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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of making it a requirement to include swift bricks in new-build housing in the context of declining swift populations in the UK.

All local authorities have a duty to have regard to conserving biodiversity as part of their policy or decision making. As well as this duty, national planning policy states that the planning system should minimise impacts on biodiversity and provide net gains in biodiversity where possible. Planning Practice Guidance published to help implement planning policy makes clear that relatively small features can often achieve important benefits for wildlife, with incorporating ‘swift bricks’ in developments in particular highlighted as an option. Specific biodiversity features, such as swift bricks, would normally be required for developments through either the relevant local plan or through the local authority’s development control team.

Through the Environment Act 2021, we have introduced a mandatory duty for developers to deliver a ‘biodiversity net gain’, which will mean that habitats for wildlife must be left in a measurably better state than they were before any development.