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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish guidance for businesses on verifying the origin of imported forest risk commodities to the plot of land where they were grown under Schedule 17 of the Environment Act 2021.

The Government committed to tackling illegal deforestation in UK supply chains through the Environment Act in 2021 and announced further details of the secondary legislation at COP28 in December 2023. This law will make it illegal for organisations with a global annual turnover of more than £50m to use key forest risk commodities produced on land illegally occupied or used. Our regulations will not require information on the plot of land where commodities were sourced. However, regulated organisations will have to put in place due diligence systems—and will have to report on these systems—in order to lower the risk that there are prohibited forest risk commodity products in their supply chains to a level that is as low as reasonably practicable. Initial secondary legislation will focus on four commodities identified as key drivers of deforestation: cattle products (excluding dairy), cocoa, palm oil and soy.

We are committed to laying the secondary legislation to tackle illegal deforestation in the United Kingdom's supply chains and plan to do so in Spring of this year. Initial guidance will be published alongside this legislation, to support organisations in meeting their due diligence obligations.