Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 she has made of the adequacy of food labelling regulations in supporting consumers to make informed choices.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
All food and drink sold on the UK market, including that which is imported, must comply with food labelling rules. The rules require what information must be provided to consumers and how this must be done. The fundamental principle of food labelling rules is that information provided to the consumer must not mislead and must be labelled effectively.
The government continues to review the effectiveness of existing legislation through post implementation reviews. Food regulations contain a statutory review clause which requires the Secretary of State to publish a report every five years.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 reduce disparities in accepted materials for recycling across different local authorities.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Simpler Recycling reforms will ensure that across England, people will be able to recycle the same materials, whether at home, work or school.
Every household and workplace (businesses and relevant non-domestic premises like schools and hospitals) across England will be able to recycle the same materials in the following core waste streams: metal, glass, plastic (including cartons), paper and card, food waste, and garden waste (for households only).
These reforms will make recycling easier and ensure there is a comprehensive, consistent service across England. This will reduce confusion with recycling to improve recycling rates, ensuring there is more recycled material in the products we buy, and that the UK recycling industry will grow.
Simpler Recycling will be implemented as follows:
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 make it her policy to end the culling of badgers.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Work is progressing at pace on a comprehensive new bovine TB strategy, to drivedown bovine TB rates to save cattle and farmers’ livelihoods and end the badger cull by the end of this parliament.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 help preserve Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Ashfield constituency.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) continue to be one of the most effective tools for protecting and enhancing biodiversity and deliver a wide range of health and socio-economic benefits.
Natural England has an ongoing programme to assess the condition of SSSI features and implement restoration actions. Recent work in Ashfield includes monitoring at Teversal Pastures SSSI, where two units with species-rich neutral grassland are in favourable condition and managed through a Countryside Stewardship Mid-tier scheme consented by Natural England. At Friezeland Grassland SSSI, monitoring led to a new Countryside Stewardship scheme with capital works to restore lowland neutral grassland. Natural England also monitored Annesley Woodhouse Quarries SSSI, leading to a Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier scheme to increase grazing and management.
In the 2024 autumn budget we allocated £13m to Protected Site Strategies which will develop spatial restoration plans for priority sites, such as Sherwood Forest in the adjoining district of Newark and Sherwood. These strategies will put in place action to restore protected sites and manage the impact of environmental harm.
The Nature Restoration Fund in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will allow a more strategic approach to SSSI restoration and deliver improved environmental outcomes.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 increase urban wildlife habitat.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Nature Towns and Cities, a new initiative, supported by Defra, is committed to bringing the benefits of nature and greenspace to everyone in the UK. It has recently awarded £15.4 million to 19 partnerships, covering 40 towns/cities, enabling local authorities, working with their communities to transform their urban environment for people and nature. Birmingham has successfully become the UK’s first official Nature City, with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole collectively becoming the first Nature Towns.
Natural England’s Green Infrasturcture (GI) Standards include an urban nature recovery standard to expand and connect habitats and species in urban/urban fringe areas and reverse the decline in biodiversity. The GI Mapping Database provides a layered view of England’s green/blue spaces. Designed to support planning, policy, and nature recovery efforts by visualizing how natural assets are distributed and accessed.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) are a flagship measure in the Environment Act. A good example which is centred around urban nature recovery is NATURE FOR ALL. A Local Nature Recovery Strategy for Greater Manchester.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what purposes their Department has used artificial intelligence in the last year.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In the last 12 months, Defra has explored the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across a range of areas to improve delivery of public services, strengthen resilience, and support innovation. AI has been deployed in habitat maps, such as Living England, and peatland restoration projects, such as AI4Peat, to enhance biodiversity monitoring, and in the Environment Agency’s FloodAI trial to improve flood forecasting, strengthen early warning systems, and protect critical infrastructure.
Before any application is deployed, the department considers data and security protection risks to ensure AI is applied responsibly. Guidance on the safe, effective, and responsible adoption of AI can be found in the Government’s AI Playbook.
The department also acknowledges the mandatory obligation under the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS) to report where algorithms are used in decision-making. As of September 2025, Defra has published several ATRS records, including Local Authority Waste Collection Cost Groupings, Hello Lamp Post, and Living England, covering algorithmic tools in environmental protection and public engagement.
The department is also piloting the use of artificial intelligence to analyse open sources online for emerging civil contingencies risks and issues.
Internally, the department has piloted AI-powered tools to automate the migration of legacy IT systems to modern cloud environments and rolled out Microsoft Copilot Chat to streamline day-to-day tasks, improve productivity, and support staff in working more efficiently.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 Office for National Statistics’ dataset entitled Business demography quarterly, UK Quarter 2 April to June 2025 edition, if the Government will make an assessment of the potential impact of trends in the number of (a) agriculture, (b) forestry and (c) fishing business closures on the supply of food.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government assesses a whole variety of factors that affect UK food supply using readily available data. Two examples include: the Production to Supply ratio last updated in July 2025 (found here Chapter 14: The food chain - GOV.UK) and analysis of the UK’s Seafood Consumption (found here Seafood Consumption 2025 — Seafish and published annually).
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information they hold on the number of workdays that were completed remotely in their Department in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department does not hold data or information centrally on the number of workdays completed by staff remotely.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 it his policy to ban foreign supertrawlers from UK waters.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK is committed to protecting our marine environment and ensuring sustainable fisheries. We are taking action through Marine Protected Area management and Fisheries Management Plans, which apply to all vessels in UK waters.
Any policy changes must be evidence-based and consistent with our international obligations, including the non-discrimination provisions of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
We continue to monitor fishing activity closely and will act where there is evidence of harm or non-compliance.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 Office for National Statistics’ dataset entitled Business demography quarterly, UK Quarter 2 April to June 2025 edition, what assessment he has made of trends in the number of (a) agriculture, (b) forestry and (c) fishing business closures since 2017.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is aware of the Office for National Statistics' quarterly business openings and closures data. There are many factors unrelated to government policy that might explain why businesses would be shown as "closing" in the data source, including purely statistical factors.
Defra monitors data on the number of farm businesses registered with Defra for England published here Structure of the agricultural industry in England and the UK at June - GOV.UK.
This Government is committed to supporting economic growth. We continue to work closely with our agriculture, fishing, seafood and forestry sectors to ensure they are vibrant, profitable, and sustainable.