Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the amount of development on grassland habitats that could be considered irreplaceable habitats under the National Planning Policy Framework that took place each year from 2015 to 2022.

Government does not record planning decisions nationally, this is recorded locally by local planning authorities. However, the National Planning Policy Framework affords strong protection to important habitats, and is explicit that development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats (such as ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees) should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists. Local planning authorities will need to take this into account when making their local plans and in decision making.