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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has a (a) grassland policy group and (b) person responsible for grassland policy.

There is no single group responsible for grassland policy, as policies affecting grasslands cut across several Defra policy areas. These include Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMs), National Biodiversity, Protected Sites and Protected Landscapes. There are also a range of habitat and species specialists in Natural England, including for grasslands.

This Government is committed to delivering our legally binding biodiversity targets which includes our habitat target to restore or create 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside of protected sites by 2042. We are delivering this target over a wide range of habitats, including wildlife-rich grasslands.

Protected Landscapes (National Landscapes, National Trails and National Parks) work together through the Big Chalk partnership, which seeks to protect and restore our nature-rich chalk grasslands.