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1682796

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Forests: Commodities
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure that regulated persons in relation to forest risk commodities establish and implement due diligence systems in relation to those commodities, as required under the Environment Act 2021.
tabling member printed	Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
uin	HL1678
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/01/2024 answer text <p>The UK Government introduced new legislation through the Environment Act to tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains. Recent research estimates that around 70% of global tropical deforestation for commercial agriculture between 2013 and 2019 was conducted in violation of national laws.</p><p> </p><p>The Government announced further details of our Forest Risk Commodities regulations at COP28 in December. The new law will make it illegal for larger organisations, with a global annual turnover of more than £50m, to use key forest risk commodities produced on land illegally occupied or used. Initial secondary legislation will focus on four commodities identified as key drivers of deforestation: cattle products (excluding dairy), cocoa, palm oil and soy.</p><p> </p><p>Organisations in scope will also be required to undertake a due diligence exercise on their supply chains and to report on this exercise annually. To ensure transparency, information about businesses' due diligence exercises will be published.  Businesses in scope that do not comply with these requirements may be subject to fines and other civil sanctions. The secondary legislation required to operationalise the Environment Act provisions will be laid as soon as parliamentary time allows.</p> answering member printed Lord Benyon question first answered 23/01/2024 15:31:28 answering member 1547 label Biography information for Lord Benyon
tabling member	4719 label Biography information for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

1682805

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Veterinary Medicine: Northern Ireland
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are negotiating with the European Union on the supply of veterinary medicines to Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom after 2025.
tabling member printed	Lord Dodds of Duncairn
uin	HL1687
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/02/2024 answer text <p>The Windsor Framework agreement has safeguarded the supplies of veterinary medicines from Great Britain to Northern Ireland to the end of 2025. During this extension to the grace period there will be no changes to the existing requirements on the supply of veterinary medicines to Northern Ireland and businesses should continue operating as they have done to date.</p><p> </p><p>The Government’s position is clear, there needs to be a long-term and permanent solution which maintains the uninterrupted flow of veterinary medicines into Northern Ireland from Great Britain on which so many people and businesses rely. Industry engagement continues to be our core focus over recent months, where we are strengthening and collating further evidence on products at risk.</p><p> </p><p>We remain clear with the EU that any future arrangements must take into account the overwhelming reliance of Northern Ireland on veterinary medicines from Great Britain.</p> answering member printed Lord Douglas-Miller question first answered 06/02/2024 15:55:35 answering member 5006 label Biography information for Lord Douglas-Miller
tabling member	1388 label Biography information for Lord Dodds of Duncairn

1682807

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Pollution: Monitoring
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Douglas-Miller on 3 January (HL1212), how many times in each of the past five years the Environment Agency has (1) undertaken an internal review, or (2) asked the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to carry out an external review, of a response to a specific pollution incident.
tabling member printed	Baroness Hayman of Ullock
uin	HL1689
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/02/2024 answer text <p>The Environment Agency proactively undertakes internal reviews of incidents to identify what went well so that good practice can be shared. It will also review what did not go well so that lessons are identified, and performance can be improved. All the most serious incidents are reviewed and all less serious incidents where significant operational impact has been identified. There are approximately 100 serious incidents each year. The table below shows the number of incidents each year which have undergone a routine internal review.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p> </p></td><td><p><strong>Internal Review</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>2019</strong></p></td><td><p>267</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>2020</strong></p></td><td><p>270</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>2021</strong></p></td><td><p>323</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>2022</strong></p></td><td><p>204</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>2023</strong></p></td><td><p>180</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Environment Agency asked SEPA to carry out a review of an incident near Windermere that occurred in June 2022. They have no records of any other referrals.</p> answering member printed Lord Douglas-Miller question first answered 09/02/2024 10:48:24 answering member 5006 label Biography information for Lord Douglas-Miller
tabling member	4395 label Biography information for Baroness Hayman of Ullock

1682808

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Lake Windermere: Pollution
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Douglas-Miller on 3 January (HL1212), what was the nature of the “learning” undertaken by and shared within the Environment Agency following its response to the pollution incident at Cunsey Beck, Windermere.
tabling member printed	Baroness Hayman of Ullock
uin	HL1690
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/02/2024 answer text <p>There was informative and useful advice in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency report. The specific improvements that the Environment Agency in Cumbria and Lancashire have looked to put in place when dealing with significant pollution incidents are:</p><ol><li>To consider and gather all potential witness information even in the event of no immediate polluter being identified.</li><li>To ensure full consideration is applied to Environment Agency ecologist deployment and deliver best available practice in sampling.</li><li>Where dead fish are present during an incident, logging more detail on specific locations and taking samples.</li><li>During more significant investigations, ensure geographic representation of river locations where actions/observations/samples are made or taken.</li></ol><p>The above is in addition to an increased focus on the Environment Agency’s response to incidents affecting water quality. In March 2023, the Environment Agency launched a Regulatory Plan which sets out key actions for Windermere, placing regulation at the heart of its work to improve the water environment. These actions include monitoring trends and pollution hotspots, targeting efforts on reducing pollution sources and reviewing findings on a regular basis.</p><p>The Environment Agency is also leading the Love Windermere partnership, a long-term initiative which brings together organisations committed to developing a science-based plan for the environmental protection of this iconic lake.</p> answering member printed Lord Douglas-Miller question first answered 07/02/2024 17:41:44 answering member 5006 label Biography information for Lord Douglas-Miller
tabling member	4395 label Biography information for Baroness Hayman of Ullock

1682825

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Food: Inflation
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to manage grocery inflation in light of disruption to the Red Sea and the potential delay in shipping times.
tabling member printed	The Lord Bishop of St Albans
uin	HL1709
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/01/2024 answer text <p>The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, which is well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption.</p><p> </p><p>Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources: strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes. The proportion of UK food imports using the Red Sea routes is extremely small and we do not expect the disruption to have a significant impact on UK consumer food prices in the short term.</p><p> </p><p>We produce 60% of all the food we need, and 73% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year. These figures have changed little over the last 20 years, and the Government is committed to maintaining the amount of food produced domestically to support our farmers.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Lord Douglas-Miller question first answered 23/01/2024 14:44:14 answering member 5006 label Biography information for Lord Douglas-Miller
tabling member	4308 label Biography information for The Lord Bishop of St Albans

1682852

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Farmers: Mental Health Services
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to help support the mental health of farmers during the transition from the Basic Payment Scheme to the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme.
tabling member constituency	Westmorland and Lonsdale
tabling member printed	Tim Farron
uin	10076
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 29/01/2024 answer text <p>The Government is introducing ambitious new schemes for farmers and land managers in England, which will help their businesses become more productive and sustainable by rewarding them for farming in a way that will deliver environmental and animal welfare outcomes. We are also reforming the way we regulate, with greater emphasis on advice and improvement, so farmers and regulators work together to improve the countryside.</p><p> </p><p>We are providing support during the early years of the transition via the Future Farming Resilience Fund. One of the key required outcomes for the Resilience Fund is that farmers’ mental health and wellbeing are supported. Some delivery providers are offering this support from in-house experts and others are signposting support available from external expert services. We have worked with the Yellow Wellies charity, to provide advice and information on how to identify potential mental health issues and provide tools for addressing them.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 29/01/2024 11:57:05 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	1591 label Biography information for Tim Farron

1682869

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Agriculture: Flood Control
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what flood defence measures his Department is putting in place to help protect agriculture.
tabling member constituency	Bournemouth East
tabling member printed	Mr Tobias Ellwood
uin	10056
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/01/2024 answer text <p>Farmers and land managers have an increasingly important role to play in reducing the risk of flooding and coastal erosion as we adapt to climate change, through measures such as natural flood management.</p><p> </p><p>In addition to protecting homes, the flood investment programme also protects agricultural land. In our six-year record £5.2 billion <a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fpublications%2Fflood-and-coastal-erosion-risk-management-an-investment-plan-for-2021-to-2027&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cpqteam%40defra.gov.uk%7C57dbbe4ec61942fdbfd308dc18cce166%7C770a245002274c6290c74e38537f1102%7C0%7C0%7C638412515429728010%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=i4B6CIHtrdGQBQFFzMHMXGUishYJdSKA44zEgpnll9w%3D&amp;reserved=0" target="_blank">floods investment programme</a>, the amount of funding a project can attract will depend on the damage it will avoid and the benefits it will deliver. A project's impact on agricultural land is included as part of the funding calculator and attracts funding. Since 2015 we have protected over 900,000 acres of agricultural land. Approximately 40% of schemes, and 45% of investment, better protects properties in rural communities. Government assistance is sometimes provided in particularly exceptional circumstances. For example, on Saturday 6<sup>th</sup> January the Government announced farmers who have suffered uninsurable damage to their land as a result of Storm Henk will be able to apply grants of up to £25,000 through the Farming Recovery Fund towards reinstatement costs for farmers adversely affected by exceptional flooding.</p><p> </p><p>There are also measures that benefit flood risk mitigation under all three components of the Environmental Land Management schemes. As announced on 4th January, farmers and other land managers will be paid for a variety of land management actions that support flood risk mitigation, including new actions to manage grasslands and arable land for flood resilience and updated actions to store flood water on agricultural land. These actions will be available from later this year, through a streamlined single application process. The first round of Landscape Recovery included a focus on restoring England’s streams and rivers: the selected projects will restore water bodies, rivers, and floodplains to a more natural state, reduce of nutrient pollution, benefit aquatic species, and improve flood mitigation and resilience to climate change. Many of the Landscape Recovery Round 2 projects that are centred around rivers are also aiming to deliver similar environmental outcomes, including flood mitigation.</p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Robbie Moore question first answered 31/01/2024 18:37:55 answering member 4861 label Biography information for Robbie Moore
tabling member	1487 label Biography information for Mr Tobias Ellwood

1682880

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023, when he plans to launch the consultation to determine which activities fall within the regulations.
tabling member constituency	Crawley
tabling member printed	Henry Smith
uin	10088
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/01/2024 answer text <p>The Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023 provides a framework for the introduction of a ban on the advertising and offering for sale of specific low-welfare animal activities abroad. It is an important step in protecting animals from considerable suffering and unacceptable practices.</p><p> </p><p>This Government continues to make animal welfare a priority and we are currently exploring a number of options to progress this issue as soon as is practicable.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 31/01/2024 13:49:23 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1682897

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Environmental Protection
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent progress he has made on meeting his environmental targets.
tabling member constituency	Chatham and Aylesford
tabling member printed	Tracey Crouch
uin	10086
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/01/2024 answer text <p>Our 13 Environment Act 2021 targets were set in law by January 2023 and are included in our revised Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP23). Interim targets were also set at this point and will help tackle some of the biggest environmental pressures and make tangible progress over the next five years of EIP23.</p><p> </p><p>We have been making progress in delivery of our new environmental targets and are due to report on them, and other EIP commitments, in our EIP Annual Progress Report in the summer.</p><p> </p><p>We will continue to monitor and adjust our delivery to reach the long-term environmental goals outlined in the EIP23, including on our wider statutory targets.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 25/01/2024 17:01:52 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	3950 label Biography information for Dame Tracey Crouch

1682905

registered interest
date	17/01/2024
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Air Pollution
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if the Government will adopt the World Health Organisation's guidelines on the maximum permissible levels of pollutants, published in September 2021, in the context of research published by the University of Dundee on the impact of air pollution on hospital admissions for respiratory disease among children.
tabling member constituency	Swansea West
tabling member printed	Geraint Davies
uin	9990
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/01/2024 answer text <p>The World Health Organisation Air Quality Guidelines are intended to inform the setting of air quality standards and are not ready-made targets for adoption.</p><p> </p><p>We recently set two new stretching and achievable targets for fine particulate matter (PM<sub>2.5</sub>) under the Environment Act 2021, following an evidence-based process informed by the WHO Guidelines.</p><p> </p><p>We are working towards delivering these targets as set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023 and Air Quality Strategy, which will have significant public health benefits, including for children.</p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Robbie Moore question first answered 24/01/2024 16:22:23 answering member 4861 label Biography information for Robbie Moore
tabling member	155 label Biography information for Geraint Davies