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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to reduce the time taken for the licensing process for marine restoration projects.

Defra officials are working with arms-length bodies to understand whether improvements could be made to the marine licensing regime when considering applications for habitat restoration. This includes reviewing the time taken to grant licences for marine restoration projects to identify any opportunities that may reduce consenting timeframes.

The MMO's key performance indicator for new marine licence applications is to determine 90% of applications within 13 weeks. However, some applications, particularly those with significant public interest or complex characteristics, may take longer.