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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Written Statement of 15 December 2020, HCWS652, on Unconscious bias training, what steps he has taken to phase out unconscious bias training in his Department.

Defra draws its training provision from Civil Service Learning (CSL), which included access to unconscious bias training products for all staff including Senior Civil Servants. It is mandatory for civil servants to use CSL for their learning.

In January 2021, CSL took the decision to withdraw the product in line with the Ministerial Statement that outlined why this training should cease. The learning pages on our internal intranet were updated and staff are now directed to the CSL product called Inclusion in the Civil Service, therefore ensuring that unconscious bias training has been phased out in Defra. Natural England took the same action.

The Environment Agency removed unconscious bias training from its list of mandatory learning in January 2021. A short e-learning product remains accessible as a topic of interest.