Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
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 (a) his Department and (b) Defra Group (i) own and (ii) lease.
Answered by George Eustice
The following table shows the vehicle leasing and ownership across the Defra Group of the Environment agency (EA), Natural England (NE), Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Marine Management Organisation (MMO) and the Rural Payments agency (RPA).
Type | EA | NE | APHA | Defra | MMO | RPA |
Cars: Leased | 3304 | 3 | 20 | 176 | 31 | 203 |
Cars: Owned | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
Commercial Vehicles under 3.5t - Owned | 1293 | 118 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Commercial Vehicles under 3.5t - Leased | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Commercial Vehicles over 3.5t - Owned | 43 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Commercial Vehicles over 3.5t - Leased | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total Number of Vehicles | 4640 | 123 | 81 | 180 | 31 | 203 |
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect of the closure of the Heritage Lottery Fund's Landscape Funding programme on his Department's work to implement the 25 Year Plan for the Environment.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) is an important source of funding for landscapes and achieving the 25 Year Environment Plan goals.
As a result, dedicated programmes for landscape partnerships, places of worship, parks and townscape heritage are being administered in a more streamlined way.
In 2018/19, the HLF will fund landscape partnerships through its Heritage Grants programme. From 2019 onwards, the HLF anticipates continuing to support landscape partnerships through the Heritage Grants programme as well as through a place-based campaign. This is currently the subject of an open consultation.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the amount of funding that was available from the Heritage Lottery Fund for projects that promote biodiversity in 2015/16 and 2016/17.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) does not isolate funding specifically for biodiversity. In 2015/16 the HLF invested £88 million in projects supporting the UK’s land and nature. In 2016/17, HLF’s investment was £101.7 million.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many public analysts were employed by his Department in each of the last five years.
Answered by George Eustice
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many disposable coffee cups were purchased by his Department in each of the last five years.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Since October 2014, the number of disposable coffee cups purchased by Defra’s catering provider has fallen by a third:
Period | Disposable coffee cups |
October 2014- September 2015 | 440,100 |
October 2015- September 2016 | 323,700 |
October 2016–September 2017 | 297,500 |
The contractor does not hold this level of data for more than 3 years. These figures do not account for plastic and other disposable cups. Defra has not purchased any disposable coffee cups.
The current catering contract expires this summer. The tender for the new contract stipulates that the supplier must not use single use plastics and must provide alternatives to single use coffee cups or implement a recycling scheme.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to appoint the national tree champion.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The appointment of the Tree Champion is one of the priorities of the recently published 25 Year Environment Plan. The Tree Champion role will promote the benefits that trees deliver, support the tree planting manifesto commitments and co-ordinate a cross government approach to encourage a step change in tree planting.
Further details will be agreed in due course, including the date of appointment.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the environmental principles contained in EU treaties that are to be retained in UK law via the EU (Withdrawal) Bill will have general application across all environmental policy areas in the UK.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
On 12 November 2017 the Secretary of State set out plans to consult early this year on the creation of a new policy statement on environmental principles to apply post EU withdrawal. This statement will set out environmental principles in one place to underpin future policy-making.
We need to consult as widely as possible on nature of the new policy statement. The proposed consultation will explore the scope and content of a new statement on environmental principles.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he was first informed of the Chinese notification to the WTO of 18 July 2017 of its restrictions on imports of waste.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Defra Ministers were first alerted to China’s proposed import restrictions in July 2017. At Ministers’ request, Defra officials engaged with officials from the Department for International Trade and the Environment Agency over the summer and held meetings with industry in September to discuss the potential impacts of the restrictions.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
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 in his Department's fleet are (a) electric vehicles and (b) ultra-low emission vehicles.
Answered by George Eustice
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does not own any vehicles but currently leases the following electric or ultra-low emission vehicles.
a | Electric vehicles | 2 |
b | Ultra-low emission vehicles | 9 |
We aim to move to 100% of our car fleet to hybrid or pure electric vehicles by 2025.
Asked by: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Environmental Protection (Microbeads) (England) Regulations 2017 will be subject to the one-in, three-out rule.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The ‘one, three out rule’ related to an administrative rule for the last Parliament that supported the Government’s business impact target (BIT) for that Parliament. The Government is currently considering what the BIT should be for this Parliamentary session. This includes which measures are within its scope and which are not.