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20 Apr 2009 : Column 96W—continued
Flooding Lessons Learned Review
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many of the recommendations made in Sir Michael Pitt’s final report on Learning lessons from the 2007 floods have been implemented. [268110]
Huw Irranca-Davies: The Government’s response to the Pitt Review set out what had been implemented before December 2008 and the further steps required to implement its recommendations in the future. The Government will report further on implementation every six months, beginning in June 2009.
Floods
Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will publish the electronic maps developed by the Environment Agency which identify those areas vulnerable to flash flooding from surface water. [268404]
Huw Irranca-Davies [holding answer 2 April 2009]: The Environment Agency completed actions in response to the urgent recommendation from Sir Michael Pitt’s interim report in August 2008 which stated
‘The Review recommends that the Environment Agency, supported by local authorities and water companies, should urgently identify areas at highest risk from surface water flooding where known, inform Local Resilience Forums and take steps to identify remaining high risk areas over the coming months’.
The Environment Agency sent map data to Local Resilience Forums to help them plan their response to surface water flooding emergencies.
The information on the maps is still under development and is for emergency planning purposes. The maps give an indication of the broad areas likely to be susceptible to surface water flooding based upon an extreme summer rainfall event with no drainage systems working. The information is not sufficiently accurate to use for individual properties. For example, it excludes the impact of buildings and kerb heights on surface water flows which at the local level can be significant. There will be properties at
risk from surface water flooding that will not be included in the outline areas on the maps. The Environment Agency has not published the maps because of these uncertainties.
The Environment Agency is committed to providing the public and businesses with accurate and meaningful information about surface water flood risk in conjunction with local authorities and water companies in the future. Work is ongoing to validate the model results against historic surface water flood events. The information will be published once there is confidence in the results.
I have balanced the need to share surface water flood risk data with the public against the risks of publishing nationally un-validated data based on extreme scenarios for some types of surface water flooding. The public interest is best served by the current situation where Local Resilience Forums have information that will help them plan for emergencies and it is better to wait until more reliable data are available before publishing the Environment Agency’s maps. In the meantime, members of the public can purchase maps on surface water flooding on the internet from at least one commercial company.
Floods: Essex
Mr. Newmark: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 27 February 2009, Official Report, column 1127W, on floods: Essex, (1) which of the schemes in the Essex catchment area which have received funding in the last 12 months for (a) flood prevention and (b) river maintenance are scheduled to (i) receive further funding over the next five years and (ii) how much funding each scheme will be allocated in each case; [267954]
(2) which river maintenance schemes in the Essex catchment area have received funding from his Department in the last 12 months; and how much was spent on each such scheme; [267955]
(3) which flood protection schemes in the Essex catchment area have received funding from his Department in the last 12 months; and how much was spent on each such scheme in that period. [267956]
Huw Irranca-Davies [holding answer 31 March 2009]: During the financial year 2008-09, the Environment Agency has spent the following on constructing new, and refurbishing existing flood defences in Essex:
£9.32 million—Jaywick;
£0.65 million—Canvey Island;
£0.27 million—Tilbury;
£0.16 million—developing schemes for Brightlingsea and Great Wakering;
£2.62 million—on over 30 smaller tidal and river defence schemes.
£4.67 million has been spent during 2008-09 on the general maintenance of river and tidal defences in Essex by the Anglian Eastern Area of the Environment Agency. Work has been carried out across the county at many locations, covering routine maintenance and one-off repairs to defences and structures, and is not broken down into specific schemes.
The following Capital Flood Defence schemes in the Essex Catchment have received funding during 2008-09 and will continue into the next five years. Based on our
current plans, funding will be allocated to the following projects over the period 2009 to 2014 in the amounts indicated:
£2.8 million—Brightlingsea;
£11.2 million—Great Wakering;
£0.7 million—Holland Sluice;
£0.3 million—Thames Tidal Defences;
£0.8 million—Tilbury Barrier;
£0.02 million—Jaywick.
In addition to the above, £4.27 million has been allocated to schemes for maintenance of river and tidal defences in 2009-10. Future years’ maintenance is likely to be funded to a similar figure.
Source:
The Environment Agency's Capital Works database
Floods: South East
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent steps his Department has taken to reduce the incidence and severity of flooding in the south east of England. [267819]
Huw Irranca-Davies: The Government provided £132 million to the Thames and Southern Regions of the Environment Agency in 2008-09 in order to reduce the incidence and severity of flooding in the south east of England. The funding for these regions is to increase to £151 million for 2009-10.
The funding enables the Environment Agency to maintain and improve the flood defences and the Thames Barrier protecting London, and many other projects both inland and protecting the coastline around the south-east of England.
Over the current CSR period of 2008-09 to 2010-11, over 36 major projects will be completed in Thames Region alone, at a cost of £87 million. These will deliver further benefits and reduce flood risk to over 67,000 homes.
Within Romford itself, the Environment Agency will continue to carry out routine watercourse maintenance on Main Rivers in the River Rom catchment to reduce the risk of flooding. This includes vegetation control, blockage removal and incident response.
Several improvement measures are planned for the Cross Road Flood Storage Area at Collier Row, Romford, during 2010 and 2011 at an estimated cost of £620,000. This is to ensure that the current standard of flood alleviation to properties in west Romford is maintained.
Fly-tipping
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much his Department has spent countering fly tipping measures in each of the last five years. [267818]
Jane Kennedy: Action and enforcement against fly-tipping is taken by local authorities and the Environment Agency.
Through the former BREW (Business Resource Efficiency and Waste) programme, DEFRA has given the Environment Agency £1.5 million each year for the last four years. This has been spent on a wide range of environmental crime-related work which includes anti
fly-tipping measures. The Environment Agency also receives grant in aid from DEFRA for a range of environmental work and enforcement activities.
In 2008-09 DEFRA gave Encams (“Keep Britain Tidy”) £95,000, in addition to its grant, to fund a range of activities to support local authorities in tackling fly-tipping. In recent years, DEFRA has also funded a range of research projects which have to varying degrees addressed the issue of fly-tipping.
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what recent steps his Department has taken to tackle fly-tipping; and if he will make a statement; [267816]
(2) what recent guidance his Department has issued to local authorities on (a) prevention and (b) clean-up of fly-tipping. [267817]
Jane Kennedy: The Government are taking steps on a number of fronts to help local authorities and the Environment Agency tackle fly-tipping, an antisocial activity which can blight both urban and rural areas.
DEFRA's illegal waste activity action plan, as set out in the England Waste Strategy 2007, aims to reduce fly-tipping through better prevention, detection and risk-based enforcement. The main measures are:
new powers for local authorities and the Environment Agency to instantly seize vehicles that are involved in waste crime, implementing a power established by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005. These powers are scheduled to be introduced later this year and should act as an effective deterrent, as well as helping regulators to build more effective prosecutions;
improving the waste carrier registration system and promoting—through more user friendly guidance—the waste duty of care so that the law around carrying waste is better understood by businesses and easier for authorities to enforce;
funding of the Environment Agency's Waste Crime Innovation Programme which is developing and testing new techniques for tackling waste crime.
There are various sources of support, advice and guidance on fly-tipping available to local authorities:
DEFRA is funding Encams (“Keep Britain Tidy”) to offer bespoke advice to local authorities requiring assistance with their anti-fly-tipping strategies. Forty authorities received this assistance in 2008-09 and further funding is now in place to assist additional authorities in the coming year. This will be supported by a CD-Rom, being distributed to local authorities during April 2009, which offers authorities a single source of information on legal, detection and enforcement issues around fly-tipping, as well as best practice case studies.
DEFRA also funded the Environment Agency to develop the Flycapture Enforcement training programme which aims to help local authorities to take appropriate enforcement action in response to fly-tipping incidents. Training courses, delivered by Encams and the Chartered Institute of Waste Management (CIWM), are available around the country.
The fly-tipping protocol sets out the circumstances in which either a local authority or the Environment Agency deals with a particular incident and is supported by various other guidance documents linked to the Flycapture database.
Food: EU External Trade
Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which countries have tariff-free access for (a) some and (b) all of their food product exports to the EU; and in respect of what quantities tariff-free access is allowed. [264785]
Jane Kennedy [holding answer 23 March 2009]: There are over 2,000 agricultural tariff lines in the European Union tariff schedule, each of which has a tariff that may differ (according to various concessionary arrangements) for approximately 200 countries. To list a country by tariff line breakdown of the tariff-free concessions would involve disproportionate cost.
Food: Waste Disposal
Mr. Roger Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much food was thrown away (a) in tonnes and (b) as a percentage of total food sales in each of the last three years. [263906]
Jane Kennedy: The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) undertook research in 2007 to quantify the amounts and types of food waste being produced in the UK.
According to The Food We Waste report, UK households throw away 6.7 million tonnes of food every year.
Combining these data with estimates of quantities of food purchases from the Expenditure and Food Survey in 2007 suggests that 31 per cent. of the 21.7 million tonnes of food we purchase—roughly a third—is thrown away. Of this, 4.1 million tonnes, or 18 per cent. of the food we purchase, could have been eaten. Food thrown away that we could have eaten excludes items such as vegetable peelings, meat carcasses and teabags.
Litter: Smoking
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment he has made of the effect of the smoking ban on the level of tobacco-related litter on streets. [265966]
Huw Irranca-Davies: Each year, DEFRA funds ENCAMS to carry out the Local Environment Quality Survey of England. The results for the seventh survey were published in March 2009 and are available on ENCAMS website at:
Smokers’ materials remain by far the most prevalent item, being present on 78 per cent. of all sites visited. The survey records only the incidence—that is to say the percentage of sites—where each type of litter occurs. It does not attempt to record the volume.
It is not possible to infer what effect the smoking ban in public places has had using this figure alone, but it is worth stating that it is the minority of people who choose to drop litter on the ground—not the smoking ban itself—which is responsible for creating litter.
Powers and duties for dealing with litter are provided by part 4 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA 1990), as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 (CNEA 2005). Dropping any smoking-related litter is a littering offence under section 87 of the EPA 1990. A person found guilty of the litter offence may be fined up to level 4 on the standard scale (currently £2,500) in a magistrates court and section 88 of the EPA 1990 allows an authorised officer of a litter authority to issue fixed penalty notices as an alternative to prosecution in the range of £50 to £80 (set locally).
Livestock: Disease Control
Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many cattle were slaughtered owing to irregularities with their passports in each of the last 10 years. [268427]
Jane Kennedy [holding answer 2 April 2009]: The data required to provide the number of cattle slaughtered specifically because of irregularities with their passports in each of the last 10 years are not held in a form that is easily accessible. As the extraction and collation of these data would require a considerable amount of work and incur an unacceptable cost an answer cannot be provided. The data recorded monitor cattle slaughtered owing to the broader category of identification irregularities.
Livestock: Waste Disposal
Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many animals of each species were disposed of through the National Fallen Stock Scheme in each year since the scheme came into force; and how much was received in payments in each case in each of those years. [268142]
Jane Kennedy: The National Fallen Stock Company which runs the National Fallen Stock Scheme does not hold the information by species in the format requested. With regard to the amount of payments, the latest information for the totals spent is as follows:
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