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

To ask His Majesty's Government how they will ensure that the legal duty on Ministers of the Crown to have due regard to the Environmental Principles policy statement when making policy, required under the Environment Act 2021, will be upheld across government departments once it is implemented.

Defra is supporting departments with a toolkit of resources that brings together information, examples, case studies and an optional template to help policymakers effectively implement the duty.

Individual Government Departments will determine the best way to integrate the new duty with their existing policymaking processes.

The OEP has committed in its Corporate Plan 2022/23 to “Monitor implementation of the Environmental Principles Policy Statement across UK government departments and publish an evaluation of its implementation in a future year”.