Asked by: Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress his Department has made on reducing the use of plastics.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Our target is to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste over the lifetime of the 25 Year Environment Plan, and we have already made good progress. We have introduced one of the world’s toughest bans on microbeads in rinse-off personal care products, reduced sales of single-use carrier bags by over 95% in the main retailers through the 5p charge, and, since 1 October this year, have banned the supply of plastic straws, cotton buds, and stirrers, with exemptions. And we will not stop there. Next year we will extend the carrier bag charge to all retailers and increase the minimum charge to 10p, consult again on the introduction of a deposit-return scheme for drinks containers, and, from 2022, will introduce a tax on plastic packaging containing less than 30% recycled content.
Our landmark Environment Bill includes a number of measures that will enable us to further tackle plastic waste. These include measures to impose charges on single-use plastic items and make producers cover the costs of collecting and managing plastic packaging waste.
Asked by: Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran)
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 has taken to help ensure that the new online system for Export Health Certificates for meat products dispatched from the UK is able to meet demand; and what steps his Department has taken to ensure that that system is operational by the end of 2020.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Export Health Certificates (EHC) Online service has been available for trade with third countries since June 2020. It replaces the current manual process for applying for EHCs.
The 150 most frequently used third country EHCs (representing 80% of current throughput) are available via the EHC Online service. There will be further releases of third country EHCs on the online service before the end of 2020.
APHA plan to make EHCs for EU trade available via EHC Online from mid-October. This will offer traders visibility of the documentation they will be required to use at the end of the transition period.
The EHC Online service has been developed with the capability to meet future demand in export trade. Defra estimate that up to an additional 300,000 Export Health Certificates may be required annually to facilitate EU trade. The EHC Online system has been designed and stress tested to process transactions in excess of this.
Asked by: Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran)
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 has taken to ensure that there will be sufficient numbers of qualified vets to inspect and sign off consignments of meat to be dispatched from the UK so that they can be issued an export health certificate after the end of the transition period.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Government has increased the number of Official Veterinarians (OVs) holding the relevant qualification to certify exports of products of animal origin, including meat products, in Great Britain from approximately 600 in February 2019 to more than 1200 today. On 1 October 2020, we launched a new £200,000 funded training scheme to enhance OV capacity further. In parallel, we launched a £100,000 scheme to train Certification Support Officers (CSOs). CSOs can handle several preliminary and administrative tasks to prepare consignments for certification. This reduces the burden on OVs and Local Authority Certifying Officers. More than 100 CSOs have been authorised in GB to date.
Asked by: Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran)
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 to ensure that the Government's new health mark scheme allows groupage of exports from the UK to the EU; and when he plans to inform businesses who sell fresh and frozen meat to EU countries of the details of that scheme.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
To help traders prepare for changes to export arrangements for animals and products of animal origin (POAO) from 1 January 2021, we are hosting a series of webinars from mid-October. Specimen Export Health Certificates and accompanying guidance notes for trade between Great Britain and the EU have been made available on the GOV.UK website, to enable exporters and certifiers to familiarise themselves with the detailed requirements.
A Groupage Export Facilitation Scheme was developed in consultation with industry to help facilitate the export of certain commodities with complex but stable supply chains, including composite products, meat products and meat preparations, for use from 1 January 2021.
The Food Standards Agency is finalising its new guidance to the food industry covering which health and identification marks should be used on POAO after the end of the Transition Period. We anticipate that this will be published shortly.