Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made on the average 12-month inflation rate in (a) agricultural outputs and (b) agricultural inputs in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The table below provides the annual agricultural price indices for 2014 to 2023, along with the annual inflation rates for 2015 to 2023 (calculated as a year-on-year percentage increase from the annual indices). Annual inflation rates are only available from 2015 onwards on an equivalent basis, because it was only possible to backdate the indices to 2014 when the agricultural price index was rebased to 2020 in 2023.
Table: Annual inflation rate for all agricultural outputs and all agricultural inputs, 2015-2023.
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 (a) |
All agricultural outputs price index (base = 2020) | 95.1 | 86.5 | 85.4 | 94.5 | 97.4 | 96.5 | 100.0 | 109.9 | 130.6 | 132.4 |
All agricultural inputs price index (base = 2020) | 95.8 | 89.7 | 87.2 | 91.7 | 98.8 | 100.4 | 100.0 | 111.4 | 143.2 | 135.6 |
All agricultural outputs inflation rate |
| -9.1% | -1.3% | 10.7% | 3.0% | -0.9% | 3.6% | 9.9% | 18.9% | 1.4% |
All agricultural inputs inflation rate |
| -6.4% | -2.7% | 5.1% | 7.8% | 1.6% | -0.4% | 11.4% | 28.5% | -5.3% |
Source: Defra Agricultural Price Indices
Latest agricultural price indices - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Notes:
(a) Values for 2023 are provisional
Data are only available from 2015 onwards on an equivalent basis, following re-basing of the agricultural price index to 2020 in 2023.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to publish the accompanying guidance for the Animal Welfare (Primate Licences) (England) Regulations.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Guidance will be published in due course ensuring that local authorities are able to carry out robust inspections and that licence holders can demonstrate compliance with these standards.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
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 2019 Conservative manifesto commitment to plant an additional 75,000 acres of trees a year by the end of the next Parliament, how much has been spent on tree planting as of 28 February 2024.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Nature for Climate Programme has spent £272.4m between April 2020 and February 2024 on tree planting and activities to increase the capacity of the forestry sector. The Programme will continue to fund these activities until the end of 2024/25, supporting the Government’s commitment to treble tree planting rates by the end of this Parliament.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to publish a progress report against the food strategy goals.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government Food Strategy set out our vision for a prosperous agri-food sector. Last year's Farm to Fork Summit was the next step in growing a thriving British food and drink sector, which will put more British produce on supermarket shelves in the UK and around the world. This will also help us to deliver our clear ambition in the strategy to maintain production at current levels, where we produce domestically 60 per cent by value of all the food we need.
At the NFU Conference on 20 February 2024, the Prime Minister announced that we will make the UK Farm to Fork Summit an annual event.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
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 page 73 of the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, published on 27 October 2021, how much and what proportion of the £0.3 billion allocated to his Department for (a) tree planting and (b) peat restoration for the 2024-25 financial year has been spent; and how much he plans to spend on tree planting in the 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Our financial year runs from April to March, therefore, the 2024-25 financial year has not started, so no money has been spent for this financial year.
The current spending review runs up to March 2025, therefore no budgets have been formally agreed past this point.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much and what proportion of fines issued to water companies were uncollected in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does hold data on uncollected fines. However, we do not hold a list of all existing and previous water companies and would need to be supplied with this in order to conduct a search.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
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 Fourth Report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee of Session 2022-23 on Rural Mental Health, HC248, published on 9 May 2023, what progress his Department has made on implementing the recommendations in the section entitled Rural mental health service provision, policy and strategy development.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We remain committed to supporting thriving rural communities, as set out in our report Unleashing Rural Opportunity, published in June 2023.
Since the launch of the EFRA Committee’s inquiry in 2021, considerable progress has been made to help ensure access to mental health services in rural areas. The Government published its Response to the EFRA Committee Report on Rural Mental Health in October 2023.
The response recognised that people living and working in rural areas may face specific challenges in accessing the mental health services that they need and set out the various actions being taken forward to address mental health needs.
Key actions include:
To help improve the service and support on offer to farmers we will make up to £500,000 available to deliver projects that support mental health in the farming sector. This will build on the support already on offer through the Farming Resilience Fund, which has benefitted over 19,000 farmers to date.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of exemption applications to keep an XL Bully dog his Department has (a) received and (b) processed since the XL Bully ban was announced.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
My Department will provide the total number of exemption applications received ahead of the deadline, as soon as possible. These applications are still being processed and may include duplicates, errors or ineligible applications. As of 19 February, we have issued over 54,000 Certificates of Exemption.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
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 the National Police Chiefs Council on the (a) enforcement and (b) prioritisation of the addition of XL Bully type dogs to Section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra worked closely with the National Police Chiefs Council in developing and delivering the ban on XL Bully type dogs. Representatives from the National Police Chiefs Council formed part of the expert group that developed the conformation standard for the XL Bully, so the breed type could be banned in law. We have continued to engage regularly with their representatives on the enforcement of the XL Bully ban and have supported the police to deliver additional training to Dog Legislation Officers to make sure the ban is effectively enforced.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the cost to the public purse is of training dog legislation officers to enforce the addition of XL Bully type dogs to Section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has spent £102,320 to support the police to deliver additional training to Dog Legislation Officers to make sure the ban on XL Bully type dogs is effectively enforced.