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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies entitled Ten Dark Sky policies for the Government, published on 9 December 2020, if he will take steps to implement the policies in that report.

The Government recognises that light pollution may have an impact on people, affecting their health and wellbeing, as well as the environment. We have put in place a range of measures to ensure that light pollution is managed effectively. These include controls in the planning system, the statutory nuisance regime, and improvements in street lighting.

Defra has worked with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure that the National Planning Policy Framework is clear that planning decisions should limit the impact of light pollution on local amenity, dark landscapes and nature conservation. The statutory nuisance regime requires that local authorities have a duty to take reasonably practicable steps to investigate complaints of artificial light emitted from premises so as to be prejudicial to human health or a nuisance.

The management of street lighting in England is the responsibility of local highway authorities. Local highway authorities have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the public highways in their charge, including street lighting. Central Government has no powers to override local decisions in these matters or intervene in these kinds of local issues.

The Department for Transport recognises that light pollution (and excessive or wasteful use of lighting) can pose some social, economic and environmental problems. We also encourage local authorities to consider best practice when making decisions about lighting on their networks. Advice is available from the UK Lighting Board:https://ukrlg.ciht.org.uk/media/12302/well-lit-highways-24-may-2013-clean.pdf.

Our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty have some of the best dark skies, and attained some of the earliest official Dark Skies designations, in Europe. Seven of our parks have secured protected dark sky status, and we are committed to conserving and celebrating this wonderful experience for all.

The Government considers the existing measures are sufficient to manage the problems caused by artificial light and there are no current plans to revise them. Defra also continues to review emerging evidence on the impacts of light pollution on biodiversity.