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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what (a) staff resources and (b) funding he plans to make available to the interim environmental governance arrangements required before the Office for Environmental Protection becomes legally operational.

The Secretary of State has asked officials to assemble a team of staff from within Defra group, funded from the department’s budget, to receive and validate complaints against the criteria for complaining to the Office for Environmental Protection.