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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether assessment they have made of the success of the National Pollinator Strategy.

In 2017, the UK Government published the first progress report for the National Pollinator Strategy. It highlights positive progress with the Strategy’s 34 actions, undertaken in partnership with voluntary groups, farmers, growers and within the government estate.

For example, in 2015, we introduced a Pollinator and Wildlife Package to our Countryside Stewardship Scheme to provide a suite of habitats on farmland. Since 2011, through this package and other actions, we have established management on approximately 130,000 hectares of land to create new wildlife-rich habitat in the wider countryside.

We have established a dedicated UK pollinator monitoring and research partnership, and developed an indicator of trends in the status of pollinating insects. The indicator was last published on 19 July 2018. It shows that the overall status of pollinating insects has declined since 1980, but has stabilised in recent years. We are keeping this under review as an encouraging but not yet definitive sign of progress.

We will review and refresh the Strategy’s aims by 2019 to strengthen our response based on an improved understanding of the baselines, the impact of pressures and the role of pollinators. We are determined to continue working to see positive results across the full range of the Strategy’s outcomes.