Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to engage business, civil society and land management stakeholders in the preparation of the first annual environmental improvement plan under the Environment Act 2021.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Lord Chamberlain (HM Household)
Defra engages with business, civil society and land management partners on an ongoing basis, both on individual policies and on the development of the Environmental Improvement Plan as a whole. This engagement will continue over the coming months.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to publish in full the recommendations at a species level from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee arising from the 7th Quinquennial Review of Schedules 5 and 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, submitted to Ministers on 19 April.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
JNCC’s seventh Quinquennial Review report provides the Secretary of State with independent scientific advice on proposed changes to Schedules 5 and 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. We are required to publish recommendations and advice received from JNCC, before both Houses of Parliament under Section 24(3) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. We will consider the recommendations carefully and the Government’s response before aiming to publish JNCC’s advice later this year.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of Wildlife and Countryside Link’s estimates of the resources required for successful implementation of Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Lord Chamberlain (HM Household)
The Government has committed to funding all new burdens on Local Authorities arising from the Environment Act. This includes those relating to the preparation of Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs). We have considered Wildlife and Countryside Link’s estimates, alongside the feedback from the 5 LNRS pilots that finished in May 2021.
Following the spending review settlement, Defra is working through spending plans for the next three years, including by working closely with local Government organisations to determine the level of additional capacity required to implement the Act effectively.
Defra will share further details of the resources that will be made available for implementing Local Nature Recovery Strategies in the coming months.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that Local Nature Recovery Strategies (1) protect, and (2) enhance, urban nature, in order to increase opportunities for people to benefit from access to nature near where they live and work.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Lord Chamberlain (HM Household)
Local Nature Recovery Strategies are a new, England-wide system of spatial strategies that will 1) identify areas of existing importance for nature, including in urban areas, and 2) establish priorities and map proposals for specific actions to drive nature's recovery and provide wider environmental benefits.
The coronavirus pandemic has underlined the important benefits to public health and wellbeing from access to nature and green spaces. The Government expects that public authorities will wish to use the process of creating their Local Nature Recovery Strategy to also identify opportunities to increase access to nature whilst supporting its recovery.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that adequate funding is available for local authorities to meet their general duty to facilitate their Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 biodiversity duty obligations, as updated by sections 102 and 103 of the Environment Act 2021.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The Government has committed to funding all new burdens on local authorities arising from the Environment Act, including those due to the biodiversity duty on public authorities, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs).
The intention of the strengthened duty, though, is not to oblige public authorities to incur additional costs, but for them to consider seriously how they can improve biodiversity through the exercise of their functions. We anticipate that the principal way in which local authorities discharge their biodiversity duty will be through the actions taken to deliver mandatory BNG or LNRSs. We also expect that, in considering any additional action they can take above and beyond BNG and LNRSs, local authorities can consider ways to benefit biodiversity in a cost-neutral manner and work with other sectors; we will provide guidance to help with this.
Defra recently announced £4 million to help Local Planning Authorities, and other local authorities with planning oversight, to prepare for BNG which will become mandatory in November 2023. The funding will help Local Planning Authorities expand ecologist resource and upskill ecologist teams.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government who are the representatives from the business and finance sector on the business advisory group set up under the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework; and what is the group's remit.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
In pursuit of high ambition outcomes for CBD COP15, Defra engages with a range of UK stakeholders including representatives from academia, the private sector, NGOs, and other interested parties, to gain valuable input from a wide range of sources.
As part of this engagement, a business advisory group has met several times to consider the draft global biodiversity framework, its implementation across the private sector, and the role of business in mainstreaming biodiversity.
Representatives of the business advisory group are: