Through the development of the River Basin Management Plans, the Environment Agency evaluates in each water body where redundant physical modifications are damaging ecology and should be removed. Not all physical modifications are redundant and able to be removed, for example straightened rivers. More information is publicly available at: Physical modifications: challenges for the water environment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The Environment Agency evaluates key criteria when determining if a weir is removed including ownership, use(s), condition, maintenance costs, any associated risks and additional benefits that the physical modifications provide. These evaluations consider local site-specific factors too, such as biodiversity, flood mitigation, water supply and other ecosystem services.

Through the development of the River Basin Management Plans, the Environment Agency evaluates in each water body where redundant physical modifications are damaging ecology and should be removed. Not all physical modifications are redundant and able to be removed, for example straightened rivers. More information is publicly available at: Physical modifications: challenges for the water environment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The Environment Agency evaluates key criteria when determining if a weir is removed including ownership, use(s), condition, maintenance costs, any associated risks and additional benefits that the physical modifications provide. These evaluations consider local site-specific factors too, such as biodiversity, flood mitigation, water supply and other ecosystem services.

The Government wants to make sure that our ancient woodlands are adequately protected and suitably managed to provide a wide range of social, environmental and economic benefits to society.

The National Planning Policy Framework states that development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats, including ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees, should be refused unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists.

Natural England and the Forestry Commission have published ‘standing advice’ for ancient woodland, ancient trees and veteran trees. It is a material planning consideration for local planning authorities and as such should be taken into account when making planning decisions that affect ancient woodland, ancient trees or veteran trees.

Furthermore, on 27 May 2022 the Government published the newly updated Keepers of Time policy which recognises the value of England’s ancient and native woodlands and ancient and veteran trees. It restates our commitment to evaluate the threats facing these habitats and sets out our updated principles and objectives to protect and improve them for future generations.

We have pledged to bring forward legislation to ban imports of hunting trophies from thousands of species. This ban will be among the strongest in the world, leading the way in protecting endangered animals. We intend to bring this forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The consultation and call for evidence on hunting trophies ran from 2 November 2019 to 25 February 2020. We received views and evidence on the costs and benefits of further restrictions, including the potential impacts on biodiversity and species.

The summary of responses and Government response to the consultation and call for evidence are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/hunting-trophies-controlling-imports-to-and-exports-from-the-uk/outcome/summary-of-responses-and-government-response--2.

Further information will be published when legislation is brought forward in due course.

The UK recorded 63 imports of hunting trophies under CITES in 2019 and 26 imports in 2020.

Data for 2021 is currently being finalised and will be made available through the CITES trade database at https://trade.cites.org/.

This year we have already introduced our Animal Sentience and Kept Animals Bills to Parliament and we intend to legislate further to protect animals abroad as soon as parliamentary time allows. We will be setting out our detailed plans for action soon, including by publishing the Government’s response to the consultation on trophy hunting imports.

Event Duration Monitors (EDM) record the number of times there has been a discharge of storm sewage and for how long each discharge was for. The Water Companies send in an annual summary which gives the total number of discharges per year and the total duration per year for each site where it is a permit requirement. The 2020 data is not yet available as it is submitted at the end of February.

Event Duration Monitors started being installed in 2016 and have been progressively installed across Combined Sewer Overflows, Sewage Pumping Stations and Sewage Treatment Works. Not all sites require EDM monitoring, this depends on the sensitivity of where the discharge is made.

Direct storm sewage discharges to the River Derwent, Derbyshire (Source to confluence with River Trent)

The discharge from these water company assets (in this case Severn Trent Water Ltd) is only permitted to occur when there is elevated flow in the combined (sewage and surface water) sewerage network due to rainfall/snowmelt. The discharge is known as storm sewage and the impact on water quality is reduced due to the increased dilution both within the sewer and the receiving watercourse.

In January 2021 the Storm Overflows Taskforce announced plans by the water companies to accelerate work to install monitoring devices on all storm overflows by 2023. The Environment Agency is working with all water companies to increase the transparency of EDM data by 2022. This will provide readily accessible data in a consistent format, which will give greater visibility and increase responsibility of water companies to go faster and further in reducing harm from storm overflow discharges.