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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the global rate of biodiversity loss; and what effect that assessment has had on the formulation of his Department's policies.

The UK is a signatory to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a global endeavour to halt biodiversity loss. As a party to the CBD, the UK collaborates in assessments of biodiversity change, which are published in the Global Biodiversity Outlook series, the flagship publication of the CBD. As such, the government does not do its own assessment of the global rate of biodiversity loss, but it does an assessment of biodiversity loss in this country.

The UK is also a member of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which in March adopted four regional assessments that evaluate biodiversity and ecosystems services. These assessments provide vital evidence on which to make informed decisions balancing the needs of people and nature in four world regions. In May 2019 the Platform will adopt a new global synthesis of the state of nature and ecosystems, the first such report since the landmark Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was published in 2005.