Written questions by Gordon.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of cormorant predation on fish stocks and biodiversity.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided relates to England only. While the Government recognises the impact that cormorants can have on native fish stocks, it has not made a recent formal assessment of cormorant predation on them or wider biodiversity. Many factors are responsible for suppressing fish stock recovery, including climate change effects, poor water quality, altered hydrology and physical habitat modification or degradation. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 provides licensing functions to permit the control of cormorants to protect fisheries where it can be shown that non-lethal measures are failing to manage predation. Licences are issued by Natural England, which has responsibility for setting a prudent upper limit on cormorant control to ensure that licensed removal does not irreversibly affect their conservation status.

Food and Rural Affairs, how many additional surveillance sites are being introduced under the Vector-Borne RADAR programme following the detection of West Nile Virus fragments.

The Vector-Borne RADAR programme includes a project run by UKHSA’s Medical Entomology and Zoonoses Ecology team undertaking country-wide surveillance for mosquitos in 2025. Pools of any female mosquitos collected will be tested for several potential mosquito-vectored viruses. The sites being surveilled are suitable mosquito breeding sites. In 2024, mosquito traps were successfully deployed in almost all 50 km2 grids across England, collecting nearly 1,000 individuals across 71 sites.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of climate change on the range of mosquito-borne diseases in the UK.

Defra funds, with UKRI, a large research consortium looking at the effects of climate change on mosquito-borne diseases in the UK. This programme includes the Vector-Borne disease RADAR programme, but there are other equally important vector borne diseases we also accept will be impacted by changes in our climate. Risk assessments undertaken by the Human Animal Infections and Risk Surveillance group, for mosquito-borne diseases consider the likely changes with climate change.

Food and Rural Affairs, how many incidents of flooding have been reported in (a) Harrogate and Knaresborough constituency and (b) North Yorkshire in the last 12 months.

The Government inherited flood assets in their worst condition on record following years of underinvestment by the previous Government – 92.1% of the Environment Agency’s 38,000 high consequence assets are currently at required condition Lead Local Flood Authorities undertake formal investigations after significant floods and produce Section 19 reports, which include the number of properties affected. Not all floods require a Section 19 investigation. Criteria for investigation include the number of properties internally flooded, nature of flooding, frequency of flooding, and critical infrastructure affected. Over the last year, there have been three periods when areas of North Yorkshire have experienced significant or prolonged flooding, including one in Harrogate and Knaresborough constituency. North Yorkshire Council has 125 recorded reports of flooding since January 2024, over 50 of those in Knaresborough. Knaresborough experienced significant surface water flooding in May 2024, with over 50 homes and businesses affected. Last winter, York and parts of North Yorkshire were affected by continued high river levels following prolonged wet weather and storms. Although widespread flooding was largely avoided, lower lying areas and communities were impacted. Storm Darragh recently affected communities in Derwent and Rye catchments in North Yorkshire, with 30-40 properties flooded. Villages such as Kirkby Mills, Kirkbymoorside and Marton were affected.