Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether any Environmental Delivery Plans are currently under consideration or development by Natural England or have been proposed by the Government.

Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) can be used only to discharge specific environmental obligations. They will set out the conservation measures that will be taken to address the impact of specified types of development on relevant environmental features – a specific protected feature of a protected site, or a specific protected species.

The EDP will also set out the amount of the nature restoration levy to be paid by developers to Natural England based on what is required to pay for the measures. Alongside the levy rate payable, the EDP will set out the relevant environmental obligations that will be discharged, disapplied or modified as a result of making the payment.

The EDP may also include areas within a development area where development is excluded from the EDP – for example, within the protected site itself. The EDP will also specify particular types and amounts of development that it can cover. Once the threshold for the amount of development allowed under the EDP is reached, without an amendment new development will no longer be able to rely upon the EDP. Natural England can define an amount of development in a variety of ways.

An EDP must specify a start date when development can start paying into the EDP, and an end date – the point at which the overall improvement test must have been met. The end date must be no later than 10 years following the start date, so that benefits can start to be realised within a reasonable timeframe.

EDPs will be able to include back-up conservation measures that could be deployed, if needed, to secure the desired environmental outcomes. That is not only important for nature, but part of ensuring that the Secretary of State can be confident that EDPs will deliver conservation measures that materially outweigh the impact of development. This shift from the status quo towards active restoration. Importantly, planning conditions can be imposed on development as a conservation measure.

The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists. No provisions in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill reduce those protections.

An EDP that would cause irreversible or irreparable impact to a protected site or species could not be approved by a Secretary of State, as it would fail to secure the overall improvement of the conservation status of the relevant environmental feature. Similarly, under the Bill network measures could never be used where to do so would result in the loss of an irreplaceable habitat as this would inherently not pass the overall improvement test.

EDPs will define the environmental impacts they cover, such as nutrient pollution or the impact development might have on a protected species.

On 24 November, during consideration of Commons Reasons and Amendments in the House of Lords, the government made clear that the first EDPs will address nutrient pollution only and that Ministers would return to the House once the first nutrients EDPs are in place to issue a statement on their progress. It will only be after the House has seen this statement that the Secretary of State will make any further EDPs on other environmental issues. Whilst Natural England may wish to undertake preparatory work in parallel on potential future EDPs, this approach would ensure that any learning from the first nutrients EDP is considered before any EDPs beyond nutrients are made and operational.