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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether statutory provisions are in place to prohibit legal deforestation where commodities have been produced legally in the country of origin but have caused significant damage to the environment; and if he will make a statement.

The UK plays a leading role in supporting global efforts to protect and restore forest landscapes, driving international action to tackle deforestation and ensure forests are sustainably managed. This effort is underpinned by a commitment of £1.5 billion to international forests between 2021 and 2026.

This package of work includes new due diligence legislation through the Environment Act 2021 to tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains. Our law will make it illegal for larger businesses operating in the UK to use key forest risk commodities produced on land illegally occupied or used. Businesses in scope will also be required to undertake a due diligence exercise on their supply chains, and to report on this exercise annually.

We cannot shift to sustainable supply chains alone – it must be a collective effort between consumers and producers globally. This issue is central to the UK’s commitment to tackling the twin challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. Our approach to due diligence is based on compliance with the relevant local laws of producer countries. Our aim is to work with producer countries and support their efforts to uphold their laws and strengthen environmental protection. We believe this approach – which supports the efforts of government in the countries where these products are grown - provides the best path to long-term sustainability.

We also continue to work with consumer and producer country partners in forums such as the Forest, Agriculture, and Commodity Trade (FACT) Dialogue, which the UK and Indonesia launched together as co-chairs in 2021. The FACT Dialogue convenes 28 major producers and consumers of internationally traded agricultural commodities to agree principles for collaboration and developed a Roadmap of actions which was launched at COP26, to protect forests and other ecosystems while promoting sustainable trade and development, in a way that respects all countries’ interests.