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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make it his policy to (a) commission independent annual reviews of the implementation of the 25 Year Environment Plan and (b) make a statement to Parliament when updates to that plan are published.

The 25 Year Environment Plan will be adopted as the first statutory Environment Improvement Plan (EIP) in the Environment Bill. The Bill also establishes a new, independent statutory body – the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) – which will have a statutory duty to monitor and report on the Government’s progress in improving the natural environment in accordance with the EIP.

The Bill also makes provision for a cycle of monitoring, planning and reporting on EIPs that comprises annual progress reports by the Government to Parliament, regular scrutiny by the OEP and five-yearly reviews of the EIP.

The Government’s annual reports will include an assessment of the steps taken to implement the EIP, as well as an assessment of environmental improvement. The OEP will scrutinise the Government’s annual report and may recommend how progress could be improved, to which the Government must respond.

Every five years, the Government must review its EIP and consider whether further measures need to be adopted. If the EIP is revised, the updated EIP must be published, alongside a statement explaining the revisions, and laid before Parliament.