The review, to be led by Dame Glenys Stacey, will look at opportunities for improving regulation and enforcement pre and post EU Exit, seek out ways to reduce duplication and allow farmers to concentrate on upholding key environmental and animal welfare standards as they produce fantastic British food.

For example, the current inspection regime can result in farmers being visited by as many as five different bodies – the Rural Payments Agency, Natural England, the Animal Plant and Health Agency, the Environment Agency or their local authority – all asking for similar information.

Each visit adds to the burden on farmers, and rigidity of the Common Agriculture Policy rules require inspections of precise criteria such as field margin dimensions and the specific placement of trees in fields. Equally, inspections over lapses such as slurry management and welfare standards are often haphazard.

The review comes as the government is preparing to publish an agriculture Command Paper that consults on future policy in this country after we leave the European Union.

Speaking at the NFU Conference today, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

The rules associated with current subsidy payments are unwieldy and, very often, counter-productive. They require farmers to spend long days ensuring conformity with bureaucratic processes which secure scarcely any environmental benefits and which, in turn, require a vast and inflexible bureaucracy to police.

As does the current farming inspection regime, which, despite several recent attempts at simplification, remains as unwieldy as ever. Every year, farmers are confronted by a barrage of inspections from different agencies, often duplicating costs in both time and money.

I am delighted to announce that Dame Glenys Stacey will be conducting a thorough and comprehensive review of this regime, seeing how these inspections can be removed, reduced or improved to reduce the burden on farmers, while maintaining and enhancing our animal and plant health standards.

This review is not only long-required but also very timely as we guide our future approach and maximise the opportunities of leaving the EU. It will provide answers to some key general questions to guide our future approach, subject to the outcome of our negotiations with the EU.

Dame Glenys Stacey said:

I am delighted to be asked to lead the much needed review of the farm inspection regime. With farming at the heart of the quality and safety of the food on our plate as well, and central to the stewardship of our wildlife, land and rivers, this is an excellent time to be working with farmers and their representatives, and all those who inspect farms, so as to get to a sensible inspection regime, post Brexit.

Dame Glenys has over twenty years’ experience in driving reform within public sector organisations. As a former Chief Executive of Animal health, a precursor to the current Animal and Plant Health Agency, she is well versed in the inspection challenge facing our farmers.

The Command Paper will provide further detail on government proposals to design agricultural support fit for the future after we leave the EU.

Notes

1. Dame Glenys is an experienced regulator, chief inspector and chief executive. A solicitor by profession, she has over twenty years’ CEO experience, having led the start up or turnaround of a number of public sector organisations responsible for legal and/or regulatory services. As the former CEO of Defra’s Animal Health Agency she has valuable experience of farm inspection regimes, and the nature and value of farming in the UK.

2. Dame Glenys brings regulation and inspection experience from other public services. She joined Ofqual, the exams regulator in 2011 as its CEO and Chief Regulator, leading the implementation of the government’s planned reforms to qualifications in England and providing advice to government on how best to deliver government’s policy aims for qualifications. In March 2016 Dame Glenys took up the post of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation. The inspectorate sets standards and drives improvement in probation services, with the joint aims of reducing reoffending and protecting the public.

3. To see the full terms of reference, including the objectives, scope and timings for the review, please see here

Consent documents for Rothamsted Research, to release genetically modified organisms for research purposes.

Each consent granted includes:

• consent letter (confirming consent and outlining any conditions)
• part A(1): Information required under schedule 1 of the Genetically Modified Organisms (Deliberate Release) regulations 2002.
• part A(2-6): Details of related previous releases, including any data, results and risks.
• part B: Information about the release application to be included on the public register.

ACRE’s advice

• ACRE advice: application for a trial of GM camelina (18/R08/01)

A man has been ordered to pay more than £7,000 in fines, compensation and costs after he admitted leaving mixed commercial waste on land owned by Thurrock Council.

Billy Prince illegally dumped the waste at a compound located on land at Stanford Road, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex in May 2015.

The compound is used to store street cleaning and highways team equipment and is not an authorised waste collection facility or site permitted for authorised waste disposal.

On 11 May 2015, Prince used a vehicle owned by his employer to unlawfully deposit a quantity of mixed commercial waste at the compound.

CCTV showed a vehicle which was later found to have been driven by Prince depositing waste at the site.
There was a large yellow sign at the compound entrance that stated ‘No Tipping’.

The Environment Agency investigated the incident and determined that the offending was deliberate and undermined legitimate waste management activities. The offending caused inconvenience to the council and clean-up costs.

Prince was sentenced at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court last week. The court heard Prince had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and was ‘very remorseful’ of his actions, having lost his job as a result.

He was fined £2,000, ordered to pay compensation to Thurrock Council to the value of £3,970, costs of £1,105 and a victim surcharge of £120.

Environment Agency Enforcement Team Leader Lesley Robertson said she was pleased with the sentencing outcome, and it showed that the courts were taking such incidents seriously. She said:

A community order or custody, as well as a financial penalty, could have been imposed. As this was a single offence the penalty was reduced and the magistrates felt a financial penalty, which totalled more than £7,000, was appropriate.

This shows that even with a single fly tip the penalties are very high.

Environment Agency Chair, Emma Howard Boyd has called on water companies and farmers to cut the amount of pollution incidents harming England’s waters and for penalties to be made tougher, as the EA publishes The State of the Environment: Water Quality report today.

Although the number of serious incidents has fallen by almost two thirds since 2001, the report reveals that 317 occurred in 2016. Agriculture is now the largest sector responsible for water pollution, while the number of serious incidents by water companies has remained at around 60 per year for the past decade – more than one a week.

The report shows that water quality has improved markedly over the last 30 years, following more than a century of poorly regulated industrial practices. England has the cleanest bathing waters since records began and rivers that were biologically dead are reviving. But there is more work to do to achieve the Environment Agency’s ambition of a cleaner, healthier and better managed water environment

Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency, said:

Water quality is better than at any time since the Industrial Revolution thanks to tougher regulation and years of hard work by the Environment Agency and others.

But there are still far too many serious pollution incidents which damage the local environment, threaten wildlife and, in the worst cases, put the public at risk.

I would like to see fines made proportionate to the turnover of the company and for the courts to apply these penalties consistently. Anything less is no deterrent.

The report reveals that the Environment Agency has taken more than 50 million samples to monitor water quality over the past 20 years. In 2016, 76% of the tests used to measure the health of rivers were rated good. However, only 14% of rivers reached good ecological status overall – this is because the failure of one test means the whole water body fails to obtain good or better status.

The most common reason for rivers not achieving good status was phosphorus, which produces algae and depletes oxygen. More than half of rivers have been found to have unacceptable levels of phosphorus, caused by sewage effluent and pollutants from farmland.

The report also states that groundwaters have been deteriorating in quality over the last 60 years with only 53% achieving good chemical status in 2016.

Defra’s 25-year environment plan sets out a challenge to improve at least three quarters of waters so that they are close to their natural state. The report identifies population growth, climate change and plastic pollution as some of the potential threats to water quality in future.

It calls on businesses and the public to do more to protect the environment by disposing of household chemicals responsibly, not putting fats and oils down the drain, and minimising use of single-use plastics.

Read the State of the Environment: Water Quality report

The Environment Agency consults the public on certain applications for Radioactive Substances Activity. The arrangements are explained in its Public Participation Statement

These notices explain:

• what the application is about
• how to view the application documents
• when you need to comment by

The Environment Agency will decide:

• whether to grant or refuse the application
• what conditions to include in the permit (if granted)