Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
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 ensure that legislative changes on animal welfare in transport are informed by the most up-to-date science and technology.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government is committed to improving the welfare standards of all animal journeys. We are continuously assessing the available scientific evidence on improving animal welfare during transport and are committed to commissioning new research where it is needed in order to develop the evidence base further.
We launched a Call for Evidence, in 2018, on controlling live exports for slaughter and improving animal welfare during transport and, that same year, commissioned Scotland’s Rural University College and the University of Edinburgh to produce a systematic review of the evidence on welfare aspects of the transport of live animals.
The Government asked the then Farm Animal Welfare Committee (FAWC, now Animal Welfare Committee) to provide an opinion on improving the welfare of animals during transport. FAWC considered the evidence obtained from the Call for Evidence; the report of the systematic review; as well as their engagement with stakeholders before submitting their opinion and recommendations.
We launched a consultation in England and Wales in 2020 on improvements to the domestic welfare in transport regime, informed by the recommendations from FAWC’s report. We will shortly be publishing our response to the consultation and outlining how we will take reforms forward.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
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 improve governance of organic certification.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Now that the UK has left the European Union we have the opportunity to chart our own course in organic regulation, setting rules around organic production and certification that suit the needs of our domestic organics industry.
We are working to streamline bureaucratic processes inherited from the EU regulatory system to allow for a more flexible and responsive way to handle our regulatory obligations while reducing costs for producers and the burden on the public purse.
The Agriculture Act 2020 gives us powers to amend the organics regime to support organic farmers further, benefit the environment, maintain consumer confidence, promote research and innovation in the sector, and reflect future trade agreements. In due course we will consult with organic producers and industry bodies on how to boost innovation, improve governance of organic certification, group certification and making entry into organic production appealing for new entrants.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if the Government will reconsider including food and drink qualifications in the Lifetime Skills Guarantee.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Through the free courses for jobs offer, we are making courses available that address skills needs in the economy, offer good wage outcomes, and empower adults with the tools they need to secure a better job.
We have identified hundreds of courses that can give adults the skills they need in the labour market. These qualifications include those that can support employers regardless of their sector, including those in the food and drink industry, with courses in business, accountancy, engineering, marketing and a variety of digital qualifications. We are keeping the list of qualifications and the sector subject areas in scope under review and will consider requests for including courses that meet the published criteria. We have already added more qualifications to the original list. Those qualifications met all the criteria published on gov.uk.
Qualifications not included in this offer will still be eligible for Advanced Learner Loans (ALL). ALL are income contingent loans that provide extensive coverage of regulated qualifications from level 3 to level 6, helping to meet the up-front tuition fees. In the 2019/20 academic year there were applications to study at nearly 450 training providers, and over 3000 qualifications are currently in scope.
In addition to this, there a variety of high quality apprenticeship standards in food and drink manufacturing available for employers to use. They include, but are not limited to, food and drink advanced engineer, baker, and senior culinary chef.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
What plans he has for the future role of community hospitals.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Community hospitals are a hugely valuable and valued part of our health and care system. As we have seen during the pandemic, they have played a vital role in providing intermediate care for patients not yet well enough to return home and play a much broader role year-in year-out to the communities they serve. While it is for local communities to make decisions on specific local services, we are clear that our community hospitals should continue to play a central role in healthcare provision for many years to come.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with representatives from organic farms during the design of the Environmental Land Management scheme.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
We are working closely with a range of environmental and agricultural stakeholders collaboratively to design the new schemes that reward environmental benefits.
The new schemes will fairly compensate farmers for environmental goods generated across all land types and farm management systems, including organic farms.
Several representatives of the organic sector are involved in codesigning the schemes in a variety of ways, including being part of our stakeholder and codesign groups, as well as separate one to one and small group meetings.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
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 trends in the number of cases of illegal dog ear cropping in the last six years; and what steps his Department is taking to help (a) halt that practice and (b) prevent the importation of dogs that have had their ears cropped.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government has not made a specific assessment on the numbers of dogs with illegally cropped ears but we continue to raise awareness regarding the improper selling of pets by deceitful sellers in the UK and abroad through our ‘Petfished’ campaign. This seeks to educate prospective pet buyers on common tricks and tactics used by deceitful sellers which may result in the purchase of a mistreated or unwell pet, including those that have been subject to cropping. The campaign urges buyers to mitigate risks, for example by buying from trusted sellers such as those under the Kennel Club’s Assured Breeder scheme, viewing puppies with their mothers and siblings, asking questions of the seller and following the Animal Welfare Foundation and RSPCA Puppy Contract to ensure that puppies are in good health when purchased.
The practice of mutilating dogs’ ears is abhorrent and has rightly been banned in the UK for 15 years. The maximum penalty for causing unnecessary suffering to an animal or cropping a dog’s ears in England is six months’ imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine. However, the Government is committed to increasing the maximum custodial penalty for both of these offences from six months to five years. The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill, currently before Parliament, which will implement this increase, will continue to receive Government support as it completes its passage through Parliament.
We already have some of the world’s highest animal welfare standards. The end of the transition period has opened up new opportunities for managing our own pet travel and commercial importation rules. We are actively listening to the concerns of stakeholders and the Government is considering options regarding the importation and commercial movements of dogs with cropped ears into Great Britain in line with World Trade Organization rules.
Importers of animals must adhere to welfare standards as set out in Council Regulation (EC) 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport and in domestic legislation, The Welfare of Animals (Transport) (England) Order 2006 (WATEO). This legislation aims to protect the health and welfare of animals during transportation and applies to dogs that are suffering injury as a result of non-exempted mutilations including cropped ears.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
Question
To ask the President of COP26, what progress he is making with international partners to (a) ensure that local and international supply chains for foodstuffs and key commodities are environmentally responsible, and (b) increase the alignment of financial flows with net-zero and the Paris Agreement objectives.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
As part of the COP26 nature campaign, the UK Government has established the Forests, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) dialogues to bring together producer and consumer countries to agree collaborative actions which reduce the impact of commodity supply chains on forests and other critical ecosystems.
Increasing the alignment of finance with net zero targets and the Paris Climate Agreement is a core part of our COP26 strategy. I have been engaging with a wide range of international partners to seek increased climate finance commitments from donor countries to meet the critical $100bn goal. We have published our priorities for public finance. Mark Carney is implementing a framework for embedding climate into every financial decision and creating a more sustainable financial system to support the path to net zero. We have seen significant progress so far across financial institutions, central banks, regulators and Multilateral Development Banks.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on the future of UK car mileage in the context of (a) the National Travel Survey finding that 25 per cent of car mileage is for commuting purposes and (b) ONS data from April 2020 showing that 47 per cent of people did some work at home.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
There is significant uncertainty about the impact of COVID-19 on road travel demand. The Department continues to closely monitor the impact of the pandemic and to develop tools to understand and present this uncertainty alongside other drivers of future demand such as technological change and population change.
The Department has commissioned a programme of social and behavioural research to understand the impacts of the pandemic on people’s travel behavior. This includes changes in the behaviours that drive travel demand, such as working from home, and a longitudinal survey to track changes in behaviour during the pandemic as well as people’s intentions going forward.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
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 effect on public health of the delays in (a) implementing local Clean Air Zones and (b) achieving compliance with legal limits on air pollution.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Air pollution poses one of the biggest environmental threats to public health. Our ambitious plans to decarbonise transport, improve air quality and support more active forms of travel have not changed, including the £3.8 billion we are already investing to clean up our air.
The 2017 UK Plan for Tackling Roadside Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) Concentrations sets out how we will achieve compliance with legal NO2 limits in the shortest possible time. We are continuing to work closely with those local authorities identified to assist them in developing local plans to tackle NO2 exceedances. These plans can include charging Clean Air Zones (CAZ) although other measures that are at least as effective are preferred. We rigorously assess local plans to make sure they will deliver reductions in NO2 levels in the shortest possible time.
To help them focus on their response to coronavirus, we agreed with Leeds and Birmingham’s requests to delay the introduction of CAZ until after January 2021. However, CAZ development work is continuing, and we are working to deliver compliance as soon as possible. Our recent rapid call for evidence will ensure we can fully understand the impact that coronavirus is having on changes in air pollution emissions, concentrations and exposure. Recent Automatic Urban and Rural Network provisional NO2 data from 23 March to 15 June shows that average NO2 levels decreased by 45%. It is not clear that these reductions will be maintained long term. Improving air quality as soon as possible remains vital and we continue to engage with local authorities and keep plans for all CAZ under constant review.
Asked by: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)
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 effectiveness of (a) Clean Air Zones and (b) other restrictions on the use of vehicles compared with other means of tackling illegal levels of air pollution.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Air pollution poses one of the biggest environmental threats to public health. Our ambitious plans to decarbonise transport, improve air quality and support more active forms of travel have not changed, including the £3.8 billion we are already investing to clean up our air.
The 2017 UK Plan for Tackling Roadside Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) Concentrations sets out how we will achieve compliance with legal NO2 limits in the shortest possible time. We are continuing to work closely with those local authorities identified to assist them in developing local plans to tackle NO2 exceedances. These plans can include charging Clean Air Zones (CAZ) although other measures that are at least as effective are preferred. We rigorously assess local plans to make sure they will deliver reductions in NO2 levels in the shortest possible time.
To help them focus on their response to coronavirus, we agreed with Leeds and Birmingham’s requests to delay the introduction of CAZ until after January 2021. However, CAZ development work is continuing, and we are working to deliver compliance as soon as possible. Our recent rapid call for evidence will ensure we can fully understand the impact that coronavirus is having on changes in air pollution emissions, concentrations and exposure. Recent Automatic Urban and Rural Network provisional NO2 data from 23 March to 15 June shows that average NO2 levels decreased by 45%. It is not clear that these reductions will be maintained long term. Improving air quality as soon as possible remains vital and we continue to engage with local authorities and keep plans for all CAZ under constant review.