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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the time taken to introduce the due diligence scheme for forest risk commodities enabled by schedule 17 of the Environment Act 2021 on the achievement of targets in the global biodiversity framework.

Deforestation linked to UK consumption is estimated to have fallen by 55% since 2005. However, progress has slowed over the last decade and in 2022 UK consumption was still associated with 35.6 thousand hectares of deforestation. The Government recognises the urgent need to address the deforestation impact of UK demand for forest risk commodities, and we will set out our approach in due course.