Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff in the (a) the Environment Agency and (b) Rural Payments Agency have job titles which include the words (i) equality, (ii) diversity, (iii) inclusion, (iv) gender, (v) LGBT and (vi) race.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
There are 8.8 full-time equivalent staff in the Environment Agency who work for a team with the title EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion). None of their job titles individually refer to equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race.
As of 27 February, the Rural Payments Agency has no staff with job titles which include the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race.
The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the EDI of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June. As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for the Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff in his Department have job titles which include the words (a) equality, (b) diversity, (c) inclusion, (d) gender, (e) LGBT and (f) race.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has a specialist HR Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Team made up of 11 full-time equivalent posts. In addition, the Farming and Countryside Programme has two posts which include EDI in their job titles. All roles are internally focused.
The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the EDI of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June.
As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for the Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many deer have been culled under night licences issued in the last three years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Each licence that Natural England Wildlife Licensing Service (NEWLS) issues comes with the condition that the licensee must provide a report of all action taken under that licence within 14 days of that licence ending.
Natural England have received 81% of all reports covering the deer licences to shoot at night which were active between 1st January 2021 and 31st December 2023.
These reports show that a total of 9,684 deer were shot at night under licence, of which:
Please note, due to the format we received some of these reports of action from customers, the above figures may contain some deer shot before 1st January 2021.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many night licences to cull deer were issued in the last three years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Between 1st January 2021 and 31st December 2023, Natural England Wildlife Licensing Service have issued 204 licences for the purpose of shooting deer at night.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many equalities impact assessments his Department completed in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty) all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ may be produced, there is no legal requirement for duty assessments to be recorded in a specific format.
Until November 2023 Defra did not keep a central record of completed duty assessments.
In 2023 the Department reviewed its processes and procedures in relation to compliance with the Duty, and in November 2023 established a central repository of Equality Impact Assessments completed across Defra group organisations.
The Department promotes awareness of the Duty and provides tools to help ensure compliance with it.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the level of woodland cover is by council ward.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Forestry is a devolved matter so this answer is for England only. The figures of woodland cover by ward are provided in the attachment to this answer.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many members of staff in their Department have one or more of the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race in their job title.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
I refer my Hon Friend to the answer I gave him on 9 September 2020, PQ UIN 83985.
[questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2020-09-01/83985]
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much the Department spent on unconscious bias training in each of the last five years.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Defra obtains unconscious bias training for Senior Civil Servants and delegated grades from Civil Service Learning (CSL)[1]. All CSL online training is provided free of charge at point of use to our staff.
The information is in the table below:
Central departmental spend on unconscious bias training 2015-20
Course type | FY 2015/16 | FY 2016/17 | FY 2017/18 | FY 2018/19 | FY 2019/20 |
Unconscious bias workshop(s) | £2,833 | £21,095 | Nil spend | Nil spend | Nil spend |
Data source: Records of spend against a central learning and development budget.
[1] It is mandatory for civil servants to use CSL for their learning.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many members of staff in his Department have equality, diversity or inclusion in their job title.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Job titles are not recorded in the Human Resources database. To obtain this data, we would have to contact all business areas and we estimate this would break the disproportionate cost limit. However, we do have six members of staff who work in HR’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the Government's progress in increasing the number of trees (a) on streets and (b) in urban environments.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to increasing the number of trees on streets and in urban environments, in and around the places where most people live and work.
In 2019, we launched the £10 million Urban Tree Challenge Fund which is providing matched funding to councils, charities, community groups, private sector bodies and individuals to plant 130,000 trees, including 20,000 street trees, in our towns and cities.
In addition, we are giving hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren across England, mostly in urban areas, the opportunity to plant trees in schools and local communities, as part of our 1 million Trees for Schools programme in partnership with the Community Forest Trust and the Woodland Trust.
The Environment Bill includes new duties on councils to consult when felling street trees and increased penalties for illegal felling. As part of our 25 Year Environment Plant, we have worked with stakeholders to develop and publish an Urban Tree Manual and we are developing policies to ensure all new streets are lined with trees. These measures will help to ensure councils pick the right trees in terms of biosecurity, value for money, air quality impact and biodiversity.