Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the press release by the Prime Minister, entitled Prime Minister commits £3bn UK climate finance to supporting nature, published on 11 January 2021, if he will provide a breakdown of where this money has been spent to date.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Between financial years 2021/22 and 2022/23 the UK spent £763 million on climate change interventions that protect and restore nature and biodiversity. This includes £402 million on programmes focussed on protecting and restoring forests and £361 million on programmes supporting other nature and biodiversity priorities such as protecting oceans and supporting land use and agriculture. All programmes supported by UK International Climate Finance, including those supporting our nature commitment can be accessed via the development tracker website and we provide a detailed breakdown of programme spend to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) every two years in line with our international reporting obligations.
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 steps he plans to take to help protect hedgerows.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 set legal protections for hedgerows in England and Wales. These existing regulations prohibit the removal of most countryside hedgerows (or parts of them) without first seeking approval from the local planning authority.
In June 2023, the Government launched a consultation on how hedgerows should be further protected in England. The responses to the consultation supported bringing hedgerow management rules into regulation and this is what the Government will do as soon as parliamentary time allows. The regulations will require a 2-metre buffer strip, measured from the centre of the hedge, where no cultivation or application of pesticides or fertilisers must take place, and will ban the cutting of hedges between 1 March and 31 August. The regulations will support other Government actions and incentives, including over 90,000 km of hedgerows being managed through 16,000 agreements in the Government’s Countryside Stewardship and Sustainable Farming Incentive schemes.
Defra is also working with stakeholders and other Government departments to understand how to support the creation and maintenance of hedgerows in non-agricultural contexts, to maximise the benefits they provide.
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 her Department's timetable is for publishing the report of the Responsible Dog Ownership working group.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We expect the Responsible Dog Ownership taskforce to publish its findings soon.
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 steps he is taking to help support farmers pursue nature-friendly farming.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan says we are aiming for between 65 to 80% of landowners and farmers to adopt nature friendly farming on at least 10-15% of their land by 2030.
This will be delivered through a range of measures. These include habitat restoration and creation; activities to reduce the impact of invasive non-native species on sites or to address pressures on sensitive areas; improvements in water storage and management; and changes to limit emissions while maintaining agricultural profitability and increasing productivity.
Farmers will be supported to deliver these measures through our Environmental Land Management schemes (Countryside Stewardship, the Sustainable Farming Incentive, and Landscape Recovery), the Farming Investment Funds and Farming Innovation Programme, woodland creation and tree health grants, and grants to assist with the cost of improved slurry infrastructure and equipment.
We will continue to work with farmers and land managers to ensure we achieve these targets in the most effective way, and in a way that works best for farmers and farm businesses and supports our commitment to maintain domestic food production.
These changes are effective, we are seeing over 100 farmers a day on average applying for the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2024 to Question 13732 on Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Public Expenditure, for what reason funding has been reprofiled; and if he will list all programmes impacted by these budget changes.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Details of the reasons that funding has been reprofiled; and a list of all programmes impacted by these budget changes can be found here (Supplementary Estimates, Budget Regime Changes, Budget Surrenders, page 387):
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, if he will respond to Question 13730 on Environmental Land Management Schemes tabled by the hon. Member for Croydon North on 8 February 2024.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A response to Question 13730 is being prepared and will be provided as soon as possible. I apologise for the delay in responding to the hon. Member.
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 and proportion of the marine protected area network is in (a) effective management and (b) favorable condition.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We have established a comprehensive network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) covering 40% of English waters and last year introduced a new statutory MPA target. All MPAs are protected through the planning and licensing process. We are also working with regulators to introduce any necessary additional management measures. 60% of the 181 English MPAs are already protected from damaging fishing activity through byelaws, including the new byelaw announced in February to ban bottom trawling in a further 13 MPAs. Our scientific advisors (Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee) are developing an MPA monitoring strategy to assess progress towards meeting the statutory MPA target, including whether the necessary management measures are in place. The current estimate is that 44% of our protected features are in favourable condition.
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, whether he has plans to review the effectiveness of the Environmental Land Management scheme.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Impact and Value for Money Evaluation of ELM is a vital component of our reporting commitment under the Agriculture Act (2020) and it builds on our experience of delivering, monitoring and evaluating agri-environment schemes over the last few decades, working closely with farmers, land managers and wider industry stakeholders and research specialists. We are in the process of both developing and delivering on our monitoring and evaluation plans for each of the Environmental Land Management schemes, recognising the phased rollout of the schemes.
More specifically, in the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot, land managers are supported through monitoring and site visits to track how they are delivering their outcomes, with final reporting on the impact and value for money of the SFI pilot being delivered in 2025. Monitoring and evaluation of the SFI23 offer is underway, working closely with land managers to understand their experiences in the scheme and their ability to deliver effectively, and this year we will begin utilising a mixed methods research approach using field surveys, modelling and expert assessments of the effectiveness of the sustainable management achieved under the scheme to assess the impact of this offer. Countryside Stewardship has a long history of impact monitoring and evaluation, with data collected spanning nearly 25 years for some holdings within the scheme. This work continues and will adapt and combine with the SFI monitoring and evaluation programme as the Combined Offer is realised. Within Landscape Recovery, each project is responsible for developing and delivering on their monitoring, evaluation, and learning strategy and there is also scheme-level monitoring and evaluation which is helping us learn about scheme effectiveness to enable ongoing improvements. Cross-cutting impact monitoring and evaluation will utilise various methods to establish the aggregate impacts of the schemes over the long-term and help determine the value for money of ELM as a whole.
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.