Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact on biodiversity outcomes of substantially increasing the de minimis threshold for mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain requirements.

The Government recently consulted on options to improve the way Biodiversity Net Gain works for small, medium and brownfield development. This included potential changes to the de minimis exemption threshold. Since then, Government has announced its intention to introduce a new area-based exemption set at 0.2 hectares to reduce costs for smaller development while maintaining nature recovery at scale. A full consultation response and impact assessment will be published in due course.