Tag: Huw Irranca-Davies

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Huw Irranca-Davies on 2014-03-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reason the rules governing the provision of books to prisoners have recently been changed.

Jeremy Wright

Up to 12 books may be held by prisoners in their cell at any one time. Prisoners may have additional books stored locally at the prison. Every prison has a library, to which every prisoner has access.

Ministers have not made any policy changes specifically about the availability of books in prisons. The changes to the Incentives and Earned Privileges national policy framework we introduced last year in relation to parcels were introduced to ensure consistency across the estate and to make sure that security can be maintained. There have always been controls on the sending of parcels into prisons, and allowing parcels to be sent in unrestricted would be operationally unmanageable and would lead to a significant risk of drugs and other illicit items being smuggled into prisons.

The National Offender Management Service works closely with the Shannon Trust to support schemes such as ‘Toe by Toe’, which includes peer mentoring to improve reading levels.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Huw Irranca-Davies on 2014-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether changes in the number of puppies and dogs imported from EU member states since January 2012 are consistent with AHLVA risk assessment in 2010.

George Eustice

The quantitative risk assessment carried out prior to harmonisation with the EU pet travel rules in 2012 took into account, amongst other things, a number of variables including increases in the number of pets entering the UK. The risk assessment was published in 2011 and is available here:

http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/rabies/documents/se0535-rabies-qra.pdf

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Huw Irranca-Davies on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the food industry about its compliance with food-related legislation.

George Eustice

My Right Honourable Friend the Secretary of State and I meet regularly with food industry trade associations and with individual food businesses to discuss a wide range of current policy issues. This often includes proposals for changes in food-related legislation and food industry practices, to ensure legislation is fit-for-purpose and regulation is risk-based. Compliance with existing food-related legislation is something the Government expects from all food businesses. Primary responsibility for enforcing compliance with food-related legislation rests with local authority environmental health and trading standards departments, overseen by the Food Standards Agency.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Huw Irranca-Davies on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will assess the desirability of separating responsibility for food safety policy and responsibility for food standards policy in England between the Food Standards Agency and his Department.

George Eustice

The Food Standards Authority is responsible for food safety and food hygiene across the UK, and for food law enforcement. Their strategic objective is safer food for the nation in order to protect the consumer.

Defra is responsible for non-safety related food compositional standards and labelling policy in England. Most of these standards are set under EU legislation considered by EU Agriculture Council and there are synergies with the equivalent standards set through the Common Agricultural Policy. The underlying reason for regulating in these areas is to set internationally recognised standards to facilitate trade and ensure a level playing field for food businesses, whilst protecting consumers against product misdescription. Food composition and standards policy is not generally related to food safety.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Huw Irranca-Davies on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to his statement of 3 April 2014, Official Report, columns 1034-7, on bovine TB, what the evidential basis is for the statement that about a third of badgers in TB hotspot areas are infected with TB.

George Eustice

The prevalence of M. bovis in badgers based on post-mortems and a subsequent analysis of the post-mortem protocol following the Randomised Badger Culling Trail (RBCT) showed prevalence of around 33%.

In the long-running study of badgers at Woodchester park TB prevalence in badgers has increased to over 30%.[1]

In a separate study in Gloucestershire between 35% and 53% of badgers tested positive to a TB test. [2]

[1]Delahay et al. Epidemiol. Infect. (2013), 141, 1445–1456. Long-term temporal trends and estimated transmission rates for Mycobacterium bovis infection in an undisturbed high-density badger (Meles meles) population

[2]Carter SP, et al. (2012) PLoS ONE 7(12): e49833. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049833 BCG Vaccination Reduces Risk of Tuberculosis Infection in Vaccinated Badgers and Unvaccinated Badger Cubs.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Huw Irranca-Davies on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of consumer confidence in the authenticity of British food.

George Eustice

Defra has not recently carried out its own assessment of consumer confidence in the authenticity of British food. However in 2013 consumer research carried out by both IGD and Mintel showed an increase in consumer trust in British food.

The IGD ShopperVista survey carried out in March 2013 found that shoppers are now nearly one and a half times more likely to buy British food than they were six years ago, with younger shoppers and families driving this growth. The Mintel report on Consumer Trust in Food, published in June 2013, found that the factor most encouraging consumer trust in food was the use of British ingredients (48%), with product origin on packaging also seen as a key factor (43%).

The Government is committed to clear and consistent labelling to help consumers make informed decisions about the food that they buy. On 13 December 2013, the European Commission adopted an Implementing Regulation setting out the detailed rules for mandatory country of origin labelling for fresh and frozen, unprocessed, pre-packed pork, poultry, sheep and goat meat. The rules come into force on 1 April 2015. Defra is reviewing with the UK food industry the current industry principles for meat labelled as ‘British’, with a view to re-launching and reinforcing them alongside the new European mandatory labelling requirement.