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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of a pilot scheme to consider the impact of biodiversity net gain in 2022 and 2023 before its full implementation in 2024.

We know that a number of local planning authorities and developers are already seeking biodiversity net gains from development and we are continuing to speak to industry and the planning sector to understand the issues and needs arising from pre-commencement practice.

Some aspects of the biodiversity net gain policy were tested, and evaluated, as part of the biodiversity offsetting pilots which took place from 2012 to 2014. We will shortly be consulting formally on more details of biodiversity net gain’s implementation and will consider which components of the approach might benefit from pre-commencement testing as part of this.