Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Independent - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many incidents of fly tipping have been reported by each local authority in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Jo Churchill
A breakdown of the number of incidents reported by individual local authorities in England for 2020/21 is available online from this webpage link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/env24-fly-tipping-incidents-and-actions-taken-in-england.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Independent - Runcorn and Helsby)
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 introduce a set of core environmental standards that apply equally to food produced in the UK and imports from overseas to ensure that (a) the UK is sourcing from sustainable supply chains and (b) new trade deals do not lead to an offshoring of the UK's environmental footprint.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Government is committed to a bold and ambitious approach to agricultural trade, that protects and advances the interests of farmers, food producers and consumers. Environmental considerations continue to be central to this approach. This is in line with our 2019 manifesto commitment to ensure that in all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.
As set out in our response to the final Trade and Agriculture Commission Report (October 2021), the UK has a wide-ranging programme of work underway to raise global ambition for sustainable agriculture. This includes exploring whether a global standards framework could help to meet the UK’s goals.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Independent - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 8 March 2022 to Question 136639 on Waste Disposal: Fees and Charges, if he will publish the names of the 221 waste collection authorities that charge for garden waste collection.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Government does not require local authorities to report on the use of charging systems for waste. However, Defra works closely with the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to track local authority recycling. Details of the garden waste collection service types provided by each local authority in England are publicly available on the WRAP Local Authority Portal.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Independent - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate his Department has made of how many and what proportion of local authorities (a) charge and (b) have stopped charging for green bin collections.
Answered by Jo Churchill
There are currently 221 waste collection authorities (67% of all local authorities) in England that charge to collect garden waste from households. The percentage of waste collection authorities that charge to collect garden waste has remained roughly the same over the past three years. We do not hold data on whether any specific waste collection authorities have stopped charging for garden waste collections in recent years.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Independent - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support representatives of Cheshire West and Chester Council in their investigations into the flooding in Northwich town centre.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Environment Agency (EA) worked closely with Cheshire West and Chester Council in the development of the Northwich Flood Risk Management Scheme, as a key delivery partner on the project, which was completed in 2017. Following the flooding in October 2019, the EA also worked with the council and water company on contingency plans and had contingencies in place prior to Storm Christoph.
Storm Christoph was the largest event experienced in Cheshire since records began, resulting in significant foul and surface water flooding in Northwich Town Centre and to communities across the borough.
After the event, the EA initiated a collaborative working group with United Utilities and the council to establish a timeline of the flooding in the town centre and to help investigate the sources of flooding and support the Section 19 investigations. The focus has been on mitigation, with the result being an upscaled multi-agency contingency plan now in place for the winter ahead.
The council set up a Flood Risk Action Scrutiny group of councillors, with the primary focus being on Northwich town centre. EA staff attended these meetings on request from the council in response to the councillors' questions to cover issues relevant to the EA, including main river maintenance, warnings, community resilience and operations.
The Government acknowledges the significant impact that climate change is likely to have, and is indeed already having, on the frequency and severity of flooding. Tackling climate change and ensuring that communities across the UK are resilient to its impacts is a Government priority. That is why we have committed to invest £5.2 billion in flooding and coastal erosion over 2021-27.