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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the health of the remaining natural fenland in England, and (2) the prospects for the future.

The most recent assessment of the health of natural fenland habitats in England was made in 2019 as part of UK reporting on the implementation of the EU Habitats Directive. Under the Directive member states are required to achieve Favourable Conservation Status - defined by range, extent, structure and function - for listed habitats of high conservation significance.

The results in Table 1 below show the United Kingdom's status, which is based on aggregation of data from the four countries.

Table 1

The future prospects of fens are inextricably linked to health of the wider water environment, in particular the restoration of more natural hydrological conditions in the sites and their catchments. Our environmental land management schemes will contribute to the health of fens, by improving water quality, air quality and biodiversity. The Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme, aims to restore 35,000 hectares of peatland, including fens, by 2025. We have launched the Sustainable Farming Incentive, which provides funding at a large scale for sustainable land management practices. Currently the Sustainable Farming Incentive includes actions for soil management, and we will be including more actions from 2023. Countryside Stewardship already pays for actions which will benefit fens. We are evolving Countryside Stewardship to make it more accessible, improving targeting and including additional actions. We will be publishing more detail shortly on the actions we expect to pay for in the future, including managing, restoring and creating wetland habitat such as fens, and actions to improve water quality. The Water Industry National Environment Programme will also contribute to the future of fens.