Every parliamentary written question tabled by Lewis Cocking this session, with the full answer and department. See how every department answers, or back to the MP page.
Showing 1–8 of 8 · Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Food and Rural Affairs, if she will take steps to ensure that recreational water users, including paddlers, are considered in the development of the Clean Water Bill, including in relation to public access to inland waterways.
Awaiting answer.
Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she taking to help support councils to seize and crush vehicles involved in fly-tipping.
Defra has conducted a review of council powers to seize and crush vehicles used by suspected fly-tippers, and we are working to identify how we could help councils make better use of this tool. Defra is exploring options and intend to bring forward best practice guidance shortly.
Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of (a) illegal waste dumping and (b) fly-tipping on rural communities.
While no recent assessment has been made, we appreciate the difficulty that illegal waste dumping and fly-tipping poses to rural communities. We work with a wide range of parties through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, which involves the Environment Agency (EA) and National Farmers Union, to promote and disseminate good practice, including how to prevent fly-tipping on private land. We are making policy and regulatory reforms to close loopholes exploited by criminals - fundamentally reforming the waste carriers, brokers and dealers system, tightening waste permit exemptions and introducing digital waste tracking. We have increased EA’s budget for waste crime enforcement by over 50% this year to £15.6m enabling the EA to increase its frontline criminal enforcement resource in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and area environmental crime teams by the equivalent of 43 full-time staff. We encourage local authorities to make good use of their enforcement powers which include prosecution. On conviction, a cost order can be made by the court so that a landowner’s costs can be recovered from the perpetrator. We are also reviewing local authority powers to seize and crush vehicles of fly-tippers, to identify how we could help councils make better use of this tool.
Food and Rural Affairs, whether swift bricks count towards biodiversity net gain.
No, expenditure on swift bricks cannot be counted towards biodiversity net gain (BNG) units which must be calculated using the main Statutory Biodiversity Net Gain metric or the small sites version of it.
Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of his Department's (a) rewilding and (b) land use policies on the amount of land available for (i) farming and (ii) food production.
The Land Use Consultation published this year was underpinned by analysis of land use change for nature restoration and other objectives. This included analysis of potential spatial distributions of change to 2050, taking account of land’s suitability for food production. This analysis is set out in the Analytical Annex published alongside the consultation. We are currently analysing responses to the consultation and feedback on this analysis and will take them into account in the preparation of the Land Use Framework, the forthcoming food strategy and future UK Food Security Reports.
Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 29 April 2025 to Question 46919 on Environment Agency: Lobbying and with reference to the guidance entitled May 2025 Elections: guidance on conduct for civil servants, published on 20 March 2025, which section of that document provides guidance on holding meetings with hon. Members during a pre-election period.
Section 29 of the guidance entitled “May 2025 Elections: guidance on conduct for civil servants” outlines that it is for individual public bodies to apply the guidance within their own organisations. Environment Agency staff follow all relevant sections of the guidance to ensure that their activities do not call into question their political impartiality.
Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department issues guidance to the Environment Agency on holding meetings with hon. Members during a pre-election period.
The Cabinet Office publishes guidance to civil servants in UK Government departments and staff and members of non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) and other arm’s-length bodies (ALBs) on their role and conduct during pre-election periods. The most recent guidance was updated on 20 March 2025 ahead of the May 2025 local elections. Environment Agency (EA) staff follow this guidance to ensure that their activities do not call into question their political impartiality.
Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure customers are compensated when water companies fail to meet Ofwat targets.
Under new proposals set out by this Government, households and businesses will be entitled to higher payments from water companies when basic services are hit in a wider range of circumstances – with payments water company customers are legally entitled to when key standards are not met at least doubling. The Government is also expanding the list of circumstances that can trigger compensation, to include payments for boil notices when drinking water standards drop, and for failures to conduct meter readings or installations as promised. It would mean recent outages in Hastings, Brixham and Bramley earlier this year would have all automatically led to compensation at higher rates for all customers.