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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that forest risk commodities implementing legislation supports the UK's commitments under the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade Dialogue on (a) making finance available to smallholders, (b) supporting transition towards sustainable production and (c) strengthening enabling conditions.

The Government recognises the need to take action to ensure that UK consumption of forest risk commodities is not driving deforestation and we will set out our approach to addressing this in due course.

The Government is taking action to support our FACT Dialogue commitments, working with smallholder farmers to improve sustainable practices and encourage forest-friendly businesses. For example, the Official Development Assistance funded ‘Investments in Forests and Sustainable Land Use’ programme supports the development of new business models which provide jobs and livelihoods, while protecting and restoring forests.