Written questions by Dyke.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment the Environment Agency has made of the impact of historic highway drainage systems on downstream flooding and water pollution.

Environment Agency (EA) water quality monitoring programmes identify where ‘urban and transport’ inputs are having a potential impact on a waterbody. Water quality monitoring data is publicly available here: Water Data Explorer | Engage Environment Agency. Highways authorities should address outfalls with the potential to pollute. Water and sewerage companies in England and Wales are currently developing their first statutory Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans (DWMPs), due to be published in 2027/28. These strategic plans identify risks to the companies’ drainage and sewerage networks and set out solutions for how those risks will be mitigated, including environmental risks, which could have implications for highways inputs. The EA also works with National Highways to assess the impacts of highway drainage on downstream flooding and water quality. They are working together to deliver actions in the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) Strategy Roadmap. This includes delivering multi-benefit, nature-based solutions that reduce flood risk, improve water quality and enhance biodiversity. The EA supports this through its flood investment programmes, catchment partnerships and use of national flood risk mapping to help target priority locations and future investment.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 28 October 2025 to Question 83877 on Eels: Conservation, what research and development projects her Department are supporting through the allocated £350,000 to improve eel management and conservation; and over what time period will this funding be spent; and how this level of funding compares to budgets for similar purposes.

This is a devolved matter and therefore the response relates to England only. Defra’s funding will support three eel management and conservation projects for delivery in 2026: Developing silver eel escapement models to better estimate how many eels migrate to the sea, using survey results from the River FromeResearch to optimise the trap and transport of silver eels from landlocked water bodies and assess the success of onward migration of trap and transported eelsUpgrading and extending the life of satellite tags to track silver eels closer to their spawning grounds Due to the nature of research in the aquatic environment it is not possible to meaningfully compare costs, but all projects are assessed by Defra to ensure policy priorities will be delivered and demonstrate value for money.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 28 October 2025 to Question 83876 on Eels: Conservation, what plans she has to review the root causes of these problems and to reverse the decline in the number of eels.

This is a devolved matter and therefore the response relates to England only. Actions to address the pressures on eels at the River Basin District scale are set out in Eel Management Plans, which the EA continue to deliver and report against. Additionally, as noted in response to Question 101014, Defra has recently funded three projects to improve eel management and conservation. Defra officials will meet with the Devolved Governments in early 2026 to review the current approaches to eel management across the UK nations.

Food and Rural Affairs, how much money has been spent on improving flood defences in Somerset since 2014.

Since the flooding of 2013/14, over £200 million of Flood and Coastal Risk Management Grant-in-Aid (FCRM GiA) and local levy has been spent on improving the standard of flood protection in the local authority areas of Somerset, North Somerset, and Bath and North East Somerset. This is in addition to the annual budget of over £3 million for the Somerset Rivers Authority and the annual budget the Environment Agency has for repairing existing assets and individual property-level resilience programmes. Improvements have included dredging, building new flood defences, raising river banks and roads and upgrading existing flood defences. The Environment Agency has also spent additional money on providing a local stock of Ultra High Volume Pumps so they are guaranteed to be available in the event of a major incident.

Food and Rural Affairs, how much maintenance activity has been carried out on Somerset’s Main Rivers in the last a) year, b) 5 years and c) 10 years.

Since the flooding of 2013/14, over £47 million has been spent on operating flood defences and maintaining rivers in Somerset. This includes £4.7 million this financial year and over £24 million in the last five years. This includes the daily operation and maintenance of hundreds of flood defence assets across the Somerset Levels and Moors and on the coast, the clearing of vegetation from river channels, the management of flood storage reservoirs and the deployment of additional pumps after heavy rainfall. In addition to this, the Environment Agency also provides a flood warning service and incident response 365 days of the year.

Food and Rural Affairs, how much of the Small Abattoir Fund was spent by her Department prior to it's closure in 2024.

The Rural Payments Agency have offered agreements for the Smaller Abattoir Fund worth a total of £1,119,347.59. Smaller Abattoir Fund grants are claimed in arrears and as of 04 November 2025, £593,018.55 has been paid out under the scheme.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to eradicate the Yellow-legged Asian hornet.

Defra is continuing to follow an eradication strategy against Yellow Legged Hornet (also known as Asian Hornet) to prevent this invasive non-native species from establishing in GB. Contingency action is delivered by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). As of 23 October 2025, the APHA have found and destroyed a total of 155 Yellow Legged Hornet nests.

Food and Rural Affairs, what plans she has to expand the use of new (a) tracking and (b) monitoring technologies to improve the effectiveness of the National Bee Unit’s work to (i) locate and (ii) eradicate yellow-legged Asian hornet nests.

Since 2016 the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s National Bee Unit (NBU) have responded to incursions of Yellow Legged Hornet (YLH) into Great Britain. The NBU has developed a fine-tuned and effective response which allows them to find and destroy nests to prevent YLH establishing. During 2025 the NBU has drawn on support from other members of staff within APHA and used new technology to deliver the response. For tracking, the inspectors have been trialling Robor Nature Units which use a handheld device to add tiny trackers to hornets. The tracker is then used to follow the hornet and find the nest so it can be destroyed and removed. For monitoring, field tests have been carried out using VespAI, a visual monitoring system developed by the University of Exeter which uses artificial intelligence to carry out surveillance for YLH. As of 23 October 2025, the NBU have found and destroyed a total of 155 Yellow Legged Hornet nests.

Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has for the future of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

Defra is working closely with farmers and industry stakeholders to design a future Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer that will better target the SFI in an orderly way towards our priorities for food, farming and nature. Information and plans for the next iteration of the scheme will be published in due course.

Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department has issued on the treatment of historic (a) glass and (b) plastic bottles distributed prior to the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme.

The Deposit Return Scheme in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland will include single-use drinks containers from 150ml to 3 litres. Materials included are polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, steel, and aluminium drink containers. Glass drinks containers across the UK are included in the scope of the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging scheme, to make sure it is appropriately and efficiently recycled. Only DRS containers placed on the market after 1 October 2027 will carry a deposit on them. Containers placed on the market before 1 October 2027 can still be recycled via kerbside collections.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure the availability of seasonal labour for the apple and pear industry.

The Seasonal Worker visa route is hugely important for the horticulture sector, including the apple and pear industry. Government made a total of 43,000 seasonal worker visas available for horticulture in 2025.  The Government has also announced a 5-year extension to the Seasonal Worker visa route to provide stability and certainty to the horticulture sector, and we can confirm that 41,000 visas will be available for 2026 for the horticulture sector.

Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to provide additional support to (a) the Somerset Eel Recovery Project and (b) other local recovery projects to enable the (i) delivery of eel passes, (ii) habitat improvements, (iii) increased Assisted migration and (iv) local community engagement work.

In England, the Environment Agency is responsible for eel management and working with local delivery partners.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding for the (a) Environment Agency and (b) other relevant bodies to (i) monitor and regulate pollution, (ii) assess habitat degradation, (iii) measure silver eel escapement, (iv) ensure that pumps friendly and (v) ensure that barriers are eel friendly.

This is a devolved matter and therefore the information provided relates to England only. The Environment Agency (EA) are responsible for eel management in England. As a non-departmental public body, the EA determine how to allocate their funding from Defra across their activities. Defra has recently committed £350,000 for research and development projects to drive improvements in eel management and conservation.

Food and Rural Affairs, if she will take steps to review England and Wales’ Eel Management Plans (EMPs), in order to accelerate progress towards meeting silver eel escapement targets.

This is a devolved matter and therefore the information provided relates to England only. The Environment Agency (EA) are responsible for delivering EMPs in England to meet silver eel escapement targets. Defra is not planning to review EMPs at this time as the EA is progressing the delivery of EMPs.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure that all police forces have access to adequate (a) training and (b) resources to (i) identity, (ii) record and (iii) investigate wildlife crime.

Defra is a principal funder of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU). In 2025/26, it is providing £424,000 to the Unit. The NWCU helps prevent and detect wildlife crime by obtaining and disseminating intelligence, undertaking analysis which highlights local or national threats and directly assisting law enforcers in their investigations. Last year, the NWCU assisted every single police force in the UK. The NWCU also provides training to police officers across the UK which reflects the National Police Chiefs' Council wildlife crime strategy and provides comprehensive training in wildlife crime policing. This is open to UK police forces and, as an example, all English police forces had at least one officer trained on an NWCU module in 2023/24.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of levels of digital connectivity on farmer's ability to use animal health monitoring systems.

Defra continues to work closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) on connectivity issues facing the rural and farming communities. DSIT’s Shared Rural Network has already delivered 4G coverage to over 95% of UK landmass, enabling rural businesses and communities to thrive. However, there are still rural parts of the UK where there is either limited or no mobile coverage, and DSIT will continue to work with the industry to deliver new coverage to these communities. This Government wants to ensure there is high quality mobile connectivity across the UK, including in rural areas. This is why our ambition is for all populated areas to have higher quality standalone 5G by 2030. Furthermore, to improve connectivity in rural areas, Project Gigabit is the Government’s programme to deliver gigabit-capable broadband to premises that are not included in suppliers' commercial plans. This includes farms and other rural businesses. The improved broadband connectivity delivered through Project Gigabit will benefit the farming community through boosting productivity, optimising farming processes, monitoring livestock and improving communications with consumers and suppliers.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of farmers being unable to reliably report accidents due to poor broadband or mobile signal on safety in rural areas.

Defra continues to work closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) on connectivity issues facing the rural and farming communities. DSIT’s Shared Rural Network has already delivered 4G coverage to over 95% of UK landmass, enabling rural businesses and communities to thrive.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the trends in the number of business closures in rural areas.

Defra publishes the Statistical Digest for Rural England to provide up-to-date analysis across a wide range of subjects including information on business survival and growth. Business deaths per head of population are lower in rural Areas. In 2023, there were 39 registered business deaths per 10,000 population in Predominantly Rural areas compared with 44 per 10,000 population in Predominantly Urban areas (excluding London). Between 2018 to 2023 in Predominantly Rural areas, the number of business deaths remained between 35 and 45 per 10,000 population; in Urban areas it remained between 40 and 50.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of no rollover option being in place for the Countryside Stewardship scheme on (a) farmers and (b) 2030 nature recovery targets.

The Government has allocated a record £11.8 billion to sustainable farming and food production over this parliament. This includes increasing spend on Environmental Land Management schemes to £2bn by 28/29. Customers with Countryside Stewardship Higher-Tier agri-environment agreements expiring in 2024 were offered an extension to provide them with continuity of funding. Additionally, Countryside Stewardship Higher-Tier agri-environment customers whose agreements expire at the end of 2025 are now being prioritised for pre-application advice to develop a new Countryside Stewardship Higher-Tier agreement. Existing CS HT woodland customers may also be able to develop a new Woodland Management Plan ahead of accessing pre-application support for a new Countryside Stewardship Higher-Tier agreement, but this will depend upon individual circumstances. We are aware of the concerns raised by farmers and stakeholders regarding farmers whose current Countryside Stewardship Mid-Tier agreements expire at the end of the year, and we are considering how we can support continued delivery of environmental outcomes.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to add (a) bale breakers, (b) handheld (i) pH and (ii) EC meters, (c) in situ soil sensors, (d) wireless data loggers and (e) fogging units for in-house propagation with (A) irrigation and (B) nutrition feeding capabilities to the future of farming equipment list.

The latest round of the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund closed for applications on 10/07/25. We are continuing to work to simplify and rationalise our grant funding from 2026 onwards following the Spending Review and ensuing business planning to ensure our grants are targeted towards those who need them most and where they can deliver the most benefit for food security and nature.