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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many screening applications Natural England has determined under the Environmental Impact Assessment (Agriculture) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2006 for land in National Parks in each of the last five years, and in how many of those cases it decided that the project was likely to have a significant effect on the environment.

NE has received 389 applications for an EIA screening decision since 2022, of which 36 projects were determined as likely to have a significant effect on the environment.

NE does not have a database record that details which of the 389 applications had a project area wholly or partly within a National Park (or a National Landscape).

Of the 36 projects determined as likely to have a significant effect on the environment, NE can confirm that 2 of these included the determination that the project would have a likely significant effect on the special qualities of a protected landscape. Of these 2 projects, 1 was a restructuring project in a National Landscape and the other an uncultivated land project in a National Park.

We have been provided a breakdown by year for your assistance, as follows:

36 Projects called in for EIA out of 389 screening applications

2022 applications = 12 out of 62 screening applications

2023 applications = 4 out of 79 screening applications

2024 applications = 13 out of 92 screening applications

2025 applications = 4 out of 90 screening applications

2026 applications = 3 out of 66 screening applications