Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the proposed National Landscapes Service on the management of National Parks.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The independent Landscapes Review, led by Julian Glover, set out a compelling vision for more beautiful, more biodiverse and more accessible National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).
We welcome this ambition, as the Government is committed to ensuring our protected landscapes flourish as havens for nature and are places that everyone can visit and enjoy.
The Landscapes Review included recommendations for long-term structural changes, such as creating a new National Landscape Service and changing National Park and AONB statutory purposes, that would require legislation were they to be taken forward.
We are working closely with National Park Authorities, AONB organisations and wider stakeholders to consider the potential effects of the Landscape Review’s recommendations and to develop a well-informed response to the review, which we will publish in due course.
Asked by: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when the Government plans to publish its formal response to the Glover Review.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The independent Landscapes Review, led by Julian Glover, set out a compelling vision for more beautiful, more biodiverse and more accessible National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).
We welcome this ambition, as the government is committed to ensuring our protected landscapes flourish as havens for nature and are places that everyone can visit and enjoy.
The Landscapes Review included recommendations for long-term structural changes, such as creating a new National Landscape Service and changing National Park and AONB statutory purposes, that would require legislation were they to be taken forward.
We are taking time to carefully consider the recommendations and working with partner organisations to inform and develop our response to the review, which we will publish in due course.
In the meantime, we are working to implement the ambitions of the Review on the ground now. For example, we are leading a £5.77m cross-governmental project to test nature-based social prescribing in seven test and learn sites, run national experimental work to understand its scalability, and deliver a robust project evaluation. This will help improve mental health and wellbeing by connecting more people to nature, including in protected landscapes.
The £80m Green Recovery Challenge Fund, which launched in September 2020, will kickstart a programme of nature-based projects to restore nature, tackle climate change and connect people with the natural environment. Some of these projects will help deliver on the Landscape Review's recommendations, such as the proposal to give every child a night under the stars in a national landscape.