Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
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 help increase skills in the agriculture, food and farming sectors.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government’s skills white paper sets out our ambition for an employer focussed skills employment system. This means equipping individuals with life and work skills, while ensuring businesses also invest in developing the current future workforce. The Farming Roadmap will set out how farming can evolve in response to changing markets, technologies, and environmental pressures, and how the Government will support this transition.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
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 the capacity of the digital waste tracking service to tackle waste crime.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Waste handled illegally and poor performing waste sites can damage the environment, blight local communities, for example by causing odour and pest issues, undermine legitimate businesses, and is estimated to cost the UK economy one billion pounds per year.
Digital waste tracking will connect fragmented systems, providing comprehensive near real time data on the movement of a load of waste from production to disposal. Digitising record keeping will give clearer oversight for regulators, making it easier for waste producers and legitimate waste companies to comply with reporting requirements; and harder for rogue operators to compete in the industry and commit waste crime, from fly tipping to illegal waste sites to illegal waste exports.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
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 mandating digital waste tracking for (a) facilities with an environmental permit from 2026 and (b) for other operators from 2027.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
From October 2026, there will be mandatory requirements on permitted or licensed operators, installations and mobile plant that receive waste to create a digital record of waste they receive, and to then enter it onto the Digital Waste Tracking Service.
The waste industry involves a large number and complex array of operators. Subject to funding, additional aspects will be added to the service from 2027, drawing from our testing arising from Phase 1 of the service when it becomes available from April 2026. This will allow us to adjust as we move towards a more complete end-to-end waste tracking service.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
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 her Department's policy paper entitled Resources and waste strategy for England, published on 18 December 2018, what her planned timetable is for implementing reforms to the carriers', brokers' and dealers' regime.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Resources and Waste Strategy for England was published under the previous Government. This Government has published a policy paper on gov.uk setting out its plans for reform of the waste Carrier Broker Dealer regime in England https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reforming-the-waste-carrier-broker-and-dealer-system.
Work has begun to draft the necessary legislative amendments and will be progressed when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle organised crime in the waste sector.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to tackling waste crime from the fly-tippers who blight our towns and villages to the serious and organised crime groups who are exploiting the waste sector.
We have increased the Environment Agency’s budget for waste crime enforcement by over 50% this year to £15.6 million. We are making policy and regulatory reforms to close loopholes exploited by criminals - fundamentally reforming the waste carriers, brokers and dealers system, tightening waste permit exemptions and introducing digital waste tracking. The Environment Agency hosted Joint Unit for Waste Crime has nearly doubled in size thanks to our extra funding and its UK-wide partnership work with the Environment Agency, HMRC, National Crime Agency, the police and others continues to share intelligence, powers and resources to disrupt waste criminals. HMRC has also consulted on making mandatory tax checks required for waste sector operators to combat hidden economy activity. In addition, the Environment Agency’s Economic Crime Unit was launched in 2024 and targets the financial motivations behind waste crime using asset freezes and proceeds of crime actions.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
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 allocated funding to expand the digital waste tracking service beyond sites holding an environmental permit.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
From October 2026, there will be mandatory requirements on permitted or licensed operators, installations and mobile plant that receive waste to create a digital record of waste they receive, and to then enter it onto the Digital Waste Tracking Service.
We recognise that waste can also be received under authorisations that are issued by regulators to ensure compliance, other than licenses or permits, such as registered exemptions. We will consider over the next few months whether there are any specific sectors or categories of operation within this group that can be sensibly included in mandatory requirements to create a digital record and enter it onto the Digital Waste Tracking Service alongside permitted and licenced operators.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to (a) maintain and (b) promote a plastic recycling industry.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra’s Collection and Packaging reforms – Simpler Recycling, Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) and a Deposit Return Scheme - will provide feedstock certainty whilst also stimulating private investment in the recycling industry.
Defra is working with His Majesty’s Treasury on Plastic Packaging Tax reform, to further incentivise producers to use recycled plastic, stimulating demand.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps (a) she and (b) her officials are taking to reduce fraud in the (i) Packaging Recovery Note and (ii) Packaging Export Recovery Note systems.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has already introduced a number of measures in the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging. All reprocessors and exporters who handle any packaging waste will now have to register, and to collect and report data on packaging waste received, processed, rejected, and exported.
The Regulations will also place additional requirements on accredited reprocessors and exporters, including monthly reporting of packaging waste reprocessed or exported, and monthly data on PRN/PERN prices by material. Exporters will also need to provide proof of receipt at the final overseas destination site to issue a PERN and retain records of recycling of the packaging waste. There will also be a new “Fit and Proper Person” test for operators as part of the accreditation process.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress his Department has made on improving flood resilience and response in England.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In just five months in Government, we have introduced a series of measures to better protect communities from flooding including:
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
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 there was for the frequently flooded fund for Telford in each year for which data is available; and what the size of the fund will be in each of the next three years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is investing £2.4 billion over this year and next year to improve flood resilience by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences. The list of projects to receive government funding will be consented over the coming months in the usual way through Regional Flood and Coastal Committees, with local representation.