Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether it is her Department's policy that all planning decisions should adhere to the Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy.

The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that when determining planning applications, local planning authorities should apply the principle that if significant harm to biodiversity resulting from a development cannot be avoided, adequately mitigated, or, as a last resort, compensated for, then planning permission should be refused.

Any mitigation or compensation would be set out in planning conditions and obligations associated with the relevant planning permission, enabling local planning authorities to monitor the development's implementation and, if necessary, take enforcement action.

More widely, the government is clear that the current approach to discharging environmental obligations is too often delaying and deterring development and placing unnecessary burdens on housebuilders and local authorities. It requires housebuilders to pay for localised and often costly mitigation measures, only to maintain the environmental status quo. By not taking a holistic view across larger geographies, mitigation measures often fail to secure the best outcomes for the environment.

The Nature Restoration Fund provided for by Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will end this sub-optimal arrangement. By facilitating a more strategic approach to the discharge of environmental obligations, in order to address the impact of development and improve the conservation status of the relevant environmental feature, it will streamline the delivery of new homes and infrastructure and result in improved environmental outcomes being delivered more efficiently.

In establishing an alternative to the existing system, the Nature Restoration Fund intentionally provides flexibility to diverge from a restrictive application of the mitigation hierarchy. We believe this flexibility should apply where, in Natural England's expert judgement, this would be appropriate and in line with the overarching objective of delivering better outcomes for the relevant environmental feature over the course of the EDP - including conservative measures being delivered at a different site to where the development impacts are being felt.

There will be a continued role for the mitigation hierarchy in the design of Environmental Delivery Plans, ensuring that local conservation measures are preferred unless there is a clearly articulated environmental basis to look further afield.