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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to move more civil servants out of London.

Defra group is proud of our already dispersed workforce with 85% of our staff based outside London. Defra has three of its four core “hubs” outside London (Bristol, York and Newcastle). In December 2021 Defra had 9,383 civil servants outside London, including 2,886 from the core department. Our Bristol hub, Horizon House, is our largest office outside London with 8% of Defra group and 15% of the core department’s staff based there.

Defra is committed to continuing to build vibrant staff communities across the country, with a talented, diverse and inclusive workforce with a genuine connection to the local community and area. The publication of the Levelling Up White Paper provides a major step towards the transformation of the UK, spreading opportunity and prosperity for all.

It also reinforces this Government’s, and Defra’s, commitment to increasing significantly the geographic spread of civil servants across the UK. Defra will move 550 roles in the core department out of London by 2025 and a further 550 by 2030. We will also increase the proportion of our senior civil servants who are based outside London from one-third to one-half by 2030.

As we relocate more staff out of London we will make use of our existing properties. Initially we are focused on building our policy presence in our Newcastle hub (announced in November), opening small office spaces in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and working to expand other, non-London policy hubs. Moving forward, increasing the opportunities for staff in the South West remains one of our priorities, with our large group office in Exeter housing around 350 Rural Payments Agency staff.