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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to protect chalk streams.

Restoring chalk streams is a Government priority. We reaffirmed this commitment in our Plan for Water, which recognises chalk streams as having special natural heritage. We are defining chalk streams as priority sites in our Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan with a target of 75% reduction in harmful spills into these rivers by 2035. And, we have also brought forward changes to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill (LURB) to include chalk streams in the definitions of ‘environmental protection’ and ‘natural environment’, meaning that chalk streams must be considered when undertaking environmental assessments in future.

At the Chalk Stream Restoration Conference in June, we announced that we would publish a Chalk Stream Recovery Pack to ensure national policy and community action to protect and restore chalk is well integrated. The Recovery Pack will champion the Chalk Stream Restoration Group's One Big Wish by raising the profile of chalk streams, providing certainty on Government action to increase protection and promote collective action on chalk.