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 impact of vegetable oils not included in the due diligence regulations under Schedule 17 of the Environment Act 2021 on deforestation and whether he plans to extend due diligence obligations to cover these oils.

The Global Environmental Impacts of Consumption Indicator, funded by Defra, estimates that UK-linked deforestation driven by soy and palm oil was 7-9 times and 15-20 times greater respectively than deforestation linked to sunflower and rapeseed oil in 2022.

We recognise the need to take action to ensure that UK consumption of forest risk commodities is not driving deforestation and we will set out our approach to addressing this in due course.