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

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate on 20 March (HL5840), what annual returns they have received regarding conservation covenant agreements made under section 117(3)(b) and (c) of the Environment Act 2021 to conserve land for reasons of archaeological, architectural, artistic or historic interest.

Under section 136 of the Environment Act 2021, a designated responsible body must make an annual return to the Secretary of State. This return must include the number of conservation covenants under which an obligation was owed to the responsible body during the reporting period, along with the area of land to which each covenant relates.

As part of the first annual return to Defra by 31^st of March 2025, where responsible bodies were able to provide additional information regarding the type of covenant, they reported 43 covenants that conserve the natural environment. No covenants were reported that conserve land, or the setting of the land, as a place of archaeological, architectural, artistic, cultural or historic interest.