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 help protect insect populations in the UK.

Responsibility for the domestic environment is devolved. However, in England, we are taking unprecedented steps to address biodiversity decline and protect nature, not least through our world leading Environment Act, which requires a new, legally binding target to be set to halt the decline in species abundance including insects, by 2030.

Through our new environmental land management schemes farmers and land managers will play an essential role in halting the decline in species, including insects. The schemes will offer choice of support for more regenerative approaches to farming, and creation or restoration of habitats in appropriate areas.

Specifically for pollinators, Government is working alongside many partners to implement the provisions in the National Pollinator Strategy. The Strategy sets out how Government, conservation groups, farmers, beekeepers and researchers can work together to improve the status of wild and managed pollinating insect species in England on farmland, in urban areas and in gardens. We published our Pollinator Action Plan for 2021-2024 in May this year to set out more specifically how we will continue to act to fulfil the vision, aims and objectives of the strategy.