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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to Schedule 17 of the Environment Act 2021, what his timetable is for the publication of regulations to implement due diligence obligations on specified forest risk commodities.

We ran a consultation from 3 December 2021 to 11 March 2022 to seek views on the details of regulations that will implement the Environment Act provisions, to ensure that these are designed effectively. The Government published a summary of responses to this consultation on 1 June 2022 and is committed to implementing due diligence provisions at the earliest opportunity through secondary legislation.