Written questions by McMurdock.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, what steps her Department is taking to monitor the delivery of proposed environmental benefits from the Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme.

All recipients of OCEAN Grants are required to agree outcomes and to monitor and report on progress including of proposed environmental benefits, throughout the grant lifecycle. During the application phase, proposed outcomes and the indicators used to measure progress are agreed and assessed by an external Expert Committee. An independent evaluation of the programme is planned and will provide further evidence on progress towards agreed outcomes and overall impact.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, what outcome measures her Department will use to assess the impact of projects funded under the Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme.

All recipients of OCEAN Grants are required to agree outcomes and to monitor and report on progress including of proposed environmental benefits, throughout the grant lifecycle. During the application phase, proposed outcomes and the indicators used to measure progress are agreed and assessed by an external Expert Committee. An independent evaluation of the programme is planned and will provide further evidence on progress towards agreed outcomes and overall impact.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, what proportion of OCEAN grant funding is provided as direct financial support to community organisations.

Through Round One and Two, approximately 20% (£4,905,878) of OCEAN Grants Programme funding is expected to be provided in direct financial support to local NGOs, Civil Society Organisations and other in-country non-profit organisations working closely with communities.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, if she will set out how her Department evaluates whether Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme-funded projects are inclusive of (a) marginalised and (b) indigenous communities.

The OCEAN Grants Programme has been designed to ensure that Gender equality, disability and social inclusion (GEDSI) is at its heart. OCEAN's approach goes beyond gender equality alone to include disability and wider social inclusion, explicitly covering marginalised groups and Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). All applications are assessed for social inclusivity by an external Expert Committee and GEDSI specialist and must ensure equitable access, active participation, and appropriate roles in decision-making, with safeguards to prevent intentional or unintentional harm. Projects are monitored and evaluated during delivery to track progress and embed learning. In Round Two, 54% of successful projects explicitly target IPLCs and/or other ethnic or religious minority groups and 100% of successful projects are expected to work with marginalised communities.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, if she will list the criteria that assess whether projects under the Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme benefit women and girls.

All applications to the OCEAN Grants Programme are assessed against publicly available Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) assessment criteria. This assessment is conducted by an external Expert Committee and a GEDSI specialist to ensure applications demonstrate how they will mainstream GEDSI through the project lifecycle. Progress is routinely monitored. In Round Two, 100% of projects were identified as mainstreaming GEDSI and designed to explicitly benefit women and girls. Approximately 30% of projects are led by a woman Project Leader, and one project is led by a women’s-rights, women-led organisation in Bangladesh.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, what proportion of the £14 million OCEAN funding will be spent in each recipient country.

OCEAN Round 2 projects remain subject to final due diligence. The finalised list of projects, along with the countries in which OCEAN works, will be made available on the OCEAN website in due course.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, what Department's budget the £14 million OCEAN Grants Programme funding will be drawn from.

The following projects have been funded under Round Two of the OCEAN Grants Programme. Funding comes from Defra’s Official Development Assistance budget and is projected to be spent between January 2026 and March 2029. The Round Two projects with signed grant agreements have been awarded the following amounts: Empowering traditional micro-retailers as refill stations to reduce plastic pollution, Indonesia: £93,155Eco Kolek, The Philippines: £249,973Solar-Powered Coastal Recycling Hubs: Transforming Plastic Waste into Construction Materials, The Philippines: £93,632Climate-smart initiatives for sustainable Coastal youth and women livelihoods, Tanzania: £95,000Iluminar el Mar, Ecuador: Reducing bycatch in Ecuador's Artisanal Gillnet Fishery: £150,000Empowering Coastal Communities Towards Inclusive Management of Ghana’s First MPA, Ghana: £250,000Mangrove restoration empowering women fisherfolks cooperatives in Sundarbans, Bangladesh: £243,073Blue Hispaniola: Protecting Coastal Ecosystems of the Northern Haitian-Dominican Corridor, Haiti and Dominican Republic: £2,999,192Scaling Community-based Resource Management through GEDSI-Empowering Information, Learning and Action, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea: £2,989,340 A final list of projects will be available on the OCEAN website in due course.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, whether funding awarded for LED lighting on fishing nets will provide research applicable to fishing in UK waters.

The funding awarded for the ‘Illuminar el Mar’ project in Ecuador through the UK’s OCEAN Grants Programme will support research applicable to fishing in UK waters. In partnership with University College London, the project will use low-cost LED bycatch-reduction technology that operates through visual deterrence. The research is designed to support global replication and will be made open access.

Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of continued peat extraction for horticulture on (a) carbon emissions, (b) biodiversity loss, (c) flood risk and (d) water quality.

Defra keeps the impacts of peat extraction for horticulture under review as part of its peatland evidence programme. Peat extraction in England is estimated to take place over approximately 384 hectares, with associated greenhouse gas emissions estimated to be less than 0.05 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, based on 2023 data. This figure may be an overestimate due to the potential misclassification of some historic extraction sites. The department recognises that continued peat extraction can damage peatland habitats and disrupt hydrology, with impacts on biodiversity, water quality and flood regulation, and can adversely affect peatland‑dependent species, including endangered plants, invertebrates and bird species, primarily through habitat loss and drying of peat soils. Ending harmful peat extraction, alongside the planned peat restoration programme, contributes to the peatland targets set out in the latest revision of the Environmental Improvement Plan.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, whether her Department will measure the environmental impact of solar-powered recycling hubs funded under the Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme.

All recipients of Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants must agree outcomes and monitor and report on progress towards them throughout the grant lifecycle. During the application phase, proposed outcomes and the indicators used to measure progress are agreed. These are assessed by an external Expert Committee, which also considers any potential adverse environmental impacts and their corresponding risk mitigations.An independent evaluation is planned for the programme and will provide further evidence on progress towards agreed outcomes and impact. This process will form the basis for assessing the environmental impact of projects, including the solar‑powered recycling hubs funded under the programme.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, what assessment she has made of the long-term financial sustainability of recycling projects funded under the Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme.

The Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme assesses long‑term financial sustainability as part of its highly competitive two‑stage application process. Applicants must set out their methodology, the evidence base for their approach, how the project will be sustained over the long term, including financially, and a clear pathway to delivering outcomes. Applications are assessed at both stages by a panel of experts against published criteria, including financial sustainability and only applicants assessed as having high long‑term financial sustainability are successful.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, what assessment her Department has made of the potential benefits of funding overseas marine conservation through the Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme on UK taxpayers.

Marine conservation delivers a wide range of benefits. These include reducing global biodiversity loss and preventing ecosystem collapse, systems that are vital for global security and economic growth in the UK and in developing countries. Some of the world’s most biodiverse and vulnerable coastal ecosystems and communities are in developing countries. The National Security Assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and national security, published in January, highlights how environmental degradation can disrupt food, water, health, and supply chains, and can trigger wider geopolitical instability. These impacts pose significant threats to UK national security and long‑term prosperity.

Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps she has taken to protect peatland habitats.

As set out in Natural England’s evidence review NEER155, protecting and restoring blanket bog supports natural water regulation by increasing water storage, slowing runoff and sustaining baseflows, contributing to improved flood resilience and helping to mitigate drought impacts during prolonged dry periods. In September 2025, we strengthened protections for upland peat by amending the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021 to further restrict unnecessary burning on upland deep peat, supporting climate, water resilience and biodiversity objectives.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled UK leads global efforts to help communities save the ocean and beat poverty, published on 26 January 2026, whether her Department has agreed outcomes with Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants Programme recipients.

All recipients of Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature Grants must agree outcomes and monitor and report on progress towards them throughout the grant lifecycle. During the application phase, proposed outcomes and the indicators used to measure progress are agreed. These are assessed by an external Expert Committee, which also considers any potential adverse environmental impacts and their corresponding risk mitigations.An independent evaluation is planned for the programme and will provide further evidence on progress towards agreed outcomes and impact. This process will form the basis for assessing the environmental impact of projects, including the solar‑powered recycling hubs funded under the programme.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of peat extraction on (a) endangered (i) plants, (ii) invertebrates and (iii) and bird species and (b) other peatland-dependent species.

Defra keeps the impacts of peat extraction for horticulture under review as part of its peatland evidence programme. Peat extraction in England is estimated to take place over approximately 384 hectares, with associated greenhouse gas emissions estimated to be less than 0.05 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, based on 2023 data. This figure may be an overestimate due to the potential misclassification of some historic extraction sites. The department recognises that continued peat extraction can damage peatland habitats and disrupt hydrology, with impacts on biodiversity, water quality and flood regulation, and can adversely affect peatland‑dependent species, including endangered plants, invertebrates and bird species, primarily through habitat loss and drying of peat soils. Ending harmful peat extraction, alongside the planned peat restoration programme, contributes to the peatland targets set out in the latest revision of the Environmental Improvement Plan.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of peatland protection on (a) flood resilience and (b) drought mitigation.

As set out in Natural England’s evidence review NEER155, protecting and restoring blanket bog supports natural water regulation by increasing water storage, slowing runoff and sustaining baseflows, contributing to improved flood resilience and helping to mitigate drought impacts during prolonged dry periods. In September 2025, we strengthened protections for upland peat by amending the Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021 to further restrict unnecessary burning on upland deep peat, supporting climate, water resilience and biodiversity objectives.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled Government unveils biggest overhaul to water in a generation, published on 19 January 2026, what powers the new Water Ombudsman will have to require compensation payments to customers following service failures.

All customers of water and sewerage companies are entitled to guaranteed minimum standards of service, as set out by Government. These rights are known as the Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS). Where a company fails to meet any of the standards, it is already required to make a specified payment to the affected household or business customer. However, to rebuild consumer trust in the sector, it is vital customers have assurance their complaints will be resolved. We will establish an independent, impartial and accredited Ombudsman which is approved and overseen by the regulator, in line with approaches used in other sectors. This will guarantee protections for customers by ensuring they can access legally binding resolutions when a water company has failed to resolve a customer complaint. Government has committed to publish a Transition Plan this year to lead the water sector through transformative reforms such as the new Water Ombudsman.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled Government unveils biggest overhaul to water in a generation, published on 19 January 2026, how her Department plans to monitor and report progress on private sector investment over the next five years.

Before 2029, the water industry will deliver a water infrastructure upgrade programme worth £104 billion. Upgrades will include 10 million new smart meters, progressing 9 new reservoirs, and delivering 3,000 storm overflow projects. This will require the highest level of private sector investment in the water sector since privatisation. The investment programme will drive economic growth, create jobs, and enable thousands of new homes. Ofwat, the independent economic regulator, monitors and reports on water company spending and financing through its annual performance report and its monitoring and financial resilience report. These documents are publicly available. The Government has set out its new vision for water through a White Paper published on 20 January 2026. The White Paper sets out once in a generation reforms that will transform the water system for good, with a renewed focus on securing a fair deal for customers, investors, and the environment, to rebuild trust and secure a water system that works for everyone.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her Department’s press release entitled Government unveils biggest overhaul to water in a generation, published on 19 January 2026, when she anticipates the new Water Ombudsman will become operational.

To rebuild consumer trust in the water sector, it is vital customers have assurance their complaints will be resolved. The Government will therefore establish an independent, impartial and accredited Ombudsman which is approved and overseen by the regulator, in line with approaches used in other sectors. We will establish the Ombudsman at the earliest opportunity. The Government will publish a Transition Plan later this year, setting out a roadmap to guide the sector from today’s system to the future model.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her Department’s press release entitled Government unveils biggest overhaul to water in a generation, published on 19 January 2026, what estimate her Department has made of the proportion of households experiencing water disruption each year which will be resolved as a result of her Water White Paper, once implemented.

The Government’s New Vision for Water sets out our plans to being forward measures specifically designed to improve the resilience of our water infrastructure and minimise disruption for customers. This includes providing the new, integrated water regulator with powers to conduct ‘no-notice’ inspections to bolster enforcement of the Security and Emergency Measures Direction which requires water companies to be prepared to respond to disruption to water supplies in the first place. In addition, a new Chief Engineer will be embedded in the new regulator to oversee company behaviour, and guide companies to focus on fixing crumbling pipes and treatment works, as part of stronger, prevention-first measures to mitigate future disruption. Where disruption occurs, the Government has already taken action to update the Guaranteed Standards Scheme, doubling – or more than doubling – compensation levels and adding new standards, to hold companies to account and stand up for customers.