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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.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Management Consultants | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers

Defra has no figures on spending specifically on the services of management consultants. Spend figures recorded under consultancy also include IT consultancy, technical consultancy, legal and financial advice, and project and programme management. Consultancy spend increased significantly in 2013/14 and 2014/15 as a result of third party support on IT programmes, for example Defra’s Shared Service Centre and CAP Delivery Programme. There are no separate records for management consultancy.

Category

Spend by Financial year

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

2015-16

Consultancy

7,370,397

4,657,302

3,500,291

12,283,077

20,892,135

9,754,717

Food: EU Law | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers

As we prepare to leave the EU, we are looking at removing rules that are unnecessarily burdensome, focusing instead on what works best for the UK. We want to free our farmers to grow more, sell more and export more British food, whilst upholding our high standards for the environment. No decisions have been taken in relation to individual pieces of legislation, including EU Marketing Standards for fresh fruit and vegetables. We will consult widely with all those affected before making any changes.

Bovine Tuberculosis: Deer | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers

Routine post-mortem surveillance for TB in deer carcases has been conducted nationally for many years.

Visible lesions of TB are notifiable to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), who will facilitate the collection and submission for laboratory culture of any affected tissues. Positive culture results are relatively rare. Confirmed TB cases in wild deer may nevertheless trigger enhanced TB surveillance around that case, both to identify whether there has been any spread of disease to cattle herds and to limit the number of affected animals.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Internet | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers

The IT service provider contracted by Defra provides services to other public authorities under the same contract, and in some cases at the same premises. Therefore, the information provided below also includes websites visited by staff from these authorities, as it is not possible to distinguish their visits from those made by Defra staff. Information on websites visited is only available from the service provider for a 6 month period.

Top 5 Websites visited in the past 6 months (28 September – 27 March 2017)

1. bbc.co.uk

2. genesis.naturalengland.gsi.gov.uk

3. edigital.survey.com

4. defra.condecosoftware.com

5. google.co.uk

Fisheries: Treaties | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers

The Government remains fully committed to controlling and managing UK waters after we leave the EU in accordance with our rights and obligations under international law.

We are considering the issue of the London Fisheries Convention carefully to ensure we have full control of UK waters after we leave the EU and, as the Prime Minister said on 29 March 2017, we hope to be able to say something about it soon.

Horses: Trespass | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers

The Government does not hold records on the frequency of use of the powers available under the Animals Act 1971, as amended by the Control of Horses Act 2015 to make it easier to detain and manage unlawfully placed horses on land in England. Nevertheless, local authorities, land owner representatives and animal welfare organisations welcomed the new measures introduced in 2015.

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