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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many alleged breaches of the Heather & Grass Burning Regulations 2021 have been reported to Defra, since those regulations came into force.

To date, we have received 1,584 individual reports of alleged breaches of the Heather and Grass etc Burning (England) Regulations since the regulations came into force on 1 May 2021.

Of these, 1022 could not be assessed because they included insufficient location information.

490 reports have been assessed by Defra and Natural England. Many of these were established to be duplicates or were established to not amount to offences under the regulations.

A total of 72 reports, related to the current burning season, are currently undergoing assessment by Defra and Natural England.

A small number of reports have progressed to formal investigation with one instance resulting in the issue of a formal warning. It would be inappropriate to comment on the ongoing investigations.