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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if his Department what his Department's timetable is for its consultation into amending environmental permitting regulations to ensure that battery energy storage systems have appropriate mitigations in place against fire risk.

The Government agrees with the need to have robust measures in place to manage the risks associated with facilities that use large numbers of lithium-ion batteries.

Defra is considering further options, including environmental permitting, for managing the environmental and public health risks from fires at BESS sites.