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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what (a) financial and (b) legal support has been made available for local nature recovery strategies.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) were established by the Environment Act 2021. Responsible authorities must follow the LNRS regulations and have regard to LNRS statutory guidance when preparing the LNRS for their area.

Over FY23/24 and FY24/25, Defra provided a total of £14 million to responsible authorities to prepare LNRSs.

Further funding has been made available to responsible authorities in the current financial year to support their transition to leading and coordinating delivery of the LNRS for their area.

Defra and Arm’s Length Bodies have provided advice to responsible authorities to help them prepare their LNRS but have not provided direct legal support to individual responsible authorities.

Responsible authorities are able to use the funding they have been provided to obtain legal support if they choose to do so.