Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 the export of paraquat.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Government does not currently intend to ban the export of paraquat.
The export of paraquat from Great Britain (GB) is strictly regulated under the GB Prior Informed Consent (PIC) regulatory regime for the export and import of certain hazardous chemicals. We believe it is essential that the use of pesticides that are known to be hazardous to human health or the environment should be subject to scientific risk assessment, mitigation, and regulatory protections. That is why we support notification of the export of Paraquat under GB PIC and support its listing under the Rotterdam convention.
The exchange of information that PIC provides allows importing countries to make informed decisions on the import of those chemicals and on how to handle and use them safely. This process is kept under review.
The UK is committed to working internationally through bodies such as the OECD, the Global Framework on Chemicals (GFC - formerly SAICM), the Rotterdam Convention and United Nations Environment Assembly to manage pesticides safely. As a strong supporter of the GFC, the UK successfully negotiated 28 targets to deliver a safer and more sustainable future for the planet, including targets calling for increased global action on the most harmful pesticides in agriculture – working with stakeholders to support the availability of safe and affordable alternatives for farmers around the world.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 an estimate of the rate of water leakage in the United Utilities network that serves the North West.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Government has committed to reduce leakage by 37% by 2038 on a trajectory to halve leakage by 2050 and is working with regulators and water companies to achieve this. Ofwat set Performance Commitments for water companies to achieve at the beginning of each price review period. According to United Utilities data, in 2022-23 they outperformed their performance commitment, delivering a 5.9% reduction against the 2019/20 baseline. They also state that they are on track to deliver a 15% reduction in leakage by the end of the current price review period.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps she has she has taken to tackle waste-related crime in (a) Stockport constituency and (b) Greater Manchester.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government is committed to tackling waste crime, which is a blight on our local communities and the environment and damages legitimate businesses. We have strengthened regulators' powers, are tightening the law and have increased the Environment Agency's budget by £10 million per year to make it harder for rogue operators to find work in the sector and easier for regulators to take action against criminals. We are also providing grants to councils across the country to help them purchase equipment to tackle fly-tipping. Recipients include Manchester City Council.
From January 2022 to date, 7% of incidents reported to the Environment Agency for the region that covers Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire, were recorded as illegal waste sites and 0.1% related to the Stockport area. The majority of the reports for Stockport were closed, as unsubstantiated or with the Environment Agency providing advice and guidance detailing the relevant legislation, their obligations, how to return to compliance and the consequences of not doing so.
Within Greater Manchester, there are six cases subject to legal proceedings and nine active investigations into illegal waste crime. Between April 2022 to March 2023 the Environment Agency closed 15 illegal waste sites across Greater Manchester, 7 of which were high risk.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 an assessment of the adequacy of the transparency of the (a) finances and (b) corporate structures at United Utilities Group.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
All water companies publish their annual reports on their websites. The publicly available reports include financial and governance information. United Utilities’ most recent annual report can be found here - United Utilities Group PLC - Year in Review 2022 (annualreport2022.com).
In addition to annual reports, all water companies publish an annual performance report (APR). The APRs are accessible to all stakeholders and set out how companies are delivering for their customers, environment and wider society.
Ofwat, the economic regulator, also assesses the financial resilience of water companies and publishes an annual Monitoring Financial Resilience Report, which sets out observations and actions to further improve the financial resilience of the sector. Ofwat’s report can be found here - MFR_2021-22.pdf (ofwat.gov.uk).
The water companies provide an essential public service to their communities, and so our Strategic Policy Statement sets out that we expect Ofwat to encourage and incentivise water companies to foster better corporate responsibility.
Building on their existing principles for board leadership, transparency and governance, Ofwat announced on 20 March 2023 new changes to company licences that will improve the performance and financial health of water companies and provide greater transparency with customers and stakeholders.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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) quality and (b) safety of water in Stockport constituency.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Drinking water quality is controlled by the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2016 in England and companies are required to comply with these regulations. The Drinking Water Inspectorate is the regulator for drinking water in England, and take’s enforcement action should any breach of the standards in the regulations occur, in line with its enforcement policy. More information is available on the DWI website, including the annual report on drinking water quality and compliance tables for individual companies.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if her Department will make an estimate of the amount invested in maintenance work by United Utilities in the water network in the North West in each of the last two financial years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Our Strategic Policy Statement set out our expectation for water companies to have good asset management to support the resilience of their services.
Ofwat, the independent economic regulator, sets the investment, service and performance targets for water companies through the five yearly price review process.
The current price review period (2020-25) set out a £51 billion investment package for the 2020-2025 period, which includes funding for maintenance.
The Government does not assess companies’ expenditure for individual aspects of their work. However, Ofwat reports annually on water companies performance against key performance and expenditure metrics set during the price review, the most recent report was published in December 2022 - Water company performance report 2021-2022.
There are several performance commitments for water companies that provide an indication of asset health, including leakage, mains repair, unplanned outage, sewer collapse and supply interruption.
Companies are required to published annually progress on the commitments set during the price review, details on United Utilities’ Annual Performance Reports can be found here; United Utilities - Performance. Companies published their Annual Reports and Accounts, United Utilities are available on their website - United Utilities - Annual report and accounts.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 take steps to ban the export of paraquat to India.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The export of paraquat from Great Britain (GB) to India and other countries is regulated under the GB Prior Informed Consent (PIC) regulatory regime for the export and import of certain hazardous chemicals. The explicit consent of the importing country is required before export of paraquat can take place. This exchange of information that PIC provides allows the importing countries to make informed decisions on the import of those chemicals and on how to handle and use them safely. This process is kept under review.
Companies intending to export paraquat and other listed chemicals from the GB must notify the importing country via the exporter's Designated National Authority. For GB, the Designated National Authority is The Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The UK is committed to working internationally including through the OECD, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) and United Nations Environment Assembly on initiatives to support the safe management of pesticides.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 made an assessment of the adequacy of the level of (a) executive pay and (b) shareholder dividends at private water companies.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
HM Government and Ofwat have set an expectation that companies must be transparent about how performance-related executive pay and dividends are linked to services for customers, including environmental performance.
David Black, Ofwat Chief Executive, recently reiterated that "performance-related pay for CEOs should be clearly linked to their performance for customers, the environment and society. Performance-related pay can't be a one-way street, if companies are not performing that should be reflected in executive pay."
Ofwat is currently consulting on improving financial resilience in the water sector. This includes modifying the dividend licence condition to require that dividend policies and dividends declared or paid should take account of service delivery for customers and the environment over time, including performance levels.
This will enable Ofwat to take enforcement action against companies that do not link dividend payments to performance, or those failing to be transparent about their dividend pay-outs.
Ofwat plans to report on an analysis it is completing of whether it feels companies have clearly made the link between performance and performance-related pay.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 take steps with (a) his Cabinet colleagues and (b) his counterparts in the devolved administrations and their corresponding agencies to ensure that proposals for full ingredient declaration and meaningful, legal definitions of commonly-used marketing terms as set out in the Real Bread Campaign's proposals published on 18 March 2022 for an Honest Crust Act are fully reflected in the public consultation which opened on 1 September 2022 on amending the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998 and the Bread and Flour Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The UK Government and the Devolved Administrations committed to carry out a review of Bread and Flour Regulations across the UK. The key proposals agreed for change are outlined in a public consultation published on 1 September 2022 which is open for responses until 23 November 2022. These proposals which were agreed across government, and with the Devolved Administrations, address the most pressing aspects identified for change including the addition of mandatory folic acid to flour to prevent neural tube defects in foetuses.
Full ingredient listing is already required for all prepacked foods with loose foods subject to certain derogations for practical reasons. An update of existing guidance around commonly used marketing terms across all foods is planned for the future.