Written questions by Snowden.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that young people can access the countryside.

We are currently providing £4.45 million funding to deliver a second phase of Generation Green, to help more disadvantaged children and young people experience the benefits of the great outdoors. This builds on the legacy of the successful first phase of the Generation Green programme. Although this funding will end at the end of March 2025, we will continue to seek opportunities to help young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, access the countryside. The DfE Sustainability and Climate Change Unit and the Defra Access to Nature teams are working collaboratively to align policy development on access to nature and opportunities for children and young people to engage with nature, alongside enhancing education and skills. Together we want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to experience and learn about nature, in order to behave responsively, protect and enhance it, whilst also supporting building important skills.

Food and Rural Affairs, what support his Department offers to household waste recovery firms in Fylde constituency.

We take household waste recovery firms to mean private waste collectors. We are working to support private waste collectors in England ahead of the upcoming Simpler Recycling reforms, which will ensure that across England, people will be able to recycle the same materials, whether at home, work or school. Guidance has been published to assist local authorities, other waste collectors and workplaces in implementing the new requirements: Paper and card guidanceHousehold waste services guidanceWorkplace recycling guidance Defra has launched a Simpler Recycling Communications Toolkit to help local authorities and private waste collectors inform their business and non-domestic customers about the required changes. We are continuing to engage with stakeholders to support successful delivery of the reforms, in the lead up and following the 31 March 2025 implementation date for workplaces, and 31 March 2026 for households.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 4 February 2025 to Question 26765 on Soil: Conservation, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of thresholds for the Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier; and what plans his Department has to review schemes to ensure they can be accessed by small family farms.

The Government continues to roll out ELM schemes, including Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), to support farmers in actions including improving soil health and supporting flood and drought resilience. CSHT is in its pre-application phase with applications opening in summer, and the SFI is open for applications. There is no size or income threshold below which a farm would not be eligible to apply for either scheme. For SFI, the requirement that farmers must have been eligible for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in either 2022 or 2023 no longer applies to the expanded SFI offer. This means that groups that were not eligible for BPS are now eligible to apply for the expanded SFI offer. This includes groups such as new entrants, non-farming land managers and smallholders. For CSHT, farmers, foresters or land managers wishing to apply must have management control of the land they want to enter into CSHT actions for the duration of those actions, and cannot be paid twice for the same activity included in other agreements. We have published information that sets out what you can do now to prepare to apply for CSHT. We will publish more details on the timing and approach to widening applications further in 2025. We will also provide more details in February about how other farm and land managers who are not initially invited, but who are interested in applying for CSHT, can contact RPA.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 4 February 2025 to Question 26765 on Soil: Conservation, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of thresholds for Sustainable Farming Incentive schemes; and what plans his Department has to review those thresholds to ensure they can be accessed by small family farms.

The Government continues to roll out ELM schemes, including Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), to support farmers in actions including improving soil health and supporting flood and drought resilience. CSHT is in its pre-application phase with applications opening in summer, and the SFI is open for applications. There is no size or income threshold below which a farm would not be eligible to apply for either scheme. For SFI, the requirement that farmers must have been eligible for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in either 2022 or 2023 no longer applies to the expanded SFI offer. This means that groups that were not eligible for BPS are now eligible to apply for the expanded SFI offer. This includes groups such as new entrants, non-farming land managers and smallholders. For CSHT, farmers, foresters or land managers wishing to apply must have management control of the land they want to enter into CSHT actions for the duration of those actions, and cannot be paid twice for the same activity included in other agreements. We have published information that sets out what you can do now to prepare to apply for CSHT. We will publish more details on the timing and approach to widening applications further in 2025. We will also provide more details in February about how other farm and land managers who are not initially invited, but who are interested in applying for CSHT, can contact RPA.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 4 February 2025 to Question 26765 on Soil: Conservation, what steps he is taking to ensure that family farms below the threshold required to access (a) Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and (b) Sustainable Farming Incentive schemes are able to receive support to prevent soil degradation on agricultural land impacted by repeated flooding.

The Government continues to roll out ELM schemes, including Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), to support farmers in actions including improving soil health and supporting flood and drought resilience. CSHT is in its pre-application phase with applications opening in summer, and the SFI is open for applications. There is no size or income threshold below which a farm would not be eligible to apply for either scheme. For SFI, the requirement that farmers must have been eligible for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in either 2022 or 2023 no longer applies to the expanded SFI offer. This means that groups that were not eligible for BPS are now eligible to apply for the expanded SFI offer. This includes groups such as new entrants, non-farming land managers and smallholders. For CSHT, farmers, foresters or land managers wishing to apply must have management control of the land they want to enter into CSHT actions for the duration of those actions, and cannot be paid twice for the same activity included in other agreements. We have published information that sets out what you can do now to prepare to apply for CSHT. We will publish more details on the timing and approach to widening applications further in 2025. We will also provide more details in February about how other farm and land managers who are not initially invited, but who are interested in applying for CSHT, can contact RPA.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to bring forward legislation on sustainable drainage systems.

The Government is strongly committed to requiring standardised Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) in new developments. These should be to designs that cope with changing climatic conditions as well as delivering wider water infrastructure benefits, reduce run off and help to improve water quality, amenity and biodiversity. It is also important to ensure appropriate adoption and maintenance arrangements are in place. We believe that these outcomes can be achieved through either improving the current planning led approach using powers now available or commencing Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. A final decision on the way forward will be made in the coming months. We have made some immediate changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to support increasing SuDS. The NPPF now requires all development to utilize SuDS where they could have drainage impacts. These systems should be appropriate to the nature and scale of the proposed development. We will review the planning system holistically and consider whether further changes are required to address SuDS when we consult on further planning reform, including national policy related to decision making, in 2025.

Food and Rural Affairs, what support is available from his Department to set up a new Internal Drainage Board for the Fylde coast.

Internal Drainage Boards (IDB) are local independent statutory public bodies, mainly funded by the beneficiaries of their work; this includes farmers who pay drainage rates and local authorities that pay special levies. Determining where new IDBs should be created is a matter of local choice, and the Government will only consider proposals where there is clear local support, including from local authorities and farmers. Defra is addressing the current barrier to establishing new IDBs and expanding existing ones. Changes were made to the Land Drainage Act 1991, via the Environment Act 2021, enabling new IDBs to be created and existing IDBs to expand their boundaries. Defra will bring forward the necessary statutory instrument when Parliamentary time allows.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help prevent soil degradation on agricultural land impacted by repeated flooding.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive provides payments for several actions to improve soil health, including herbal leys and multi-species cover crops. Healthy soils have improved resilience to extreme weather and will recover faster from flood events. Sustainable Farming Incentive actions can also be used to slow down the flow of water within catchments, helping to mitigate wider catchment flood risk. We have also recently announced a significant expansion of the flood and drought resilience offer within Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier with new actions to store water, which can be used to protect agricultural land from flooding.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December 2024 to Question 16313 on Domestic Waste: Waste Disposal, what steps he is taking to raise public awareness of the role of householders in forthcom

It is our intention to provide transitional resource funding for the 2024/25 financial year as soon as possible. Subject to agreement, Defra plans to fund communications to support participation by householders in new food waste collections.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December 2024 to Question 16313 on Domestic Waste: Waste Disposal, what support is available to borough councils to meet their obligation to provide food w

In February of this year, we provided £258m of capital funding to waste collection authorities to help with the purchasing of bins and vehicles. It is our intention to provide transitional resource funding for the 2024/25 early in the new year and funding...

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December 2024 to Question 16313 on Domestic Waste: Waste Disposal, what his planned timetable is for Government to issue payments to local councils to procu

Waste collection authorities received their capital new burdens funding allocations for providing household food waste collections in February this year and will receive transitional resource allocations for the 24/25 financial year in early 2025. We aim ...

Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department will require councils to collect household and food waste separately by March 2026.

Under Simpler Recycling, by 31 March 2026 local authorities in England will be required to provide weekly food waste collections to all households.

Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Government's net zero policies on food supply from British producers.

This Government is committed to delivering net zero by 2050, while ensuring that the transition to more climate friendly practices goes hand in hand with food security and farm productivity from British producers. We will work with farmers to support econ...

Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding his Department plans to provide for flood defences in Fylde constituency in the 2025-26 financial year.

Across England, we will invest £2.4 billion over the next two years to improve flood resilience, by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences. The list of projects to receive Government funding in 2025/26 will be consented over the coming months ...