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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether any applications to the Environment Agency for limited extended validity have been granted following legal injunctions against the Environment Agency since 2016.

There have been no applications to the Environment Agency for Limited Extended Validity (LEV) for time-limited abstraction licences following legal injunctions against the Environment Agency since 2016. LEV is not applied for and the Environment Agency does not grant LEV. By operation of the law, LEV is automatic when a time-limited abstraction licence is due to expire, an application to renew has been made at least 3 months before the expiry, and the Environment Agency cannot complete the determination before the expiry date.