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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the suitability for policy-making of existing measures of rural deprivation.

Defra has contributed funding to investigate rural deprivation as part of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) work to update the English Indices of Deprivation. This collaborative work is considering what deprivation in rural areas is, data sources and methods to help quantify it and more formal guidance on the use of the Indices and their application to rural areas. A report on rural deprivation will be part of the updated English Indices of Deprivation anticipated in Autumn 2025.