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 he has made of the potential effect on employment of the proposal to authorise the use of gene-editing technologies in agriculture and food and drink manufacturing in England.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
More than 70 genetically modified (GM) products are authorised for use as food and feed in the UK. Most GM products are used for animal feed. All these products have been authorised after a rigorous risk assessment. There are very few GM food products on the UK market, some as imports. Where GM ingredients have been added to food, existing legislation requires labelling to indicate this.
In addition to possible human health and environmental impacts, Defra’s recent genetic technologies consultation sought views on non-safety issues arising if organisms produced by genetic editing or other genetic technologies, which could have been produced naturally or through traditional breeding methods, were not regulated as GMOs. The consultation ended on 17 March and we are currently analysing the responses. A full Government response will be published within three months.
Owing to the application of Union law to Northern Ireland by virtue of the Northern Ireland Protocol, gene edited organisms will in Northern Ireland continue to be considered as GMOs and regulated as such.
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 the Government plans to introduce genetically modified foods into the UK.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
More than 70 genetically modified (GM) products are authorised for use as food and feed in the UK. Most GM products are used for animal feed. All these products have been authorised after a rigorous risk assessment. There are very few GM food products on the UK market, some as imports. Where GM ingredients have been added to food, existing legislation requires labelling to indicate this.
In addition to possible human health and environmental impacts, Defra’s recent genetic technologies consultation sought views on non-safety issues arising if organisms produced by genetic editing or other genetic technologies, which could have been produced naturally or through traditional breeding methods, were not regulated as GMOs. The consultation ended on 17 March and we are currently analysing the responses. A full Government response will be published within three months.
Owing to the application of Union law to Northern Ireland by virtue of the Northern Ireland Protocol, gene edited organisms will in Northern Ireland continue to be considered as GMOs and regulated as such.
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, how many and what proportion of consignments of animal and plant products are rejected at the EU Border Control Post.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
We are aware of 17 consignments that were rejected at EU Border Control Posts between January and March 2021. There may be more not known to Defra or the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). In the same period APHA issued 40,300 certificates for exports to the EU, although some of these may be for consignments not yet exported.
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 steps the Government is taking to (a) assess and (b) rollout the use of additives to make ordinary plastic biodegradable.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
In 2015, a Government report concluded that existing biodegradable standards are only applicable to very specific conditions such as industrial composters. We are concerned that, in the absence of robust standards, claims about the biodegradability of plastic-based products cannot be verified leading to potential confusion in the marketplace, possible increased levels of consumption and potential environmental harm at the point of disposal.
Furthermore, in line with the advice received from the Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee and as set out in the Resources and Waste Strategy, the Government’s focus is on encouraging increased reuse and recycling of products and materials, to extract maximum value from them, in line with our ambition to transition to a circular economy. This being said, the Government recognises that innovation into biodegradable plastics could help reduce the environmental impacts of plastics if they are disposed of in the right way. However, this is often not the case. If mistakenly recycled with other plastics, they have the potential to damage the quality of the new products made from the recycled plastic. Furthermore, concerns persist that plastics which are claimed to be biodegradable, if littered or otherwise released into the environment in an uncontrolled way, may not degrade quickly or at all, and they can only be composted if they meet relevant standards and are treated in line with those standards.
As a consequence of these concerns, the Government published a call for evidence in 2019 to help consider the development of product standards or certification criteria for bio-based, biodegradable, and compostable plastics as well as to better understand their effects on the environment and our current waste system. The call for evidence is now closed and we are currently analysing the responses received; we will publish a Government response shortly.
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, with reference to the Environment Agency's visits in 2018 to all facilities which treated or reprocessed plastic waste to check they were not losing plastic fragments into surface water, how many and what proportion of such facilities were identified as losing plastic fragments into surface water.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Environment Agency (EA) regulates a number of activities which have the potential to cause plastic waste pollution in the River Mersey. The EA is responsible for the regulation of permitted and exempt plastics recycling plants, which includes inspection and compliance checks to ensure plastics recyclers are complying with their environmental permits.
In 2018 the EA visited facilities which treated or reprocessed plastic waste and checked they were not losing plastic fragments into surface water draining into the Mersey. The EA undertook an investigation on the River Tame to identify if there were any permitted activities based on the Tame catchment with the potential to discharge micro-plastics into the watercourse.
The EA identified and inspected three sites. One of these sites was identified as having the potential to discharge plastic waste into the Tame. The EA worked with the operator to prevent waste escaping from the site and potentially causing pollution to the watercourse and the operator subsequently moved to a different area.
The EA also works nationally to reduce waste crime which helps to minimise and prevent loss of plastic waste into the environment from businesses by keeping it in the waste management system. The EA has worked with the energy sector to reduce the loss of plastic media from their cooling treatment processes. The EA has also worked with water companies to prevent plastic bio-bead loss from the wastewater processes. The EA is working with businesses and leading academics to investigate the types and quantities of plastics, including micro-plastics, entering the environment. This research will feed into plans to tackle this type of pollution at source.
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, with reference to the list of businesses in England, Scotland and Wales approved to export Animal By-Products to the EU, how many businesses have been excluded from that list that have approval numbers issued; and for what reasons that list was not published until 8 January 2021.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Publication on GOV.UK of the lists of GB Third Country Approved Establishments, on the EU’s TRACES customs system, is a temporary fix. The expectation remains that details will be published by the European Commission. Defra will continue to publish updates on GOV.UK until then.
All qualifying premises known to Defra are included. We published at the earliest opportunity after we learned that the European Commission had not published details.
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 steps he is taking to monitor the number of rejections of veterinary inspection documents for exports of animal by-products to the EU.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Traders can notify the Animal and Plant Health Agency by telephone if their consignments are rejected at a European Union (EU) Border Control Post (BCP). Having done so, they can discuss the possible steps that can be taken to enable the product to clear the BCP or be returned to Great Britain (GB).
We are holding regular engagement with the European Commission and EU Member States to learn why some GB consignments are delayed or rejected at EU BCPs. We are then communicating this back to GB traders and certifying officers.
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 steps he is taking in response to the rejection of veterinary inspection documentation for exports of animal by-products to the EU.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
I can confirm that there are procedures and steps already in place to assist traders where their consignment has been rejected by a European Border Control Post. This includes providing assistance with trying to resolve any paperwork issues or permitting consignments to be returned to GB as easily as possible and we continue to support industry bodies with guidance. In particular, we have worked closely with the authorities in the Netherlands, France and Belgium to facilitate imports.
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 plans the Government has to remedy metal contamination of bed sediments in the Upper Mersey catchment that result from industry and urban development.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
There are currently no plans in place to remediate existing metal contamination of bed sediments in the Upper Mersey Catchment. The Environment Agency (EA) does however have powers to limit pollution from heavy metals and uses these powers to prevent heavy metal pollution from entering the catchment.
In the wider water environment, Defra is working with the EA and the Coal Authority to tackle legacy impacts of industry through the Water and Abandoned Metal Mines (WAMM) programme. The WAMM programme targets pollution of the water environment in areas with a legacy of historical metal mining through the development and operation of mine water treatment schemes, which deliver benefits for the local environment, people and the economy. The current schemes successfully treat 7.4 billion litres of mine water each year and prevent 800 tonnes of metals from entering and polluting rivers.
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, for what reason his Department has not adopted sediment quality guidelines to provide an assessment of levels beyond which heavy metal contamination may pose a risk to aquatic biota and human health.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Environment Agency assesses the risk from heavy metals in freshwater, estuaries and coasts on the basis of Environmental Quality Standards (EQS). These are mostly based on water concentrations and for some substances they are based on the fraction of the metal known to be the most toxic to aquatic life. The EQS for mercury, for example, is based on concentrations of the metal in the tissues of aquatic animals. This allows direct assessment of the amount accumulating in the food chain which may present a risk to biota and higher predators that eat them, which is also protective of human health.
The Secretary of State has the powers to update EQSs in future in light of new scientific knowledge and so, whilst we have not adopted sediment quality guidelines for heavy metals in the freshwater environment at this stage, Defra will keep this under review.
In the marine environment, sediment assessment levels are in place for a range of contaminants, including heavy metals, that are used to enable risk assessments of the potential impacts to marine life such as fish and seabed organisms. Sediment action levels exist to inform the management of the sediment such as the disposal of dredged sediment to sea.