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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support biodiversity net gain policy to ensure market confidence and environmental integrity.

Government has recently announced reforms to Biodiversity Net Gain including actions to make it easier and cheaper for smaller developers to access the off-site market.

Government has also recently put in place the legal framework for mandatory BNG to apply to Nationally Significant Infrastructure projects (NSIPs) from November this year, providing a new source of demand.

Taken together, these new measures will support the off-site market and demonstrate this government’s commitment to BNG.

All registered biodiversity gain sites must be legally secured for at least 30 years providing confidence that biodiversity gains will be delivered.