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Written Question
Canaries: Transport
Wednesday 5th April 2023

Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether canaries can be transported without paperwork between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain and the return journey.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Owners should continue to follow existing arrangements with regards to the movement of canaries.


Written Question
Glass: Recycling
Monday 6th June 2022

Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of glass recycling for reducing CO2 emissions.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.


Written Question
Glass: Recycling
Monday 6th June 2022

Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

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 reconsider excluding glass from the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.


Written Question
Glass: Recycling
Monday 6th June 2022

Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

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 plans to take to increase the glass recycling rate.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.


Written Question
Glass: Litter and Recycling
Monday 6th June 2022

Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

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 impact of excluding glass from the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme on the (a) proportion of street litter that is glass and (b) glass recycling rate.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.


Written Question
Agriculture: Trade Agreements
Friday 29th January 2021

Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what safeguards the Government has put in place to protect high British food and farming standards after new trade deals are agreed with countries outside the EU.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

The Government has a clear manifesto commitment that in all of our trade negotiations we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.

Legal protections for our standards are in place. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains standards on environmental protection, animal welfare, animal and plant health and food safety. This includes the prohibition on the use of artificial growth hormones in both domestic production and imported meat products and that no products, other than potable water are approved to decontaminate poultry carcases.

The Government has recently taken additional steps to give Parliament a greater role in scrutinising trade agreements. In the Agriculture Act 2020, we have established a duty for the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of our Free Trade Agreements on the maintenance of UK food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards.

In July we established the Trade and Agriculture Commission, an independent board set up to advise and inform the Government’s trade policies on environmental and animal welfare standards in food production. We have since moved to put it on a statutory footing in the Trade Bill and the Commission will directly feed into the Agriculture Act reporting process.


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Sustainable Development
Thursday 24th September 2020

Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to discuss sustainability at his Department with civil service unions.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

As with any plans that will impact on the way we work, we will be discussing these with staff and unions. This is because, in order to tackle the sustainability challenge, we need the support and engagement of all of our employees.

In addition to our internal engagement, as Senior Responsible Owner for Sustainable Information Technology (IT) Across Government and in partnership with the UNFCCC, we’ve produced learning and development material for 400,000 civil servants across Government, which we’ve also shared globally through the United Nations.


Written Question
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Carbon Emissions
Thursday 24th September 2020

Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

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 place in the Library his Department's plan to reduce its carbon emissions.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

Defra has a number of initiatives to reduce carbon emissions which include:

  • Reducing our property footprint
  • Generating renewable energy on our properties (such as solar panels) so that they are self-powered as much as possible
  • Increasing energy efficiency by increasing insulation, replacing lighting, heating and air handling systems and using modern building management systems to minimise energy consumption
  • Offsetting through tree-planting

As well as our internal initiatives, Defra is the Senior Responsible Owner for sustainable information technology (IT) across Government. Our vision for sustainability in Digital, Data and Technology Services (DDTS) is to show leadership and expertise as a “Centre of Excellence”. We have worked with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as a centre of excellence in sustainable IT, to help 200,000 businesses with their net zero targets:

https://defradesa.blog.gov.uk/2020/07/14/working-towards-achieving-a-sustainable-future-defra-unfccc/

Our current commitments for carbon reduction are published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greening-government-commitments-2018-to-2019-annual-report. These will be updated for the next four years in April 2021 and they will set out our targets up until 2025.

Our DDTS have set out the Defra Group sustainable IT strategy to 2025. This is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defra-group-sustainable-information-technology-it-strategy

We are currently finalising our bid for funding under SR20. Once we know Defra’s settlement, we will be updating our plans to further reduce our carbon emissions over the next four years.