Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
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 her Department's press release, Lamb exports to America closer, published on 27 July 2016, what information she holds on when the first Welsh lamb exports to the US are expected to take place.
Answered by George Eustice
The US authorities are conducting the necessary steps to formally lift their restrictions on exports of EU lamb to the US. Defra is working with the US authorities to ensure exports of lamb from the UK can commence as quickly as possible once the restrictions have been lifted.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many inspections Trading Standards has undertaken of animals during transit for slaughter abroad in each of the last three years.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra does not hold data on local authority Trading Standards inspections of animals during transit for slaughter abroad. APHA carry out supervised loadings on export consignments of live animals for slaughter.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many prosecutions there have been for breaches of the animal welfare regulations governing live animal exports in each of the last three years.
Answered by George Eustice
Information is available on the number of convictions rather than on the number of prosecutions. In the last three years there have been the following number of convictions for breaches of the regulations protecting animal welfare during transport in England and Wales. Separate figures are not kept for convictions relating to live animal exports.
2015 - 8
2014 - 15
2013 – 14
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many vehicles the Animal and Plant Agency has inspected (a) during the loading of live animals and (b) at ports from which live animals have been exported in each of the last three years.
Answered by George Eustice
Number of vehicles the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has inspected:
(a) during the loading of live animals:
99 during 2014
66 during 2015
127 during 2016
(b) at ports from which live animals have been exported:
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the (a) the environmental benefits of the plastic bag charge and (b) potential merits of introducing such a charge for disposable coffee cups.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
A full impact assessment considering the potential environmental benefits of the plastic bag charge was developed as part of introducing it in October 2015. It is available at: www.legislation.gov.uk/
We recently published the first 6 months’ data reported to us on the charge. Based on this, we expect English consumers to use around six billion less single-use plastic carrier bags this year.
Major coffee chains already have a financial obligation to recover and recycle a proportion of the packaging they place on the market, including disposable coffee cups, as they are captured under the Packaging Waste Regulations. The industry is also taking further voluntary action aimed at significantly increasing paper cup recycling rates by 2020.
The Government is developing the 25 Year Environment Plan, part of which will consider our policies for resources, waste and recycling.