work closely with the devolved administrations to ensure that all UK consumers have complete trust in the food they consume.
Asked by: Kirstene Hair (Conservative - Angus)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Potential Pilot Operators responded to the request for information for the pilot Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra received eight responses to the Seasonal Workers Pilot Request for Information.
Asked by: Kirstene Hair (Conservative - Angus)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with representatives from (a) Police Scotland and (b) the Home Office in relation to tackling fly-tipping in rural areas.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Policies to tackle fly-tipping are devolved.
No discussions have been held with Police Scotland.
In England, the Government is committed to tackling fly-tipping in rural and urban areas. We are working closely with the Home Office on a range of issues in relation to rural crime, including waste crime and fly-tipping. Local authorities and the Environment Agency have a wide range of enforcement powers to tackle fly-tipping and we have recently strengthened these. In 2016 we gave local authorities the power to issue fixed penalty notices for small scale fly-tipping and enhanced local authorities’ and the Environment Agency’s ability to search and seize the vehicles of suspected fly-tippers.
In November we laid regulations in Parliament to give local authorities and the Environment Agency the power to issue fixed penalty notices to householders who fail in their duty of care and pass their waste to fly-tippers. Two thirds of fly-tips involve household waste so this will help address the main source of the crime. We will also support local authorities in increasing householders’ awareness of their duty of care to ensure their waste is disposed of properly. On 18 December we published our Resources and Waste Strategy for England including a new strategic approach to prevent, detect and deter waste crime including fly-tipping. The Strategy is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/resources-and-waste-strategy-for-england.
Asked by: Kirstene Hair (Conservative - Angus)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions officials in his Department has had with representatives of the Scottish Government on implementation of the Fisheries Bill in Scotland.
Answered by George Eustice
The UK Government has worked closely with the Devolved Administrations in developing the Fisheries Bill.
The Fisheries Bill respects the devolution settlements and in many ways incorporates specific asks for new decision-making powers the Devolved Administrations, including the Scottish Government, had put forward.
Implementation of the Fisheries Act is then a matter for each Devolved Administration. In some areas, however, we will continue to closely cooperate, for example, on foreign vessel licencing or in the development of a Joint Fisheries Statement.
Asked by: Kirstene Hair (Conservative - Angus)
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 potential future use of alternative fuels to reduce emissions.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Department for Transport has published outputs of the transport energy model on www.gov.uk alongside the Road to Zero Strategy (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reducing-emissions-from-road-transport-road-to-zero-strategy).
The transport energy model assesses the energy consumption, air quality pollutant emissions and greenhouse gas emissions of a range of road transport fuels and technologies.
Asked by: Kirstene Hair (Conservative - Angus)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions officials of his Department have had with industry leaders on the demand for seasonal agricultural workers in Scotland after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra officials are having ongoing discussions with a range of industry stakeholders across the UK about securing the seasonal workforce needed in the future.
Following the decision to close the SAWS in 2013, Defra established the SAWS Transition Working Group, now called the Seasonal Workforce Working Group. This group meets regularly and brings industry and government together to monitor the seasonal labour situation across the UK. I attended the most recent meeting on 7th September, which included organisations covering the UK.