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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she (a) received and (b) plans to publish the report of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, commissioned by Natural England pursuant to the Agri-Environment Schemes Species Monitoring Project.

The report is currently with Natural England Agri-Environment Monitoring and Evaluation team, waiting on final clearance and the associated documents to be prepared for the Defra publication process. The timescales may vary but it is likely to be published in Quarter 3 of this year.

A draft was produced in March 2022, followed by Natural England Technical Steering Group review and external peer review by UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in July 2022. External peer review responses were returned in November 2022 and reviewed January 2023, followed by amendments with the final report submitted to Natural England on 18^th May 2023.