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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many hectares of new wildlife habitats have been (a) created and (b) restored since 31 January 2023.

We do not currently have an estimate for habitat created and restored in 2023, the first year of the target.

Data on habitat created and restored is not usually available by year end. We expect there to be a two-year lag before having a 'complete' count due to the time taken for data to be reported and the quality assurance process.

In April, we published information about actions that will count toward our statutory habitat target, the list of wildlife rich habitats, and definitions of restoration and creation (available here).

We are currently working with Natural England to set up a formal reporting system for monitoring progress towards our statutory habitat target.

While we establish this formal reporting system, we are looking at whether we can collect a subset of data from Defra Group delivery mechanisms for ad hoc interim reporting.