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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to ensure that proposed licences for vegetation management by controlled burning on blanket bog will be made available at the same time as legislative proposals to enable wildfire risk to be managed are brought forward.

The proposed licensing regime for managed burning on protected blanket bog will include the ability to obtain a licence to burn for the purposes of wildfire mitigation where no other practicable management technique is available. We are currently drafting guidance that will be published in advance of the start of the burning season in 2021.