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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department's Peat Action Plan to ban the sale of peat in England will include a ban on the import of peat.

In the recently published England Peat Action Plan we have committed to undertake a full consultation in 2021 on banning the sale of peat and peat containing products in the amateur sector by the end of this Parliament, and what that would look like. The consultation will also examine a range of measures, including the feasibility of introducing a point-of-sale charge for the purchase of growing media containing peat (this could use the plastic bag charge as a model).

We are committed to working with the industry to understand the implications of these measures and to working with the private sector to develop and enact solutions, thus making the transition to peat alternatives as seamless as possible.

The England Peat Action Plan can be found at:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/987859/england-peat-action-plan.pdf