Written questions by Davies.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her Department's answer of 20 October 2025 to Written Question 80401: Pet Travel Scheme, what recent steps she has taken to negotiate a pet passport scheme.

We have begun negotiations with the EU on the SPS agreement. As announced at the UK-EU Leaders' Summit on 19 May 2025, the UK and EU have agreed to work towards a common Sanitary and Phytosanitary Area, which will mean taking pets on holiday into the EU will become easier and cheaper. Instead of getting an animal health certificate each time you travel, owners will be able to get a multiuse pet passport valid for travel to the EU. In the meantime, owners will still need an Animal Health Certificate for their dog, cat or ferret if they are travelling from Great Britain to an EU country.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Government's progress in meeting reforestation targets.

The Government is committed to meeting the Environment Act target to increase woodland cover to at least 16.5% of total land area in England by 2050. In the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025 we have also set the interim target to increase England’s tree canopy and woodland cover by 0.33% of land area by December 2030 from the 2022 baseline of 14.9%, equivalent to a net increase of 43,000 hectares. Tree planting in England is at the highest recorded rate in over 20 years, with over 7,100 hectares planted in 2024/25.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increasing the maximum penalty for dog fouling offences.

The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides the police, local authorities and other local agencies with a range of flexible tools and powers that they can use to respond quickly and effectively to anti-social behaviour. These powers include Public Space Protection Orders which can be used to, among other things, require dog owners to pick up their dog's faeces. Through the Crime and Policing Bill, the Home Office are increasing the upper limit for a fixed penalty notice for breaches of a Public Spaces Protection Order from £100 to £500.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department has taken to reduce fly-tipping and strengthen the power of local authorities to prevent fly-tipping.

We encourage local councils to make good use of their enforcement powers, which include fixed penalty notices of up to £1000, seizing and crushing of vehicles and prosecution action. We are taking steps to develop statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance to support councils to more consistently, appropriately and effectively exercise these existing powers.  We are also conducting a review of council powers to seize and crush vehicles of fly-tippers, to identify how we could help them make better use of this tool. In our manifesto we committed to forcing fly-tippers to clean up the mess that they have created. We will provide further details on this commitment in due course.In the meantime, Defra continues to chair the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group through which we work with a wide range of stakeholders, such as local authorities, National Farmers Union and the Environment Agency, to share good practice on preventing fly-tipping. Various practical tools are available from their webpage: https://nftpg.com/ In addition, under our reforms, waste carriers, brokers, dealers will need to apply for a full environmental permit giving the regulator more powers and resources to ensure compliance, whilst making it easier for householders to identify legitimate waste services.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help increase skills in the agriculture, food and farming sectors.

The Government’s skills white paper sets out our ambition for an employer focussed skills employment system. This means equipping individuals with life and work skills, while ensuring businesses also invest in developing the current future workforce. The Farming Roadmap will set out how farming can evolve in response to changing markets, technologies, and environmental pressures, and how the Government will support this transition.

Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has for mandating digital waste tracking for (a) facilities with an environmental permit from 2026 and (b) for other operators from 2027.

From October 2026, there will be mandatory requirements on permitted or licensed operators, installations and mobile plant that receive waste to create a digital record of waste they receive, and to then enter it onto the Digital Waste Tracking Service. The waste industry involves a large number and complex array of operators. Subject to funding, additional aspects will be added to the service from 2027, drawing from our testing arising from Phase 1 of the service when it becomes available from April 2026. This will allow us to adjust as we move towards a more complete end-to-end waste tracking service.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has allocated funding to expand the digital waste tracking service beyond sites holding an environmental permit.

From October 2026, there will be mandatory requirements on permitted or licensed operators, installations and mobile plant that receive waste to create a digital record of waste they receive, and to then enter it onto the Digital Waste Tracking Service. We recognise that waste can also be received under authorisations that are issued by regulators to ensure compliance, other than licenses or permits, such as registered exemptions. We will consider over the next few months whether there are any specific sectors or categories of operation within this group that can be sensibly included in mandatory requirements to create a digital record and enter it onto the Digital Waste Tracking Service alongside permitted and licenced operators.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department's policy paper entitled Resources and waste strategy for England, published on 18 December 2018, what her planned timetable is for implementing reforms to the carriers', brokers' and dealers' regime.

The Resources and Waste Strategy for England was published under the previous Government. This Government has published a policy paper on gov.uk setting out its plans for reform of the waste Carrier Broker Dealer regime in England https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reforming-the-waste-carrier-broker-and-dealer-system. Work has begun to draft the necessary legislative amendments and will be progressed when parliamentary time allows.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle organised crime in the waste sector.

This Government is committed to tackling waste crime from the fly-tippers who blight our towns and villages to the serious and organised crime groups who are exploiting the waste sector. We have increased the Environment Agency’s budget for waste crime enforcement by over 50% this year to £15.6 million. 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. The Environment Agency hosted Joint Unit for Waste Crime has nearly doubled in size thanks to our extra funding and its UK-wide partnership work with the Environment Agency, HMRC, National Crime Agency, the police and others continues to share intelligence, powers and resources to disrupt waste criminals. HMRC has also consulted on making mandatory tax checks required for waste sector operators to combat hidden economy activity. In addition, the Environment Agency’s Economic Crime Unit was launched in 2024 and targets the financial motivations behind waste crime using asset freezes and proceeds of crime actions.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the capacity of the digital waste tracking service to tackle waste crime.

Waste handled illegally and poor performing waste sites can damage the environment, blight local communities, for example by causing odour and pest issues, undermine legitimate businesses, and is estimated to cost the UK economy one billion pounds per year. Digital waste tracking will connect fragmented systems, providing comprehensive near real time data on the movement of a load of waste from production to disposal. Digitising record keeping will give clearer oversight for regulators, making it easier for waste producers and legitimate waste companies to comply with reporting requirements; and harder for rogue operators to compete in the industry and commit waste crime, from fly tipping to illegal waste sites to illegal waste exports.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps (a) she and (b) her officials are taking to reduce fraud in the (i) Packaging Recovery Note and (ii) Packaging Export Recovery Note systems.

Defra has already introduced a number of measures in the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging. All reprocessors and exporters who handle any packaging waste will now have to register, and to collect and report data on packaging waste received, processed, rejected, and exported. The Regulations will also place additional requirements on accredited reprocessors and exporters, including monthly reporting of packaging waste reprocessed or exported, and monthly data on PRN/PERN prices by material. Exporters will also need to provide proof of receipt at the final overseas destination site to issue a PERN and retain records of recycling of the packaging waste. There will also be a new “Fit and Proper Person” test for operators as part of the accreditation process.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to (a) maintain and (b) promote a plastic recycling industry.

Defra’s Collection and Packaging reforms – Simpler Recycling, Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) and a Deposit Return Scheme - will provide feedstock certainty whilst also stimulating private investment in the recycling industry. Defra is working with His Majesty’s Treasury on Plastic Packaging Tax reform, to further incentivise producers to use recycled plastic, stimulating demand.

Food and Rural Affairs, what progress his Department has made on improving flood resilience and response in England.

In just five months in Government, we have introduced a series of measures to better protect communities from flooding including: Invest £2.4 billion over the next two years to maintain, repair and build flood defences to protect communities across the country.Set up a new Floods Resilience Taskforce bringing together representatives from central and local government, Local Resilience Forums, emergency responders and the National Farmers Union, among others, to discuss how they will speed up and co-ordinate flooding preparation and resilience.Consultation to review the existing funding formula, ensuring the challenges facing businesses and rural and coastal communities are adequately considered.Invested £50 million to Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) to better enable them to manage water levels for agriculture and environmental needs.Supporting farmers impacted by flooding through a £60 million Farming Recovery Fund, which provides grants of up to £25,000 to return their land to the condition it was in before storm damage.

Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding there was for the frequently flooded fund for Telford in each year for which data is available; and what the size of the fund will be in each of the next three years.

This Government is investing £2.4 billion over this year and next year to improve flood resilience by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences. The list of projects to receive government funding will be consented over the coming months in the usual way through Regional Flood and Coastal Committees, with local representation.

Food and Rural Affairs, what the average length of paternity leave taken by staff in his Department was in each of the last three years.

The information requested is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.

Food and Rural Affairs, what recent progress his Department has made with the River Severn Partnership on (a) reducing flooding and (b) protecting (i) homes and (ii) businesses from flood risk.

The Environment Agency is working with partners in the River Severn Partnership (RSP) including local authorities, water companies, Natural Resources Wales (NRW), Natural England and environmental organisations on a long-term, whole-catchment scale view of planning for the future in response to climate change: Severn 2100+. Under Severn2100+ work, the partnership is developing a Climate Resilience Strategy including an options appraisal of the flood risk adaptation actions needed in the River Severn catchment. The work includes an ‘Adaptation Pathways Plan’ to help the Environment Agency understand how to sequence those actions, who can help and when. As a pathfinder, the Environment Agency is working with partners on the Severn Valley Water Management Scheme to examine how a suite of flood risk interventions in the upper catchment of the River Severn can reduce flood risk. These long-term plans will help the RSP play a key role in bringing forward initiatives to reduce flood risk and improve the water environment whilst supporting economic growth in the area. A demonstrator programme is underway delivering a series of 8 projects to test concepts and ideas that will support the future roll-out of the Severn Valley Water Management Scheme. The partnership will be engaging with honourable members in the partnership area to update them soon. The Defra sponsored capital programme endorsed by the English Severn and Wye RFCC continues to reduce flood risk to properties throughout the Severn Catchment in England.