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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made for the implications of her policies of the proposals outlined in the British Mountaineering Council's open letter entitled the Outdoors for All.

The Government agrees with the three proposals set out in British Mountaineering Council’s open letter specifically that there should be fair access to the outdoors for everyone, better opportunities for young people to access the outdoors, and that we should invest in the health and well-being benefits of spending time in nature. We are working across departments developing a number of policies to open up access; for example, through active travel, nature-rich school grounds, more urban parks and green social prescribing.

To support fair access for all, for example:

• we are delivering the £9 million Levelling Up Parks Fund which will create or significantly refurbish over 100 green spaces, targeting the 100 most deprived urban communities across the UK who also lack accessible green space;
• through the England Trees Action Plan we are creating Woodland Creation Partnerships and Community Forests to enable the creation of large scale publicly accessible woodlands near towns and cities; and
• we have also committed to continuing to fund access in the development of our new Environmental Land Management schemes.

To support opportunities for young people to connect with nature we are, for example:

• committing to increase opportunities for all children and young people to spend time and get involved in nature;
• implementing a new Climate Leaders Award and National Education Nature Park, which in combination will encourage children and young people to learn about biodiversity and sustainability and take action to improve their school grounds; and

• Introducing a new Natural History GCSE.

To support the health and wellbeing benefits of spending time in nature, we are, for example:

• completing the England Coast Path, which at around 2,700 miles will be the longest coastal walking route in the world. 800 miles of the England Coast Path are now open to the public;
• delivering the £5.77 million cross-governmental green social prescribing programme, which is aiming to implement green social prescribing in order to improve mental health outcomes and reduce health inequalities; and
• investing an unprecedented £2 billion in walking and cycling over this Parliament, building hundreds of miles of high-quality cycle lanes and increasing access to a range of places including green spaces.