To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to his Department’s press release on 22 September, entitled UK government to set its own laws for its own people as Brexit Freedoms Bill introduced, if he will make it his policy to strengthen the UK’s environmental standards by (a) incorporating climate change into the habitats regulations and (b) ruling out development in or impacting directly on important sites for nature.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make it his policy to ensure that current legal requirements derived from the European Union (a) Habitats Directive, (b) Environmental Impact Assessment Directive and (c) Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive for developers to carry out (i) wildlife surveys and (ii) environmental assessments of qualifying development sites will (A) be retained in UK law beyond December 2023 and (B) apply in Investment Zones; and if he will make a statement.

Nature is in need of our help, so HM Government has set a legally binding target to halt its decline by 2030. In March this year, we published the Nature Recovery Green Paper setting out our proposals to reform our system of protections to better support this ambitious work, including the Habitats Regulations. The Green Paper is available here.

Our proposals seek to create a system that better reflects the latest science and impending impacts of climate change, our domestic species and habitats, and helps us to achieve our significant goals to recover nature.

The Nature Recovery Green Paper consultation closed on 11th May and we are now in the process of analysing responses. HM Government will publish a formal response in due course.