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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to deliver on commitments made as part of the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature at the United Nations General Assembly.

The UK Government is committed to working with partners around the world to implement the ten commitments under the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, which the UK co-created. To demonstrate our dedication to delivering on the Pledge commitments, in January 2021, the Prime Minister committed to spending at least £3 billion of the UK’s International Climate Finance over the next five years, on climate change solutions that protect and restore nature and biodiversity.

As you will be aware, Lord Goldsmith wrote to the devolved administrations prior to the Pledge’s launch to seek their support. I am grateful for the support of the Scottish Government, as signalled in their recently published ‘Statement of Intent’ on post-2020 biodiversity, and I am also grateful to the Welsh Government for their support.

In line with Pledge commitments, the UK Government is taking strong action on nature domestically as well as internationally. The environment is a devolved policy area and, in England, we are maintaining and extending key protections; introducing new legislation and new funding streams; we are supporting partnerships and we are working across Government to secure broad action. We have, for example, brought forward the first Environment Bill for more than 20 years which, alongside our strengthened Agriculture and Fisheries Acts, sets a new legal foundation for government action to improve the environment.