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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the economic recovery from the covid-19 outbreak aligns with the Government's long-term targets on climate and biodiversity.

While the world is rightly focussed on tackling the immediate threat of coronavirus, other great global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss have not gone away. This government remains committed to being a world leader on tackling the environmental crises we face.

The government’s work to conserve and enhance the environment is guided by two overarching objectives; the urgent need to reverse biodiversity loss, and our legally binding objective to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero by 2050. Our ambitious 25 Year Environment Plan sets the overarching and long-term framework for much of this work, showing how we will improve the environment over a generation; by creating richer habitats for wildlife, improving air and water quality, and curbing plastic in the world’s oceans.

New measures announced in the 10 point-plan for a Green Industrial Revolution will help us deliver on this ambition. We will safeguard our cherished landscapes through the creation of new National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty; create the equivalent of well over 30,000 football pitches of wildlife rich habitat through 10 Landscape Recovery projects over the next four years, and run a £40 million second round of the Green Recovery Challenge Fund to enable a range of nature conservation and restoration projects across England.