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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the proposals of the Landscapes review published in September 2019 on (a) the planning system, (b) a night under the stars in a national landscape for every child, (c) increasing the ethnic diversity of visitors to national landscapes, (d) landscapes that cater for and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing, (e) expanding volunteering in national landscapes, (f) sustainable tourism, (g) joining up national trails with national landscapes, (h) expanding open access rights in national landscapes, (i) affordable homes in national landscapes, (j) public transport, (k) a city park competition, (l) a better designations process, (m) reformed governance and (n) more funding and a new financial model.

My Rt Hon Friend the Environment Secretary regularly discusses a wide range of issues with Cabinet colleagues.

Julian Glover and his team set out a compelling vision for more beautiful, more biodiverse and more accessible National Parks and AONBs.

Our Written Ministerial Statement published on 24 June shows our support for some of the main themes of the review.

We are working with partner organisations to inform and develop our response to the review, and expect to consult on draft proposals later this year.

In regards to the reviews recommendation on a potential National Landscapes Service; we have not made any final decisions on whether and how this proposal should be implemented, and the review did not specify what structure a National Landscapes Service should take. This is just one of the recommendations and we will consult on various areas of the review and respond to the review as a whole in due course.

While we cannot pre-empt the spending review, we have recently launched Farming in Protected Landscapes, a three-year programme announced in the Defra’s Agricultural Transition Programme and as part of the Spending Review 2020 commitment to National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Our Protected Landscape organisations will receive approximately £20m in funding in the current financial year to provide to farmers and land managers in their areas, delivering projects focusing on the environment, people and place.