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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to support the UK to meet its climate change targets in response to the recent finding by the Climate Change Committee that the UK is not keeping pace with other countries in meeting its climate change targets.

Tackling climate change and delivering our world-leading Net Zero target is a key priority for the Government. As the CCC recognise, we have made huge progress in cutting our emissions while growing the economy and we will continue this work.

Defra are considering a wide range of measures for how to reduce emissions from our sectors and increase the amount of carbon captured by the land. For example, our future Environmental Land Management schemes will play an important role in achieving net zero, including through supporting large scale tree planting, paying for actions that can help to reduce emissions from farming, and by encouraging the adoption of sustainable soil management practices that will enable soils to sequester more carbon.

In addition, on 18th May we launched our England Tree and Peat Action Plans, supported by the £640m Nature for Climate Fund. This fund will expand and enhance woodland cover and ensure that more peatland is restored, protected and better managed.

Further to this, we are seeking to make the UK a world leader in using resources efficiently and reducing the amount of waste we create as a society. We want to prolong the lives of the materials and goods that we use and move society away from the inefficient linear economic model of 'take, make, use, throw' to a more circular one.

A more detailed overview of our departmental plans to help the UK meet its climate targets will be set out in the Net Zero strategy, to be published ahead of COP26.