Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he plans to bring forward regulations to govern whether and when developers can clear wildlife habitats without approval to win planning permission on private land, and if that will include powers to impose penalties and forms of bio-diversity remediation.

Legislation and national policy affords strong protections to key species and their habitats from development. We are going further by introducing mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) which will require that all new relevant development proposals must deliver at least a 10% net gain in biodiversity.

The BNG framework includes specific provisions to address pre-development habitat degradation.