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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which interested organisations his Department contacted to explain that General Licences (GL 04/05/06) were to be Judicially Reviewed but that in his Department's opinion were sound in (a) February, (b) March and (c) April.

The Judicial Review was brought against Natural England as the licensing authority, not Defra. As such Defra did not contact interested organisations to communicate any views in relation to the legal challenge.

I refer the Rt. Hon. Member to the reply previously given on 29 April 2019 to PQ 246908.