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

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the proposals contained in the Nature recovery green paper: protected sites and species, published on 16 March 2022, what plans they have to reform the designations of protected sites (1) on land, and (2) at sea, including (a) the types of designations, and (b) the overall structure.

The reforms explored in the Nature Recovery Green Paper have fed into the government’s Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), our delivery plan for protecting nature. A summary of responses to the Green Paper will be published separately.

Any substantive changes to the legislative framework governing protected site designations, which includes both European sites and SSSIs, would require legislation and therefore follow normal parliamentary process and scrutiny.