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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of how many hectares of peat bog were burned by owners of grouse moors in the last full year for which figures are available; and what estimate she has made of the amount of carbon released as a result of such burning.

Defra does not collect this data routinely. A Natural England review in 2013 highlighted that little systematic data is collected nationally on the extent and distribution of burning generally, including on moorland in the uplands. It recommended that further work was necessary to obtain better repeatable estimates and the outputs of this work are due to be published later this spring. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is currently funding research to develop an operational framework that will allow us to report on greenhouse gas emissions from peatland management in the UK greenhouse gas inventory. This research will report in 2016.