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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress she has made on considering the industry feedback on introducing BESS to the Environmental Permitting Regulations.

The Government is committed to ensuring grid-scale batteries remain as safe as possible and we are exploring options to enhance safeguards to manage the potential environmental and public health risks associated with grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) sites. We are currently considering responses to the Government's recent consultation on modernising environmental permitting for industry, which asked for views on potentially including grid-scale BESS sites within environmental permitting regulations.