Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to expand its existing tree nursery production scheme.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
In the England Trees Action Plan the Government committed to provide funding to support UK public and private sector nurseries and seed suppliers to enhance the quantity, quality, diversity and biosecurity of domestic tree production. Our interventions will help the sector to modernise existing facilities and explore innovative technologies and practices. This is necessary to create a resilient, healthy, and genetically diverse planting stock.
In the past year £1 million has been made available through the Tree Production Innovation Fund to encourage adoption of new technologies and ways of working, and a further £2.6 million has been made available in capital grants to support climate and disease resilience and expand nursery capacity. We are also exploring new data sharing practices to help better plan for supply and demand in the sector. This will support nurseries and seed suppliers to produce the right stock at the right time.
We continue to work to monitor our interventions and see how the nursery sector can best be supported.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to consult on the introduction of a statutory tree planting target.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
As set out in the Net Zero Strategy, we will explore a long-term statutory tree target in England as part of the suite of targets to be introduced using powers in the Environment Act.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
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 ornamental horticulture and landscaping industry’s potential to support the UK’s environmental targets.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Defra regularly meets with the Ornamental Horticulture Roundtable Group, who recently published their ‘Unlocking green growth: A plan from the ornamental horticulture & landscaping industry’. This ambitious report sets out the industry’s potential contributions to delivering the 25 Year Environment Plan, and how it can help to underwrite the environmental challenges facing the UK.
In the past year £1 million has been made available through the Tree Production Innovation Fund to encourage adoption of new technologies and ways of working, and a further £2.6 million has been made available in capital grants to support climate and disease resilience and expand nursery capacity. We are also exploring new data sharing practices to help better plan for supply and demand in the sector. This will support nurseries and seed suppliers to produce the right stock at the right time.
We will be publishing a public consultation on proposed long-term targets to be set under the Environment Act 2021. During the consultation we will be interested in hearing the views of all interested sectors, and the delivery of targets will require actions across the economy.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of farmer who will be eligible for the proposed lump sum exit scheme and delinked payments.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
We are consulting on our proposed lump sum exit scheme, including the eligibility criteria that will apply. The consultation runs until 11 August 2021. We think our proposed scheme will provide a helpful option for some farmers who wish to exit the industry. We are seeking views on likely uptake via our consultation.
We intend to replace the Basic Payment Scheme with delinked payments in 2024. When payments are delinked, recipients won’t have to farm the land to receive the payments until they have been phased out by the end of 2027. Eligibility for delinked payments will be based on a reference period. Our consultation seeks views on what this reference period should be.
Our consultation can be found here: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/agricultural-policy/lump-sum-and-delinked-payments-england/.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the cost of the proposed lump sum exit scheme and delinked payments for farmers.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
We know that some farmers who wish to retire or leave the industry can find it difficult to do so and lack of finance can be one of the barriers to exit. We think that a lump sum exit scheme could help such farmers leave the industry in a planned way. By freeing up land, the scheme will also open up opportunities for new entrants and expanding farmers.
We believe that the proposed lump sum exit scheme will offer good value for the taxpayer. The lump sum will be in place of the Direct Payments farmers could otherwise have received between 2022 to 2027, as we transition to our new farming system outside the Common Agricultural Policy.
This means that the scheme will not increase overall spending on farming. It will not affect the money available for other schemes.
To ensure value for money for the taxpayer, we have proposed a payment cap that will make sure farmers do not receive a lump sum which is higher in value than the amount they could have otherwise received in Direct Payments for 2022 to 2027.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what comparative assessment his Department has made of the effect of a (a) variable rate deposit and (b) flat rate deposit on the revenue received from a deposit return scheme.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government’s second consultation on introducing a deposit return scheme (DRS), which is currently live, sets out the intention for the scheme to be managed by an organisation called the Deposit Management Organisation (DMO). We propose that the DMO would have the ability to decide on the type of deposit for the scheme (flat or variable rate) and to set the deposit amount at the level they deem suitable for achieving the objectives of the scheme, subject to parameters set out by Government in legislation. For this reason, we have not conducted specific analysis on all possible scenarios the deposit may be set at, but our current Impact Assessment (published alongside the second consultation) assumes a flat rate 20p deposit is placed on all in-scope drinks containers and offers analysis of how the deposit level can influence return rates.
The operating costs and revenue of a DRS could be impacted by the deposit rate chosen by the DMO, which will be somewhat dependent on the extent to which unredeemed deposits are used to fund the scheme. We are seeking views in the second consultation on how unredeemed deposits should be used to fund the DRS. The department do not foresee significant administrative / operational costs to the scheme as a result of having either a flat or variable rate deposit.
No specific assessment has been made by Government on the potential effect of a variable rate deposit on return rates of in-scope containers, on product wastage, or on portion sizes, but we continue to engage with industry and consider any relevant research which should be factored into our overall design and analysis of the scheme. In any case, we propose to place a 90% collection rate target on the DMO, and the approach to setting the deposit level chosen by the DMO should reflect their obligation to achieve this target.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
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 planned deposit return scheme, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of a variable rate deposit on return rates.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government’s second consultation on introducing a deposit return scheme (DRS), which is currently live, sets out the intention for the scheme to be managed by an organisation called the Deposit Management Organisation (DMO). We propose that the DMO would have the ability to decide on the type of deposit for the scheme (flat or variable rate) and to set the deposit amount at the level they deem suitable for achieving the objectives of the scheme, subject to parameters set out by Government in legislation. For this reason, we have not conducted specific analysis on all possible scenarios the deposit may be set at, but our current Impact Assessment (published alongside the second consultation) assumes a flat rate 20p deposit is placed on all in-scope drinks containers and offers analysis of how the deposit level can influence return rates.
The operating costs and revenue of a DRS could be impacted by the deposit rate chosen by the DMO, which will be somewhat dependent on the extent to which unredeemed deposits are used to fund the scheme. We are seeking views in the second consultation on how unredeemed deposits should be used to fund the DRS. The department do not foresee significant administrative / operational costs to the scheme as a result of having either a flat or variable rate deposit.
No specific assessment has been made by Government on the potential effect of a variable rate deposit on return rates of in-scope containers, on product wastage, or on portion sizes, but we continue to engage with industry and consider any relevant research which should be factored into our overall design and analysis of the scheme. In any case, we propose to place a 90% collection rate target on the DMO, and the approach to setting the deposit level chosen by the DMO should reflect their obligation to achieve this target.