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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure the retention of butterfly habitats throughout the UK.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only. In England, our 25 Year Environment Plan commits the Government to restoring 75% of our one million hectares of terrestrial and freshwater protected sites to favourable condition, and creating or restoring an additional 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat in England, as part of a Nature Recovery Network.

Action under the National Pollinator Strategy helps us to target such activity to improve, extend and connect habitats for insect pollinators, including butterflies. For example, the popular Wild Pollinator and Farm Wildlife Package in Countryside Stewardship includes management options to provide year-round habitat such as flower-rich margins.

‘Back from the Brink’ and other collaborative programmes between Government, NGOs and land managers have supported landscape scale projects supporting species including the Duke of Burgundy and Marsh Fritillary butterflies, and the Barberry Carpet moth.

Most recently, our Green Recovery Challenge Fund has supported habitat management for pollinators, including Butterfly Conservation’s project to restore habitats at 18 woodland sites in the Morecambe Bay area to promote the recovery of threatened butterfly species.

We are building on these measures and projects in the design of our new environmental land management schemes, which will enable many more farmers and land managers to take positive action for butterflies and other pollinators.