Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when her Department plans to publish its response to the consultation entitled, Consistency in Household and Business Recycling in England, which closed on 4 July 2021.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Burton, on 7 June 2023, PQ UIN 188380.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
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 adequacy of the level of sanctions available to the Environmental Agency for water and sewerage companies which they assess as having performance significantly below target in multiple Environmental Performance Assessment metrics.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) uses a range of enforcement options ranging from warning letters to prosecutions. The EA has brought 44 prosecutions against water companies in the last five years, securing fines of £34 million. £7.9 million has also been donated to environmental and wildlife trusts organisations in the same period through enforcement undertakings. The EA will continue to prosecute water companies which fail to uphold the law or cause serious environmental harm.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the timeframe is for his Department to consider the Sussex Near Shore Trawling Byelaw proposal submitted by the Marine Management Organisation.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Defra is reviewing the full byelaw package including the results of the byelaw consultation and the evidence set out in the impact assessment in accordance with the statutory guidance on Inshore Fisheries Conservation Authority byelaws. An update will be provided when the final consideration process is concluded.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
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 potential merits of the Environment Agency undertaking year-round water testing at English beaches.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) is required to follow the monitoring requirements set out in the Bathing Water Regulations (2013). These specify a fixed bathing water season between 15 May and 30 September. Monitoring is required to take place within these dates, except for the first sample of the season which is to be taken shortly before the start of the season. This monitoring is used to produce a classification scheme set out within the Regulations.
No systematic assessment has been carried out by the Environment Agency of the impact, or merits of going beyond current statutory monitoring requirements. Changes to these requirements to produce a classification would require the legislation to be changed and the Environment Agency to be appropriately funded to deliver the sampling needed.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to increase the number of trees planted in (a) Hove and (b) Brighton and Hove.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is developing policies to increase tree planting at a national scale and does not target particular constituencies.
The Government is committed to increasing tree planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025. The challenges we face to achieve net zero require cross-party support, collaboration with stakeholders and collective vision to mitigate and adapt to climate change. To support this we have announced a new Nature for Climate fund, which will support tree planting in England - our plans for this will be announced at the budget.
The Government currently supports tree planting and woodland creation through a range of existing grant schemes. For example, the Urban Tree Challenge Fund, which plants trees in partnership with local authorities and community organisations. We are working hard to increase the uptake of existing schemes and strongly encourage eligible organisations to do so.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
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 support the creation of new recycling infrastructure.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Through our Resources and Waste Strategy we have set long-term targets to divert more waste from landfill and to drive up recycling. Key ambitions include delivering a 65% municipal waste recycling rate by 2035, a minimum 70% recycling rate for packaging waste by 2030 and implementing a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, subject to consultation. The publication of the Strategy, setting out the long-term policy environment will encourage and support the required investment.
Specific measures taken by the Government that are already supporting the creation of new recycling infrastructure include:
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
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 ensure that support payments are paid by the Rural Payments Agency in a timely manner, in light of the dry weather in summer 2018.
Answered by George Eustice
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is fully focused on getting Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) 2018 payments issued promptly. Given the prescriptive EU requirements in making advance payments, the RPA will concentrate on making payments from the opening of the payment window in December. In addition we are reviewing options, such as bringing forward bridging payments, for those BPS claimants who will not have received their BPS 2018 payments in December.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what representations he has received from industry organisations and farmers requesting flexibility in the application of CAP schemes or agri-environment schemes, in light of the dry weather in summer 2018.
Answered by George Eustice
Farmers in the UK, Ireland and across northern Europe, have experienced a difficult time this year with the hot, dry weather. The impacts are likely to be most severely felt by grazing livestock due to the shortage of grass, but the full effect may not be realised until later in the year. We have prioritised practical solutions to help farmers increase access to fodder and bedding both now and in the coming months. These actions will help farmers to limit the impact of extra feed costs by allocating land to forage growth and grazing, but we will keep the situation under review.
Particular measures the Government has taken to help farmers are:
I will monitor whether the fodder import scheme that has been introduced in Ireland has an appreciable effect on supplies of fodder and bedding within the UK. We have also made the point to the European Commission that whilst the UK is committed to working to identify appropriate responses to this year’s weather impacts, these should not interfere with the normal functioning of the market or obscure the focus of farmers in mitigating weather impacts.
Opportunities such as the ones described above were discussed with a wide range of stakeholders at the National Farmers’ Union “Dry Weather Summit” on 1 August 2018 and we have received some further representations in writing from farming industry organisations. Further discussions took place at the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) Industry Partnership Group meeting in Reading on 20 August 2018. Additionally, a small number of individual farmers have made representations through the RPA’s Helpline. All representations received have been considered in the round and informed the approach we are taking to offering all available support to alleviate the impacts of the recent extreme weather conditions for farmers.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
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 employ additional staff in response to demands placed on his Department by the EU exit process.
Answered by George Eustice
Over 80% of Defra’s agenda is affected by the UK’s departure from the European Union. As a result, many roles across the Defra group are supporting EU exit-related work, either directly or indirectly. As the Cabinet Secretary set out in July, we have recruited over 400 additional staff to support our comprehensive programme focused on EU exit and we continue to keep our plans under review.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the number of intensive indoor dairy farms operating in the UK.
Answered by George Eustice
The Government does not collect information on the number of intensive indoor dairy farms operating in the UK.