Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Christine Jardine
Main Page: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)Department Debates - View all Christine Jardine's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 day, 11 hours ago)
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Steve Reed
I am pleased to say that I made a joint announcement with the Home Secretary that this will be the first Government to have a cross-departmental rural crime strategy intended to cut the huge impact of rural crime on communities.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Biodiversity net gain is critical to replacing the loss we are experiencing in our environment and is now mandatory in planning applications—but with exemptions. Those exemptions mean that most developers are avoiding biodiversity net gain, so what will the Government do to tighten up the exemptions and make that more difficult?
Mary Creagh
This is a very new policy and has only just come into force, as the hon. Lady will be aware. There are very limited exemptions in place at the moment, such as that on side returns on housing, but we are keeping the issue under active review and I am in discussions with officials about it.