Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 16 January 2025 to Question 22359 on DEFRA: Unpaid Work, what Environment Agency summer internship opportunities for 2025 are open to (a) male, (b) white, (c) British and (d) working class people, other than industry placements, apprenticeships, training partnerships and scholarships.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) does not offer unpaid internships. Employment opportunities with the EA are advertised on the jobs board: External Opportunities - Environment Agency Jobs.
In 2025 the EA is running its Summer Development Internship Programme, which is open to men, working class people, British people and white people who also come from a minority ethnic background (e.g. White Irish, Roma, Jewish or other white ethnic minority backgrounds).
We are happy to consider any application that he may want to put forward for one of these roles.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
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 support closed loop recycling schemes; and if he will bring forward legislative proposals to protect those schemes through regulations.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024, which reform the UK’s producer responsibility system for packaging came into force on 1 January 2025. Extended Producer Responsibility is a major reform that will be iterated over several years to incentivise packaging producers to reduce their material footprint and use more recyclable packaging. We continue to consider further improvements to the scheme with input from a range of stakeholders, including how to treat businesses which run closed loop recycling systems for packaging that is commonly collected by Local Authorities, and my officials are reviewing options to bring forward an offset for closed loop recycling systems at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many times the Flood Resilience Taskforce has met since 4 July 2024.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Floods Resilience Taskforce held its first full meeting on 12 September 2024. Following this meeting a series of working level discussions have been held with various Taskforce member organisations on specific issues, which will report back to the full Taskforce. These include a roundtable on the opportunities and barriers to delivering natural flood management, and sessions on flood forecasting and warning, and the new National Flood Risk Assessment and National Coastal Erosion Risk Assessment. The second full meeting of the Taskforce was held on 5 February 2025.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
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 assist producers in driving sustainability in production of sugar that is refined in the UK.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
The Government recognises the importance of the sugar beet crop for many farmers in the centre and east of England, and its vital contribution to UK sugar production. It often plays a vital role in soil and crop health in the arable farm rotation allowing a season of “rest” from intensive cereal production,
Long-term productivity growth and sustainability is dependent upon technological progress and the industry has worked hard over the last 15 years to improve efficiencies and produce the same amount of sugar from less land and with fewer factories. Defra remains committed to supporting the sector over the coming years as they embrace the latest research and innovation to improve the resilience of the crop and the sustainability of the processing factories.
Supported by Defra funding, Tropic, British Sugar and the John Innes Centre are collaborating to produce sugar beet that is resistant against pest and disease pressures – especially Virus Yellows - using precision breeding. This will help to reduce use of pesticides and prevent yield losses such as those that cost the sector £67 million in 2020.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 6 January 2025 to Question 21057 on Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Unpaid Work, if he will list each internship scheme operated by (a) his Department and (b) the Environment Agency since July 2024; how many interns were recruited in each scheme; how the interns were paid; and what restrictions were placed on who could apply.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has participated in the following annual programmes for a minimum of three years:
Cabinet Office led internship programmes:
Summer Internship Programme (6-8 weeks) : 2024 - 41 interns
Autism Exchange Internship Programme (4 weeks) : 2024 - 6 interns
Salary:
Interns are paid through the department payroll for the duration of their internship.
Salary is based on the National Living Wage each year.
In 2024 salary was £430.00 per week for both schemes. In 2025 salary will rise to £452 per week and the Autism Programme will extend to 8 weeks
Defra Analytical Internships
Summer Internships (3 months) : 2024 - 11 interns
Sandwich Internships (12 months) : 2024 - 7 interns
Salary:
Interns are paid through the department payroll for the duration of their internship, with the majority employed at Administrative Officer (AO) level. Salary is £28,680 for London (based on the Minimum for the grade) or £25,070 for National (based on the Minimum for the grade)
Social Research Sandwich Placements are engaged at Executive Officer (EO) level. Salary for London - £32,220 (based on Minimum for grade) or £28,710 National (based on Minimum for the grade).
Environment Agency Programmes
Defra has participated in the following annual programmes for a minimum of 3 years:
Industry Placement (12 months) : 14 Interns
Salary:
Interns are paid through the department payroll for the duration of their internship.
In 2024, Grade 2 salary minimum - £24,096 per annum, pro rata.
Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Quest Scholarship programme (8 week): 5 interns
Salary:
Interns are paid through the department payroll for the duration of their internship.
In 2024 Grade 2 salary £24,096 per annum pro rata for the 8 week summer placement. In addition, the Environment Agency offers £1,000 per annum to each candidate in scholarship fee for each year at University. The ICE pay £500, a total of £1,500 per year as a scholarship fee. The EA also pays the candidate a further £2,000 when they join the Graduate Training Scheme after University
Entry level apprenticeships - various including Environmental Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship (12 – 24 months) : 6 apprentices
Salary:
Apprentices are paid through the department payroll for the duration of their apprenticeship
Salary is variable depending on apprenticeship type and can go up to Grade 4 salary minimum £33,000 per annum pro rata
Doctoral Training Partnerships (up to 3 months) : 4 interns
Salary:
No salary –work placements funded by the applicants’ PhD programme/university
Summer Development Internship Programme (12 weeks) : 24 interns
Salary:
Interns are paid through the department payroll for the duration of their internship.
2024 Grade 2 salary minimum £24,096 per annum pro rata
This scheme aims to widen development opportunities and access to careers for those starting out on their careers, in this case specifically from underrepresented ethnic groups. The latest data (Q2 2024-2025) from the EA shows that 6.4% of Agency staff are from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background, against a representation goal of 7.6% this year and a 2021 Census representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic respondents in England and Wales of 18.3%.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if the Environment Agency plans to run an internship programme which is open to people from white British backgrounds in 2025.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency offers several career entry opportunities open to people from all ethnic backgrounds (including White British backgrounds) who meet the criteria of the specific programme. In 2025 these programmes include:
Further information about career entry opportunities is publicly available on the Environment Agency’s careers website: Early careers - Environment Agency.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what is (a) his Department's and (b) the Environment Agency's policy on the use of positive discrimination in the recruitment process for internships.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The core department, Defra, and its Non-Departmental Public Bodies, including the Environment Agency, comply with all legislation relevant to recruitment and will only target an internship recruitment campaign to a specific group as a proportionate form of positive action to address known workforce gaps, undertaken to achieve a legitimate aim in accordance with section 159 of the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding his Department planned to provide to drainage boards [for the 2024-25 financial year] on (a) 1 July 2024 and (b) 20 November 2024.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Internal drainage boards (IDBs) are independent statutory public bodies that are locally funded. As a matter of course they are not funded by the Government but can apply for government grants to deliver specific outcomes. For example, funding under the government’s flood investment programme to deliver flood risk defences.
Defra is providing a one-off £75 million IDB Fund, to accelerate IDBs’ recovery from the winter 2023-24 storms and to provide opportunities to modernise and upgrade assets. This funding will support greater resilience for farmers and rural communities in the long term.
Under the previous Government, Defra planned to provide all the IDB Fund grants in 2024-25 and the IDBs would have to deliver their projects by 31 March 2025. The Government took the decision to extend the IDB Fund into 2025-26.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much sewage sludge was used in the agricultural sector in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The 9 English Water and Sewerage Companies (WaSCs) submit data to the Environment Agency on the total quantity of sludge sent to different outlets to meet the European reporting requirements. The total sludge sent to the agriculture outlet over the last 10 years is shown in the table below.
Year | Total sludge to agriculture – England only (tonnes dry solids) |
2014 | 716,928 |
2015 | 696,355 |
2016 | 750,049 |
2017 | 726,063 |
2018 | 752,992 |
2019 | 698,597 |
2020 | 761,246 |
2021 | 759,578 |
2022 | 766,630 |
2023 | 764,810 |
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with Essex and Suffolk Water on levels of investment in local water infrastructure.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Since taking office, the Secretary of State and I have met with representatives from all water and wastewater companies. Officials also regularly meet with water companies to discuss localised and regional issues.
On 11 July, Ofwat proposed allowing a spending package of £88bn by water companies between 2025 - 2030. This investment will deliver upgrades across England and Wales to improve local water infrastructure including: 1500 wastewater treatment works, improvements of thousands of storm overflows and investment in improving bathing waters.
For PR24, Essex and Suffolk Water are proposing to invest £1.5 billion in total in the region, notably £386 million on new water supplies and £17.5 million on leakage. This is the largest investment programme in the last 30 years, working to increase resilience and secure water supply for the future, reducing the impact on the environment.