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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of biodiversity net gain in delivering for biodiversity as intended.

Mandatory biodiversity net gain is an important means of ensuring development makes a net positive contribution to nature. It is in the early stages of implementation. The policy has been designed to achieve long-term benefits for biodiversity, with major biodiversity gains secured by legal contract for a minimum of 30 years. Because biodiversity net gain applies as a ‘post-permission requirement’, we are only now seeing the first permissions granted with the mandatory biodiversity gain condition.

Defra officials are monitoring the implementation of mandatory biodiversity net gain closely and regularly meet with local planning authorities, developers, and the land management sector, to ensure biodiversity net gain works effectively and proportionally.