Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
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 ensure the availability of seasonal labour for the apple and pear industry.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Seasonal Worker visa route is hugely important for the horticulture sector, including the apple and pear industry. Government made a total of 43,000 seasonal worker visas available for horticulture in 2025. The Government has also announced a 5-year extension to the Seasonal Worker visa route to provide stability and certainty to the horticulture sector, and we can confirm that 41,000 visas will be available for 2026 for the horticulture sector.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has for the future of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is working closely with farmers and industry stakeholders to design a future Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer that will better target the SFI in an orderly way towards our priorities for food, farming and nature. Information and plans for the next iteration of the scheme will be published in due course.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department has issued on the treatment of historic (a) glass and (b) plastic bottles distributed prior to the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Deposit Return Scheme in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland will include single-use drinks containers from 150ml to 3 litres. Materials included are polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, steel, and aluminium drink containers. Glass drinks containers across the UK are included in the scope of the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging scheme, to make sure it is appropriately and efficiently recycled.
Only DRS containers placed on the market after 1 October 2027 will carry a deposit on them. Containers placed on the market before 1 October 2027 can still be recycled via kerbside collections.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to provide additional support to (a) the Somerset Eel Recovery Project and (b) other local recovery projects to enable the (i) delivery of eel passes, (ii) habitat improvements, (iii) increased Assisted migration and (iv) local community engagement work.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In England, the Environment Agency is responsible for eel management and working with local delivery partners.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding for the (a) Environment Agency and (b) other relevant bodies to (i) monitor and regulate pollution, (ii) assess habitat degradation, (iii) measure silver eel escapement, (iv) ensure that pumps friendly and (v) ensure that barriers are eel friendly.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This is a devolved matter and therefore the information provided relates to England only.
The Environment Agency (EA) are responsible for eel management in England. As a non-departmental public body, the EA determine how to allocate their funding from Defra across their activities. Defra has recently committed £350,000 for research and development projects to drive improvements in eel management and conservation.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will take steps to review England and Wales’ Eel Management Plans (EMPs), in order to accelerate progress towards meeting silver eel escapement targets.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This is a devolved matter and therefore the information provided relates to England only.
The Environment Agency (EA) are responsible for delivering EMPs in England to meet silver eel escapement targets. Defra is not planning to review EMPs at this time as the EA is progressing the delivery of EMPs.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
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 ensure that all police forces have access to adequate (a) training and (b) resources to (i) identity, (ii) record and (iii) investigate wildlife crime.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is a principal funder of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU). In 2025/26, it is providing £424,000 to the Unit. The NWCU helps prevent and detect wildlife crime by obtaining and disseminating intelligence, undertaking analysis which highlights local or national threats and directly assisting law enforcers in their investigations. Last year, the NWCU assisted every single police force in the UK. The NWCU also provides training to police officers across the UK which reflects the National Police Chiefs' Council wildlife crime strategy and provides comprehensive training in wildlife crime policing. This is open to UK police forces and, as an example, all English police forces had at least one officer trained on an NWCU module in 2023/24.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of levels of digital connectivity on farmer's ability to use animal health monitoring systems.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra continues to work closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) on connectivity issues facing the rural and farming communities. DSIT’s Shared Rural Network has already delivered 4G coverage to over 95% of UK landmass, enabling rural businesses and communities to thrive. However, there are still rural parts of the UK where there is either limited or no mobile coverage, and DSIT will continue to work with the industry to deliver new coverage to these communities. This Government wants to ensure there is high quality mobile connectivity across the UK, including in rural areas. This is why our ambition is for all populated areas to have higher quality standalone 5G by 2030.
Furthermore, to improve connectivity in rural areas, Project Gigabit is the Government’s programme to deliver gigabit-capable broadband to premises that are not included in suppliers' commercial plans. This includes farms and other rural businesses. The improved broadband connectivity delivered through Project Gigabit will benefit the farming community through boosting productivity, optimising farming processes, monitoring livestock and improving communications with consumers and suppliers.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of farmers being unable to reliably report accidents due to poor broadband or mobile signal on safety in rural areas.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra continues to work closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) on connectivity issues facing the rural and farming communities.
DSIT’s Shared Rural Network has already delivered 4G coverage to over 95% of UK landmass, enabling rural businesses and communities to thrive.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
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 trends in the number of business closures in rural areas.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra publishes the Statistical Digest for Rural England to provide up-to-date analysis across a wide range of subjects including information on business survival and growth.
Business deaths per head of population are lower in rural Areas. In 2023, there were 39 registered business deaths per 10,000 population in Predominantly Rural areas compared with 44 per 10,000 population in Predominantly Urban areas (excluding London).
Between 2018 to 2023 in Predominantly Rural areas, the number of business deaths remained between 35 and 45 per 10,000 population; in Urban areas it remained between 40 and 50.