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1654280

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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: Consumption and Production
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 she will consider the potential merits of publishing an annual assessment of the potential impact of free trade agreements on domestic food production and consumption.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195024
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) publishes Impact Assessments of the UK's Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and these contain the official assessment of the potential impacts on the agri-food sector. DBT has also committed to monitor the implementation and conduct a comprehensive evaluation for the agreements as set out in the FTA impact assessments. Defra will also be supporting DBT in monitoring the impacts of new FTAs as these come into force over time.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 04/09/2023 16:06:45 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654281

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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 Supply
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 she will make it her policy to introduce a (a) food security index, (b) food security target and (c) statutory duty to monitor and report on domestic food production levels annually.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195025
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>Food security is a complex and multifaceted issue. There is no single indicator or index that captures the breadth of food security issues effectively. In the Government food strategy, we committed to broadly maintain the current level of food we produce domestically. We already monitor and report on domestic food production levels annually in our Agriculture in the United Kingdom publication. This is produced to meet a reporting commitment in the Agriculture Act 1993. In addition, the Agriculture Act 2020 commits the Government to produce analysis of statistical data relating to food security at least once every three years.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 04/09/2023 16:04:35 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654339

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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	Sustainable Farming Incentive
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when her Department plans to publish the Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for 2024.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195036
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>In January 2023, Defra published an “Environmental Land Management update: how government will pay for land-based environment and climate goods and services”.</p><p> </p><p>This publication sets out all the activities we will pay farmers and land managers to carry out from 2024, to improve the environment alongside food production. We will publish further details on the 2024 offer later this year.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 04/09/2023 15:30:48 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654340

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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 Land Management Schemes
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 assessment she has made of the adequacy of Environmental Land Management payment rates.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195037
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>When we set payment rates, we aim to make them fair and attractive to farmers while delivering value for public money. We will regularly review actions and payment rates over time to make sure that they work for farmers and land managers and are delivering the intended outcomes to contribute to the government’s environment, climate and food production goals. Many of the actions we will pay for through the ELM schemes will help farmers and land managers reduce their costs, improve their efficiency and improve the natural environment. We recently reviewed the payment rates for both Countryside Stewardship revenue options and capital items and they have been updated.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 04/09/2023 15:59:12 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654341

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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	Sustainable Farming Incentive
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of providing Sustainable Farming Incentive funding for all projects aimed to (a) protect water courses, (b) improve public access and (c) reduce carbon emissions.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195038
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>In January 2023, Defra published an “Environmental Land Management update: how government will pay for land-based environment and climate goods and services”. This publication sets out all the activities we will pay farmers and land managers to carry out from 2024, to improve the environment alongside food production. This includes activities to protect water courses and reduce carbon emissions.</p><p> </p><p>We want to offer further support for access to our countryside, farmland or woodland, and so under our Environmental Land Management Schemes we are also exploring how we can pay for more access actions including new permissive access and expanding educational access beyond groups of school pupils and care farming visitors.</p><p> </p><p>Additionally, through our Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, we provide funding to support and improve Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks. Under this programme we pay for projects that provide opportunities for people to discover, enjoy and understand the landscape and its cultural heritage, including permissive access.</p><p> </p><p>We will publish further details on the 2024 offer later this year.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 04/09/2023 15:57:19 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654342

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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: Production
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 steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) agriculture and (b) horticulture businesses have access to adequate water for food production.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195039
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/09/2023 answer text <p>The Government is committed to strong domestic food production and the Plan for Water sets out the actions we are taking to secure water supplies, including for the agriculture and horticulture sectors. The Government and the Environment Agency are working with the sectors to help them improve the resilience of water supplies for the future.</p><p> </p><p>The package of support includes improvements to water resources planning and investment in infrastructure, for example by aiming to increase the amount of water stored by the agriculture and horticulture sectors to support food production and protect the water environment. This includes £20 million of grants to help farmers with the costs of building on-farm water reservoirs and irrigation equipment, through two rounds of the Water Management Grant under the Farming Investment Fund.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 13/09/2023 16:37:39 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654343

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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	Water Supply: Infrastructure
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 steps her Department plans to take to support investment in water capture and storage infrastructure on farms after 2025.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195040
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/09/2023 answer text <p>The Government’s support for water capture via the Water Management Grant will continue to deliver investment in this vitally important policy area into and through 2025. We continue to evaluate delivery of the current scheme and will use this to help shape future grants offer.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 08/09/2023 07:15:44 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654344

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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	Water Supply: Planning
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 steps she is taking to involve multi-sector stakeholders in catchment-based water systems planning.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195041
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>Defra recently published its landmark Plan for Water, to deliver a safe, reliable, resilient supply of clean and plentiful water – for our homes, businesses, leisure and for the wildlife that relies on it. The Plan for Water is built around an integrated, catchment approach to managing the water system. In the Plan for Water, we committed to delivering catchment plans backed up with new funding to improve all water bodies in England. Defra is currently engaging with multi-sector stakeholders such as the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) to develop options and generate ideas on how catchment plans will work in best practice.</p><p> </p><p>CaBA is a community-led approach that engages people and groups from across communities at a local level to help improve water environments (more information can be found here: <a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fenvironment.data.gov.uk%2Fcatchment-planning%2Fv%2Fc3-plan%2FCatchmentPartnerships&amp;data=05%7C01%7Cpqteam%40defra.gov.uk%7C6665a8e5021744e525c108db8cf4789a%7C770a245002274c6290c74e38537f1102%7C0%7C0%7C638258753837523811%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=a8pH0bu1mD5AG90fPaZN3bv%2Fb5KgWTmuRt%2BMnGX27oE%3D&amp;reserved=0" target="_blank">Catchment Partnership Pages | Catchment Data Explorer</a>). CaBA’s catchment partnerships include involvement from public, private and civil-society sector organisations, playing a key role in the development of local catchment community aspirations. They drive greater awareness of water environment issues and catchment-based solutions, empowering communities to engage. Results show that catchment-level interventions are effective in realising multiple benefits.</p><p> </p><p>The Environment Agency is refreshing its National Framework for Water Resources and is aiming to set out how improvements can be made to collaborative multi-sector planning on a regional scale and how these plans can more effectively link to local and catchment based initiatives.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 04/09/2023 11:30:42 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654345

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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	Slurry Infrastructure Grant
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 assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending the Slurry Infrastructure Grant offer beyond three rounds of funding.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195042
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>As we set out in the Agricultural Transition Plan, we are planning to run two further rounds of the Slurry Infrastructure grant in autumn 2023 and 2024. We will fund as many farms as we can to go beyond minimum legal obligations, but will not be able to fund everyone. We will continue to work with the industry to prioritise funding fairly while maximising environmental outcomes.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 04/09/2023 15:54:03 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham

1654346

registered interest
date	19/07/2023
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	Slurry Infrastructure Grant
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to widen accessibility to the Slurry Infrastructure Grant scheme beyond priority areas.
tabling member constituency	Stockton North
tabling member printed	Alex Cunningham
uin	195043
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>As we set out in the Agricultural Transition Plan, we are planning to run two further rounds of the Slurry Infrastructure grant in autumn 2023 and 2024. These will be larger rounds, offered to a wider set of areas than those prioritised in round 1. We are working with an industry group to consider how best to prioritise funding fairly while maximising environmental outcomes and will publish further details shortly.</p> answering member constituency Sherwood answering member printed Mark Spencer question first answered 04/09/2023 15:51:38 answering member 4055 label Biography information for Sir Mark Spencer
tabling member	4122 label Biography information for Alex Cunningham