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Fisheries: Monitoring | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The proportion of fishing trips undertaken by UK vessels using remote electronic monitoring (REM) equipment was less than one percent of the total fishing trips undertaken by UK vessels in each of the last three years from 2014 to 2016. The type of vessel using REM equipment were large capacity vessels, fishing off shore for fish stocks that were subject to quotas. In 2016 nearly 40 percent of UK landings of North Sea cod were made by vessels fully documenting their catch using REM equipment.
Fisheries: Monitoring | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Details of planned UK observer trips are set out in United Kingdom’s Work Plan for data collection in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors. The Work Plan can be found at the Gov.UK website. In England and Wales, 525 staff days per year are allocated to observer sampling with 1032 days for Scotland and 460 days for Northern Ireland.
Fisheries: Treaties | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Ministers and officials have had meetings with a number of organisations to discuss a range of issues associated with EU exit including the 1964 London Fisheries Convention. As the Prime Minister told Parliament on 29 March, we hope to be able to say something about this soon.
Fisheries: Treaties | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
We are looking very carefully at the London Fisheries Convention. As the Prime Minister told the House on 29 March, we hope to be able to say something about this soon.
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
In accordance with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, following EU exit, the UK will be responsible for managing living resources, including fisheries, within its territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone.
Agriculture: Wales | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The Secretary of State has met the Welsh Minister for Agriculture on several occasions as we seek to ensure we get the best possible deal for the whole of the UK. We have committed to carefully considering any proposals that the devolved administrations put forward. Discussions on the issues are ongoing.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Security | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Civil Servants have to ability to work flexibly across government sites where there is a business need to do so. The issuing of all passes is controlled by the local Departmental Security teams who follow strict procedures and protocols. Information on the number of people holding security passes for other government departments who are granted access to Defra premises is not centrally recorded.
Defra has issued 7501 passes since 2011. Data for 2010 is no longer held.
Defra is currently unable to provide data on the number of Defra passes that are active.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Staff | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
This information is available in the ONS Public Sector Employment Statistics last published on 15 March 2017:
Angling: Licensing | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
There have been the following number of prosecutions for fishing without a valid rod licence in each of the last five years:
Year
Number of prosecutions
2012
2,168
2013
1,880
2014
2,268
2015
1,798
2016
2,088
All of the above figures are from between 1st January and 31st December.
Angling: Licensing | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The Government has no plans to abolish the fishing rod licence. The income from the rod licence fee allows the Environment Agency to provide its fisheries service to rod licence holders.
Angling: Licensing | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The table below shows the Environment Agency sales figures of rod licences in each of the past five years:
Year
Rod licence sales (£ million)
2012/13
21.8
2013/14
21.6
2014/15
21.5
2015/16
21.1
2016/17
20.6
The rod licence year runs from 1st April to March 31st.
The fees the Environment Agency collects through rod licence sales are spent on providing a fisheries service to fishing licence holders. The Environment Agency’s fisheries functions, for which it has powers to collects licence fees, relate to maintaining, improving and developing salmon, trout, freshwater, and eel fisheries as specified in the Environment Act 1995.
Angling: Licensing | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Over the past three years rod licences have been issued through website sales, telesales, over the counter sales under a contract with the Post Office Limited and a small proportion have been sold through retained agents. It is estimated that the average administration cost for issuing a rod licence is approximately £1.62 per licence.
Since 1 March 2017, the Environment Agency has been providing the website sales and telesales elements in-house, in compliance with the Government Digital Services (GDS) standards. Over the counter services are still being provided by the Post Office but the Environment Agency has now ceased to sell through retained agents.
Food: Prices | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The Department has published research on the main drivers of changes to food prices which have been observed to be food commodity prices, currency exchange rates and oil prices. It will be changes to any, or a combination of these factors, that will bring changes to prices.
ONS statistics on food prices are published each month as part of the Consumer Price Index. In the most recent statistics published on 11 April, food prices had increased by 1.3% in the year to March 2017 following almost three consecutive years where food prices fell. Exchange rates and energy costs have been the key drivers of these changes.
Food Poverty | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The Government annually publishes Family Food, which draws on data from the Living Cost of Food Survey. This publication includes questions on household spend on food, including that by the lowest 20% income households, which has remained constant at around 16% for a number of years.
The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), developed by the Voices of the Hungry project of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is used to collect food security data in up to 150 countries under the Gallup World Poll. The Department for International Development supports this work financially and updated results will be published later this year by the FAO. We understand from the FAO that global FIES results will be launched in June, and the individual country level estimates, which are three-year averages, will be published in September.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Data Protection | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Since 8 May 2015 two official documents and 12 official sensitive documents have been recorded as lost by Defra.
Food Supply | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The most recent UK Production to Supply Ratio is 61% for all food and 76% for indigenous type food.
We do not predict future ratios given the uncertainty over the many dependent factors including global food commodity prices, exchange rates, climate and weather, as well as discrete factors such as plant and animal disease. However, the Government has a policy of supporting our food and farming industry so that we can grow more and sell more British produce.
Bovine Tuberculosis: Disease Control | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The average amount of compensation paid, per animal, to dairy farmers whose cattle have been compulsory slaughtered for bovine TB for the last five years is shown in the table below. These include all reactors and contacts. It is rarely necessary to slaughter an entire herd.
Year
Average Value
2012
£1,205.33
2013
£1,181.03
2014
£1,151.47
2015
£1,066.74
2016
£936.54
The values in the table are for England only. Both the Scottish and Welsh Governments pay and record compensation payments separately to farmers who have had their animal’s compulsory slaughtered for bovine TB.
Fisheries: Employment | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Horses: Databases | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
It is the responsibility of individual horse owners to ensure that their horses are identified and registered on the Central Equine Database. Local Authorities are responsible for enforcing these requirements.
Defra launched a consultation on 5 April 2017 to implement requirements relating to the identification and registration of equines and the new Central Equine Database. It is published at:
https://consult.defra.gov.uk/equine-id/revised-eu-rules-on-equine-id-eu-reg-eu-2015-262
Bovine Tuberculosis: Vaccination | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
No such reports have been commissioned or published in the last 12 months.