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1259648

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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	Tree Planting
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 the Environmental Impact Assessment (Forestry) (England and Wales) Regulations 1999 enable the Forestry Commission to reverse a decision on a tree planting project (a) that has been made incorrectly and (b) where previously withheld evidence has come to light; and if he will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Brighton, Pavilion
tabling member printed	Caroline Lucas
uin	127516
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/12/2020 answer text <p>The Environmental Impact Assessment (Forestry) (England and Wales) Regulations 1999 do not provide for Opinions or Assessments made by the Forestry Commissioners to be amended or repealed.</p><p> </p><p>A proposer’s application for a relevant forestry project to the Forestry Commissioners for their Opinion, or the proposer’s Notification of the project, once assessed, may result in a decision that consent under the regulations is not required. This decision is based on evaluating all the evidence available at the time.</p><p> </p><p>Where an assessment of a relevant forestry project results in a decision that consent under the regulations is required the applicant must provide an Environmental Statement before the project is determined.</p><p> </p><p>An applicant for consent may appeal the decision where consent has been refused or additional conditions have been imposed. Anyone aggrieved by the granting of consent can make an application to the High Court to have the consent quashed in specific circumstances.</p><p> </p><p>To help ensure that all relevant evidence is available when decisions are made on tree planting projects, the Forestry Commission has recently published a new Priority Habitat Identification Booklet, which makes clear the onus on developers of woodland creation proposals to identify priority habitats, is training staff on this, and is appointing three new ecologists who will help to ensure that biodiversity interests are identified. Natural England is also working with the Botanical Society of the British Isles and the Woodland Trust on a method which uses more up-to-date and comprehensive plant data to identify high-quality habitats to inform woodland planning decisions.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 21/12/2020 15:28:15 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	3930 label Biography information for Caroline Lucas

1259650

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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	Nitrogen Dioxide: Cheshire
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 his Department is taking to ensure that oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions from industry and power generation are kept within safe limits in Weaver Vale and Halton constituencies.
tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
uin	127635
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2020 answer text <p>The Environment Agency’s environmental permitting regime carried out under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016 requires operators of “regulated facilities” including industry carrying out certain activities above certain thresholds including chemicals, combustion and energy from waste activities to obtain a permit. In this way the Environmental Permitting Regulations provide for ongoing supervision by the EA of activities which could harm the environment. The aim of the permitting regime is to:</p><p> </p><ul><li>protect the environment so that statutory and government policy environmental targets and outcomes are achieved;</li><li>deliver permitting, and compliance with permits and certain environmental targets, effectively and efficiently, in a way that provides increased clarity and minimises the administrative burden on both the regulator and operators;</li><li>encourage regulators to promote best practice in the operation of facilities; and</li><li>continue to implement European legislation fully.</li></ul><p> </p><p>The majority of environmental quality and specific permitting standards and other related requirements for environmental and human health protection come from Directives. The Environmental Permitting Regulations ensure that those Directives and national policy requirements, and outcomes that can be delivered through a permitting and compliance system, are delivered by the Environmental Permitting Regulations.</p><p> </p><p>The Environmental Permitting Regulations place duties on regulators to exercise their permit-related functions to deliver the obligations and outcomes required by the relevant Directives and, in some cases, national policy. In practice, this means that the EA will ensure, where a permit is granted, that permit conditions achieve the objectives and intended outcomes of any of the Directives or national policy which apply.</p><p> </p><p>The EA has specialist Industry sector groups set up such as 'Energy from Waste', ‘Chemicals’ and 'Combustion' with appropriate expertise in ensuring permit compliance. The EA also has sector plans with periodic review of permits to meet the latest environmental standards. These sector groups also engage with trade bodies and industry sectors to ensure that operators know and understand the requirements, and to implement them in a cost-effective way that also minimises environmental risks.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 18/12/2020 14:58:43 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1259651

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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	Nitrogen Dioxide: Cheshire
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 his Department has made of the level of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions from industry and power generation in Weaver Vale and Halton constituencies.
tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
uin	127636
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2020 answer text <p>The information requested for Weaver Vale and Halton constituencies is not held centrally and to obtain it in the time available would incur disproportionate costs. If the hon. Member wishes to write to the Environment Agency it will be able to provide the information.</p><p>For the industrial sites the Environment Agency regulates through the permitting regime, it regularly monitors compliance with permit emission limits:</p><ul><li>By regular inspections and audits for compliance assessment, including the regulation of emissions monitoring;</li><li>By requiring a management-systems approach that makes implementation, auditing and compliance assessment straightforward;</li><li>By specifying accredited and certified measurement services and equipment, and auditing to ensure compliance;</li><li>By banding operators according to risk and performance, to ensure a focused, cost-effective application of effective, proportionate and fair regulation;</li><li>By tracking the performance of operators and taking action where appropriate.</li></ul><p>In addition to the permitting regime, for each permit the operator must report the amount of emissions of each controlled substance every year to the Environment Agency under the Pollution Inventory (PI). The PI provides information about the releases and transfers of substances from the industrial activities we regulate. This helps:</p><ul><li>Provide the public with easy access to environmental information from industrial activities in their locality;</li><li>Protect the environment by providing information to assist us in developing regulation;</li><li>Government to meet its national and international environmental reporting commitments, such as the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register.</li></ul> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 18/12/2020 14:53:21 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1259653

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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	Peat: Imports
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 plans the Government has to ban the import of peat.
tabling member constituency	North West Durham
tabling member printed	Mr Richard Holden
uin	127685
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2020 answer text <p>The Government is committed to protecting and restoring our vulnerable peatlands in England. As part of this focus, we are committed to phasing out the use of peat in horticulture in England. By reducing demand for peat in horticulture, this not only protects peat bogs in England, but recognises that two thirds of the peat sold in the UK is imported from the rest of Europe. We plan to set out proposals to further reduce the use of peat in horticulture in the forthcoming England Peat Strategy.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 18/12/2020 14:43:34 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4813 label Biography information for Mr Richard Holden

1259668

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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
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 his Department is taking to encourage (a) growth and (b) production of food in the UK for the domestic market.
tabling member constituency	Wolverhampton South West
tabling member printed	Stuart Anderson
uin	127651
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2020 answer text <p>This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.</p><p> </p><p>The Government published ‘The Path to Sustainable Farming: An Agricultural Transition Plan 2021 to 2024’ on 30 November. As we set out in this document, by the end of the agricultural transition we want to see a renewed agricultural sector, producing healthy food for consumption at home and abroad, where farms can be profitable and economically sustainable without subsidy.</p><p> </p><p>‘The Path to Sustainable Farming’ provides detail on our plans to support farmers to increase their productivity in an environmentally sustainable way, including through the Farming Investment Fund. This will provide targeted support to businesses so that they can invest in equipment, technology, and infrastructure that will improve their productivity and deliver environmental and other public benefits.</p><p> </p><p>The document also describes our plan to hugely increase the money available to farmers and land managers to invest in the environment through our Environmental Land Management scheme. These measures will ensure that food production today, does not come at the expense of food production tomorrow and that by having healthier soil, and cleaner and more plentiful water, we will have a more resilient base for food production.</p><p> </p><p>This country has a proud agricultural heritage, and is fortunate to have the climate, landscape, and entrepreneurial farmers and growers to enable production of a diverse and delicious range of fruits and vegetables all year round. We produce 64% of our entire food supply need, and that increases to 77% for indigenous food that we can grow or rear here in the UK for all or part of the year. These figures have been steady over the past 20 years.</p><p> </p><p>Consumers also have access to food products that cannot be produced here, or at least not on a year-round basis, through international trade. This supplements domestic production, and also ensures that any disruption from risks such as adverse weather or disease does not affect the UK’s overall security of supply.</p> answering member constituency Banbury answering member printed Victoria Prentis question first answered 18/12/2020 14:46:48 answering member 4401 label Biography information for Victoria Prentis
tabling member	4742 label Biography information for Stuart Anderson

1259680

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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	Wines: Imports
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 he has made of the potential merits of indefinitely suspending the requirement for wine imports to the UK to be accompanied with a wine-specific VI-1 certificate.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow North
tabling member printed	Patrick Grady
uin	127592
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/12/2020 answer text <p>Further to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Ogmore on 27 November 2020, <a href="https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2020-11-18/117332" target="_blank">PQ UIN 117332</a>, no assessment has been made of the potential benefits of removing the requirement for wine imports to the UK being accompanied by a VI 1 certificate.</p> answering member constituency Banbury answering member printed Victoria Prentis question first answered 14/12/2020 10:08:30 answering member 4401 label Biography information for Victoria Prentis
tabling member	4432 label Biography information for Patrick Grady

1259687

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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	Potatoes: Northern Ireland
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 discussions he has had with (a) the Northern Ireland Executive and (b) other stakeholders on the enabling of importation of seed and ware potatoes from Great Britain to Northern Ireland after the end of the transition period.
tabling member constituency	South Antrim
tabling member printed	Paul Girvan
uin	127622
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2020 answer text <p>Defra understands the challenging position of businesses that export seed and ware potatoes to the EU and NI and is working together with DAERA and EU officials with the aim of ensuring that both trade and the movement of goods will continue at the end of the Transition Period.</p><p> </p><p>The UK government is engaging with businesses and other stakeholders on this issue and further Government support that could be provided to address the new requirements on sanitary and phytosanitary goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. This includes looking at the inspection fees associated with phytosanitary certification, should ware and seed potato exports be permitted, and the support that could be offered to minimise or eliminate these costs.</p><p> </p><p>Defra has been explaining the transitional provisions to businesses, also suggesting that both the seeds and phytosanitary issues can be mitigated by moving seed and other propagating material and commodities such as ware potatoes before 31 December in anticipation of an equivalence agreement being reached on, or shortly after this date as well as the lifting of plant health import restrictions.</p><p> </p><p>Defra is working with the EU to reach a reciprocal agreement on equivalence and to remove the plant health prohibitions, including those on seed and ware potatoes, as soon as possible. There have been two discussions with EU officials on 11 and 13 November where the EU have been exploring the most suitable legal routes for granting equivalence to the UK, however they have not given an indication of the timeline for this yet.</p><p> </p><p>Defra submitted a response to the EU on 20 November, setting out the UK's legislation for seed marketing and plant health controls together with our evidence dossier which sets out our controls and data for meeting plant health and seed certification requirements. We received a further response on 4 December and we responded on 11 December providing additional information to the EU.</p> answering member constituency Banbury answering member printed Victoria Prentis question first answered 18/12/2020 14:36:33 answering member 4401 label Biography information for Victoria Prentis
tabling member	4633 label Biography information for Paul Girvan

1259734

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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 Services: Medical Treatments
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 he has made of the level of transparency in relation to treatment costs in the veterinary industry.
tabling member constituency	Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport
tabling member printed	Luke Pollard
uin	127646
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2020 answer text <p>The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) is the regulator for the veterinary profession. It provides general advice to members on fees in its Code of Conduct: <a href="https://www.rcvs.org.uk/setting-standards/advice-and-guidance/code-of-professional-conduct-for-veterinary-surgeons/supporting-guidance/practice-information-and-fees/" target="_blank">https://www.rcvs.org.uk/setting-standards/advice-and-guidance/code-of-professional-conduct-for-veterinary-surgeons/supporting-guidance/practice-information-and-fees/</a>.</p><p> </p><p>The fees are generally set by the market between the vet and the client, but the RCVS could intervene if individual vets charged prices which were so disproportionate that they amounted to disgraceful professional conduct.</p> answering member constituency Banbury answering member printed Victoria Prentis grouped question UIN 130213 question first answered 18/12/2020 14:30:00 answering member 4401 label Biography information for Victoria Prentis
tabling member	4682 label Biography information for Luke Pollard

1259778

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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	Cats: Tagging
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 he plans to publish his Department’s response to the consultation on the microchipping of cats in England that closed on 4 January 2020.
tabling member constituency	Pontypridd
tabling member printed	Alex Davies-Jones
uin	127699
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/12/2020 answer text <p>The Government is committed to improving the welfare of cats and has a manifesto commitment to introduce compulsory microchipping of cats. In October 2019 Defra published a call for evidence on compulsory microchipping for cats, which attracted over 3,000 responses. We will be publishing a summary of the responses alongside the launch of a public consultation shortly.</p> answering member constituency Banbury answering member printed Victoria Prentis question first answered 14/12/2020 14:54:30 answering member 4401 label Biography information for Victoria Prentis
tabling member	4849 label Biography information for Alex Davies-Jones

1259795

registered interest
date	09/12/2020
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	Beverage Containers: Deposit Return 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, pursuant to the Answer of 24 November 2020 to Question 118087 on glass recycling, whether his Department plans to undertake an assessment of market shifts in materials as a result of a deposit return scheme before the consultation on the regulations is opened.
tabling member constituency	Ceredigion
tabling member printed	Ben Lake
uin	127620
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2020 answer text <p>We plan to consult on our proposed Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2021.We do not plan to conduct further research ahead of this consultation, but will seek views in our consultation on potential market shifts in materials as a result of the proposed materials to be included in scope of the DRS.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 18/12/2020 14:44:59 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4630 label Biography information for Ben Lake