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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Climate Change Committee report entitled Net Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming, published in May 2019, if he will take steps to implement that report's recommendation to increase the hedgerow network by 40 per cent by 2050.

We are required by the Environment Act 2021 to set at least one long-term biodiversity target, in addition to our target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. This target, and others set under the Act, will help target the causes of decline and drive actions to deliver nature recovery. To meet our species abundance target we will need to create more, better joined up habitats, which will include hedgerows.

Defra will encourage and support increased hedgerows through our environmental land management schemes. We are working with Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot participants to gather learning from the pilot version of the Standard and are incorporating this feedback into the development of the live version of the Hedgerow Standard and its supporting capital items, which are due to be rolled out into the scheme in 2023.