Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to negotiate a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is the world’s biggest zero tariff, zero quota trade agreement, and we actively use its mechanisms to continuously secure improvements to the trading relationship. In particular, the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) chapter of the TCA creates a framework to agree to further trade facilitations, including potential reductions in the frequency of import checks, where justified.
The UK proposed an equivalence mechanism for SPS measures during the 2018-20 negotiations for the TCA. The EU did not accept this.
We remain open to discussions with the EU on additional steps to further reduce trade friction, but these cannot be on the basis of future alignment with EU rules. This would compromise UK sovereignty over our own laws.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
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 17 May 2023 to Question 185629 on Marine Protected Areas: Northern Ireland, what her Department's planned timetable is, in partnership with the relevant authorities in Northern Ireland, to establish marine Special Protection Areas in East Coast and Carlingford Lough.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland is currently working through some remaining issues with these sites, so there is currently no planned timetable for their classification.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
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 17 April 2023 to Question 177891 on Marine Protected Areas: Northern Ireland, if she will outline what specific steps her Department is taking with relevant authorities in Northern Ireland to accelerate the establishment of two marine Special Protection Areas in East Coast and Carlingford Lough.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
My officials are working with the authorities in Northern Ireland to ensure all the necessary steps required by the relevant legislation have been carried out. The Secretary of State will then consider the merits of classifying these two sites as Special Protection Areas.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
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 plans to take steps with relevant authorities in Northern Ireland to help enable the establishment of two marine Special Protection Areas in East Coast and Carlingford Lough.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Yes, officials are working with their counterparts in Northern Ireland on these two sites.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
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 findings of the RSPB report, A Lost Decade for Nature, that the UK has missed 17 of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets set in 2010 by the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, how he plans to (a) deliver the outcomes contained in the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, signed by the Prime Minister on 28 September 2020, and (b) restore the damage to nature in the UK by 2030, against a baseline of 2020, as proposed by the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
UK progress against the existing Aichi Targets was most recently set out in the UK's 6th National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity, submitted in March 2019. The report can be found at: https://jncc.gov.uk/our-work/united-kingdom-s-6th-national-report-to-the-convention-on-biological-diversity/
The UK is committed to playing a leading role in developing an ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework, to be adopted at COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity later this year, to deliver the ambition committed to in the Leaders Pledge for Nature. The UK will be advocating for ambitious global targets to bend the curve of biodiversity loss by 2030, including targets to ensure at least 30% of the land and of the ocean is protected, ecosystems are restored, species population sizes are recovering, and extinctions are halted by 2050.
We have taken a significant number of actions to deliver these commitments domestically and restore nature, including the passing of the landmark Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries Acts and publishing the England Tree and Peat Action Plans. We are currently consulting on new long-term, legally binding environmental targets, including to halt nature’s decline by 2030 and then reverse that decline. We also set out proposals in the Nature Recovery Green Paper to improve our system of site and species protections to help restore nature and deliver our commitment to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030. The Environmental Land Management schemes (Sustainable Farming Incentive, Local Nature Recovery and Landscape Recovery) will be a major tool in delivering our environmental targets.
The UK has committed to spend at least £3 billion of our International Climate Finance on climate change solutions that protect and restore nature and biodiversity over five years from 2021 to 2026. Domestically, our Nature for Climate Fund is providing more than £750 million over the course of this Parliament and will support a significant increase in afforestation across England and help to restore 35,000ha of peatland by 2025. We are also extending protections on land and sea, placing the UK at the forefront of marine protection with 372 Marine Protected Areas covering 38% of UK waters.
We will be publishing a refreshed 25 Year Environment Plan in January 2023, which is also an Environmental Improvement Plan under the Environment Act, setting out the further steps we will take to deliver our commitment to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the indefinite extension of the grace period in respect of medicines announced on 6 September 2021 covers veterinary medicines.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Veterinary Medicines Directorate can confirm that the announcement regarding the extension to the grace period for medicines, does include veterinary medicines.
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
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 tackle the risks to the existing honey bee population in Great Britain from the importation of honey bees from the EU via Northern Ireland.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
The Government recognises that some beekeepers are concerned about the new trading arrangements and the risks of exotic pests entering Great Britain, in particular Small hive beetle.
Small hive beetle would present a serious threat to our honey bees if it were to arrive in the UK. This invasive pest has only been detected in one part of Europe, namely southern Italy, and exports of bees from the affected region into either Great Britain or Northern Ireland are not permitted.
Imports of honey bees into any part of the UK are only accepted from approved countries, and are subject to rules relating to notification and health certification to ensure that imports are free of key pests and diseases.
Movements of honey bee queens, packages and colonies from Northern Ireland to Great Britain remain permitted. There is, and will remain, unfettered access for Northern Ireland goods including honey bees to the rest of the UK market.
We continue to work with colleagues in the Devolved Administrations as part of our monitoring of the new trading arrangements.