Tag: Angela Smith

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 12 October 2015 to Question 10625, which organisations the Government has met to discuss amendments to the Hunting Act 2004.

Rory Stewart

Details of Ministers’ meetings with external organisations are published up to 31 March 2015 and can be accessed on GOV.UK at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-quarterly-transparency-information-january-to-march-2015

Further publications of Ministerial meetings will be published in due course.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to evaluate the effectiveness of the Soil Protection Review form in reducing soil erosion.

George Eustice

Defra commissioned research, published in 2012, to evaluate the implementation of the Soil Protection Review (SPR). The research took the form of a telephone survey of 800 claimants, with 30 in-depth interviews across a sample of farms by region, farm type and size.

Following recommendations by the Farming Regulation Task force, a review of the SPR was conducted. In January 2015, new national standards for agricultural soils under cross compliance were introduced. These rules require farmers in receipt of payments under CAP to prevent soil erosion, to maintain soil cover and to protect the level of organic matter in their soils.

The Government will continue to monitor the implementation of the new rules.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department provides for farmers on reducing soil erosion on their land.

George Eustice

The Government published Cross Compliance in England: soil protection standards 2015 in January 2015. The guidance provides advice on how to identify soil erosion and on how to minimise erosion from cropping practices, livestock and vehicles.

Farmers can access advice from the Farming Advice Service (FAS). The FAS is a service funded by Defra to help farmers understand and meet the requirements of Cross Compliance and other regimes, including the European Directives on water protection.

Farmers can also seek advice under the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) project, which is run by Natural England in partnership with the Environment Agency and Defra. CSF raises awareness of diffuse water pollution from agriculture by giving free training and advice to farmers in priority catchments.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions her Department has had with the (a) police, (b) Crown Prosecution Service and (c) Law Commission on the draft Hunting Act 2004 (Exempt Hunting) (Amendment) Order 2015.

Rory Stewart

The Government has received representations from a wide range of interested parties both for and against any repeal or amendment to the Hunting Act 2004.

The measures proposed in the draft Hunting Act 2004 (Amendment) Order 2015 would not remove the ban on hunting. Given this we judged that more consultation would not have been likely to add to the information available to us.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to bring forward further amendments to the Hunting Act 2004.

Rory Stewart

The Government stands by its manifesto commitment to give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act on a free vote, with a Government Bill in Government time.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reason the Government withdrew the draft Hunting Act 2004 (Exempt Hunting) (Amendment) Order 2015.

Rory Stewart

While the debate on the Statutory Instrument did not take place, the Government has not withdrawn the Draft Hunting Act 2004 (Amendment) Order 2015.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-09-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions her Department had with the Scottish Government on the Protection of Wild Mammals Act (Scotland) 2002 prior to tabling the draft Hunting Act 2004 (Exempt Hunting) (Amendment) Order 2015.

Rory Stewart

The Government has received representations from a wide range of interested parties both for and against any repeal or amendment to the Hunting Act 2004.

The measures proposed in the draft Hunting Act 2004 (Amendment) Order 2015 would not remove the ban on hunting. Given this we judged that more consultation would not have been likely to add to the information available to us.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recorded number of sea bass was discarded in the (a) Irish and (b) Celtic Sea by UK registered vessels in each of the last five years.

George Eustice

Under long standing Irish national measures to protect bass stocks their commercial fishing vessels are not permitted to land bass for sale, which means a degree of discarding of bass by-catch from mixed fishing activity will occur. We have no data available to us, however, on the level of such discards by Irish vessels.

For UK vessels we have discard estimates for the last five years combined for the Irish and Celtic Seas. These relate to otter trawlers, netters and beam trawlers, based on the numbers of sampled trips (see table (b)). We do not sample hook and line boats although these report a sizeable fraction of bass landings in these areas, as survival rates for discarded bass from commercial rod-and line or hand-line boats (under 10 metre inshore vessels) are considered potentially relatively high.

(a) Numbers (thousands) and weight (tonnes) landed and discarded for sampled fleets (otter, nets, beam) in Irish and Celtic Seas, raised to fleet landings for each gear, based on at-sea observer sampling by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas).

Number ‘000s	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	Mean
Landed	48	36	29	39	30	36
Discarded	8	9	10	10	4	8
% discarded	14	20	25	21	11	18
Tonnes	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	Mean
Landed	107	58	71	94	80	82
Discarded	3	3	4	6	2	3
% discarded	3	5	5	6	2	4

(b) Number of trips sampled, Irish and Celtic Seas

No. trips sampled	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	Total
Beam trawls	1		1			2
Netters	4	4	16	12	10	46
Otter trawls	23	20	21	21	12	97
Grand Total	28	24	38	33	22	145

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recorded number of sea bass were discarded in the (a) Irish and (b) Celtic Sea by Irish vessels in each of the last five years.

George Eustice

Under long standing Irish national measures to protect bass stocks their commercial fishing vessels are not permitted to land bass for sale, which means a degree of discarding of bass by-catch from mixed fishing activity will occur. We have no data available to us, however, on the level of such discards by Irish vessels.

For UK vessels we have discard estimates for the last five years combined for the Irish and Celtic Seas. These relate to otter trawlers, netters and beam trawlers, based on the numbers of sampled trips (see table (b)). We do not sample hook and line boats although these report a sizeable fraction of bass landings in these areas, as survival rates for discarded bass from commercial rod-and line or hand-line boats (under 10 metre inshore vessels) are considered potentially relatively high.

(a) Numbers (thousands) and weight (tonnes) landed and discarded for sampled fleets (otter, nets, beam) in Irish and Celtic Seas, raised to fleet landings for each gear, based on at-sea observer sampling by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas).

Number ‘000s	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	Mean
Landed	48	36	29	39	30	36
Discarded	8	9	10	10	4	8
% discarded	14	20	25	21	11	18
Tonnes	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	Mean
Landed	107	58	71	94	80	82
Discarded	3	3	4	6	2	3
% discarded	3	5	5	6	2	4

(b) Number of trips sampled, Irish and Celtic Seas

No. trips sampled	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	Total
Beam trawls	1		1			2
Netters	4	4	16	12	10	46
Otter trawls	23	20	21	21	12	97
Grand Total	28	24	38	33	22	145

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what level of fishing mortality reduction her Department considers sufficient for the conservation and recovery of sea bass stocks.

George Eustice

The advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) in 2014 was that fishing mortality for sea bass should be reduced by 61%. Measures currently under discussion for introduction this year need to make substantial progress towards this objective.