Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent progress he has made on implementing the recommendations of the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform relevant to his Department.
Defra is the lead department for a number of recommendations in the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform (TIGRR) report, concerning agri-environmental innovation, including biodiversity offsetting and greater use of agri-tech vital for sustainability, biodiversity, food security and investment.
Four measures responding to these recommendations were included in Lord Frost’s package of proposed individual regulatory reforms to laws in September: Reform of the regulation of gene-edited organisms, Biodiversity Net Gain, Digitisation of Export Health Certificates and rationalising the existing Environmental Permitting and Licensing regimes.
I am pleased to say strong progress continues to be made with each of these measures: