Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the number of ash trees felled in the last period for which data is available.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Most parts of the country are now experiencing the impacts of ash tree decline, although the speed and severity of the disease is variable at a local level. The Government does not collect data on the number of ash trees that have been felled, including those affected by ash dieback, but of the 2700 applications approved to date in 2021, the Forestry Commission has recorded 1564 felling licence applications containing ash (as a tree species planned for felling). This is very similar to the felling licence application figures for 2020.
The felling licences approved in 2020, and which contain ash as a tree species, cover just under 20,000 hectares of land, including land outside woodland, and contain an estimated 950,000 m3 of timber, and this is approved for felling within the next five to ten years, depending on the length of the felling licence.
Where appropriate, approved felling licences carry legally enforceable restocking conditions to ensure any trees felled are replaced using suitable means and to ensure tree and woodland cover is maintained for future generations.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
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 3 February 2021 to Question 145762 on the Soil and Groundwater Technology Association, if he will make an assessment of the independence of the Soil and Groundwater Technical Association.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Soil and Groundwater Technical Association is a not-for-profit membership organisation focused on the issue of contaminated land. It is formed of UK organisations representative of this focus. There are currently no plans to assess the independence of the Soil and Groundwater Technical Association.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
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 independence of the Soil and Groundwater Technical Association.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No assessment has been made of the independence of the Soil and Groundwater Technical Association.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Category 4 screening levels (C4SL) Phase 2 Project Steering Group last met; and what the names are of the members of that group.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Category 4 Screening Levels Phase 2 Project Steering Group last met on Wednesday 27 January 2021.
The members of that group come from local authorities, Government departments and arm’s length bodies, not-for-profit membership organisations and trade organisations. This includes Defra, the Environment Agency and the Welsh Government.
A full list of the attendees for the last meeting has been made available to the hon. Member.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which (a) environmental consultants and (b) advisors his Department has consulted in the last year on pollution standards and controls.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Defra has consulted with the following environmental consultants in the last year on pollution standards and controls:
Ricardo
Enviro Technologies
Air Monitors
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what legislative proposals on pollution he plans to bring forward in this Parliament.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Bill will bring forwards legislative proposals for tackling pollution.
It will drive significant environmental improvement and tackle pollution by setting and achieving legally-binding, long-term targets in key areas including air quality, water, and resource efficiency and waste.
Some of the leading measures in the Bill to support the delivery of targets include:
o To reduce the annual average level of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in ambient air
o A further target to improve air quality
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
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 effectiveness of UK environmental protections; and what assessment he has made of the areas in which protections need to be (a) more rigorous, (b) equally rigorous and (c) less rigorous than EU standards.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to leaving the environment in a better state than we found it and has been clear that we will realise the benefits of leaving the EU, including implementing new ways of delivering better levels of environmental protection. The Government continuously looks for opportunities to improve the effectiveness of environmental protections and has already brought forward a number of measures to drive forward standards and to help assess the adequacy of environmental legislation in future.
For example, the Environment Bill sets a new legal foundation for Government action to improve the environment and is part of the wider Government response to the clear and scientific case for a step-change in environmental protection and recovery. As part of the provisions in the Bill, the Government must have an Environmental Improvement Plan which sets out the steps it intends to take to improve the environment and review it at least every five years. The 25 Year Environment Plan will be adopted as the first statutory Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) in the Environment Bill.
The Bill also establishes a new, independent statutory body - the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) - which will have a statutory duty to monitor and report on the Government's progress in improving the natural environment in accordance with the EIP. The OEP’s annual report may provide recommendations on how to improve progress towards meeting targets or environmental improvement, to which Government must respond.
In many cases, we will be going further than the EU. For example, the approach taken in the Environment Bill towards environmental principles goes further than the EU by ensuring that Ministers across Government are obliged to consider the principles in all policy development where it impacts the environment. Through the Bill’s targets framework, we are seeking to develop a comprehensive suite of targets across the entire natural environment which is novel and not something developed at an EU level. The OEP’s enforcement powers are different from those of the European Commission, as the OEP will be able to liaise directly with the public body in question to investigate and resolve alleged serious breaches of environmental law in a more targeted and timely manner.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of banning the import of shark fins into the UK.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The UK has a strong track record in marine conservation and places great importance on ensuring that appropriate protection and management is in place for all shark species.
The UK Government is strongly opposed to shark finning, the practice of removing the fins of a shark and discarding the body at sea. The UK has already banned the act of shark finning and has enforced a Fins Naturally Attached policy in order to combat illegal finning of sharks in UK and EU waters. This means that shark fins from sharks fished in UK and EU waters can only be retained and utilised provided they are still attached to the shark when landed at port by fishing vessels.
Following the end of the Transition Period we will explore options consistent with World Trade Organization rules to address the importation of shark fins from other areas, to support efforts to end illegal shark finning practices globally.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
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 potential merits of moving hedgehogs to schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to allow them greater protection.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) has recently commenced the seventh Quinquennial Review of schedules 5 and 8 (protected species) to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. The JNCC will, late next year, make evidence-based recommendations to the Secretary of State as to which species warrant additional legal protections to secure their future conservation. It is not possible, at this time, to confirm which species, including hedgehogs, may be included in these proposals.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many civil servants in his Department are currently working on planning for the UK leaving the EU without a deal; and how many have been moved from other projects to work on those plans.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Over 80% of Defra’s agenda is affected by the UK’s departure from the European Union and as a result many roles across the Defra group are now supporting work relating to our departure from the EU, either directly or indirectly. We are unable to disaggregate between ‘deal’ and ‘no deal’ planning work.
As at the end of November, Defra group has recruited over 2300 staff including fixed term appointments, interims and staff redeployed from elsewhere in the group, to work on the UK’s departure from the EU. Over 2100 are already in post with the remainder working through pre-employment processes.
Departments continually review workforce plans, reprioritise and assess changing needs. At the same time, the Civil Service as a whole is working to ensure that EU departure implementation is carried out to high quality without impacting public service delivery across the whole of government.