Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
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 made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing auditable tracking for products and packaging to assist with the enforcement of rules on litter and flytipping.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Litter Strategy sets out how we intend to work with the relevant industries to tackle certain types of problematic litter, such as fast food packaging, and our Resources and Waste Strategy set our strategic approach to prevent, detect and deter waste crime, including fly-tipping.
The Resources and Waste Strategy commits us to introducing mandatory electronic waste tracking, subject to consultation. This will help to ensure that waste is dealt with appropriately and will reduce the incidence of waste crime and fly-tipping.
No formal assessment has been made of the potential merits of introducing auditable tracking for packaging. However, exploratory discussions suggest that the burden on businesses and enforcement bodies, along with data protection issues, would mean the costs could outweigh the benefits of such a policy.
We are exploring other measures to tackle littered packaging. Our recently published consultation on extended producer responsibility for packaging proposes that producers who make or handle consumer-facing packaging should fund the full net-costs associated with the packaging they place on the market once it becomes waste, including litter-related costs. We have also recently launched our consultation on the deposit return scheme, which will incentivise proper disposal of in-scope material by consumers. We will continue to engage with producers as these measures come forward.
In recent years, to support local authorities in their enforcement, Defra has bolstered local authorities’ powers to tackle fly-tipping, such as by introducing the power to issue fixed penalty notices (including to householders who pass their waste to an unlicensed waste carrier) and to stop and seize vehicles of suspected fly-tippers. We have also introduced new powers to allow penalties to be issued to the keeper of a vehicle from which litter is thrown (recognising that it is often difficult to identify the individual who threw the litter), and published guidance on the use of enforcement powers for littering and related offences.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much his Department has spent on communications to discourage litter and flytipping in each of the last five years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has spent the following amounts externally on communications to discourage litter and fly-tipping. The cost of other activities, such as social media messaging, cannot be separated. Likewise, spend on Defra staff cannot be disaggregated.
Year | Purpose | Amount |
2016-2017 | Initial scoping and research for “Keep it, Bin it” national anti-litter campaign | £15,868 |
2017-2018 | Development of “Keep it, Bin it” campaign, partnership strategy and stakeholder research, as well as testing and development of a campaign identity | £124,412 |
2018-2019 | “Keep it, Bin it” campaign branding, creative assets and launch | £67,855 – (following years funded by external partners) |
2019-2020 | Development of Household Waste Duty of Care Toolkit | £6,703 |
2020-2021 | Development and launch of “Respect the Outdoors” campaign, which includes messaging about litter among other issues | £96,650 |
2020-2021 | Contribution to Keep Britain Tidy’s “Love Parks” campaign and use of creative assets | £30,000 |
The Environment Agency has also contributed funds in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 to the ‘right waste, right place’ information campaign, managed by the Environmental Services Association, which aims to help small businesses and establishments meet their Duty of Care obligations, and seeks to deter fly-tipping incidents.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
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 his Department's 2018 publication Our Waste, Our Resources: A strategy for England, when he plans to implement the proposals mandating a consistent approach between local authorities in England on kerbside collection of waste for recycling.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We consulted on recycling consistency reforms in 2019 and following support for these measures, the Environment Bill states that waste collection authorities in England must arrange for the collection of a core set of materials (glass; metal; plastic; paper and card; food waste; and garden waste) from households for recycling.
We will be seeking further views in an upcoming second consultation on recycling consistency, which will be published in spring 2021 and will include detail on transition timelines for local authorities. We want to implement recycling consistency as soon as is practically possible, taking into account factors including lead-in times for local authorities to procure vehicles and other capital goods and any existing contractual arrangements.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many cats entered the UK under the Pet Travel Scheme in each month of 2020.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The number of cats entering Great Britain under the Pet Travel Scheme in each month of 2020 is as follows:
January | 2844 |
February | 1608 |
March | 1475 |
April | 284 |
May | 407 |
June | 1253 |
July | 2217 |
August | 2772 |
September | 3708 |
October | 3175 |
November | 2369 |
December | 3147 |
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the EU has agreed to list the UK as a third country from which it will accept exports of food and other products of animal origin.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The UK has successfully applied for authorisation (known as ‘listing status’) to export animal products and live animals to the EU from 1 January 2021.The legal instruments giving effect to our listing were published in the EU’s Official Journal on 28 December and will apply from 1 January 2021.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
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 make an assessment of the potential merits of restricting the use of glue traps as a means of pest control to improve animal welfare.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are aware of the concerns around the use of glue traps and are engaging with key stakeholders about the issue.
This Government remains committed to high standards of animal welfare. We are in the process of developing a range of important animal welfare and animal-related measures to strengthen our position as a world leader in this field. This includes delivering our manifesto commitments to introduce new laws on animal sentience, to ban live exports, restrict the imports of trophies from endangered species and ban keeping primates as pets.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
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 12 November 2020 to Question 113020 on Plastics: Pollution, what his policy is for tackling plastic which escapes into the open environment and cannot be collected and therefore recycled.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As stated previously in the Answer of 12 November 2020 to Question 113020 on Plastics: Pollution, our priority is to prevent plastic entering the environment at all, including through littering, with a focus on upstream measures to turn off the tap on plastic pollution. The Government’s Resources and Waste Strategy sets out our plans to move away from a take, make, use, throw society to one where materials are kept in circulation for longer. It also commits to eliminating avoidable plastic waste over the lifetime of the 25 Year Environment Plan. Our Litter Strategy sets out our aim to deliver a substantial reduction in litter and littering behaviour within a generation. Littering of any materials, including biodegradable plastics, is a criminal offence, and councils have legal powers to take enforcement action against offenders.
The Government published a call for evidence last year to help consider the development of product standards or certification criteria for bio-based, biodegradable and compostable plastics as well as to better understand their effects on the environment and our current waste system. The call for evidence closed on 14 October 2019 and we are currently analysing the responses received. We will publish a Government response shortly.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
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 12 November 2020 to Question 113021 on Seas and Oceans: Plastics, whether it his policy to encourage the use of plastic which biodegrades more quickly than conventional plastics in the event that it is improperly disposed of.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As stated previously in the Answer of 12 November 2020 to Question 113020 on Plastics: Pollution, our priority is to prevent plastic entering the environment at all, including through littering, with a focus on upstream measures to turn off the tap on plastic pollution. The Government’s Resources and Waste Strategy sets out our plans to move away from a take, make, use, throw society to one where materials are kept in circulation for longer. It also commits to eliminating avoidable plastic waste over the lifetime of the 25 Year Environment Plan. Our Litter Strategy sets out our aim to deliver a substantial reduction in litter and littering behaviour within a generation. Littering of any materials, including biodegradable plastics, is a criminal offence, and councils have legal powers to take enforcement action against offenders.
The Government published a call for evidence last year to help consider the development of product standards or certification criteria for bio-based, biodegradable and compostable plastics as well as to better understand their effects on the environment and our current waste system. The call for evidence closed on 14 October 2019 and we are currently analysing the responses received. We will publish a Government response shortly.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
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 implications for his policies of the findings of the Laboratoire d’Océanographie Microbienne of 4 September 2020 that oxo-biodegradable plastics biodegrade in seawater, and do so with higher efficiency than conventional plastics.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
It is current practice in science for research to be published in international peer reviewed journals. The peer review process is central to quality assurance and ensures reliable and reproducible research findings enter the public domain and inform debate.
We would be happy to review the data once it has undergone peer review and has been published.
Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reason the Answer of 12 November 2020 to Question 113023 on Symphony Environmental: Plastics, did not refer to industry standards (a) BS 8472 and (b) ASTM D6954 in relation to the degradability, biodegradability, and non-toxicity, of oxo-biodegradable plastic products.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
My answer was given in response to my Rt Hon Friend’s question about European Standard EN 13432, PQ UIN 113024.
As stated in the Answer of 12 November 2020 to Question 113023, the Government published a call for evidence in July 2019 to help consider the development of standards or certification criteria for bio-based, biodegradable and compostable plastics as well as to better understand their effects on the environment and our current waste system. The call for evidence further considered existing standards, which includes BS EN13432, BS 8472, and ASTM D6954. We are currently analysing the responses received to inform future policy and will publish a response to the call for evidence shortly.
As I outlined previously, I appreciate the engagement of industry in our call for evidence and welcome further engagement in future consultations and policy development as our work develops.